I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This is a formal Bill which, as I indicated yesterday, has been introduced, following the statement I made, to confirm the Imposition of Duties Order which I announced yesterday in the House.
Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) (No. 2) Bill, 1956—Second and Subsequent Stages.
A great number of people who read the papers this morning, who listened to the wireless last night and who had voted a couple of years ago in the expectation of better times, lower prices and lower taxation must have been wondering what hit them. It is very important for the future of this nation that we should all know what has hit us. I do not believe for one moment that the reason for this very big addition to our taxation and the great increase in the costs of the articles affected by these Orders was because the Minister for Finance, any member of the Government or any Deputy supporting the Government wanted deliberately to reduce the standard of life of our people. It was not because the members of the Coalition Government thought the people were living too well that these taxes were imposed. It was not because the Minister for Finance wanted to put a hairshirt on the people unnecessarily or to whip them with scorpions that these taxes were introduced. They were introduced because the Government, in my opinion, had only one alternative, and they decided that it would be more difficult to face that alternative than to face the series of taxes on these articles.
Last year, the Government went for a loan of £20,000,000. They got £8,000,000 from the people. The Minister for Finance pointed out that there was no hope of raising the money from the people in this year for the list of capital projects which he had outlined in the Budget. There was no hope of getting it by voluntary savings and the alternative that the Minister had to this procedure of cutting down on the list of capital projects and adding taxes was to have compulsory seizing of savings or to raise the money by another method which, in fact, would mean compulsory savings and a depreciation of the currency.
The Minister for Finance, instead of introducing this third Budget in the financial year, might have brought forward a Bill, similar to the Bill which the British Parliament passed in the early part of the war, forcing our people to list their foreign investments and compelling them to sell them to the Government or to the Central Bank for Irish currency. That would have been an alternative. Another alternative, or portion of that same alternative of compulsory seizing of savings, would have been to introduce a Bill compelling the Central Bank and the ordinary commercial banks to surrender their foreign assets for Irish currency.
I want to say that I do not believe this particular approach is the correct one in our circumstances. It is better than nothing. It is very much better than doing nothing and it is very much better than continuing the play-acting that we have been at for the last ten or 11 years. There are, however, other alternatives which can be taken in due course. We have to submit to this procedure to-day because the other alternative is not open immediately and the situation is so bad that something drastic requires to be done immediately. This situation did not arise suddenly in these last few weeks. This situation in which our people are consuming more than they are producing had its beginnings away back in 1947. At that time there was a similar situation, though perhaps not as dramatic. We had still more reserves of savings then than we have to-day but when the smouldering embers of inflation tended to burst into flame in 1947 action was taken by the then Government to stamp out these fires before they burst into flames and consumed our people. Unfortunately, there were people then who, instead of helping the Government to stamp out the embers, threw oil on the embers at that time and in a year or so later when they got control started out deliberately to inflate the currency in order to avoid political difficulties.
The Minister for Finance yesterday in the speech he read to the House said many wise things with which I agree wholeheartedly. We tried to say those same things as best we could in 1947 and to get the people to listen to them. Unfortunately the people did not listen to us then and it is now going to cost them and our children very dearly for not having done so because we had not as a people the wisdom to act from 1947 onwards on the very wise advice that the Minister for Finance gave us in portions of his speech yesterday.
Inflation can come in other ways than by creating currency. When the Government deliberately raises money by loan, by forced loans from the banks, and by foreign loans and spends that money on the ordinary current expenses of the State, it is bound to result in inflationary pressures. We are suffering to-day from inflationary pressures because the Government from 1948 to 1951 and the Government from 1954 to date, raised all the money it could by these means and spent them for the normal purposes of the State. The volume of the money, therefore, in the hands of the people increased at a greater rate than production increased and that brings troubles in its train.
I remember a Minister for Finance who was a member of the Coalition, stating that there was no evidence of inflation when prices were not rising, that there could be no inflation in such circumstances. I pointed out then that a rise in prices inevitably followed inflation in a closed economy but that in an open economy such as ours, where surplus money can not only chase the goods within the country but can seek them out at the ends of the earth and have them imported, another symptom of inflation would arise and that is that we would have a deficit in our balance of payments. The deficit in our balance of payments caused by inflationary pressures here was pretty high in 1947. It was £20,000,000.
To decrease that deficit, we introduced a Supplementary Budget. We were told, when we pointed out the dangers to the national interest of the dissipation of our foreign reserves, that we wanted to give cheap money to "John Bull" so that he could murder the Mau Maus and build houses for the British people. There are gentlemen in this Chamber at the moment who denounced us then for not seizing this money, this money invested and held in England at ½ per cent., and distributing it here for various purposes rather than raise loans at the 2½ per cent. at which we were then borrowing money from the people.
I do not believe that the Minister for Finance has introduced this third Budget in this calendar year in order that certain of our reserves, reserves still to the good, should be kept in Britain for the support of "John Bull" fighting the Mau Maus, or any group of people in any part of the world. The Minister for Finance has introduced this series of import duties in order to protect our foreign reserves so that the nation can progress with the certainty that is has something to fall back on on a rainy day. He has introduced this third Budget too, as I said in the beginning, to avoid the alternative I outlined.
Our situation to-day is serious, but there are no grounds for despair. Our great trouble is that affairs have been handled by people who were too optimistic as to the rate of progress we could make in this Twenty-Six Counties in our circumstances; and it is the over-optimists who have now become the super pessimists overnight. Now there is a reasonable rhythm in human affairs. There is also a reasonable rhythm in the increase in national production. Back in what were called the booming 20's in the United States of America, the Americans at that time were able to increase national output by about 3 per cent. per annum. Three per cent. per annum was the maximum despite all the equipment installed in the factories and being purchased by the farmers. During the last war that percentage was increased because the Government prevailed upon the people to save.
Hear, hear!
They got their people to save on non-essentials and they got them to work very much harder than they had worked before, and we all know the Americans' reputation for work. By the beginning of the 1940's too industrial equipment had improved considerably in America. In our circumstances we can expect a rate of progress nearer to the American standards of the 1920's rather than the American standards of the 1940's. Perhaps we can do better. We can certainly do better if our people generally are put to work with more efficient machines and under the most efficient management. But we cannot expect in our circumstances the fantastic rate of progress that was demanded of the Fianna Fáil Government in 1946-47 and in 1951, 1952 and 1953. People must make up their minds that that fantastic rate of development is physically impossible. Many people who have half read many of the modern economists believe that what Keynes said was not what he did say; Keynes said that what is physically possible is financially possible. Now many people seem to think that what Keynes said was that what is physically desirable is financially possible.
If we were to enter into a competition in this House, there are many members on this side of the House who could beat any of the Coalition members hollow in their desire for an immediate improvement in the standard of life for our people. But we have got to realise that in our circumstances we are, by and large, lucky to have made the progress we did make since 1932. Not only did we in Fianna Fáil have physical obstacles to overcome but we also had to overcome the greatest obstacle of all to co-operative effort in order to achieve reasonable progress, and that was pure ignorance on the part of people who should have known better, ignorance particularly of this vital question of finance. Now we have tried to educate our people and I say deliberately that, although the Coalition Government must have cost the taxpayers a few hundred millions to keep them in office, a few hundred millions more that it would have taken to keep a reasonable Government making steady progress in office, that expenditure has been worth while if we have seen the last, and heard the last, of all the fallacies that have been enunciated here in relation to finance.
We must realise that we started the industrial race very late in the industrial life of the world. We were held down and industry was discouraged. When Fianna Fáil came in in 1932, we found what we knew before, that there was little or no knowledge of industrial management among our people. They were very well versed in how to import goods and how to distribute them, and they did that efficiently and well, but few of them knew how to make goods under a roof.
Well, they built Guinness, Jacobs and Harland and Wolffs, which was not bad going.
Over centuries; let the Minister not forget that.
What the Minister for Agriculture and what I said do not really conflict. I said that very few of them knew how to produce goods under a roof. Guinness did, Jacobs did and Harland and Wolffs did, but the rest you could count on the fingers of your two hands. By and large, in 1932, our people had no industrial skill. We had not the managers; we had not the skilled experienced engineers and the other scientists who were necessary to produce goods under a roof in the modern world and, indeed, in the open in modern times.
In coming back into Government after 20 years—it struck me at any rate —that, whereas in 1932, there was this great dearth of Irishmen who knew business methods, management methods and who were skilled in industrial progress, from 1932 onwards, during the 1930's and during the war and afterwards, we had been increasing our skill in these matters. By the end of that period if we wanted to get advice on any industrial project, we could get as good advice by calling a few Irishmen together as we could by taking in foreigners.
The sugar factory, as Deputies well know, was started in the 1930's by giving the concern over to foreigners. By 1945, the factories were staffed almost 100 per cent. from engineers and management down to workmen, by Irish citizens and they were able to take the first, second and fifth places in the efficient production of sugar in the sugar beet factories of the world. In 1932, when we wanted to get some knowledge of turf, we had to send for Germans and by 1945 foreigners were coming in here to see turf being produced and used efficiently.
We have an opportunity of going ahead in the future if we realise the limitations there must necessarily be to industrial progress. We must realise that we were lucky to have got out in the Twenty-Six Counties from under the British heel at the time we did. If we had not got out at that period, in my belief we would not have 2,800,000 in this part of the country at the present time. We might have had the 800,000, without the 2,000,000. Our people have got to realise that slow as has been our progress in relation to our desires, we would have been 1,000 imes worse off if we had not got some control over our affairs in the Twenty-Six Counties.
We must realise, too, in looking at this subject that what has happened in an agricultural country has happened in many parts of the world. When large families on a farm cannot get work, they go to the nearest industrial city to look for work. In America, you have industrial centres like Michigan, Chicago and Detroit, but here the industrial cities to which our small farmers go are across the water. That movement is not peculiar either to America or to here, but is taking place all over the world, wherever farm machinery has improved and wherever the standards of life in the cities have increased in relation to the standard of life on the smaller farms.
We have to realise that these tendencies are there and we must not despair of the future simply because they make themselves evident here. We have got to realise that it is a world tendency which we have got to face and make the most of it in our circumstances in the interests of our people. The great reason for our people emigrating to England or America is that the rate of industrial development is too slow. There is a rate of development in regard to agricultural production, but except in a rather limited number of agricultural products the output per man hour is more than keeping pace with the demand for goods
In our circumstances, we must do all we can to increase our capital development in industry and agriculture. We must do it at the greatest possible rate and we must not be deterred from doing it because certain people complain and denounce every person who puts a penny in an Irish industry as a racketeer. If we are to get our people to put their money into Irish industries, we must do them the honour of recognising that their investment in Irish industries is not only profitable to themselves but honourable to themselves. Certain people have over the years denounced Irish people who put their money into Irish industries as racketeers and they are now searching the world looking for foreigners to come in here to invest and they do not call them racketeers. When the Minister for Finance, back in 1955, announced with a great flourish of trumpets that he had told the banks not to increase their interest charges and had agreed with them that those who had £25,000 and upwards in the banks should get a greater deposit rate in order to keep the money within the Irish banking system, I pointed out that in my opinion his action was wrong and was not what was demanded. The Minister did not take my advice at that time but I want to repeat it now.
My belief it that the most urgent demand at the moment is that the Minister for Finance, in consultation with the Central Bank and with the commercial banks, should arrange, not that there should be an over-all restriction of credit but that there should be a selective distribution of credit along lines that would increase production in the shortest possible time. The British Government at that time did something to have a selective distribution of credit, in 1955. That is what is required here—not an over-all restriction but a selective distribution, to people who are going to use the money to produce more from the land or to produce more from the factories. A purely deflationary movement here is the wrong approach. It is likely to create a lot of over-pessimism in regard to the future and we should be careful before embarking on it to any great extent.
Now, this movement of the Minister's is, of course, a deflationary movement; it is to take money out of circulation. Remember that it will cause a lot of headaches. There are many people affected by these lists of goods. The increase in prices which will occur, not only the tax which the Minister collects but the normal percentage which the shopkeeper will add on that percentage, will mean an extra burden. If the Department of Finance collects £60 on £100 or 5/- on a few shillings expenditure, the shopkeeper will add his profit on to the 5/- which the Minister for Finance has charged him. On that account, if there were an alternative, it should be pursued, because it is a double hardship on people to pay the Minister for Finance 5/- and then have to pay an additional profit on that 5/- to the shopkeeper. The goods which are subject to this 60 per cent. duty will increase in price by more than twice, in a lot of cases, before they reach the consumer.
The Minister for Finance, and the people also, must realise that, extentsive as is this list of new taxes, this new list plus the list of levies imposed a few months ago, affects only 18 per cent. of our imports. Even if the taxes had the effect of cutting out the whole 18 per cent., the whole £36,000,000 worth of goods affected by these levies, they still would not fill the gap. Last year our adverse balance of trade was well over £30,000,000. This year it is running much higher.
No.
The adverse balance of trade?
Not much higher.
For the first three months of the year?
Let us take the first six months.
Take the first six.
It is £1,000,000 odd lower.
Over the first six months?
Yes.
Cheer up.
Excuse me for a minute. Remember how it is being done, as the Minister for Finance pointed out yesterday, by letting the wheat stocks all run down——
Do not take away the one ray of sunshine that enters into your head.
I can get rough with the Minister.
Do not get rough.
Order!
