I beg to move:—
That the Seanad regrets the unhappy auspices under which the Shannon Electrification Scheme has been launched, and hereby records its considered opinion that the success of the undertaking and the general interests of the State will be best promoted by a recognition on the part of the Government of the right of the workers engaged to rates of wages at least sufficient to provide themselves and their families with the indispensable necessaries of civilised life.
I feel that I am at a considerable disadvantage in moving this motion from the fact that the responsible Minister is absent and that there is no representative of the Government at all present. Nobody regrets more than I do the necessity for moving such a motion. From the very inception of the Shannon Electrification Scheme the Labour Party gave it its blessing and its unqualified support. We have no regrets for that and we would enthusiastically do so again under similar circumstances. We admired the ability of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in piloting the Bill through both Houses and we ventured to express our admiration of that ability. I am sorry to say that the idol has turned out to have feet of clay and while we may compliment him upon his ability we certainly cannot congratulate him upon his statesmanship. We had looked upon this in a particular way as a measure of our own, so to speak. We felt that it was the first great scheme of national reconstruction and one that would have far-reaching, vital effects upon the commercial, social and economic development of the Saorstát.
We had intended, if circumstances were other than they are now, to make a special appeal from the headquarters of Irish Labour to all those engaged on the work to look upon it as a national undertaking, to give unstintedly and ungrudgingly of their best, and to show what Irish workers could do towards the social and commercial regeneration of Ireland. Unfortunately the Minister has decreed otherwise and to-day we have no option but to offer all the opposition that is possible in the circumstances to the scheme as now being run and we appeal to all that is decent, high-minded and patriotic and to all who are anxious for lifting the standard of Irish life above the level of the pig-sty to say that the terms which the Minister offers to the rank and file of the workers on this job are an insult to our civilisation. This is purely an engineering job. There can be no denying that fact. Instead of taking the wages obtaining for navvies and people of that kind on engineering jobs throughout the country the Minister seeks to take the wages paid in connection with agriculture in the district.
In the first place there is little or no agricultural labour employed in that particular district. Along the banks of the Shannon they are very largely small farmers and they work the land with the help of their families. This work is absolutely different to farming. No one can say that it is work analogous to that performed on a farm. The work is absolutely different and five-sixths of the men engaged will have to be brought from a distance. They will have to leave their own homes and support themselves in the much-vaunted canteens that we heard about and then send home whatever remains to keep their families. I know that the President said that the men engaged on the work would in the main be single men. In other words, they could not afford to pay married men. These men, whatever their circumstances, must live lives of celibacy until this work is finished and at the end of that period as they will probably be unemployed they can get married. They will have plenty of time to do it. Not only is this purely an engineering job but it is being run by one of the best organised engineering firms in the world, with the result that they will be able to get the very last ounce out of every man. When you compare this work with agricultural work you compare it with the worst organised industry not only here but in any other country.
I do not think any other industry would survive for two years if it was worked in the antiquated, haphazard and careless manner in which agriculture, in the main, is worked in Ireland, for reasons that we are all aware of. The result is that the farmer is never able to get the same return from labour as an engineering firm such as this, with its perfect organisation, able to use the last minute and get the last ounce of power out of every individual employed. In addition, agriculture is at present in a particularly depressed position, and it is on such conditions— conditions which are unprecedented but which, I believe, are of a temporary character—that the contractors, on the advice of the Minister, seek to fix a wage of 32/- a week. The cost of living stands to-day 188 points over pre-war. It is only a simple calculation to see that 32/- a week now is equivalent to 17/- per week pre-war. I do not think anyone here would agree that 17/- a week on an engineering job would be a reasonable wage in pre-war days. We were told, and believed, that one result of the scheme would be that it would have a profound effect on Irish commercial and social life. If that were not so I do not think the country could afford the scheme. If it can afford the scheme it can afford to pay at least the ordinary wages paid by private employers on a similar job.
If the country cannot afford to pay the ordinary rate of wages then the country cannot afford the scheme, because a country in that condition of bankruptcy will be quite unable to buy electricity at any price or for any purpose. We are told that we are a poor country and that consequently in any Government job we have to pay wages below the standard. In effect that is what we are told. Does that argument hold when we are going to purchase the materials necessary for the job? Will it do to go to Germany, to England, or elsewhere and say to manufacturers or others: "Look here, gentlemen, we are a very poor country. We cannot afford to pay the market price for materials, but we want to give you an order to carry this scheme into effect"? Instead of getting a reduction because of our poverty, in reality would we not be forced to pay more because our credit would not be as good as would otherwise be the case?
