Everything that was done was done towards achieving an excellent objective, and I stand by that objective. I am quite willing to admit there may possibly have been, in the general effort, a too rapid expansion of the building industry, so rapid an expansion that when a sudden decline comes we are faced with the problem of diverting those hitherto engaged in building into alternative productive employment. The fact is it was we who pursued that policy of house building and it is we who will have to bear the brunt of any adverse criticism of that policy. In our time we built more houses than did any other Government. We built and reconstructed more houses than any other Government. It is true that, in our effort to provide good houses, we may have overstrained ourselves. I can see economists coming along and stating that is so. It is open to any economist to come along and say that we might have done better and established a sounder foundation had we diverted more of the money spent on housing into building up productive industry.
It is all very well to talk about building up industry. When we came into office originally there were very few industries here and, when we started out to develop industry, we were attacked by the Opposition and we were told that the development of industry was not in the farmers' interests. We believed it was then and is to-day in the farmers' interests to have manufacturing industries built up here. They provide the farmers with a market for their produce and they provide occupation for those members of the family who cannot hope to remain on the land. The two are interdependent. The development of our agriculture and the development of our manufacturing industries ought to go hand in hand.
It was relatively easy at the beginning to establish industries. We had the cream to skim off. Now we have reached the situation in which the cream has been removed and so the situation is somewhat more difficult. But, as a result of our industrial development, we have doubled the numbers employed in industry during our period of office. That is a good thing for the country. It has been said that the people are leaving the land. I do not think that we could have prevented that by any process. Every person employed in industry to-day means one less forced to emigrate.
We have to buy from outside those things which are needed for our development here and we have to produce here the things that will buy the imports we need—the capital plant and the raw material. We have two ways in which to do that. We can do it through the medium of our agricultural exports, which offer the biggest and the best hope, and we can supplement those by our manufacturing industries capable of producing goods for export. We need both. It is no use maintaining we can have one without the other. I believe, as I have always believed, that our agricultural industry is a fundamental one in conjunction with those manufacturing industries which can be based upon agriculture. These are the most valuable in our particular economy. They are the most economic forms of production and provide the best security in time of danger because there will be no necessity to import raw materials from outside. But we cannot depend upon these alone. We want the others as well.
We came into office with the hope that we would be able to develop production in the agricultural industry to start with. I have no doubt about it that we can do that. With a little bit of co-operation and effort and understanding on the part of our farming community we can increase by 50 per cent. the agricultural output from our farms. If we treat our grass lands properly we shall be able to increase our cattle and sheep population up to 50 per cent. I have no doubt about that.
We are continually being asked, as the former Minister for Agriculture asked, what is the use of increasing production unless you can get a remunerative market for your products. It is necessary to secure these remunerative markets, and a study of the possibilities of expanding our markets is as important as an all-out effort to try to increase production from the land. In saying that I am not saying that we should wait for that alone. I am not one of those who says that increased production must necessarily lead to lower returns but even if there was a reduction of prices it would have to be very big indeed to offset what could be gained by an increased volume of production.
What we are aiming at this year is to see that our finances are all right. This year the balance of our external payments is right. We do not know if it will continue to be so. We had it almost right in 1954 but in a year or two the situation very quickly changed. We had an adverse movement in the terms of trade and other things which brought about a deficit, and the same thing could happen again. The Minister for Finance was not manoeuvring about his Budget position for next year but he was pointing out to the members of the House and to the country the fact that, because we have obtained a balance this year, it is not to be taken that we will be able to do so next year.
My opinion is that we are not out of the economic danger in which we found ourselves. We have to proceed with the greatest caution. There are no sums available for the Minister for Finance to give for relief works as he has been asked to do. We simply have not got the money. It is not available.
When people talk about the subsidies they forget that money for subsidies has to be got in increased taxation, and increased taxation is detrimental to the probability of increased activity in industry.
There has been a reference to the withdrawal of the subsidies this year and it was said that I had promised that there would be no change in the subsidy position. What I said was that Deputy Norton, and others like him who were attempting to arouse certain fears, were not right. I had no intention of removing the subsidies; neither had I the intention in 1952 of changing the subsidies. We were up against the grim necessity of having to do it—the same type of necessity which Deputy Sweetman uses now to justify his action in putting into operation measures which reduced our imports.
We had to abolish the subsidies, otherwise we would have had to get the money by increased taxation. One Deputy spoke about the shilling by which social assistance payments were increased. The fact is that £9,000,000 would have to be provided if the subsidies remained. That meant £7,000,000 from the point at which withdrawal of the subsidies became effective. There was a reduction of £7,000,000 in the subsidies this year but we tried to make matters easier for the poorer sections of the community. We did try to help them and we were sorry that we could not do more. We gave back £2,000,000 out of that £7,000,000 which reduced the saving to £5,000,000. If we had given more, that saving would have been still less.
We did that to a very substantial extent when the same issue arose in 1952. In 1952 the position was that the people in whose interest these things were done saw what was taken off but they did not see what was given. When we assumed office this year we were faced with a position in which the Budget for the year which has just closed, was unbalanced to the extent of about £5,000,000. A deficit in one year can be got over but the position is different if there is a series of deficits, year after year. We tried to get a balance but could not do it because the current was running against us. That current had been running against successive Governments every year on account of the increases in the public debt service and increasing costs, not due to any expansion in the services but due, for example, to increases in superannuation and increases of salaries, all of which go to add to our burden. They add to our burden to such an extent that every year the increase in debt charges alone amounts to £2,000,000, which has to be met from taxation.