Do not let the Minister for Agriculture interrupt me too much or try to put me off my point.
Except to try and cheer you up.
We are running at about the same rate of deficit as last year, but we are running down stocks. The Minister for Finance did not give the figure, but he pointed out that one of the reasons why the imports were less than last year was that we had imported less wheat, less tobacco and less sugar. We are running down the stocks.
I do not think I mentioned some of those items.
I think there is no doubt about it, that that has occurred. If the Minister for Finance wants to deny it, I will accept his word for the moment but I will make him eat his denial later on.
What I say is that the Deputy is misquoting me. If I may say this in clarification, there is no doubt that stocks were run down in the first half of 1956, just as there is no doubt that stocks were built up in 1955 over the average as well. One is an over-average one way, the other is an over-average the other way.
I do not want to exaggerate the situation. What I want to do is to get the facts and try, if we can, to draw the proper conclusions from them. My point is that, even if these levies were so effective as to cut out all the goods affected by them, it would not right the situation. If they cut out, and the Minister's figures are approximately right, we would about balance but we would have no surplus and we would still be in the situation that the Minister for Finance, having on his list of capital projects £37,000,000 worth—he now thinks he can get £20,000,000—could hardly raise the other £17,000,000 just on the basis of cutting out this list of goods. It is fantastic to think that this list of goods would be completely wiped out, absolutely fantastic. People will get all these various commodities. Indeed, many people must get them in order to keep going. Many of these levies affect all classes of small manufacturers and small people who use these goods for production and they must get them.
I do not believe that the Minister for Finance expects that all the motor cars and all the other goods affected by these levies will be cut out. His estimate was very much lower than 100 per cent. effectiveness of these duties. So, looking at this situation calmly, great as are the hardships that will be imposed on the section of the community who import, sell and use the classes of goods in these two lists, it will not do the trick of balancing our payments. The lists affect only 18 per cent. of the commodities that we import and, if they are reduced by 20, 25, 33 per cent., it still requires a very big effort to get rid of the adverse balance of payments that has still to be faced. The question is, how can we do it?
Hear, hear!
First of all, I believe that we should make certain that the Government shows the right example and I hope the Minister for Finance is not going to have another few millions to give to the civil servants for nothing, in order to touch off another round of inflation. In my belief, if there was one single time in the Government policy that was more effective than others to touch off the inflationary trend that we have had in the last couple of years, it was that unnecessary £1,000,000 odd that was given to the civil servants without either legal or moral compulsion.
Even the Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is running around the country at the moment talking about the increase in wages, that the disability that C.I.E. is suffering from is the increase in fuel prices and the increase in wage levels. He is going to other places and doing the same thing. If I wanted to parse the phrases in his speech introducing this Bill, I could show that the Minister for Finance is doing exactly the same thing. The Government set the headline. They gave this £1,000,000 without any compulsion and when the people saw that the Government had £1,000,000 to give away for no compelling reason, they saw no reason why they should not try to compensate themselves for the increase in the cost of living and they did it and that is a large part of this inflationary trend.
The first plan then is "soak the civil servants!" Now the next remedy?
Mr. de Valera
Does the Minister want to get the work done or does he not?
I do.
Mr. de Valera
If the Minister does, he ought to hold his tongue for a minute.
You are all very cross this morning.
Yesterday Deputy de Valera was cross as well.
Deputy Aiken.
I repeat that if there was one thing that the Government did more than another to touch off the inflationary trend two years ago, it was this unnecessary gift of £1,000,000 to the civil servants and in the long run it did the civil servants no good. There are many of them who got £10, £20 or £30 and, if they want a new car, they will pay another couple of hundred pounds on it now or, if they want to take a ride in a bus, it will cost them very much more than it did before they got this gift.
When the Government gave this gift to the civil servants, every trade unionist in the country said: "We will have to get something too," and they got it and the Government are now complaining that the wage rates are too high, that there is more personal income than there are goods being produced.
If the Minister for Agriculture wants to talk to the Minister for Finance, I wish he would have the courtesy to take him out and talk to him. I am talking on a serious matter and if I have to get rough with the Minister for Agriculture in order to make him listen, I will make him listen.
Get rough if you want to. Devil a hair I care what you get.
What is wrong with the Government is that they do not care a hair either.
The second great mistake that the Government made was this: they had told the people that they could reduce prices back to the 1951 level. When they came in and could not carry out that promise they indicated that they were going to allow and encourage an increase in wages and salaries to compensate for the increase in prices. Now they complain that the wage and salary levels are too high for the production. They are, but they would not have been half as high, the people would have been more content to accept a reasonable standard of living in 1954, if the truth and the facts had been told and if they had not been encouraged to expect miracles. They are being compelled now to face a very big decrease in the standard of life simply because the Government would not encourage them —and in fact did the reverse—to accept a reasonable standard in 1954.
Our people would have been prepared to accept a reasonable standard of life, what the country could afford, in 1948 and in 1954, if they had been told the truth. They were not told the truth. It was represented to them that all this business of increasing the standard of life, of lowering prices, was as simple as rolling off a log. If it was as simple as that, why should the people not demand an immediate doubling of their standard of life?
The Minister for Agriculture can say that my policy to meet this situation is not to put on these levies, but to soak the Civil Service. He can say it till Tibb's eve, but I am only saying to the Civil servants and others in public what I have said in private. When I was negotiating with them for some years as Minister for Finance, I told them that they would have to accept a standard of life in keeping with the standard of life our people could afford and that, if this nation wanted to progress, we could not tax people who were very much worse off than they in order to put them on a standard very much higher than we could afford. I should like to see every civil servant in the country, as well as every other person, living at twice the present standard of life, but if we are ever to reach that stage, we must make steady, reasonable, and persistent progress within our competence to that end. If we try to jump a 20-foot river when we can only jump ten, we get into the middle of it. The Coalition Government have landed us in the middle of the river they thought they could jump but could not.
Now that the Minister for Agriculture is here——
He has been here the whole time.
——I want to say that the third big mistake the Government made was to let the Minister for Agriculture get his head in relation to agriculture. We are, at this stage in our history, imposing these taxes and cutting down from £37,000,000 to £20,000,000 or less for capital development because the Minister for Finance cannot find the money. It is argued that not only should the Minister for Finance find the money, but that the people should find the money with which to pay him that money.
Will the Deputy please be accurate about the figures?
What figures?
The Deputy said £37,000,000 and less than £20,000,000.
It might be less than £20,000,000 I said.
It might be less than £20,000,000.
The Minister last year, when he went for £20,000,000 got £8,000,000. I do not know what it is going to be. It is less than £37,000,000.
Do not break the thread of your discourse.
I broke it; I am sorry. I think the Deputy is still slightly inaccurate. However, I do not want to disturb his train of thought.
The Minister for Finance is compelled now to reduce capital expenditure and to increase taxation on these commodities, because he is short of money. He is short of money because the people have not got it to give to him. They would have had very much more money to pay the Minister for Finance and to pay everybody else, if the Minister for Agriculture had not got his head in the Department of Agriculture. In 1955, the Minister for Finance, in his Budget speech, adverted to the fact that in 1954 we had a very good year in our balance of payments and he showed that one of the reasons for that was that we had such a bumper harvest of wheat. We had not to import as much wheat in 1954 as we had in 1953. Feeding stuffs were something the same. In 1954, we had to import less because in 1953 we had had a good harvest. However, whatever it is, it is in the Budget speech of 1955, that one of the reasons for the improvement in the balance of payments was that our wheat production was so good that we had not to import so much. If the Minister denies that, I will get the quotation. The Minister for Finance is wiser than the Minister for Agriculture in certain ways.
We have taken steps in the last couple of years to discourage the production of wheat. The Minister for Agriculture objects to soaking the Civil Service but he did not object to soaking the farmers to the extent of 12/6 a barrel. If the Minister for Agriculture wants to tell me what is in the document he is waving, I shall be delighted to listen to it.
Now that the Deputy has invited me, I will read it. It is dated 22nd January, 1954, and is written by Mr. Muiris Ó Muimhneacháin:—
"I am to refer to the memoranda dated the 18th instant submitted by the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, relative to policy in regard to the growing of wheat and to inform you that the Government at a meeting held to-day decided.
(1) that the general aim of policy in regard to the growing of wheat should be to secure an annual mill intake of about 300,000 tons of dried native wheat; and
(2) that the Departments of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and Finance should consult together immediately with a view to
(a) finding solutions of the problems concerning transport, drying, storage and finance that are likely to arise in connection with the disposal of home-grown wheat of the 1954 crop; and
(b) ensuring that adequate facilities will be provided on a permanent basis to handle, in future years, an annual crop of the magnitude represented by a mill intake of 300,000 tons of dried native wheat.
It was hoped that the Minister for Industry and Commerce would submit, for the information of the Government, a memorandum which he had received from Grain Importers (Eire) Limited concerning policy in regard to the growing of wheat."
That was, I think, a direction to the Government of which the Deputy was a member.
Three hundred thousand tons of dried wheat into the mill represents, when you add——
Approximately what you got last year.
When you take what is required for seed, it requires about 450,000 acres of wheat to produce it.
That is Fianna Fáil acres, but obviously the inter-Party yield was somewhat better.
The Minister for Agriculture by that sort of talk brought about disasters. The people were whipped because of the misuse he made of the adverse weather conditions of 1947. We got it in floods when he came in and had to deal with it. Let him cut out that sort of talk.
The Deputy's yield figures are crazy.
If the average rate of production in this country of wheat had been around a ton per acre—it has been a bit less, but a ton of wheat per acre is bigger than average—450,000 acres would have been required to produce 300,000 tons of dried wheat plus the ordinary seed required to sow 450,000 acres. The Minister for Agriculture did not soak the civil servants, but he soaked the farmers to the extent of reducing the acreage of wheat at a time when it was urgently necessary that we should grow all the wheat we could in order to get out of these difficulties.
All this fuss and bother is to reduce the import of a number of commodities by £5,000,000. We consume about £18,000,000 worth of wheat in the year, and if we are to cut out wheat growing altogether, we will have to have a list like this, but four or five times the size of it, in order to save the money to purchase wheat. The Minister for Agriculture and others like him have tried to lead the country into the belief that you cannot have wheat and good grass and other crops at the same time. He always has denounced the growing of wheat and he has made a fetish of grass. What I want to see is plenty of good grass, and good wheat, and it is on the good wheat farms that you get the good grass. Where there is nothing but a collection of weeds, which are green for a couple of months of the year, that is called a grass farm in this country and the many other countries.
It is important, not only from the point of view of our balance of payments in relation to the purchase of wheat, that wheat should be encouraged instead of being discouraged, and that, if necessary, the civil servants should have been soaked instead of the farmers. It is important that the farmers should be encouraged to produce in our circumstances every ounce of wheat they can. The more wheat they produce the fewer of these type of taxes we will have to pay. The people who will suffer from this list can thank the Minister for Agriculture for portion of it.
It is all very well to mouth about "one more sow, one more cow, one more acre under the plough." What we want is to have those things done and the Government to take the steps necessary in order to encourage them to be done. We do not want that sort of stuff mouthed as it was from 1948 to 1951 when 500,000 acres went out of tillage. While the Minister for Agriculture was prating about "one more acre under the plough," 500,000 acres went out from under the plough, and there were fewer cows and fewer sows. The same thing has happened since the Minister for Agriculture came back again. Do not let us forget that. The people who will have to pay all these taxes can realise that one of the reasons and one of the major causes for it is the fact that, since 1947, we have not had a steady, persistent agricultural development programme.
In 1948, the present Minister for Agriculture, as one of his first actions threw out the lime subsidy. He has been pedalling around the country on one wheel ever since talking about the fact that there was no ground limestone when he came in. It is true there was no ground limestone a few years before that in any part of the world. It was a new development. But when the war was over and it became known you could grind raw limestone to a fineness that would do as much good as burnt limestone, we took steps to ensure that it would be produced in this country, and we had in the Estimates a subsidy for ground limestone as well as for burnt limestone. The first action of the Minister for Agriculture was to cut those out in 1948. The Minister has been cycling around since on the one-wheeled bicycle and the 4-inch nail——
And the man and the boy.
And he has been cycling around from 1948 to 1951 watching 500,000 acres going out from under the plough and into poor grass. If it had gone into good grass, I would not mind. If it had gone back into grass, limed and fertilised to the maximum extent, and if it had been farmed properly, we would be very much better off than we are at the moment. What we want to do is to make certain that the land that is tilled is tilled well and that the land in grass is well cared for——
Hear, hear!
——instead of having that emphasis which we had from the Department of Agriculture from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 up to the present—this over-emphasis on the draining of some of the worst land in this country at fantastically high prices. The Government now cannot afford a couple of hundred pounds for houses but they have spent twice that much on some of the worst land in the country that would not in a million years yield 200 pence not alone the £200 spent on it.
Humbug!
What we wanted in 1948 was a persistent steady programme of agricultural development and to get our people to make every year the progress that was possible by liming and fertilising the land and putting better seed in it in order to grow the wheat we required as well as the grass we required.
If that is so, why was the Deputy the hopeless failure he was? The Deputy could not grow wheat.
The honourable captain speaks.
I saw the Deputy's land. It was a shame.