I do not think Siemens-Schuckert have given their services any cheaper because of the alleged statement that we are a particularly poor country. The wages paid are based on the fact that the men concerned have been drawn from the land. Did anyone ever hear a more ridiculous justification for such an atrocity? After all where are the police and the Civic Guard drawn from? Are they not drawn from the land in the main? And do we pay them farm labourers' wages? Where are members of the Civil Service drawn from? Where are members of the Dáil and of the Seanad drawn from in the main, and even Cabinet Ministers? They nearly all come from the land. They have been connected with the land in one form or another and still we never take that into consideration when fixing their remuneration. We heard a lot of mawkish humbug, because that is all it is, in the circumstances, recently about a Gaelic Ireland. Instead of creating a Gaelic Ireland, it is more likely to create an Irish China. It matters little what any people do if they have such working conditions forced on them by their own Government that they are unable to raise themselves above the level of the ordinary pig-sty. That is the grand rural culture that a native Government was to create. That is what a native Government, with the help of the Gaelic language, was to do. The Minister's father was a member of the British Parliament, and I should like to visualise what he would say if this scheme was promoted by the British Government at this rate of wages. I fancy he would blush to see his son in an Irish Parliament seeking to impose these degrading conditions on Irish workers.
The Minister is terribly annoyed at being criticised. He glories in his shame, because shame it is. I notice that he has chosen to be rude and insulting to Labour Deputies in the other House because they thought fit to criticise the scheme. It seems that it only requires a Ministerial post and a university education for one to dispense with the ordinary courtesies of life with impunity. One often thanks the Lord he is not a gentleman in that sense of the word when we see the manner in which Ministers have conducted themselves in debates on this particular question in the other House. It is a pity he and his colleagues did not show the same strength of will, the same great foresight and political acumen last week when British Ministers were robbing Ireland's pockets. One danger of this attitude is that if Ministers come down very low in reply to questions on the subject, both Senators and Deputies may eventually come down to the Ministerial level. I admit it is a petty effort, but still it is quite possible, and when that happens, well the dignity of the Oireachtas will have been a thing of the past. I know it is very difficult for gentlemen with comfortable incomes to try and place themselves in the position of a family having to support themselves and get the necessaries of life out of what remains from 32/- a week after the breadwinner has provided for himself away from home.
We are inclined, I suppose, in cases of that kind to look upon workmen as the British in India would look upon the native who was intended by nature and by Providence to have his children brought up in suffering and ignorance as if that is his allotted place in life. Why should we try and visualise these sufferings? Our common Christianity tells us that all children are made after God's own image and likeness and have certain fundamental rights which no one has a right to deprive them of.
Ministers are constantly painting glowing pictures abroad of Irish conditions, and at home taking fiendish delight in saying that we are only a nation of paupers. In Italy recently the President gave an interview to the foreign Press and we could almost hear the flow of the milk and honey. He gave one the impression of places in Ireland where the streets are paved with loaves and the houses thatched with pancakes. Yet the first speech he made when he came home was a querulous lecture on the audacity of looking for the barest living wage on a great Governmental construction scheme. It is nearly time Ministers said one thing and stuck to it and not make foreigners laugh at and Irishmen weep at their antics.
In page 65 of the Report the firm say that they will offer prizes for rapid work. How are they going to do that? Here and there men are selected and are privately given 10d. an hour instead of the standard of 8d. per hour, and these are used as a sort of spur to try to get the others to give of their best at 8d. an hour. It is simply like buying a slave and bribing that slave to trade on his unfortunate colleagues. It reminds one of the ancient days when they took a man from the galleys and put him over others who were his fellow slaves. He turned out to be the greatest tyrant of all and he punished the others in a way that no other gaoler would because when men drop to a certain degree of poverty there are no depths to which they will not sink, mentally as well as physically. The Minister states that he will get all the men that are necessary. He will, but of what sort? He will get the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, the down-and-outs. The waifs and strays of humanity will always trek towards where there is excitement or anything new, but he will never get good workers at the present rate of wages to make this great scheme a success.
Already we have it for a positive fact that over a thousand men have come and worked for a short time and gone their way. They could not possibly exist or bring themselves to exist under the conditions in which they were supposed to work. Two men who walked all the way from Dungarvan, which was a sure sign that they were anxious to work, worked for a week and then trekked off the whole way again rather than stick the conditions under which they had to work. To give the whole of the men that will be engaged on the partial scheme, say 50/- a week, would only mean at the outside an additional £300,000. That at 5½ per cent. would be £16,500. The estimate of the minimum output for the driest year is 150,000 units, so that the cost of giving these men 50/- a week, to the consumer of electricity, would be one-fortieth of a penny per unit. In other words, a person using a forty-volt lamp four hours a day for every day in the year, would have to pay only 2d. at the end of the year, or 1/2d. per quarter, to meet this extra cost. If we take it on the basis of the minimum consumption estimated by the Minister for the first three years after the scheme is in operation, that is 36 units per head of the population, of 112,000,000 units, it would mean about 1-35th of a penny, and the difference in price would be, at the very most, 3d. per year to a person using a forty-volt lamp four hours a day for every day in the year. Are we to keep these men for all those years working under these dire conditions of poverty rather than pay that additional mite in the cost of electricity? That is the difference between poverty and a living wage, and are we not prepared to make that sacrifice?