Can anybody say where we could have got that £9,000,000, if subsidies had been retained? What taxation would be put on in order to get it? What would be the effect of that taxation on the people? We took the subsidies off bread and butter simply because we could not get the money to keep them on. I am willing to admit that Deputy Norton, who was a member of the Government at that time, had better opportunities of being able to foretell the financial difficulties and what financial necessity would compel us to do. It is quite possible that it was on that basis that he was making his prediction during the last general election. I do not think it was on that basis but rather on the basis of saying to the people that if his opponents were elected they would "skin" them.
I had no intention of removing the subsidies and neither had I any intention of removing them in 1952. Neither had we, as a Party, any policy or intention to do that. We did these things because they were necessary. I might as well say to Deputy Sweetman that when he came into office he did so because of promises that he could not put into operation. I shall not say that Deputy Sweetman and his Party assumed office with the intention that they would restrict imports.
Our policy, all the time, has been this—to try and get our people to build up our agricultural and industrial production. That is where the prosperity of our country is to come from. There is no other way. If you try to go in a contrary direction, if you tell the people: "Have a good time; do not worry; we have any amount of money; we can spend freely", then you are telling the people to do something which they will rue sooner or later.
The people on the opposite side who spoke so much about sacrificing enterprises to the sacred cow of sterling, or whatever it was, have been brought down to earth. They have now to go to the people and say there are no such things as these immense reserves. A large portion of them has been used— whether on every occasion wisely or not is another matter—and to that extent are no longer available. We have got to maintain reserves if we are not to get ourselves into a position in which we will have even greater unemployment and greater emigration than before.
We are trying to get the finances and economy of this nation on a sound basis. We will not do so by talk. If eloquence and so on were to solve our country's ills, there is no doubt that the eloquence of certain members on the opposite side would have done it long ago. It is not by those means we will succeed in our national task. It is by acting on the simple but very important principle that we must earn enough to meet, on the one hand, our current expenses and, on the other hand, to make provision for such capital expansion as we need. Savings, no waste, trying as far as possible to get expansion in production—these are the only ways in which we can hope to bring this country out of its present position.
I have never had any doubt about our ability here to get for our people a reasonable standard of living. We are told we are not as good as Britain. We used to hear a long time ago that we were not as good as the United States of America. At other times, it was New Zealand that was held up to us as a model. Before that it was Denmark or Holland. We have a certain area. We have a certain amount of productive land. We have a certain number of people who are producing there and it is on these that the future of the country will depend and from these that the prosperity of the country will come. I believe our resources are sufficient to give, at least to a population such as we have, a reasonable standard of living. I do not say we can have a standard as high as the highest. That depends on a number of circumstances, but I do believe that we can get the material resources for a decent living here in this country, if we set out to look for it and if we remember it cannot be all play and no work.
We must all realise—those who are engaged in production, whether they be employer or employed—that it requires a big and intelligent effort to make a country of our size and resources a country where the material resources for a happy existence can be found. I think it can. We are working towards that in a steady way. We have been told we have been doing nothing because we have not brought in here a plethora of Bills. The activities of a Government are not confined to bringing in legislation. I remember—I was not a member of the House at the time —reading of a Parliamentarian here who said that the best thing that could happen the country would be if the Dáil adjourned for six months, allowed the Executive to get after its immediate tasks and tried to see that the various services were carried out efficiently and that the programme was effectively carried out. We are trying to work in that particular way at the moment.
There must be a continuity in government. Each successive Government when it comes in finds that certain measures have been advanced to a certain point by the previous Government. For instance, it used to amuse us when we saw the Tánaiste of the day, Deputy Norton, going round opening factories and doing things that had just matured at the time but the foundations for which had been laid by the previous Minister. For example, there are schools being opened in our time that were planned during the previous Government, but this happens during every Government's term of office.
There is continuity in government. A new board of directors comes in, so to speak. Fortunately, the concern is a working concern and it continues on, either good or bad, up or down, according to the ability and the operations of the Government in office. Sometimes something happens completely outside of the Government, something they could not have arranged for, claim credit for or bargain for.
Take the example of the Agricultural Institute. I do not know what precisely Deputy Dillon had in mind. The proposal had reached a certain stage when we assumed office in 1951 and I continued it because I believe that if programmes have been planned by a previous Government, it is in the national interest to continue them unless you have definite objection to them and unless you find they are fundamentally unsound or bad. I advanced it to a certain stage. Then the forces were too great for Deputy Dillon apparently, and as a result of discussions with outside bodies and so on, he had to change the whole fundamental plan. We then found a new plan and the first thing we had to do was to make up our mind whether we would revert to the situation when we left office or whether we would take into account the position as it existed in March of this year. I felt that, whatever my own predilections or prejudices might be, it was in the national interest to get the institute going as quickly as possible, although it is not the grandiose institute Deputy Dillon spoke about with his usual eloquence when he mentioned it first several years ago. Then it was going to be the greatest Agricultural Institute in the world. I am afraid that, on the foundation on which we are working now, he would not be able to boast like that.