I am not defending myself as a farmer. It would be easy to put myself in competition with the farmers over there, but I would not demean myself by doing it. You cannot get away from the fact that this country has been suffering from misdirection by the Department of Agriculture between 1948 and 1951 and between 1954 to date and we are putting on these taxes simply because the Government went galloping around to improve the worst lands in the country, instead of taking advantage of the scientific knowledge at their disposal to improve the production on the lands which have already been drained.
Did you slow down the land reclamation scheme from 1951 to 1954?
You are not going to put me off my track. I am pointing out that, in 1948, when this country should have been increasing production, the Minister for Agriculture turned his back on various forms of tillage, and, instead of improving production on the lands which were already there, turned his attention to the worst bogs in the country and spent our money on that work.
Did you slow down the land reclamation programme?
The Deputy may not interrupt.
It was represented then that the £40,000,000 which we got from American aid would have to be spent anyway and that reclaiming the swamps would be as good a way of spending it as any other. They were, however, spending the money of the Irish people and the people should have got the last farthing's worth of profit out of it. Instead, the Minister for Agriculture put over-emphasis on long-term drainage and on improvement of the worst land in the country rather than on the immediate improvement of good and fairly good lands which were already drained. It is for that reason that we have not had any real progress in agricultural production from 1947 to date. I believe that our agricultural production increase could have been somewhat in keeping with the increase in other countries in Europe. We could have done as well as the British with a 50 per cent. increase, but our increase has been nil because we have the present Minister for Agriculture galloping around and cycling around on one wheel to the worst bogs in the country.
What about the grass meal?
I hope our people will bear this lesson in mind.
It has been suggested as a solution of our difficulties that we should have a ten-year plan. So far as I am concerned, that is out. What we want to do is to improve things as quickly as possible and to see what there is to be done instead of wasting time for the next couple of years trying to make plans for what can only be a completely unpredictable future. What we will do in two years' time depends on what we are going to do next year and what we are going to do next year depends on what lead the Government will give the country in the next few months. It is urgent that we should get going now and while, as I say, I do not believe in the approach of the Minister for Finance to this whole financial problem, I think that what he has done is much better than doing nothing at all.
Much as I regret the waste of effort and the loss of time and money and of our external assets over the last few years, I think in the long run it is good for this country, if not only the members of the Coalition Government but the people are brought to a realisation of the basic facts of finance and economics and to a realisation that if we do not produce what we consume or do not produce sufficient to pay for all we consume, we cannot have a higher standard of living, unless we live at the expense of the people's savings or on loans. The Government has done both in the past five or six years. The people must learn that they have to live within their incomes and they must be encouraged to save. If there is to be any possibility of development, it cannot come by encouraging the people to live by foreign loans.
The latest development is that of foreign investments. In that matter, it is a fact that every £1 of foreign investments brought into this country will eventually appear in the external assets of our banks. People should realise that that is the financial effect of investments of that nature. The people who have been prating so much about leaving our external assets in England at a ½ per cent. are now selling portions of our country by way of foreign investments and they should realise that, in doing so, they are merely creating external assets in England. Few people seem to realise that, but that is the financial truth of the matter. Every penny of foreign money invested here is in fact an increase in the external assets. If we had had no external assets and had spent them on acquiring this equipment and the technical know-how for these developments, it would have been much better for the country in the long run.
As our leader pointed out yesterday, it is a disastrous business to go for foreign loans and I hope that the Government will not be so crazy and disloyal to the interests of our people as to look for these foreign loans. We must stand on our own feet and our people can do it and, if necessary, they can go without and would be prepared to do so in the interests of the development of the country. I believe our people have learned a lesson but it has been an expensive lesson. It will, please God, be a lesson worth the money it has cost.
Deputy Aiken has spoken for one and a half hours, and, after the first 55 minutes, he electrified the House by announcing that he was now going to tell us what were the remedies proposed by him on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Government for the difficulties in which the country finds itself.
Mr. de Valera
Of course Fianna Fáil is not the Government.
Am I right in saying that after 55 minutes Deputy Aiken electrified the House by announcing that he was going to tell us what were the Fianna Fáil proposals for the resolution of our difficulties? I at once sat up and took out my notebook and proceeded to write down the suggestions he had to make for the resolution of our difficulties. I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition cocked his ears when this announcement was made and spent the subsequent 35 minutes sinking lower and lower in his seat; being a shrewd old practitioner, he felt this was a bit of a damn swindle. Let us read out now—check with me, those Deputies who are present—what Deputy Aiken proposes for the resolution of our difficulties to-day.
Soak the civil servants.
No. 1, soak the civil servants. No. 2, he said the Government—that is, the inter-Party Government—was wrong in saying that they would reduce the cost of living and then allowing wages to rise to meet any increase that they were unable to prevent. That is his second proposition. His third was that the Government was wrong in making Dillon Minister for Agriculture.
De-soak the farmers.
His fourth was, wind up the land rehabilitation project; and his fifth was, stop foreign investment in Ireland. Is that the Fianna Fáil plan? Is that the sole contribution Fianna Fáil can make to the problems that confront us at the present time? Because, if it is, may I say with great respect that is a damn poor performance.
It includes in particular sacking the Minister for Agriculture.
I am glad now that the Deputy, since he has sat down, is growing quite cheerful and jovial and happy. To hear him for the last hour and a half, one would think that he was the prophet Jeremiah proclaiming a flood and warning us to abandon hope and take to our prayers. Now he is as gay as a thrush when he has got it all of his chest and feels that his work is done.
Mark you, I am doing my best to show him the customary courtesy of debate, namely, to make some observations on his speech before I start making my own. I am in great difficulty indeed in trying to find material out of that last hour and a half on which to make civil comment. Deputy Aiken charged this Government with having the fault of over-optimism. Certainly nobody could charge him with that fault after listening to him for the last hour and a half. Mark you, if there is to be a fault and one is responsible for the welfare of one's own neighbours and one's country, I would respectfully suggest to the House that it is better to err on the side of optimism rather than on the side of pessimism.
Neither way—be realistic.
That is the counsel of perfection. Very will. I want to plead guilty here and now that I have no particular claim to perfection and I do not expect to make any such claim this side of the grave.
Neither do we.
If that is a crime of which a politician or statesman must be guilty, then I must make that plea. If Fianna Fáil claims that, because of that fault, we are unqualified for Government and that they, with that prospect of perfection proximate to them, are anxious to undertake that responsibility, then I suggest that it is they who are being a little over-optimistic.
Laois-Offaly.
I hope I am not too severe in saying that. I hope I do not offend the members of the Opposition or hurt their feelings. Now Deputy Aiken says that the U.S.A. by the deployment of their vast resources succeeded in procuring in the 30's and the 40's an annual increase in their gross output of 3 per cent.
The booming 20's.
He said there was an instance of terrific achievement. He said that that increase was achieved by saving, No. 1; by working harder, No. 2; and by improving industrial equipment. Is that not so?
That is right.
Now I am going to submit to the House that in the sphere of agriculture we have procured in this country since 1947, a period of nine years, a gross increase in agricultural production of 32 per cent.
Mr. de Valera
Where does this figure come from?
It is the net the people live on.
Mr. de Valera
Let us get the figure.
I am talking about gross agricultural production.
But the net is the important thing.
I will come to it in a moment. Observe the instruments employed by the U.S.A. which incite the admiration of Deputy Aiken. Savings: I think we are exhorting our people to save. Is not that one of the devices we are at present employing to resolve the problems that at present confront us? Working harder: I think it is true to say that I was down in Ballinasloe on Friday night, addressing Macra na Feirme and saying to that body: "Listen boys, the solution to our present problems is that we should work harder on the land and save as much as we can."
Improvement of industrial equipment is the third thing that incites Deputy Aiken's admiration in contemplation of the Americans. Will anyone deny that we have very materially improved the equipment of the agricultural industry here in the last nine years? If Deputy Aiken would cease looking back a quarter of a century to what was happening in the U.S.A. and concentrate his attention on what is being done in his own country to-day he would find to his amazement that the very things that make him an admirer of the U.S.A. 25 years ago are the very things that are being done to-day by his own country.
The problem is that our agricultural production has not improved and there is no use blathering about it.
He will agree with me that the Government is promoting saving, exhorting the people to work harder and improving the equipment of the agricultural industry. He says the levies are deflationary. I am trying to follow the points he made. I want to suggest to the House—I think it is an important thing to keep under constant attention—that the levies are designed primarily to persuade people to postpone their purchases of the articles described. The ideal operation of these levies would be if everybody could get along for the time being without any of the commodities mentioned. The ideal would be if everybody could get along for the time being, and for a strictly limited period, without importing any of these things or paying any tax upon them.
Now, we could prohibit all these items altogether, but it is because we take cognisance of the fact that rigid prohibitions may work great hardships that we do not take that step. But one must put on a levy which will discourage everybody from using these things, unless it is absolutely essential that he should, so that we may reduce the gap. Surely, that is a sensible way of going about it. Surely it is sensible to find out the things that we can do without and then make it as inconvenient as possible, short of absolute prohibition, to bring these things in until such time as we can afford them.
I do not know if I am being unduly controversial when I recall to mind that, when I was listening to Deputy Aiken here this morning wailing about the awful catastrophe of the adverse balance of payments, my mind went back to the day when he was thundering forth from the place wherein I am now standing the theme that this country would be much better off if all the ships were sunk at the bottom of the sea and we had no external trade at all.
I deny that I said what the Minister for Agriculture has stated. We were here in the middle of a war. We were being threatened that if we did not come into the war we would be starved into it.
Ah!
There was a threat that we would not get more ships and I said we would exist and could continue to control our own policy even if every ship was at the bottom af the sea.
An entirely different statement.
I am always anxious to let every fellow have his say.
The truth of the situation at that time has come out since. That was shown by graphical sketches.
But I do not think a fellow ought to ask to have three or four says. I think the Deputy has had his say so he ought to let me have my say.
The Deputy should take his medicine.
Keep to the truth.
The Deputy's very anxiety——
That was the time the Deputy was kicked out by Deputy MacEoin.
Take your medicine.
The Deputy's very anxiety shows that he is experiencing certain qualms of conscience about the consistency of the various representations he made to the House from time to time. I do not deny for a moment that consistency is the bugbear of small minds and in this matter the Deputy has a mind as big as a mountain. He can change it, and wisely change it, in the intervening years. The proposition the Deputy put forward fills me with amazement and dismay. He said that in 1947 we were threatened with inflation. That is an astonishing proposition when you call to mind that, in 1947, we had fewer cattle in this country than at any time since the Famine. We had fewer sheep than at any time since the Famine. We had fewer pigs than at any time since the Famine and the land of the country was in such a state of dereliction that a new disease had appeared called aphosphorosis.
That has left us where we are.
That was discovered on the high veldt of South Africa and was unknown in Ireland. A stage was reached where our land had become so deficient in phosphates that cattle grazing upon it were developing a condition characteristic of the high veldt of South Africa and dying of starvation. Were we threatened with inflation when there was waiting the work to do to restore that land to fertility and restore our capacity to provide employment for the people leaving the country in unprecedented multitudes?
Instead of putting phosphate on the land, you were galloping for the worst land in the country.
I will deal with that in a minute. I want to recall this. The Deputy says that they in Fianna Fáil were rebuked for seeking to build up our reserves in Great Britain in 1947. Does Deputy Aiken forget what happened the reserves we built up through sweat and tears in Great Britain 18 months later? We woke up one morning and found one-third of them had been swept away for which we got nothing at all. We went to bed on a Monday night with £520,000,000 in Great Britain and we woke up on Tuesday morning to discover we had less than £400,000,000.
Mr. de Valera
Even in this situation, we cannot get consistency of attitude.
I do not deny the difficulty. I will ask Deputy Aiken not to go away. Would he sit down for a minute? I think the Deputy ought to have that civility.
Can a Deputy not talk?
I want to put it to the House—I cannot put it to the Deputy now as he has gone—that what we have got to do is to try to proceed on lines of rational prudence to provide for our people in their own country a reasonable standard of living. Am I unjust if I recall to this House the fact that in every census since 1847 there was a reduction in the population of this country and then the inter-Party Government came into office in 1948 and for the first time in 100 years, the decline in the population in this country appeared to be arrested?
Mr. de Valera
You will do it now, I suppose. Of course, it is not true. Emigration increased every year from 1947 on.
Here is a simple fact. Is is true or false? A census was taken every five years for 100 years. Every five years that census showed the population of Ireland had gone down for 19 quinquennia and then the inter-Party Government came in in 1948 and embarked upon what Deputy Aiken said was a course of conduct of reckless expenditure, improving the lot of our people instead of building up reserves. The 20th census was taken and for the first time in a century the downward trend in the population of this country appeared to have stopped. We had recorded for the first time in a century that what were called the vanishing Irish were beginning to grow again in our own country, not as fast as we would wish them to grow but at least to grow instead of dwindle. Then there was another census in 1956. We had had the blessings of the 1952 Budget. We had 1953 and 1954 and then Fianna Fáil went out of office. Then we had another census taken in 1956, when lo and behold, the trend of the previous century was restored. Not only was the natural increase being swept away but a few of the existing population were going as well. I pointed out that that fact is capable of more interpretations than one.
Will the Minister tell the House what he is going to do in the present crisis?