We are told that as a result of the recent pact made in London our credit will be considerably improved and our facilities for floating loans very much better than hitherto. If there is any improvement worth mentioning—I fancy on that estimate made by the Minister that we could get a loan at 5½ per cent.—we will be able to get the same loan now at 5 per cent. when our credit has been so much improved, seeing that the Minister estimated that we would get a loan at 5½ per cent. even when this terrible alleged burden was hanging over our heads. The difference of 1/2 per cent. in the interest on the loan would be £26,500. That would more than pay for floating an additional £300,000 of a loan, and you could give considerably more than 50/- a week to the men concerned. The Minister, however, is evidently determined to have his victory over helpless humanity. He is determined on being the strong talkative Minister and to see this thing through to the bitter end. Personally I do not envy him a ghastly triumph of that kind. His allies will be hunger, privation and suffering. I am very much mistaken, however, if any Government will long survive a victory of that kind.
We have heard quite a lot about this wonderful diet which is supplied at 12/- a week to the galley slaves employed on the scheme. I hope Senators have read the menu card which was published in the daily Press. They will notice, if they have, that breakfast consists of bread and butter—I am told now that it is landlady's butter, a mixture of butter and margarine—and a saucepan of tea. That is the substantial fare on which these men are expected to go out to do heavy navvies' work, in many cases up to their ankles in mud, floundering on the banks of the Shannon. Then for dinner they are supplied with meat, vegetable, and potatoes. I do not say anything about that. For tea they will have, again, bread and butter, and by way of a little variety they are to have a half-ounce of jam. These are the total meals per day. Evidently in order to be able to tackle the substantial breakfast it is necessary to have no supper, so from the time they get their bread and tea they are to have nothing until the following morning when they will have bread, butter and tea again to fortify themselves for the day's work. One result of this is that some of the men are spending an additional 6/- or 7/- a week to buy extra food so as to keep themselves from actual hunger. I have heard of one man who bought as much as three breakfasts in the one day. Some of the men go into Limerick for this extra food as they do not want to be seen buying the stuff at the canteen; when they bring back a loaf they eat it privately, in the huts.
We saw a short time after the outbreak of the Civil War the menu allowed to political prisoners who had been taken in arms against the State. I ask Senators to compare that menu with the menu offered to those men who are asked to bring this great scheme into being and who are working 50 hours a week. When comparing this diet with the diet supplied to those who were taken in arms, one begins to wonder are loyalty and patriotism worth while at all. It is a very sad state of affairs that Irish soldiers led by Irish generals have no more ennobling pursuit than to lead bodies of blacklegs to steal the bread from the tables of Irish women and children. These are men who thought they were fighting for an ideal, but now that they are demobilised the Government employs them to lead blacklegs. That is the grand result of their fight for liberty.
I do not know whether there is any significance in the fact that the Minister's predecessor is the so-called Labour Adviser on this scheme. I wonder also is there any significance in the fact that one of the contractors' names has never been disclosed?
We should not forget that we have yet to get money for this scheme and I wonder does it strike the Minister that he is going to get money on more favourable conditions with peace obtaining along the banks of the Shannon than if we are in a state of perpetual war? There is a limit beyond which constitutional means will not go, and be it constitutional or otherwise, it will be the effort of all those associated with Labour to warn investors everywhere not to sink one penny in the scheme, that the scheme is cursed from its inception because of the auspices under which it was floated, and it will be the effort of Labour to make it a failure. If the Minister thinks this is not going to make any difference he can go on. It is very difficult to fight this scheme in the ordinary way, because of the fact that no trade unionists have been employed on the scheme. They have simply gone round and got people from the gutter and employed them. But these conditions will not last always. Already we have had a strike there. There was a strike there last week and we are informed that as a result of it an offer has been made to increase the wages by a few shillings. I do not know what truth there is in that. In any case the fact that we may be beaten is not going to deter us.
There are times when we must fight whether we win or not, and this is an occasion on which I certainly would prefer to be on the side of a defeated fight for the cause of humanity than on the side of the victor, the only result of whose victory will be to press down and demoralise Irish rural conditions. The scheme will be cursed by those whom poverty and other circumstances have forced to accept work on it. It will have the curse of those women and children who will have to live in poverty for the next three years because of the miserable wage paid to their breadwinners. It will be banned by organised Labour throughout the whole of its work, and under those conditions it cannot be a success. If this is what the Government can do for us I think it is time they gave the country an opportunity of seeing whether they cannot find some other Government who will do a little better. We can find £250,000 a year for the next sixty years to pay into the British Treasury, and we can find another million for the purpose of increasing by ten per cent. the compensation payable to people whose property was destroyed. We can find all that money and hamper ourselves for the next sixty years, but we cannot find money to pay the men engaged on the first great scheme of national construction a wage which will enable them to buy for themselves and their families the indispensable necessaries of civilised life.