Yes. I tried to extend to Deputy Aiken the courtesy of a comment on what he said, "tripe" as I thought it to be. Here is my speech and here is what I intended to say. It was written before I came in. Here is what I wrote while Deputy Aiken was talking. I am not one of those who believe that Dáil Éireann is a contemptible institution. I think debate is good. I think those people who talk about Dáil Éireann being too emphatic and violent are all daft. We have the best conducted deliberative Assembly in the world. We are not afraid to say what we mean and then when decisions are taken, we can abide by them; and that is what I intend to do to-day, to match our policy against the Fianna Fáil policy. That is why I wanted to hear from Fianna Fáil what was their policy. I thought Deputy Aiken was going to tell us their policy for the situation that at present confronts us.
I ask the Dáil if I unfairly paraphrase what Deputy Aiken said this morning. I do not think I have—and I think it is "tripe" and I think it makes no contribution to the solution of the problems with which we have been confronted. Remember this, that we are told on this side of the House that the monolithic mind of Fianna Fáil has resolved on certain weighty policies to resolve these problems. Come now, who from Fianna Fáil— and I invite the Leader of the Opposition to do it to-day—will reconcile for me Deputy Lemass's programme of £100,000,000 capital expenditure to be financed by the joint stock banks and Deputy MacEntee's and Deputy Aiken's lamentations over the excessive investment of the inter-Party Government?
Will the Minister——
Come now; I do not want the widow Burke or anybody else to do that. The Leader of the Opposition is there. He is the man who boasts of the monolithic solidity of the Party gathered around him, the Party that has a leader, the Party whose members speak of "our leader".
And a good one.
There you are. If he is all that, let him intervene and tell us.
He has led the Irish people and they have trusted him.
Let him reconcile for us the policy of Deputy Lemass, which is the investment of £100,000,000 of bank credit, with the policy of Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Aiken, which says that the investment policy of the inter-Party Government, to be financed out of the savings of our people, is excessive and inflationary. Both cannot be right. One of them must be wrong. What has happened to the monolith? Is this a crack we see before us? Or is it that some malicious, vicious, traducing slanderer hath painted an ugly black line——
Mr. de Valera
You have been trying that for many years.
——down the pillar represented by "our leader, and a good one, too".
Mr. de Valera
On this side of the House——
I remember a cartoon in the New Yorker once, of a sculptor who had completed a vast monumental figure and a friend who came in and told him that for perfection only one more tap was necessary. Against his better judgement, he was induced to strike it, whereupon the monolith split from its 40-foot top to its foundation. He turned on him mournfully and said: “And one more tap”. Now, who hit the tap that has provided the strange dichotomy of thought represented by Deputy Lemass—who is not here, incidentally.
Mr. de Valera
Because he happens to be ill, unfortunately.
I am sorry to hear it and, please God, he will be restored soon.
Mr. de Valera
Please God, he will.
Amen. On the other side, we have Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Aiken. I want an explanation of that, because I am not the only person in this country who asks himself the reason why. Unlike the Light Brigade, it is not my duty not to ask the reason why. In a deliberative assembly, it is my duty, as it is the duty of Deputies on the other side of the House, to ask the reason why. Fianna Fáil asked us the reason why; and, having given fair and courteous consideration to Deputy Aiken's speech this morning, I want to deal with the problems we have before us and the methods by which we propose resolutely to resolve them.
Might I first draw the attention of this House, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to the fact that, to judge from much that is said in this House, one would imagine that Ireland alone, in a world riding upon a storm of prosperity, was in the trough of despond—is that an unfair interpretation of what the Opposition has had to say?—that we, by our improvidence, we by our indifference to sound finance, we, by our criminal disregard of their wise cautionary tales, have got ourselves into a sea of sorrow in which no one but a fool would find himself involved. Have they forgotten? Have they forgotten that Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand are all struggling at this time with balance of payments problems? There are only two countries in Europe free of them —one is Western Germany and the other, I think, is Portugal. With the exception of those two, all the others are confronted.
Were they all guilty of the same follies alleged against this Government, or are they all different? Is our case in Ireland identical with the case in Great Britain? Is Great Britain in balance of payments difficulty? I think she is. Is Ireland in those difficulties? I think she is. Are the circumstances in Great Britain the same as the circumstances here? I think they are not. I think that in Great Britain their problem is over-full employment and that over-full employment is having its reaction on us here, because it is creating a vacuum that is drawing our people out of good employment in Ireland into industrial employment in Great Britain. I see them go; I have seen young men and young women with £6 or £7 a week in rural Ireland, leave their jobs and go to work in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. Every one of us knows that. What can we do about it?
I say that one of the most cherished freedoms that a free people could enjoy is the right to come or go, to live within the jurisdiction of a Government or leave it, as they wish. Is it proposed that we should forbid them to go? Certainly, I will never forbid them to go and no Government of which I am a member will ever seek to abridge that most precious sovereign freedom of a free man, that is, to travel whither his inclination leads him to go. I should like to see conditions here of a character which would induce the majority of our people to prefer them to anything they could find abroad. There is no use in our deluding ourselves by imagining that anything we can provide here in our circumstances is going to provide a superior alternative in the eyes of some of our people to what life in London, Birmingham or Manchester can offer. They like it there—and, listen, when we are all getting so blooming virtuous about it, how many of us in this House can say that when we were one and 20, we did not do what they are doing now? I went to America. I worked in America; I worked in London. How many Deputies have not a similar story to tell? It is when you are past 50 that adventuring abroad begins to look to you as if it were a crime and evidence of wicked irresponsibility.
That is what the Taoiseach said last night.
I said nothing of the sort.
Listen. I am making this point and it is on this point I wish to dwell, that the problem of imbalance of payments may be common to France. Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand, but it does not at all mean, because we all have a common problem, that the problem stems from the same cause in every jurisdiction.
We have only got the Coalition here. That is the point.
Now, observe the atmosphere is changing. We have already restored their morale a little. This morning it was woe and tears and they were going to bend their backs and shoulder the burden. But now, look at them, all radiant with smiles.
Mr. de Valera
It was the Minister's two colleagues last night, I think, who moaned.
There you are now. We brought comfort to you this morning. Pluck up your hearts. You are not as bad as you thought. We will nurse you through and, if you have been too low of heart, do not despair but remember this; even though we try to float you out of the trough of despond in which you were, do not get too sprightly because we have problems and we have got to resolve them. Do not be too mercurial. Do not be all woe and desolation at half past ten in the morning and indulge in whoops of joy and laughter after I have been speaking for half an hour. We cannot perform miracles on this side of the House but we will get you through if you will only take yourselves easy and not oscillate too violently between one extreme and the other.
The Minister's burlesque is amusing us.
We proposed certain policies for correcting the balance of payments and I want to dwell a moment on these. We are charged occasionally that we are not sufficiently harsh and ruthless in what we undertake to do, that if we have to increase a burden we think too long. Is that a crime? I always thought, in the words of Tom Kettle, that the State in action was a splendid spectacle, that it was the great human conspiracy against hunger and poverty, loneliness and want.
Are we to be rebuked if we are chary or cautious before we impose a burden lest we unnecessarily aggravate the difficulties of the people for whom we are responsible? I think we would be false to our trust, as those responsible for the great human conspiracy against loneliness and want, poverty and distress, if we were not solicitous before imposing a burden. Look at the members opposite, like birds in a cage, twittering to one another now, in good cheer.
I want to emphasise to the Opposition that these measures for restricting imports are a purely transitory palliative measure for an immediate problem. They are of no value in the long-term resolution of the problems of this nation. They are put on purely as a transitory measure to deal with an immediate emergency, with the active desire in the heart of every member of the Government to get them off as soon as it is possibly practicable to do so. Does the Opposition understand that because it is important that they should? Let them not rivet their attention on these long lists. They do not matter a damn.
In other words, do not listen to the Minister for Finance.
No. no. They are formidable and we do not deny that they caused us long and anxious thought before we put them on even for a week or for a day but what the Minister for Finance said, and what everybody else has said, is that these are put on as an emergency measure to deal with an immediate situation. They have no relevance to the long-term plan because the long-term plan is one of production and not of restriction. That is what is wrong with Fianna Fáil; that they are obsessed with the idea that the way to solve our problems is to shrink, like Alice in Wonderland, by eating the mystic mushroom, to so small a size that we can slip through any keyhole.
Our belief is that if the economy of this country is to endure, it must be based on a policy of expansion, to employ more and more of our own people in their own country and to provide a greater and greater quantity of products which we can profitably export wherewith to import those commodities which a rising standard of living for our own people would induce them to want to buy.
To that end, then, we have put our hand to the task of expanding agricultural production because, so far as we can see, the only enduring prospect of sustained increased earnings by exports for our people is the land and unless we get it from the land there is no other source from which we can get it. We have not got in this country coal or oil or iron or any other of the great natural resources with which other countries are endowed. Our practically solitary natural resource is 12,000,000 acres of arable land and it is from that and from the people who live and get their living on it that we must ultimately get the exportable surplus with which to purchase the higher standard of living that we aspire to procure for our people in town, city and country.
Are you going to drown the British in eggs again?
Sausages this time.
Are you going to kill all the calves?
Sell them at a dollar apiece.
Ours not to reason why. I will not quote Lord Lucan on the policies proposed by the Deputy. He is probably better qualified to do so than I am.
Would you elaborate on that?
In order to provide the increased output from the land, I want to ask the Deputies of this House is there or is there not required capital investment in the land? I believe there is. Now I am charged with feeling undue solicitude for the poorer quality land of this country. I make no apology for that. I was brought up in the congested areas of Ireland and I knew from personal experience that drainage, and what we know in this day as the rehabilitation of land, extended from the big house to the demesne wall and it was done at a penny a day by my people.
Am I wrong when I, as Minister for Agriculture, am disposing of the resources of this country, to say that the amenity that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers provided for the landlords of this country at a penny a day shall be brought out beyond the demesne wall on to the lands of the small tenants who hung on to their land when Lord Lucan and his kind were trying to drive them off? I did say that the amenity that the men of 1847 brought to the landlords in their land should now be made available to their grandsons and great-grandsons out of capital investment through the land rehabilitation programme. I do not think I was wrong. I would do it again to-morrow, and, please God, we will do plenty of it yet. Fianna Fáil told us that we ought to leave out that land, that it was not fit——
Mr. de Valera
We did not say anything of the kind.
"Come up," they said, "to the rich land. Come up to the land out of which we can get a return now. Improve the land in Westmeath, in Meath and in Kildare."
Mr. de Valera
As the first step.
Yes; as the first step. My answer to that is: No. I believed that the poor people who made it possible for us to have our land at all were as much entitled to that amenity as those who held land in the richest counties, and I went to Castlebar and pinned on the wall of the house where the Land League was founded a memorial to Michael Davitt dedicating the land project to his memory. Michael Davitt would have turned in his grave if he heard it said that a project dedicated to his name was first to be reserved to those who held more than 100 acres east of the Shannon.
Do you know the wall you pinned it to?
I do.
It was the wrong wall.
It was not. No Moran can lecture a Dillon on the history of the Land League, because, if that history is to be told, if that story is to be told, it will be an ugly telling. I will leave it at that. We were on different sides in those days.
Now, let me deal with the economics of this. I believed that putting money in land in the ownership of our people, whether they were poor farmers or whether they were rich farmers, would result in increased production and potentially increased exports. The other case was made, that I should stop all big farmers from having access to the land project, and I refused to do that. I said: "I do not care who owns the land. So long as the money goes into the land and for the improvement of the land, that is in the interest of the national estate", and I insisted on large and small being taken in order.
It is the good land that is getting priority.
No. They are all being treated on the basis of absolute equality, wherever rehabilitation is required. Without reference to whether the land is in the hands of a large farmer or a small farmer, it is done in strict rotation. Is that an equitable and democratic way to proceed?
The Minister is rambling. He does not know whether he is inside or outside now.
We, therefore, propose investment in housing, in land rehabilitation, in farm buildings, in forestry, in turf development, in electricity development. They are all directed towards increased production. Now, the orthodox side of Deputy MacEntee will rise up in horror at the suggestion that investment in housing is directed towards increased production and there is not the slightest doubt that there is some substance in his orthodox approach. It is true that capital investment in housing does not produce a return adequate to finance the outlay, but we believe that it is a contribution to the whole social pattern of the country, without which it is impossible to get increased production, to provide decent living conditions for our own people. Let us get down to it; let us get down to it crudely and harshly. Increased investment in decent housing is an increased investment, not in the salvation of more calves from mortality, but in the salvation of children from mortality.
Mr. de Valera
And who pressed that forward most?
Look at him. I am not finding fault with any Party in this House for a failure to feel enthusiastic about housing, but I merely said that we did believe and continue to believe in capital investment for increased production in housing, in land rehabilitation, in farm buildings, in forestry, in turf development and in electricity development. Several of these manifestly contribute to increased production—housing, not so obviously until we come to examine the philosophy which justifies the expenditure. But now, when I come to talk of housing, which is expenditure of savings on construction, I am bound to add that in our present circumstances to be taking the corners off trunk-roads, to be ironing the surfaces and turning them into autobahns is daft. I think the local authorities ought to give a lead or ought to follow suggestions being made to them that that sort of "cod" ought to stop during a period when every penny we can save is required for more urgent work. That is why the Minister for Finance speaks about taking all capital projects and putting them in their correct priority.
There are lots of things we should like to do. There are lots of esplanades we should like to build, lots of blue lagoons we should like to dig, lots of autobahns we should like to construct, but there is a time and place, and, with our resources at full stretch, the present time is not the time, and there can be no criticism of the Minister for Finance for saying that some of these things should be postponed. They may be very good in themselves, but they are things without which we can get along and they ought to be postponed. I do not think we ought to postpone improving the condition of a man and his wife and five children living in one tenement room in Dublin. I think he ought to get a house and we ought to tax our resources to the very limit to ensure that he does, and I make no apology to the most orthodox economist in Ireland or abroad for telling him that if he does not like that, he can lump it, because that is what we are going to do.
Now, let us get down to tin tacks. I say that the purpose of our policy was increased production. Is it true or is it false? I will quote from the Central Statistics Office Publication on the Trend of Output. On February 3rd, there is a table setting out the output of cattle with the changes in stocks over the past 20 years—from 1936 to 1955. Is it true or is it false that the total output of cattle in 1955—measured by that criterion—was 1,048,000 head, the highest figure ever recorded since statistics were kept in Ireland? Is that true or is it false? It is true. Does it not represent increased production?
And the lowest population.
I have dealt with that.
More cattle and less people.
Mr. de Valera
How many other items in that 1,400,000?
None. What do you mean?
Mr. de Valera
Other head of cattle.
Do you mean you would like to get the figures?
Mr. de Valera
My recollection is that there are 390,000.
No—1,048,000.
Mr. de Valera
No, no.
I am giving the Leader of the Opposition the figure for gross output of cattle, including changes in stocks, as 1,048,000 in the year 1955, the highest figure ever recorded. That is one statistic.
Is there a definition?
It is exports in all forms plus slaughtering for domestic consumption; less imports plus or minus changes in stock. That gives us a total figure in 1955 of 1,048,000. The lowest figure was the 1947 figure and it was 731,000. This represents an increase of approximately 50 per cent. on that figure.
Mr. de Valera
How statistics can be made to lie! There is a book entitled Lying by Statistics. You take a low standard and then——
On several occasions the Leader of the Opposition has been most irate when anybody interrupted him. He has done nothing but interrupt persistently since the Minister for Agriculture started.
Look at him. He is smiling like a child.
It is better than his bad temper yesterday.
When he began this morning he was in the depths of gloom. He is the Leader of the Opposition. He occupies a great position and he can use that position for great evil or great good. If we can buoy him up, encourage him and bring him along he can do a lot of good by stopping depressing the boys behind him. He is as bland as a little sunbeam now. He was as cross as a wet hen this morning, flapping his wings around in indignation. If the Leader of the Opposition wishes to have these figures I will have pleasure in sending him a copy of them.
Mr. de Valera
I have had them.
What about the £10,000,000 in the 1952 Budget which would be very useful now?
I am coming to agricultural production. Here is the long-term solution of our problem: increased agricultural production. I want to give Deputies the figures for gross agricultural production. I am excluding turf because I do not think turf is properly described as an agricultural product. I think it would be more advantageous to my argument if I included turf, but I do not think it would be fair to do so. In our circumstances, turf is becoming more of an industrial product than an agricultural product. I am, therefore, excluding turf and including changes in stock from year to year. I take 1938-39 as the base year and that is 100.
I will ask the House, in reason and without getting cross, to face the fact that, when we took over in 1948, the point of departure from which we had to start was the situation then obtaining. Naturally, I say that situation was the consequence of 16 years of Fianna Fáil. But let us leave out of consideration whose fault it was. Fianna Fáil says is was the fault of the war, the fault of the economic war, the fault of a whole lot of things but that it was not their fault. Let us leave all that out. Whosoever's fault it was, in 1947, when we had to take over, the fact was that in February, 1948, we had fewer cattle, we had fewer sheep, we had fewer pigs and the land was in a state of greater dereliction than it had been for a century. It was from that point of departure we had to start.
Mr. de Valera
This time you will have to start from 1953-54. Do not forget that.
I think the Deputy's heart is rising, and rightly rising, when he comes to see we are approaching these problems far more reasonably and, in my opinion, more effectively.
There is no hope for the future.
Taking 1938 as the base year, with a value of 100, our gross agricultural production——
Why not take the net figures?
Let me continue. I will give you the net figures for each year immediately afterwards. Is that not fair? I am taking the gross, and I will tell you why in a minute. The base year of 100 is 1938-39. In 1947 that had fallen to 87.8. There is a lot of talk about 1948 being a wet year. But a wet year does not stop a cow calving, and in any case 1947 was wet in August, September, October and November, and the cows all had their calves by then. Whoever saw a ewe having lambs in November? Nobody but a lunatic ewe with a daft ram. Is not that so? A pig will have bonhams whether it is raining or not——
A sow.
A sow. I was not suggesting a boar would have them. A sow will have bonhams whether it is dry or wet and, if she makes up her mind to have bonhams, she does not ask whether it is dry or wet; and if she makes up her mind to have them, you have to go out to her whether it is dry or wet. While I do not underestimate the difficulties of the harvest, I remember the absurd picture of the poor old ladies going out with umbrellas trying to save the corn but instead they were only tripping us up. That was the time when the Leader was telling all the people to rush out to the cornfields. We had worse weather in 1954 and we got in all the corn without any old ladies because we went about it in a sensible way. I do not deny it was a difficult harvest, but remember no grass failed to grow because of the heavy rain in 1947. You can exaggerate the impact of the bad weather in the autumn of 1947 on the gross output in that year.
How many cattle and sheep died that year?
They did not die in the middle of the rain. They may have died the following year because of fluke or parasites. Since we came into office we have provided the remedy for the fluke and the parasites. We were losing 80,000 cattle per annum while Fianna Fáil were in office. That has been brought down now to 10,000, and somebody is responsible for that. In 1947, the gross agricultural production was 87.8. That is where we had to start from. In 1948, it was 98.5. In 1949, 108.1. In 1950, 103, down 5 per cent. In 1951, 100.7; 1952, 105.7; 1953, 111.5; 1954, 112.4; 1955, 116.2.
I would ask you to make the calculation yourselves. Will you subtract 87.8 from 116.2? I think you will get an answer of approximately 28.4. If that is not an increase of 32 per cent. plus over the 1947 production, I am not able to add. I do not want to suggest to anybody that we should sit down and rest on our oars and enjoy complacency, but there is no use going out to the farmers and saying all the efforts made in the last ten years produced nothing. Nothing is more discouraging than to say to people who have done their best that they did nothing, and to say to them: "You are becoming a joke before the whole of Europe. You are the only farmers in Europe who have achieved nothing."
That is all cod. Our farmers, with a far worse point of departure and with relatively little help, have achieved an increase in gross production of 32 per cent. plus over the last nine years. Remember that the Marshall Aid we got was a drop in the bucket compared to what the Dutch and Danes got. The Dutch got half of the total cost of the complete eradication of bovine T.B. in the Netherlands from Marshall Aid by way of free grant. The Danes got millions. What did our farmers get? Comparatively speaking, a drop in the bucket. Yet, with it, they have achieved that result. I do not know if Deputy Aiken wants the net output. I do not know if Deputy Aiken wants me to read it?
I do.
Taking the same basis of 100 the figures are: 1947, 94.8; 1948, 104.7; 1949, 112.8; 1950, 104.5; 1951, 103.5; 1952, 112; 1953, 114; 1954, 112.5; and 1955, 117.
That is a different picture.
It is more favourable in my opinion.
Nonsense. The thing is that apart from what we did, it is still much below what we should expect.
Let us all agree that excellent as have been the efforts made by the farmers, we have not done enough, but the fact is that more has been done by the farmers than they are given credit for. It is only proper that that should be recorded. One would imagine listening to some people that the dairying industry has disappeared.
Can the Minister circulate that table from which he has read to Deputies?
Mr. de Valera
It is in the statistical survey.
I do not think it is because these figures include changes in live stock. Any Deputy who is interested can get in touch with me and I will supply him with a copy.
Listening to some Deputies one would think that the dairy farmers had shut up shop, and we were in a state of dereliction. How many Deputies are aware of the fact that in the first six months of this year the deliveries of milk to the creameries of this country were a record for all time? They have in fact been 113,900,000 gallons, and that is a figure that has never been exceeded. That I am happy to say is largely produced from the improved grass growing on the land of Ireland, as a result of the experiments that were inaugurated in 1948 and carried on ever since.
Mr. de Valera
Land rehabilitation is it?
I am trying to say that that emphasises the improvements which have been achieved in the grass lands, and that the work started in 1948 in that regard has been continued until to-day.
It was started long before that.
I am trying to say as civilly as I can that that resulted from the improved grass which grew somewhere and it did not grow on Nelson's hat. We got 113,900,000 gallons of milk delivered to our creameries. Let us rejoice about that in any case.
Mr. de Valera
We do.
Then at least we have found something we can rejoice about. I told you when I started that I would before long produce something that showed results.
Did you export any of that production?
No. We are waiting to see how things will go in the next six months before thinking about exports and giving Deputy Allen a chance to go around talking about "Dillon's yellow butter". Does the Deputy remember when the present Minister for Agriculture exported butter as he thought to the best advantage, and then had to import it for a couple of weeks, and how the Deputy went round the country like a canary talking about Dillon's yellow butter? You will not get any more chances to talk about Dillon's yellow butter. We shall wait and see what the position is in the next six months.
What about the yellow meal?
There are in this grave and anxious situation some elements of relief. I want now to come to the figures for cattle exports. The figures for total cattle exports leave no cause for anxiety. The fact is that in the first six months of 1954, there were 355,581 cattle exported. There is no doubt whatever that in 1955 the price of fat cattle went up to £9 a cwt. in the Dublin market, and no doubt that quite abnormal exports took place, that year, and more power to the elbow of the farmers who were able to take advantage of that situation. I did say in Dáil Éireann at that time that fat cattle were fetching £9 per cwt. in the Dublin Cattle Market but that as Minister for Agriculture I was issuing the warning that that could not go on. As a result of that increase in price the total exports of cattle rose from 355,000 to 403,000 and an interesting fact was that 27,000 cattle had gone out in the form of carcase meat as against 71,000 in 1954. Because of the extraordinary price that fat cattle were making on the Dublin market the exports of live cattle had gone up to 347,000 in 1955 as compared with 261,000 in 1954. In the first six months of this year the total exports of cattle were 364,000 or 9,000 more than in 1954. The January enumeration shows that we have 80,000 more cattle in the country to-day than in January, 1955.
Fianna Fáil and Deputy Aiken set out to make the case that some of our trade difficulties at present were due to the failure in the production of wheat and excessive purchases of wheat. We can get the record there. I read out for Deputy Aiken this morning a decision taken by his own Government that the total output of wheat from Irish land was to be restricted to the production of the equivalent of 300,000 tons of dried wheat.
Mr. de Valera
Not restricted surely. That was the target.
I know the exquisite finesse of the mind of the Leader of the Opposition. To explain the difference between a proposed restricted output of wheat and the fixing of a target for it is a subtlety that evades me.
It is merely a target.
I have asked Fianna Fáil time and again how they propose to bring down the output from 400,000 tons to 300,000 tons.
It was as much dried wheat as we were producing and we were in a different financial situation then. We had not to tax all these things.
Very well. The position is that you set that target yourselves. Now you could do one of two things: you could introduce tillage inspectors and give every farmer his quota of wheat, and I think that was Deputy Corry's view.
Oh, the Minister is dopey. That is the best I can say for him.
Or you could reduce the price from 80/-, at which it stood, to something which bore a closer relation to relative prices in other spheres of agricultural production. I was opposed to letting loose on the farmers a whole army of inspectors again to count their acreage of wheat and I believe that the price we have given is a fair and equitable price. The proof of that is that the acreage of wheat is being grown and it is highly likely that next year, as a result of the recession in the price of cattle, fat cattle in particular, we are liable to have an even greater acreage of wheat.
The Minister soaked the farmers to the tune of 12/6 a barrel.
The Deputy's case is that we are importing more and more wheat. What are the facts? In the three-year period 1945-1947 we imported an annual average quantity of wheat of 2,718,000 cwt. In 1948-1950 we imported an annual average quantity of 3,700,000 cwt.; and in the three-year period 1951-1953 we imported an annual average of 5,344,000 cwt. Do Deputies realise that in the three-year period 1951-1953 we imported an annual average quantity of 5,344,000 cwt.?
Because the Minister had reduced the acreage of wheat by about 300,000.
In the two-year period 1954-1955 we imported only 2,349,000 cwt.
Because we brought the acreage up again.
I am simply recording the facts.
Give the reason for them too.
I suppose everybody will interpret facts according to his own belief. What I am concerned about is not so much the past as the future; and what I am trying to tell the House is what our policy is for dealing with the future. Our policy is to increase production. I am suggesting that our policy for increased production has produced in 1955 the greatest output of cattle ever recorded. It has produced in the first six months of this year the greatest intake of creamery milk ever recorded since statistics were first taken. I am going to make a prophecy now and I will stand or fall by its fulfilment or failure.
Mr. de Valera
If it is like all the Deputy's previous prophecies——
Mark this one well: we shall have a greater acreage of barley in this country in this year than was ever recorded before.
The Minister will drown the British in barley as he drowned them in eggs.
Mark that: we shall have a greater acreage of barley than we have ever had before. It is the purpose and policy of this Government to substitute for imported coarse grains, coarse feeding grains grown on our own land. The Deputy had 16 years in which to do that, and he did not do it. Why did he not do it? Because he had not available to him the variety of barley that made that practicable. Will the Deputy deny that in 1948 we introduced these varieties of barley, in the form of Herta, Ymer and Fryga?
The Minister imported Ymer because it was a new discovery.
Never mind who imported it. We now have that variety of barley. I cannot promise this to the House, but I am hoping that for the last four months of this year we will not use any imported coarse grain at all. If that proves true, it will be the first time in the history of this country, since boats began to call here, that we can over a period of four months use no imported coarse grains at all.
The Minister will not be blathering about maize any longer at £20 per ton, I hope.
That is increased production. Could I get Deputies to help me in this way: I have announced in Dáil Éireann, informed every county committee of agriculture and repeated ad nauseam at meetings all over the country that there is now a fixed minimum price for grade A pigs of 235/- per cwt. delivered to the factory for any quantity of grade A pigs. Would Deputies help me to get that knowledge over to the farmers because I am told that, at a meeting of the Kilkenny agricultural committee recently, a well-informed and sensible man was heard to say, within the last week, that the essential requirement was to provide a guaranteed minimum price for grade A pigs? That price was guaranteed three months ago and it is now in operation. I made it a minimum price because I wanted the farmers to get anything extra they could get, and they have been getting more than the minimum price. It does not matter how many pigs they bring to the factory; be it 1,000,000, 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 they cannot get less than 235/- per cwt. for every pig of grade A quality. Will Deputies help me to get increased production by making that known to the farmers because that will help to restore our balance of payments?
I wonder am I too harsh if I am constrained to say that, listening to Fianna Fáil talking, the Fianna Fáil policy is largely one of hullabaloo. When you ask them to come down to practical proposals, Deputy Lemass says one thing; Deputy MacEntee says something else; Deputy Aiken says something else; and the Leader of the Opposition says a fourth thing. And, then, on top of that Pravda comes out the following morning and says a fifth thing. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.” If anybody does not like what the Leader of the Opposition says: “Ah, but look at what Deputy Lemass said in Cork. £100,000,000: Employment for everybody: Let agriculture go to hell: We will do it all through industry.”
Mr. de Valera
He never said anything of the kind.
Very well. If anybody does not like that: "Look at what Deputy Aiken says: Put your nose in the land: Abolish the land project and, instead of putting the drainage machine on the land, put your nose in the land." If you do not like Aiken and you do not like Lemass and you want to convert somebody below in College Green: "Look at what Mr. MacEntee says: Starve 'em out: Tie 'em down: Put the steam roller over them and, when they come out the other side, they will be flattened for evermore." If that is not popular down in the country: "Look at what the Leader said" because he managed to say all three things simultaneously. But, if somebody says: "Well, he was not quite up to form" the hand will go around to the hip pocket and out will come Pravda and you can say: “Well, look at what young de Valera said.” Now, you must find amongst one of the five of them something that will please you and that is the solidarity of Fianna Fáil, which is the hope of the Irish nation. I frankly confess that I regard myself as a resourceful and experienced debater, but I am damned if I can take on all five of them at the same time without at least seeming to contradict myself, because they have a nostrum for every taste.
I have a very simple, practical proposal to make. I have dealt with milk. I hope we will be able to do much more in the future through phosphate, potash and lime on the land of Ireland. No matter what Government is in office, two-thirds of the land will be under grass. It is the most important crop we have got. The greatest natural asset with which God endowed this nation was an annual rainfall of 42 inches, if we use it; and, to use it to the best advantage, we should use it to grow grass with phosphate, potash and lime.
To hear people talking you would think rain was the affliction and bane of the Irish people. It is the greatest natural asset that we have 42 inches of annual rainfall equitably distributed over the 12 months of the year. Does the House realise that, with the exception of Ireland, a part of Great Britain and a very restricted area in the Middle West of America, there is no other country in the whole world which has what we have, 42 inches of rain equitably distributed over the 12 months of the year? There is no agricultural country in the world which if you asked the people what asset would they most long for but would answer: "42 inches of rain equitably distributed over the 12 months of the year". We have the Gulf Stream climate. We have the live stock and the market for it beside us and our sole contribution need be phosphate, potash and lime to get from the land of Ireland an evergrowing output of saleable produce which we are eminently equipped to produce.
Let me speak of sheep. People are prone to forget them. Our sheep population has gone up from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 and over in the past nine years and is steadily rising. Every sheep we have to-day is in my judgment worth about 1¼ of the sheep we had ten years ago because it is improved in quality both as to mutton and wool. I have spoken of our policy in regard to increasing the acreage of barley and I now want to speak of our policy for increasing forestry. I think it has been made abundantly clear to the House that the programme provided for is based on 15,000 acres at present being planted with an annual increment of 2,500 acres until we reach 25,000 acres with a subsequent review as to what the national requirements are as from that period forward. That is a very large capital investment. It is already producing vast employment and will produce we hope, but unfortunately after protracted delay, a substantial revenue. We have got to keep within our resources and adjust our investment even in that sphere to the resources available to us.
I want to draw the attention of the House to another very significant fact and that is the June trade figures. I want to say at once that in one respect the June trade figures were a bitter disappointment to me. I confidently anticipated that, once the levies had two or three months to operate, they would produce results in the June imports but they did not. The imports in June went up by £400,000. I think that was a bitter disappointment and something that rightly puts us on our guard and warns us that more resolute measures must be taken in order to get the trend in the right direction.
Let us not forget that it is the firm resolve of this Government to continue with such measures until the trend is restored, whatever measures may be required, but we will be neither fussed, bluffed nor tricked into doing anything to the detriment of our people which is unnecessary. The June figures had that element in them which disappointed me. Everybody's attention was rivetted on that figure of an increase in our imports, and rightly so, but when full weight is given to that deplorable development, let us recall that in the same month exports had gone up by £1,750,000 in a month when cattle were making £6 a cwt. on the Dublin market in comparison with the month of June, 1955, when cattle were making £9 a cwt. on the Dublin market. Does the House see the significance of that?
The volume of our exports must have gone up quite dramatically for their value was up £1,750,000. If we had got a reduction of £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 in imports, which I had hoped for, do you see where we would be going? We would have improved the adverse trade balance by close on £4,000,000 a month and if we could have kept that up for the remaining seven months of the year, our problems would be very much reduced in their proportion. But we did not succeed in bringing down imports as we hoped to do and that is why we are here to-day on the business upon which we are now engaged, for that we have got to do.
That is only a temporary phase designed to meet the situation while exports are coming up. If they were not coming up, we would have grave cause for anxiety. We have no grounds for complacency but let us at least ask ourselves whether the trend appears to be right. There is more milk delivered to the creameries than ever before; more cattle are being produced than ever before and there are more sheep in the country than at any time for 50 years of better quality, both as regards the meat and wool. There is a guaranteed minimum price for pigs of grade A quality to ensure that there will be all the production we can get. There is a guaranteed minimum price for barley to ensure that everyone may grow it preferably to be fed on one's own holding and if it is grown in excess of that, then the guaranteed market is available—not less than 40/- a barrel.
There is an expanding realisation on the part of farmers everywhere of the need for the increased use of phosphates, potash and lime. There is agreement on all sides that, anxious as we are to press forward, we must not fall into the disastrous mistake of trying to travel faster than our resources will allow. There is a decision agreed among us all that no project that is in itself good should be abandoned but that there should be a hierarchy established of the priorities so that that which is essential should be done first and that which is good, but without which we can do for the present, should be postponed.
There is a firm resolution that the balance of payments shall be restored; that the measures requisite to that will be taken here and now and that for the long term there shall be an output from the land adequate to provide all our people who wish to live here with a steadily rising standard of living. Is that not a saner approach to our problem than a crying of universal woe? Is it not saner to realise that we are confronted with problems not peculiar to this country but which are common to Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand and is it not vital to us to recognise that, though our problems may be common, the appropriate remedies may be radically different?
We started this morning with wails, lamentations and warnings of despair. Let us mark this mid-day hour with no clarion cry of complacency, but with the clear knowledge that we have on our hands as formidable a problem as that confronting Great Britain, Spain, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Australia or New Zealand and that the Government of this country is giving as good or better a lead, in the honest belief that the Irish people can master this problem and—without losing their head or dissolving into a panic onslaught on the welfare of our own people—we shall rescue this country from the danger on the one hand of panic and on the other from a negligence that would precipitate us all into a situation, if our external resources were utterly dissipated, in which unemployment and suffering would be truly formidable and we, the nation, would be left without the instruments to resolve it.
I think ours is the better way. We shall do whatever is necessary, and all that is necessary, to see that the economy of this country is sustained, developed and maintained for the benefit of all our people, but we shall be neither frightened nor bluffed, jeered nor jibed into courses of conduct which, in our own past experience, resulted in nothing but disaster to the nation.
The debate this morning has largely ranged over agriculture and I feel that to a large extent that was desirable. I think the House should be indebted to the Minister for his very comprehensive survey of the agricultural position, a comprehensive survey which was delivered, as usual, with great brilliancy and which was a tribute to the Minister. I am inclined to agree—so far as I have been able to check on it—with the views expressed by the Minister in regard to the increase in agricultural production. I think that his assessment of the increase is the correct one. Unfortunately, this has not been fully appreciated in the country and I think it is necessary that it should be emphasised more than it has been.
However, while it was useful that our discussion should range over the agricultural sphere, we have to get back now to the actual issues before the House. There are three main problems facing our economy. First, there is the question of the adverse balance of trade; secondly, the abnormally high and damaging rate of unemployment and emigration; and, thirdly, the increasing prices. Those are, in brief, the three main problems that face our economy, problems which are only to some extent related to each other, problems which will not be dealt with, I think, by emergency measures. Emergency measures undoubtedly are essential in present circumstances to deal with the adverse balance of trade. We need two completely separate approaches to these questions. We need the short term approach, the approach which the Bill before the House is intended to take in regard to the adverse balance of payments; but, quite apart from the short term approach, we need a long term economic development policy.
I feel that the country generally will be disappointed in the approach of the Government and of the Opposition on that score. There is a feeling abroad, a feeling which is fairly justified, that the country has been drifting without a policy, without a concerted or consecutive policy and that that drift has been taking place not merely for the last year or two but very nearly since the State was set up. The problems that face the country at the moment, which have been highlighted by the adverse balance of trade, could serve a useful purpose if they could bring about a recognition, on the part of different political Parties here, of the essential need to formulate and implement a consecutive long term development programme, which is a thing we have never had.
Deputy Aiken, in speaking this morning, was rather contradictory in regard to that. On the one hand, he said that what we needed was a long term agricultural policy which would be pursued consecutively. A few minutes later, he said that he was against any long term economic development plan. Of course, in a country such as ours, the long term agricultural plan must be the basis of any long term economic planning we may wish to undertake. Therefore, Deputy Aiken seems to have been rather contradictory in his approach to the problem.
In so far as the long term approach to our problems is concerned, I do not think that this debate has contributed anything. There has been no indication of a long term policy either on the part of the Government or on the part of the Opposition. The nearest attempt which we had, the nearest thing to a long term approach, a concerted approach, was the speech which we had to-day from the Minister for Agriculture in regard to agriculture; but I think that the future of agriculture will depend largely upon the availability of capital for its development. There is a certain contradiction between the wishes and the hopes expressed by the Minister and the realities of the situation.
Increased production in agriculture will require, undoubtedly, hard work, but it will also require increased credit facilities to ensure the additional investment necessary in agriculture. Unless credits are available, that additional investment in agriculture will not be possible and the hopes of the Minister will ultimately be shattered. It seems, therefore, to me that, from a long term point of view, any agricultural plan which is formulated must envisage at the same time the provision of credit facilities which will ensure a much higher rate of investment in agriculture than there has been heretofore.
The Minister has urged this morning the increased use of fertilisers. I think we use a smaller amount of fertilisers on our land than practically any other country in Europe. Obviously, we need a much higher rate of fertilisation of the land. That cannot be achieved unless the agricultural community have the credits necessary in order to be able to invest in their lands.
While the Minister is urging a higher rate of investment in the land, a higher rate of production from the land, we have a credit squeeze being applied on the other side by the banks and that credit squeeze is, if you like, in direct opposition to the policy which the Government and the Minister for Agriculture are advocating. A credit squeeze is incompatible with an increased rate of investment in the land and increased production. That applies, not merely to the agricultural sector of our economy, but to the industrial sector as well.
I should like in that connection to remind the House of the views expressed by the Taoiseach, in 1953, in a booklet entitled "Blueprint for Prosperity," which is a reproduction of a speech made by the Taoiseach. It would be useful if we now put into practice the policies which he advocated then in regard to the approach of the banks. Referring to the banking system, he said:—
"At the present time it is purely a monopoly, although it has the appearance of being a private enterprise system. It reacts entirely in its policy to the policy from time to time pursued in Britain, a policy which is dictated by the British Government for British purposes related entirely to conditions in Great Britain."
He then goes on:—
"The British Government induced the British banks to raise the bank rate and withdraw credit for the purpose of creating unemployment and discouraging production over a wide field of British industry in order to divert both capital and men to armament and their heavy industries. The Irish banks applied the same policy here where conditions are quite different, where there is no rearmament and very little heavy industry. The results combined with the Government's Budget impositions, have been deplorable. A system such as this cannot continue. Irish banking institutions can only flourish on Irish prosperity. At any rate they cannot continue to be used to take the savings of the Irish people to bolster up an outside economy, however vital the prosperity of that economy is to our external trading."
From what is the Deputy quoting?
I am quoting from a pamphlet published in 1955, entitled "Blueprint for Prosperity," a speech of the Taoiseach.
And it can be purchased for 6d. at 16 Hume Street.
It is the practice to give the reference.
I am referring to this because it seems to me that at the present time the same problem is arising, but, while the requirements of our economy, the requirements of increased production and increased employment, all involve additional investment and additional credit facilities, the banking system is pursuing a policy which can only lead to the opposite results, a policy which, to a large extent, I think, has been influenced by events in Britain.
As the Minister for Agriculture quite properly pointed out this morning, there is absolutely no relationship between the problems which exist in Britain and the problems which exist here. The causes of these problems are entirely different. Britain suffers from overfull employment; we suffer from chronic underemployment. Britain suffers from overdevelopment and the policy of the British Government is to slow down the rate of investment in Britain. The measures taken there are being taken with that end in view. It is perfectly ridiculous that we should seek to apply the same type of deflationary measures as are being applied in Britain.
To that extent, I welcome the approach of the Minister for Finance in the measures he has brought before the House. These are direct measures intended to reduce the volume of unnecessary imports. That is, in my view, the proper approach to the present situation, but I think that, to a certain extent, while that approach is being pursued by him now, we have not escaped the evils of the purely deflationary approach which was pursued earlier in the year and which is still being pursued by our banking system.
One of the chief difficulties in dealing with the immediate problems that confront us arises from the fact that the remedies necessary to correct an adverse balance of trade are in direct conflict with the remedies necessary to ensure a higher rate of employment and in that way to reduce emigration at the same time. As I pointed out last night, it is essential, therefore, to bear in mind that purely monetary measures, restriction of credit, and so on, will result in a reduced rate of investment rather than in a reduced rate of consumption. It is well recognised that if the aim is purely to reduce consumption and not to interfere with the rate of investment, that result can only be achieved by direct measures, that the pursuit of an inflationary policy or a credit restriction policy will primarily reduce the rate of investment rather than the rate of consumption. I think that that is an important fact to bear in mind in the present situation.
One of the difficulties in a debate of this kind, and indeed, in dealing with economic questions generally in the political sphere here, is the complete misuse that is frequently made of different terms. Deputy Aiken this morning talked at length about an inflationary situation, about inflation. I think the Minister for Finance also talked a good deal in the course of his speech yesterday about inflation. What do we understand by inflation? I said a few minutes ago that we are trying to cope with three different problems.
There is, firstly, the inadequacy of exports resulting from inadequate protection largely combined with an excess of imports. I do not think that that can be described as inflation. The fact that for one reason or another we have failed to produce enough or have failed to export enough does not arise from inflation. That is one of the problems. Problem No. 2 is underemployment and emigration. I do not think that that can be described as inflation. It seems to me to be the very opposite. Problem No. 3 is that of increasing prices. There you can begin to talk of inflationary pressures but I do not think that the term "inflation" is a term which can properly be used to describe the present situation. I think it is not at all as simple as that.
In regard to the increase in prices or the loss in value or purchasing power of money, I think we have to recognise that there is very little we can do about it. It arises from two different factors. One factor is that outside prices have gone up. Prices of raw materials have gone up. We have little or no control over those. The other factor arises from increasing wages and increasing taxation, increasing State expenditure, if you like. I think that there is very little we can do about that either. These are not new trends. They are trends that affect not only this country but trends that affect practically every country in the world. There has been a tendency since the beginning of the century, and particularly since the first world war, for living standards to improve. I think that is desirable. Improvements in living standards involve improvement in wages and involve an improvement in social services and, obviously, these improvements in wages and social services involve higher production costs in the end. These are more or less inevitable developments.
Another factor which I think is often overlooked in assessing increased expenditure and, also in appreciating the cause for the lack of savings, arises from the fact that human nature being what it is, whenever some new device makes its appearance, whether it be a wireless set, an electric mixer, an electric washing machine, an electric iron, an electric cooker, a new kind of nylon stockings—whenever new appliances make their appearance on the markets of the world, people tend to want them and tend finally to acquire them. These are all inevitable processes in our social evolution but, of course, these processes have economic results. I do not think that we can complain about them nor do I think that we can stop them.
On the contrary, I think we should take those as more or less inevitable and rather welcome developments in our social and economic evolution. It is commonplace for workers in America to own motor cars. It is commonplace for farm labourers to own motor cars. Ultimately it will become commonplace here and there is no use wringing our hands in despair and saying it is gross extravagance and that the country cannot afford it. The country, sooner or later, will have to afford it. We should turn our attention to how best we can gear up our economy to increase production to meet these requirements. That brings me back to what I think is the kernel of the problem here, the lack of any kind of economic development programme. I do not think we even appreciate the full extent of the problems that confront us. We are trying to brush them aside. We are inclined to deal with them from day to day without ever getting down to a realistic appraisal of the extent of the problems that we have to face up to in order to find solutions for them.
There is one matter, which to my mind, is extremely urgent and upon which there has been, I think an unhealthy silence, certainly on the part of the Government and I think also on the part of the Opposition. If the present financial policies are pursued, if the present credit squeeze is pursued, it is inevitable that by this winter we will face as high an unemployment rate as in 1953. The Taoiseach and members of the Opposition spoke at great length last night of the evils of emigration. We all know that a high rate of unemployment means a high rate of emigration. Accordingly, we are facing into the situation, where with employment which is beginning to mount up already, we will, before the end of the year, have a much higher rate of emigration.
I believe that the credit squeeze policy, which is admittedly responsible for the increasing rate of unemployment and the increasing rate of emigration, is not necessary in the facts of our economy. Not only is it not necessary but it is damaging so far as the aim is to increase production and increase investment. I do not know to what extent the Government has been in touch with the commercial banks with regard to their credit policy, but I certainly strongly urge upon the Minister for Finance to give a very clear indication to our commercial banks that the operation of a credit squeeze policy such as has been operating in recent months is damaging to our economy and is completely opposed to Government policy.
The Minister, I think, and both Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Aiken talked of the terrible results that would flow from a devaluation of our currency. I am not aware that anybody has suggested that our currency should be devalued. I am not aware that we have any control of our own currency. I am not aware that we stand now as we did in 1949 faced with the risk of seeing our currency devalued now by us but by the collapse of the British economy and, in that situation, we shall have the doubtful pleasure of seeing some £400,000,000 of our money invested in England lose its value overnight, not through any action of ours but by reason of economic difficulties that face the British economy.
It is complete nonsense to suggest that we have any influence over the value of the £ sterling or that our economic problems here in any way affect the value of sterling. Therefore, I do not really know whether the references by some Deputies to the depreciation of our currency were made out of sheer ignorance of the facts of the situation or merely to try to cause alarm.
References have also been made by Deputies to our sterling assets. Many of the figures quoted are, I think, somewhat misleading. The position is that we have still invested in Britain between £400,000,000 and £500,000,000. The commercial banks, according to the last returns, increased their holdings of sterling investments from February of this year when they stood at £219,000,000 to £223,000,000 by April of this year. It is worth remembering that, with all this outcry about disinvestment, if we turn to the commercial banking returns, we will see that there was an actual increase of holdings of sterling assets by our commercial banking system of no less than £4,000,000 in a period of three months of this year.
Our Central Bank, which distinguishes itself by not holding one penny invested in Ireland, holds some £70,000,000 in British Government securities. Our Government holds somewhere in the region of £30,000,000. There are no records of the amounts of private investment. I think it is probably reasonable to suggest that it is between £100,000,000 and £150,000,000, but, as I say, there are no records available. If those figures are approximately correct, our sterling assets are now somewhere between £450,000,000 and £470,000,000.
In passing, let me again draw attention to what, to my mind, is a complete indictment of the attitude of our commercial banks and of our banking system generally. According to the last returns published by the Central Bank, our commercial banks have £104.3 million invested in British Government securities as against £18.4 million invested in Irish Government securities. Those figures, in my view, are a complete indictment of the attitude of our banking system here.
I should again like to say that if at any stage the Government think it desirable to take steps to ensure that our commercial banking system will invest a higher percentage of their investments in Irish Government securities, or in other Irish securities, the Government will have the complete support of a large section of the people in the country in taking steps to ensure that result.
I dealt last night with a number of the issues that arise on this discussion and I do not wish to repeat them. I should like just to make one or two remarks in regard to some of the statements made by Deputy Aiken. Like Deputy MacEntee and the Taoiseach last night, Deputy Aiken seemed to take some pride in our economic achievements in the past. I do not think we should allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of inertia or complacency as to progress in the past.
On the whole, looking back upon our economic history, I think it is an indictment of ourselves since we have taken control of our own affairs here. The mere fact that, some 35 years afterwards, we still have the same problems—we still have a fall in population and we are still unable to provide employment for our people—is an indictment of the economic reorganisation of the country for which, to a large extent, successive Governments have been responsible.
I welcome one statement made by Deputy Aiken. He said that he would be opposed to the pursuit of a completely deflationary policy. I welcome that statement because it shows that as far as he is concerned he has apparently been converted from views which he held before. Deputy Aiken and Deputy MacEntee were both the advocates of the pursuit of a deflationary policy in 1952. They pursued a deflationary policy with a vengeance and with disastrous results to our economy then and even now. I am glad that even if the pursuit of these policies had disastrous results, at least Deputy Aiken has now been converted from the viewpoint which he held then. I hope his conversion is a genuine and lasting one and that he will in future eschew the pursuit of deflationary policies which can only result in high unemployment and reduced production.
This is a serious debate and it is rather a pity that Deputy MacBride did not devote a little time to looking up data in the library instead of accepting as infallible all the statements made by the Minister for Agriculture to-day. He refers to deflation, but we cannot be much more deflated than we are. Up to 1948, when the Government of which Deputy MacBride was a member assumed office, the amount borrowed for 25 long years by both the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, as they were then, and the Fianna Fáil Government, who followed them, resulted in our having to find £4,000,000 a year for the service of the National Debt. In 1952, after three and a half years of the pursuit of Deputy MacBride's deflationary policy, we found that those people had borrowed some £72,000,000 odd and that the service of the National Debt had increased from £4,000,000 in 1948 to £10,000,000 in 1952. I asked a question here about a month ago and I was told it is now £13,000,000, which means that the people of this country must find £13,000,000 a year to pay the interest on what we borrowed before the people can spend one penny on anything else.
The Minister for Finance said last night we are £36,000,000 on the wrong end. We have been borrowing anything from £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 a year over the past few years. I have seen nothing in any proposals made by the Minister for Finance to put an end to that. The Minister for Finance went to the people a few months ago and asked them for £20,000,000. They said "No." It is the same as if you were calling into a bank manager every couple of months for a few pounds; the day comes when he says: "I will give you no more." The people of this country have informed the Minister for Finance and the Government that they will give them no more money. Therefore, the Minister has decided on a new scheme: (1) to prevent people from spending any money and (2) under which nobody can borrow a shilling except the Government. If the Dublin Corporation, Cork Corporation, E.S.B., C.I.E. want money, they cannot borrow it now.
Would this Government get out decently or are they waiting to get such a kick in Cork that they will have to get out? They can get no money; they cannot run this country. We heard pious resolutions here about housing. What is the position in which they have placed local authorities in connection with housing? You apply to the county council now for a loan and they tell you: "No; you must try the building societies. If the building societies and the bank do not consider you eligible to borrow from them, you are to come back to the county council and the county council will give it to you out of the ratepayers' pocket" and I do not know who will pay them back. I do not know how many houses will be built under the new scheme.
I do not know where the Minister for Agriculture got his figures. I wonder is it a special pair of spectacles the Department have provided for him, because here are the figures from the Central Statistics Office: Live stock, milch cows, a reduction of 5,540; in-calf heifers, a reduction of 12,674; bulls, a reduction of 1,652; other cattle—three-year-olds and upwards, a reduction of 34,902; two-year-olds and under three, a reduction of 1,391. Then you have an increase of 24,000 yearlings and 11,000 calves. I do not know whether the Minister and his Department have a new plan for the production of calves without cows, but if you have a reduction this year of 18,000 between cows and in-calf heifers, how can you increase the number of calves you had last year?
The Minister speaks of more production and I should like to give this House a resumé of his activities as Minister for Agriculture. In wheat, there is a reduction of 128,362 acres, or 26.4 per cent. in 12 months. That means that the Minister for Finance had to export £3,483,000 of our money to pay the foreigner for wheat which should have been grown at home. We did grow 358,006 acres of wheat last year. If we take the normal yield from that to be 358,000 tons, in order to increase production and to induce the farmer, the Minister taxed that wheat to the extent of 12/6 a bag—£5 a ton. For that wheat which they did grow last year, the farmers got £1,790,000 less. In all, the income of the farmers on wheat alone was reduced last year, by this angel of increased production, by £5,273,000.
It is so, down along the line. The farmers grew 213,000 acres of barley. The Minister for Finance taxed that by £4 per ton, the difference between 48/- and 40/- a barrel. He collected off the farmer in that manner, giving not the Minister a figure of £2 a cwt., but 30/- a cwt., £2,275,000. The farmers got that much less for their barley because of the pronouncements made by that Minister for Agriculture from time to time. He once told us: "Beet has gone up the spout after wheat, and God speed the day". As soon as the farmers found that gentleman restored to his perch over there, they dropped their acreage of beet by 25.4 per cent. —by 18,779 acres.
That drop in the acreage of beet had very wide ramifications. At 12 tons of beet to the acre, it meant a loss of 225,348 tons of beet, valued at the factories at £1,500,000. The Minister for Industry and Commerce made a statement here yesterday about the losses of C.I.E. For 70 per cent. of their total freight, C.I.E. depend on the sugar factories. When beet production went down by the amount I have stated, the income C.I.E. derived from the sugar company went down by approximately 25 per cent. That is why it became necessary for the Minister to come here yesterday seeking £1,000,000 to assist C.I.E.
On those three items alone, the farmers' income last year fell by something like £8,500,000. I shall not go into the figures for cattle; I am dealing with one item alone for which Government policy has been directly responsible. Government policy has been directly responsible for a drop of 80,000 acres of tillage since they came into office. They have been responsible for a drop of over £7,000,000 in the farmers' income.
There is another little activity to which I should like to make allusion at this stage. We hear a lot from time to time about subsidies. They tell us on the other side of the House that they maintain subsidies when we would not. The Minister for Industry and Commerce found a new way of finding subsidies for flour. When the late Minister for Agriculture, God rest his soul, left office, the economic price of bran and pollard, largely used in pig production, was £20 a ton. Since then, this benevolent Government cut the price of the Irish farmers' wheat by £5 a ton, which means that the economic price of bran and pollard to-day should be around £18 a ton. Last March, when introducing his Estimate, the Minister for Industry and Commerce made a statement as to where he found the money to subsidise flour. He said that, in September, 1954, the price of bran and pollard was £20 a ton. By increasing that price to the price of imported bran and pollard, we got a figure of £24 10s. per ton in October, 1954, and of £26 a ton in January, 1955. In that manner, the millers collected £170,000 to go towards the flour subsidy.
I was rather interested in that statement in view of a statement made by the Minister for Agriculture when a deputation went to him regarding the price of feeding barley. He told the deputation: "The small farmer in the west with 10 acres and a wife and six children feeds pigs. Am I going to increase the price of barley for the big farmers growing it, the big farmers with the two motor cars? I am not." That was the statement made to us when we went to the Minister for Agriculture for an increased price for feeding barley.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
We are dealing with the statement made by the Minister for Agriculture in connection with the price of feeding barley and comparing that now with the attitude of this Minister for Agriculture of ours in allowing the Minister for Industry and Commerce to increase the price of bran and pollard from its economic price of £18 a ton to what is being charged to-day, £27 10s. a ton. That is £9 10s. a ton increase in price over and above the economic price of the article. Is it any wonder that that contribution to increased production by the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce gave us a reduction in pigs for breeding of 19,757, or 19.8 per cent., and other pigs totalling 159,476, or a total of 16.6 per cent. reduction?
Let us have a look at it. The Minister for Social Welfare, some two months ago, in reply to an Adjournment Debate, informed us that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had collected from the pig feeders of this country, from September, 1954, to February, 1956, the enormous sum of £617,000—taxes to be paid by the pig feeders. Is it any wonder when you tax production, when you tax wheat to the extent of 12/6 a bag, when you tax feeding barley to the extent of £4 a ton, when you force an uneconomic price for beet by refusing to allow the sugar company to increase the price to an economic level and when you tax the man who feeds the pig, the poor, small farmer in the west with ten acres and the wife and six children, for whom the Minister for Agriculture's heart bled and from whom he has now extracted, in 15 short months, £617,000 in income-tax, because he dared to feed pigs, that production of pigs is cut by roughly 20 per cent., because of the activities of the gentleman who acted the playboy for an hour and a half to-day, telling us about increased production and how he was going to achieve it? Those are the steps he took to achieve it.
Is it any wonder that we have an adverse balance of payments when we have to send £1,500,00 out of the country for the sugar which should be produced here on the land as beet and which should be turned into sugar in our own factories? That would get a reduction of £1,000,000 in C.I.E.'s deficit, in freight charges alone. Is it any wonder that we have an adverse balance of payments when we sent out £3,500,000 for foreign wheat and the method by which we did it was to tax the Irish farmer who dared to produce it, £5 a ton? Those are the things which count and this Minister for Agriculture had the impertinence to stand up here for over an hour to-day telling us about increased production on the land. Where did he find it? It was not in wheat, in beet, or in barley; it was not in pigs and it was not in in-calf heifers. I have given the figures here, which I got from the official statistics, for each one of those. Those are the results of his activities.
I should like to hear from the Minister for Finance, this genius who, in one year and a half, has converted this country from a country where, at any rate, a Government loan was never refused until he took it up. I should like to hear from him what example he is going to set the people in regard to saving. That is the first thing they will look for. He is compelling the people to save, whether they like it or not, and any fellow now with money must put it in the stocking, unless he is going to lend it to the Government.
The Deputy ought to put a few darns in his, so.
That is the position. Then he comes along as cool as you like and tells us about other methods. This day week the people of Cork will be passing judgment on that mixum-gatherum we have had during the past year and a half. He has already had the judgment of the rural community in Leix and Offaly. Those are two exactly opposite cross-sections of the community.
What about Kerry and Dublin?
The old farmer down in Leix-Offaly——
What about North Kerry?
The Deputy may not discuss by-elections on this Bill.
I do not want to discuss them, Sir, but they are drawing me over there. I gave a fair challenge to Deputy Barry in Cork the other day in view of his election posters promising better times. I challenged him to sell tea at de Valera's price from this until the elections, and see would the Minister for Finance be able to get a sufficient loan from the people to clear what he loses. If your candidate down there would sell coal at de Valera's price from now until the election, he will see how he will get on.
The Deputy is discussing by-elections.
If that is the kind of thing they want, we can give it to them, too. Between the two, the Minister has a fair cross-section of the community. If we give him a kick in the tail in Cork, will he go? And I can assure you that is what you will get.
Could the Deputy not put it in a nicer way?
If ever you got it in your lifetime, you are going to get it now. They are up around Spangle Hill at present——
Would the Deputy please get back to the Bill and leave the by-elections?
I would suggest to the Minister that it is not worth his while making any arrangements. If he would take a tip from me, he would send the Taoiseach over with the Seals to-night. Then they will not know what is going to happen in Cork.
That is like a lot of the Deputy's tips—not even placed.
If you do not run after that you will be very tough. If you are not out, we will have a go at you in Kilkenny and we will finish you there. I do not believe there is any constituency in this country——
The Deputy is continuing to discuss by-elections which do not arise on the Bill.
I am suggesting——
The Deputy suggested it three or four times.
I am not suggesting by-elections. I am suggesting a general election.
I would suggest the Deputy should come back to the Bill before the House.
The best thing I can say about the Bill is that it is seeking to compel everybody to save except the Minister. The Minister is preventing everybody saving and he is also preventing everybody borrowing. In my opinion, that will lead to a far greater volume of unemployment than we have at present. Business people have been held up because of the Minister's activities in squeezing credit. Business people now find that they cannot carry on as matters stand. The agricultural community cannot stand the strain any longer.
Is it the Minister's intention to continue despite the fact that the people of this country have given him a very definite decision that they will give him no more money? After all, he applied for a loan and he got £8,000,000 out of £20,000,000. I think the banks kept that because of what was due to them. Now he says he will go for another loan. He has got a better plan this time. C.I.E. is to be prevented from borrowing; the E.S.B. is to be prevented from borrowing; the fellow who wants to build his house is to be prevented from borrowing. He is preventing them all from borrowing, so that the banks will have nobody to whom they can give the money except the Minister.
Is that not a good idea?
It is a great idea, but my opinion is that the people of the country are so disgusted with the present Government that they will not lend the money no matter what the Minister does.
Because of the importance of this discussion I had hoped we would have heard some serious views expressed, but the extraordinary fact is that, so far, although it is now 2.45 p.m., the Opposition have only put up two speakers, Deputy Corry, who is going away, and Deputy Aiken, who spent a long time telling us about everything except the matters that are of importance, not only to the members of this House, but to the people outside. The Leader of the Opposition waxed vehemently—I might say eloquently—in this House last night in relation to the whole position. Their whole theme, apparently, is that everything would be all right but for the fact that all the honest people are in the Opposition and all the dishonest people and opportunists are on the Government side. They go further and make it quite clear, both here and to the people outside, that, had they been in Government, this policy, and perhaps an even more stringent policy than that which the Government is adopting, would be in operation. It would be all right then; there would be nothing wrong with it and the people would not object.
The position would not be there at all.
The Deputy had a lot of talk the other day and we will answer him now. We, in the Labour Party, are entitled to make a full comparison between the policy of this Government and the policy of the Opposition when they were in Government. Deputy de Valera made certain suggestions here yesterday evening and he was followed by Deputy Aiken. We are convinced that there is one outstanding difference in the recommendations of this Government to meet the present financial difficulties and the recommendations which were put into operation during the term of the previous Government. That is that, even though the Government have been striving to get more revenue in and even though they are determined to cut down luxury spending, if it can be termed as such, at least nobody can say—least of all speakers on the Fianna Fáil side—that they have adopted what was adopted in 1952 by Fianna Fáil—the slashing of the food subsidies.
While Deputy O'Malley apparently was lonesome because of the absence of some of us here in the House the other day, I can assure him that we are not wasting our time here and we do not intend to waste our time when it comes to making a comparison between what was said in the Press at that time and what may be said now. In spite of the lamentations of prominent Opposition speakers last week and Press publications that made it quite clear to the people that the introduction of these new levies meant that the Government were going to increase the price of bread and increase the price of tobacco, it is quite obvious that, when the Minister for Finance announced his intentions to the House here, the reaction was a bit upsetting to the Opposition members.
We are quite satisfied that, if difficulties are to be met, we must be prepared to face up to those difficulties, but there must be some differentiation between the main basic problem of the cost of essential foodstuffs and the items contained in the list before us which are to be subject to the increased levies announced by the Minister this evening. While all of us are interested in what the Minister had to say I believe from the point of view of the position in which we find ourselves that there are certain questions which must be answered. It is not a question of which are the best people to have in power; our attention must be directed to some of the weaknesses in our national economy. I consider that it is more essential to try to improve the fabric of our economy in this country rather than waste time in endeavouring to see which set of politicians might be better than another.
One of the outstanding statements of the Minister related to the question of imports and of exports. While we can see, at this stage, the possibility that reduced imports may of necessity affect employment here particularly amongst dock workers and others, we will have to face that problem. We will have to be prepared to consider whether in the over-all picture we are prepared to say that it is vital that we should reduce certain imports even if it may tend to show its effects in employment in certain respects. Nevertheless, I think that as we go along and consider this picture that the improvement effected in other respects might be such that we might be able to close the leak that has been opened in employment.
The Minister did say that it was essential that everyone should show an increase of 10 per cent. in output. That, I believe, is the whole problem and in that regard I would like to draw the Minister's attention to some matters. From whom does the Minister suggest that we should get that 10 per cent. increase in output? Let us first of all consider what has been discussed at length in this House this morning, namely, the question of agricultural output in so far as it relates to the adverse trade balance.
It is quite true, as the Minister stated, that through savings, compulsory savings as it were, we accumulated during the period of two world wars considerable amounts of money by way of external assets. We know that if it had been possible for people to spend that money during those periods our reserves might not be in the strong position in which they are. Nevertheless, the fact is that we have these holdings and we cannot forget that in discussing this problem. We have this deficit of £25,000,000 in 1955 and that is a big problem with which we have to deal.
The main question is that of exports against imports and we know that in future this is going to be a more serious and a graver problem in so far as the market which is open to us is more highly competitive than it had been. That position had been referred to by the Minister for Agriculture when he drew attention to a point omitted by Deputy Aiken. That was that our investments had shown a very serious depreciation overnight. The question according to Deputy Aiken is whether we should keep our reserves in Great Britain as large and as high as they are. We know what happened when the pound was devalued in Britain in 1948. That is something which we will have to try and solve.
At the present time, we may be a little removed from it. What the Minister stated is a matter of great importance also—that this year while, owing to the import levies, imports had shown at least some small reduction, there had not been an increase in production. I think it is tragic at this stage that there has been a decline in exports to the extent of approximately £4.5 million notwithstanding the efforts of the Government in relation to agriculture. I believe that Deputy Aiken should have concentrated more on what will be the policy of the Opposition Party in relation to agriculture. Whatever about Deputy Corry, some statement from Deputy Aiken on this matter might have been well worth listening to.
In relation to agriculture, Deputy Corry has told us that as a result of the action of the present Minister for Agriculture the poor farmers have suffered. Deputy Corry, however, made no mention whatever of the statements made by so-called important agriculturists down the country when they suggested or advocated that farmers should withdraw their savings from the Irish banks and invest them in Britain. According to Deputy Corry the farmers have nothing in the banks. People down the country say they have the money in the banks but the Deputy argues that they should not co-operate with this Government. As long as we get that type of treachery, we cannot hope to get increased production from agriculture.
The levies announced by the Minister yesterday are aimed to meet the present situation. The imposition of these levies may affect employment, but we shall have to try to meet any difficulties that may arise. The fact is, however, that over the past years our farming industry has not given us the return that it should give. I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned.