Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Mar 1946

Vol. 31 No. 12

Central Fund Bill, 1946 (Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage.

An tAire Airgeadais (Proinnsias Mac Aodhagáin)

Is gné bhliantúil dár gcóras airgeadais an Bille Príomh-Chiste. Bíonn gá leis chun a údarú go dtabharfaí as an Príomh-Chiste (a) an t-airgead a deonadh i gcuntas i gcóir na hathbhliana airgeadais agus (b) an t-airgead a deonadh tré mheastacháin bhreise agus nua i gcóir na bliana reatha ach nár deonadh cheana leis an Acht Leithreasa. Mar sin is é cuspóir an Bhille seo ná a údarú go dtabharfaí as an bPríomh-Chiste (a) an tsuim a dheon an Báil sa Vóta i gCuntas i.e., £16,616,000, agus (b) iomlán na suimeanna breise agus nua a deonadh sa bhliain airgeadais seo agus nár h-údaraíodh iad a thabhairt amach faoin Acht Leithreasa, 1945. Leis sin tugann an Bille comhacht don Aire Airgeadais airgead a fháil ar iasacht agus urrúis ar bith is oiriúnach leis a bhunú agus a thabhairt amach.

Mar a chífear ó Imleabhar na Meastachán, is é an méid atá ag teastáil uainn le haghaidh Seirbhísí Soláthair na bliana seo chugainn ná £47,766,428, suim atá £3,317,960 níos lú ná an soláthar a deineadh don bhliain seo agus na Meastacháin bhreise d'áireamh i gcóir na bliana seo. Is é méid na Meastachán breise ná £918,955. Fágann san gur laghdú £2,399,005 atá i gceist gan na Meastacháin bhreise d'áireamh agus is í an chúis is mó atá leis an laghdú seo ar chostas na Seirbhísí Soláthair ná laghdú tuairim is cheithre milleóin go leith punt i gcostas an Airm.

The Central Fund Bill is an annual feature of our financial system, and is required to implement the Ways and Means Resolutions passed by Dáil Eireann and these, in turn, are based on the Supply Resolutions for the individual Supplementary and Additional Estimates and the Vote on Account. The present Bill is designed to authorise the issue from the Central Fund of (a) the total amount of those supplementary and additional grants for the present financial year which were not covered by the Appropriation Act, 1945, and (b) the amount of the Vote on Account for the coming financial year. It also makes provision for borrowing by the Minister for Finance and for the issue by him of such securities as he thinks fit.

With regard to Section 1, in the current financial year 27 Supplementary and Additional Estimates, totalling £3,918,355 were presented to Dáil Eireann and passed. Five of these Estimates, totalling £3,028,869 were covered by the Appropriation Act, 1945, and accordingly Section 1 of the present Bill authorises the issue of the balance of £889,486 from the Central Fund.

Section 2: the total of the Estimates for the Supply Services for 1946-47 is £47,766,428, of which £16,616,000 has been voted on account, and Section 2 of the Bill authorises the issue from the Central Fund of this latter amount. The issue of the balance will be covered by the Appropriation Bill, which will be introduced after all the Estimates have been considered by the Dáil.

Section 3 empowers the Minister for Finance to borrow up to £17,505,486, which is the sum of the amounts mentioned in Sections 1 and 2, and to issue such securities as he thinks fit for the purpose of such borrowing. It also provides that the Bank of Ireland may advance to the Minister any sum or sums not exceeding the amount he is empowered to borrow; this provision is necessary because, under the statute of the Irish Parliament (21 and 22 Geo. III, Cap. 16, A.D. 1781-82) under which the Bank of Ireland was established, the bank is liable to forfeit any moneys advanced or loaned by it to the Government unless the advance or loan has been specifically authorised by Parliament.

I should like now to take the opportunity of making some general remarks on the Volume of Estimates for 1946-47, copies of which have been circulated to members of the Seanad. The total sum required for the Supply Services for the coming year is £47,766,428, which represents a decrease of £3,317,960 on the provision of £51,084,388 for the current year. This latter sum includes, of course, all the Supplementary Estimates passed during 1945-46 and these amount to £918,955, so that, exclusive of Supplementary Estimates, we can regard the decrease as one of £2,400,000, approximately.

This decrease of roughly £2,500,000 on the main Estimates for 1945-46 is due mostly to decreases of £4,330,878 in the provision for the Army (this being due to demobilisation) and of £799,814 in the provision for Industry and Commerce due mainly to decreased provision for food and fuel subsidies, reflecting decreases in the landed prices of imported wheat (largely freight reductions), and a reduction in the quantity of firewood on which the subsidy will have to be paid. Offsetting these reductions there are certain marked increases on which I propose to comment briefly.

Vote 10—Public Works and Buildings —shows an increase of £129,327. Of this increase £110,000 is spread over subhead B—New Works, Alterations and Additions. The greater part of the balance of the increase is attributable to expenditure on Arterial Drainage.

Vote 27— Widows' and Orphans' Pensions—shows an increase of £200,000 due to a decision to restore the State contribution to the figure at which it stood up to last year.

Vote 30—Agricultural Produce Subsidies—is up by £125,000 due mainly to the fact that the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Fund will be available to a lesser extent in 1946-47 for relief of this Vote.

Vote 33—Gárda Síochána—shows an increase of £141,488 due mostly to higher emergency bonus (£77,000), increased provision for clothing and equipment (£29,000), replacement of worn out cars (£25,000) and barrack maintenance (£8,500) due to the extension of allowances for barrack cleaning to provincial centres. These increases are offset to an extent of £32,000 consequent on the disappearance of the Local Security Force.

Vote 41—Local Government and Public Health—is up by £108,411. The bulk of this increase is accounted for under (a) treatment of tuberculosis (£48,000). (b) grants under the Housing Acts (£20,000), (c) grants to local authorities for the provision of special accommodation in households where a member is suffering from tuberculosis (£30,000). This latter item is consequential on the Housing (Amendment) Act, 1946, which recently passed through the Seanad.

Vote 56—Transport and Meteorological Services—is up by £132,511. Increases under this Vote are only to be expected having regard to the Government's policy of the development of air transport facilities. The main increase is in respect of constructional works on runways, etc. Other increases are due to staff charges and increased grants for harbour works.

Vote 61—Posts and Telegraphs— shows an increase of £181,410, due mainly to increased emergency bonus, additional staff charges to meet the continued upward trend of Post Office business, the purchase of miscellaneous stores in short supply for some years, and the provision of equipment to meet post-war engineering construction and renewal works.

Vote 62—Wireless Broadcasting— shows an increase of £112,437. To the extent of £92,000, this increase is due to the provision for a new short wave station. The balance is, for the most part, on programmes (sub-head B). Estimated receipts from the service are up by approximately £14,000 at £123,700.

Vote 64— Army Pensions—shows an increase of £201,720, of which £100,000 is in respect of Defence Forces pensions as a result of demobilisation. Of the increase of £78,000 on sub-head I— Military Service Pensions—£52,000 represents arrears of pensions already sanctioned, but not paid owing to war conditions, to persons residing outside the State—mainly in the U.S.A.

£30,000 approximately of the total increase is consequential on the passing of the recent Army Pensions Act.

The total of the increases on the various Votes, as compared with the financial provision for the current year, amounts to £1,904,256, while the total of the decreases is £5,222,216. The number of Votes on which there are increases is 52. There are decreases on 17, while two show no change. The Estimate for Supplies disappears, being amalgamated with that for Industry and Commerce, and we have an additional Estimate in that for repayment of trade loan advances.

I hope this brief review of the Bill for the Supply Services for the coming year will be of some help to Senators in showing the significance of the various figures appearing in the Book of Estimates and in establishing a proper comparison with the current year.

Micheál Ó hAodha

Is béas dúinn anso nuair a bhíonn an Bille seo os cóir an tSeanaid cead a thabhairt chun ceist a phlé a bhaineann le hairgead an Stáit agus go mór-mór le caitheamh an airgid sin. Tá beartaithe agamsa inniu cur síos a dhéanamh ar an achrann atá ar siúl idir na múinteoirí agus an Rialtas. Ar ndóigh, ní chun chur leis an achrann ná leis an searús atá mé, ach a mhalairt ar fad. Ba cheart, dar liom, an scéal a réiteach agus luaithe a déanfar é sin is ea is fearr.

It is customary on an occasion like the Central Fund Bill to raise a question of general interest regarding current expenditure. I propose to confine myself to-day to raising one question, that regarding the present dispute between the teachers and the Minister for Finance. I do so not in any way to make a special case for the teachers or indeed to plead their cause at all, but to put the matter from the point of view of the public and particularly of those interested in education and those interested in the history of the teachers themselves and their relations on the one hand with their managers, and on the other with the Department of Education.

The matter is one of great interest. First and foremost it is quite unusual. It is a quarrel between people who have no ill-will one to another, and that is very unusual in what one may call an industrial dispute and the damage done is being done to people we should hold very dear, as most precious possessions, a certain number of children in the city of Dublin, people who cannot help themselves and who have not hand, act or part in the dispute, but who will be very badly affected if the dispute is allowed to drag on. I have said that the dispute is one in which at the moment—it is only the second day of the strike—there is no ill-will whatever. The Minister for Finance or the Government generally have not the ordinary point of view of employers which as everybody who knows is generally, but not always, one of animosity to the people on strike. Now the people on strike have not the tradition of trade unionists nor any of the sentiments which frequently actuate people to strike against their immediate employers for higher wages.

What I want to put very emphatically at the beginning, and I hope to say something more in the course of my remarks on it, is that every dispute of this kind ends in a compromise, and as far as I am concerned in this, I would not like to see anyone winning an outright victory. The strike is not a strike against the State, nor is it a strike of any political significance whatever. It is merely an effort by a certain number of people to demonstrate against their paymasters who are, incidentally, not their employers. It is rather a peculiar situation. This type of dispute always ends in compromise. What I want to put to the Minister for Finance to-day is that the compromise would be better effected this week-end, so that the teachers could go back on Monday, than after the dispute has dragged on. I appreciate better than a teacher that the Minister for Finance in any Government has difficulties. He has to meet a great number of claims. In the nature of things, they are conflicting claims and he has to make up his mind how much he can afford to give to each claimant. In this particular instance, the Government need not, I think, assert, as a principle that they will not yield anything whatever to people who go on strike. I have not followed, from the inside, this whole business, and there may be things on both sides of the dispute which have led to the unfortunate circumstances which now obtain and which we all deplore. I think that a Government more than a private employer or a private person is strong enough to yield something and to settle a strike or see by what methods it can be settled. Apparently, we are now on the eve of an extensive advertising campaign which will, eventually, lead to deterioration of the situation between the parties, to hard words and bad blood. When that will have happened, the settlement, from the point of view of the mentality of all concerned, will be much worse than it would be if it were effected to-morrow or on Saturday. One can imagine no other dispute in which the mentality of the parties would be of greater importance than in this dispute, because the way in which they approach their work is all-important. It is of importance to every one of us.

I should like to stress that point-that, as between the parties to this dispute, there has been, for a long time, great harmony. We have a great many problems in our educational system of one kind or another but certain things which afflict other peoples in their educational schemes do not cause us here any trouble at all. We have a great deal to be thankful for. We have succeeded in solving in what, I think, could be described as a perfect manner any difficulties about religious teaching. The British, in the characteristically British manner, devised an undenominational system of primary education here which became a very strict denominational system and worked to the great dissatisfaction not only of the religious majority but of every other religious body in the country. At the moment, in France, the Parliament, which is also a constituent assembly, is endeavouring to draft a constitution. One of the greatest difficulties dividing the parties there is the insertion of a simple clause in the constitution with regard to freedom of religious teaching in the schools. That is a matter which we have settled. It has not been settled in England. The Catholics have a grievance there. It has not been settled in Northern Ireland, where the Catholics have also a grievance. In this State that particular aspect of our primary education and, indeed, of our secondary education, has worked very smoothly and to the satisfaction of all concerned. The teachers do not desire, nor do the managers nor the Minister for Education any change in these relations. It is because these relations are so good and because of the anomalous situation in which the teachers, while employees of the managers, have the Minister for Finance as paymaster, that the situation is a very peculiar one.

Not only do those good relations obtain, as they have obtained for a great many years, between teachers and managers of all denominations, but the same goodwill has obtained, particularly since 1922, between the Irish National Teachers' Organisation and the Department of Education. The teachers have always had access, through their organisation, to officers of the Department of Education concerned with primary education and to the Secretary and the Minister. I think that the present Minister for Education could confirm that. That has been the case all the time and it is a great pity that such a situation should be in any way disturbed, because it is a very valuable situation. Education and the work done in schools are difficult to evaluate. It is not easy to make a statistical abstract to show how much good a particular teacher, or even a set of teachers, are doing. The mentality they bring to bear on the doing of the work is of importance, and if they are working in harmony with those around them, they are bound to get better results.

There are other interesting considerations. I do not propose to go into the question of the scales offered or to advocate that they should be higher. I do not propose to deal with the general merits of the dispute. But there are matters with regard to the teachers which, I think, should be known and considered. The revolution effected by the Treaty in 1922 brought freedom to this country but, remember, it brought to the national teachers extra burdens of a very, very onerous character. The teachers were immediately asked to undertake a task of very great difficulty —a task which primary teachers are never asked to undertake in an ordinary State. That is to say, the teaching, from the very beginning, of a second language, unknown to the pupils and not spoken about the school or in the place in which the school is situate. That is a type of work which is very far from the normal work expected from a primary teacher. Looking back on it now, it seems to me that we all expected too much from the work done in the schools. Various Ministers for Education and various persons competent to judge have agreed that whatever the results of the experiment or the results of the work carried out, the teachers certainly, taking them by and large, did their best. Some of them did more than their best. Some of them accomplished results which verged on the miraculous, in my opinion, as a person with some experience of teaching. The teachers got a great deal of praise and a certain amount of blame but they never got any money. They never got any tangible reward. They got praise, very nicely put, from persons like myself down to the present Minister for Education, but they got very little in the way of tangible recognition of what they were doing. They have to do a very exacting job—a job which has become more exacting than it would normally be because of our circumstances—and they often have to do it under very difficult conditions.

The history of their financial condition is interesting. Before 1920, the teachers were extremely badly paid. I knew a number of national teachers then. They were paid quarterly and very often the national teacher in the assistant class in Dublin had not his tram fare for the last fortnight, and sometimes for the last month, of a quarter. New scales were brought in by the British Government in 1920 but those new scales did not become operative—that is to say, teachers did not reach their appropriate places in the scales—until 1922. In 1922, when these scales came into operation, the cost-of-living figure, compared with August, 1914, was, I think, nearly 200.

In 1923 or immediately after it the teachers were cut. In spite of that their real wages rose because of variations in the cost of living and other considerations. I think that their real wages reached their peak in 1931. In 1933, under another Government, a 10 per cent. cut was imposed. That cut was enforced upon teachers as well as upon civil servants, universities and various others. In 1934 that cut was restored to civil servants, but without consultation with the teachers the primary teachers were cut 9 per cent., so that they were treated in a different category from civil servants, which, by the way, is interesting when you consider the claim now being made that they are public servants. I think, in fact, that they are not. They got 5 per cent. increase in 1938. It might be interesting to consider, looking at the Book of Estimates from year to year, the proportion of the public revenue which was spent on the salaries of the primary teachers at certain dates. In 1931 they got £3,500,000 out of Supply Services which was only, roughly, £26,000,000. In 1938, when the cost of living had risen, their income had fallen from £3,500,000 to £3,113,000, but the Supply Services had risen to £32,000,000, so that they were getting substantially less. This year the figure is £4,000,000 and the Supply Services, according to the Bill which the Minister has just introduced, are nearly £48,000,000—£47,750,000.

I want to put it to the House that the teachers have a difficult existence. There is a good deal of play made with the salary that a highly efficient teacher can get but the word "highly efficient" is a variable quantity. It varies as a matter of fact in different parts of the country. That is perhaps inevitable with a system. At any rate the teachers are people who have been peculiarly treated from the very beginning of the establishment of the new State in 1922. They were given very great added burdens and they were given no added remuneration— rather the contrary. Their money wages were decreased and their real wages have been substantially decreased as well. I speak on this matter without a brief and without bigotry. The national teachers are not in any sense constituents of mine; I speak merely as a person interested in the whole question. Nobody has given more free public service than these same national teachers. Without discussing their record before the Truce or before the Treaty, if you even take the work that they have done since, their record has been very creditable. The work of encouraging the sale of Savings Certificates depended very largely upon the teachers. The work of school meals depended upon the teachers. During the war anybody who served in units of the L.S.F. or the L.D.F. will recollect that the teachers occupied a very prominent and very competent part in both these organisations and also in the Red Cross Organisation. I think the Minister for Finance will recollect that when he was Minister for Defensive Measures, the Parliamentary Secretary, then Mr. S. Moylan, asked the Dublin teachers to make a plan for the evacuation of school children in the case of bombing. That was done gratuitously and very well indeed. The teachers in spite of the fact that they were not getting from the Government or indeed from the predecessors of the Government any special consideration were always willing to do work for the State gratuitously in their spare time. That being so I think it is lamentable that from whatever reason the present situation should have arisen.

I dislike seeing in this morning's paper for example an official of the teachers resort to the vocabulary of war just as—I do not want to use any adjectives which would hurt anybody's feelings—I was shocked by the warning of the Minister for Education to the teachers if they finally rejected his offer. The Minister said, for example, that to go on strike would be a challenge to the Government. I think, Sir, that is not so. There is no challenge to the State or the Government intended at all and I think that this waving of the big stick is rather ill-advised. I think also that the Minister was ill-advised, to put it in the mildest way, to threaten the teachers that they would break their pensionable service because one of the things that the teachers learned when they went into training—one of the things which in fact we all learned—is that you should never make a threat that you do not intend to carry out or that for particular reasons, you cannot carry out. I want to suggest that the Minister for Education will not want to carry out that threat and that he would hardly be able to carry it out if he did. We all know, the Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Education included, that in the light of our history and circumstances that when people go on strike it is very difficult indeed to penalise them when a strike is over. Not only is it very difficult but it is very wrong. This is a democratic country and influences would be brought to bear—I do not mean wrong influences but influences which have a perfect right to make themselves felt —so that at the end of the dispute the slate would be wiped clean and nobody would lose pension rights. I think, on reflection, the Minister would realise that that is the case.

In much graver circumstances in the case of a strike which clearly had political implications and was not a strike for economic reasons at all, action was not taken to deprive the particular servants of the State—and in that case they really were servants of the State —of pension rights for the period they were on strike. I think it is unfortunate that threats should be used on either side. I think it was unfortunate that on either side what I would call the vocabulary of war would come into question at all. I feel that the matter should be capable of settlement. The Churches or laymen of repute in the country would interest themselves in seeing whether it is possible to settle this dispute. I should not like myself to see the teachers defeat the Government nor do I think it would be a desirable conclusion to this dispute that the Government should completely down the teachers, compel them to come along with their tails between their legs and accept what they had previously refused. I know, of course, at first blush people may think they want that to happen. I doubt if the Minister for Education wants it to happen and I do not think the Minister for Finance wants it to happen.

For that reason I suggest to the Minister for Finance that he should make one more effort to settle this matter, to settle it at once before it takes any long course and before any kind of ill-will or ill-feeling is imported into it. If it should be that he wants the assistance of anybody in that effort, he has available to him the assistance, for instance, of a number of the highest ecclesiastics, any one of whom, I am sure, would be glad to help in the matter. The teachers themselves—I do not speak for them, and I do not know precisely what they want—I am sure, would be reasonable, and would be glad to confer with him at this week-end. This week-end is vital, and the matter is capable of settlement, capable of settlement, perhaps, without any enormous expense to the State. I know that the Minister will say first and foremost that he cannot yield to a strike threat, but there are several answers to that. One is that the people now on strike are not actually State servants. They are the employees of the managers, and not direct employees of the State. If he wants a distinction as between them and real State servants, he can get it. But he can get assistance from many sources, either the best sources in the Churches or from the best type of laymen; or he can do it himself with the teachers without the intervention of anybody.

If he did that, I think he would not be charged with yielding to force; he would rather be complimented on showing a reasonable attitude in a very difficult situation which may not be all of his creation. He would also be helping to preserve a very happy and rather unusual state of affairs as between a very large set of workers, doing an onerous job, and their employers and paymasters. I suggest to the Minister for Finance that he should take a personal step in that matter with the Minister for Education, because I am sure that the Minister for Education himself, and the Minister's Department, are now—as they always were—anxious to get the very best terms for the teachers, because the better terms they could get for the teachers the better work they could get, and the more smoothly everything would go. I suggest to the Minister for Finance that he should take a personal step in that matter, and that if he does he will bring considerable credit to himself, and will not lose cast, or face or prestige. On the contrary, he will bring credit to himself, and he will have served the best interests of the country. If those interests are to be served, I suggest that it is in this particular week-end they should be served. I suggest very sincerely to the Minister, without any idea that one side should win in this dispute, that he should take such a step at once.

Professor Johnston

I must confess that, on former occasions, when I have taken part in debates at which the Minister for Finance was present I have yielded to the temptation of what is called trailing my coat. I suppose it is because both the Minister and I possess the Northern temperament. Senators know how those Northerners love one another. I must admit that when I did trail my coat I found no scarcity of "gossoons in the village" who were perfectly ready to tread on it, and amongst them the Minister was foremost.

On this occasion I propose to keep my coat on. The reason is that I am in a somewhat chastened mood. Circumstances conspired to bring me to a place called Baldoyle on Monday. My experience on that occasion convinced me that, although I possess many valuable gifts, the gift of prophecy is not one of them. Consequently, any remarks that I may have to make to-day will be made not in the light of ante-eventum wisdom, but in the light of what may be called ex-post wisdom. I borrow a term from a Swedish economist; I think that probably Senators would agree that it might be defined as the kind of wisdom to be got, from seeing the horse that you did not back pass the post. It is generally an unprofitable occupation to study a race card when the race is over, and to work out exactly the amount of money that you would have made if you had put a £10 note on this winner, and a "fiver" on the other. I do not propose to follow that kind of activity, but at the same time, if I was in an entirely frivolous mood to-day, I might point out that if the Minister, or somebody acting on his behalf, had invested the sum of £16,000,000 that we are concerned with here to-day, on "Cool Customer" on Monday last, he would have got it all back, and £4,000,000 along with it. Now, if he had done that, of course, there would have been other points of view on which his conduct might be open to question, but what I want to do to-day is to open a sort of post mortem examination of our national financial race card during the last five or six years of emergency conditions, especially in regard to price levels and the various inflationary forces, of the existence of which we are all aware.

Before going further, however, may I say that I congratulate the Minister, the Department of Finance, the statistical department, and all the other people concerned, on the production of this very valuable document, "National Expenditure and Income", which is now in all our hands, and which I am sure we are all reading with great interest and with benefit to ourselves, although, perhaps, with some difficulty in some places where the going seems to be particularly hard. Now, various inflationary forces have been operating and are operating in our midst, but I do not think that any increases in wages and salaries are important inflationary forces in our case.

I think it will be admitted, for instance, that although there has been an increase in wages and salaries in the past few years, such increases have not been to such an extent as would accommodate themselves to the rising cost of living. If salaries and wages had been increased so as to accommodate themselves to that rising cost of living, then I admit, there would probably have been another rise in the inflationary forces that are operating, and we might find ourselves worse off. However, that avenue has been closed, and I think that when the present emergency is over, anything we can do to stop the inflationary process would be a good thing, and I am sure that that will be attempted. For that reason, I do not propose to discuss any further what would have happened if there had been a substantial increase allowed in wages and salaries, or whether that would have given rise to a further inflationary process. Quite possibly, it might have given rise to further inflation.

I do not think, either, that inflation has been due to any expansion of domestic credit here. Anyone who has been studying the various banking reports in the last few years must have noticed that there has been no increase in the advances by banks to their customers: in fact, there has been a noticeable decrease in advances to customers. Therefore, I think it cannot be held that this inflationary process is due to increased wages and salaries or to undue advances by the banks to their customers. I think everybody will agree that we have a highly orthodox system of finance here in this country, but we have to examine the position in which we find ourselves, and try to ascertain the reasons for such inflation as has occurred. Briefly, the position is that we were compelled by external circumstances to increase greatly the measure of our external investments, and that increase took the form of a much too favourable balance in the case of external payments, since the value of our exports during those years greatly exceeded the value of our imports. Of course, we know that the volume of our exports diminished during that period, but the volume of our imports diminished to a much greater degree. There were, however, other factors operating, as we can see from this White Paper. For instance, we can see that the value of our invisible exports rose enormously in the last few years. Now, all that gave a balance which had to be invested abroad, mainly in England.

It might seem strange, at first sight, that the process of foreign investment should have an inflationary effect on the country making the investments. In the case of England, about 40 years ago, millions of pounds were being invested in, let us say, the Argentine Republic, but when Britain invested in Argentine securities in those days, what happened was that a certain amount of purchasing power left the British economy which meant that there was a decline in purchasing power at home and in due course the goods followed the money. The idea is that that gives rise to a deflationary process in the case of such countries, because the goods follow the money. In our case, however, the export of our goods essentially took the form of an inflationary process, because our imports and exports could not be balanced; we were exporting far more than we could import. Now, the people who were making these investments abroad regarded the receipts which they got as income, but there was an artificial restriction on imports that in normal circumstances would have come in to fill the gap between exports and imports. In our case, however, there was no section of the community which reduced its financial demand for goods to such an extent as would have enabled us to fill that gap. So, instead of, as in the case of the British and Argentine investments of 40 years ago, certain persons reducing their consumption of goods by a corresponding amount, in our case there was no such attempt to arrive at an adjustment, and the adjustment had to be made by the community as a whole by prices increasing more than incomes. Accordingly, our method of making foreign investments, absentmindedly and compulsorily, through the banks is, I think, one of the main reasons for the rise in the Irish price level.

Now, there is some difference in the position as between ourselves and Britain now and the situation that existed as between Great Britain and the Argentine in the first decade of the present century. We share the same financial and monetary system with Great Britain, and, as I said before, we make our foreign investments in Great Britain and abroad, generally, absent-mindedly. In our case, instead of the process of filling the gap having a downward effect on prices, it took the form of a change in the relationship between prices and incomes. Now, that gap between imports and exports was not due to any political prejudice but was due to political control on the part of our neighbour. The same thing would have occurred if we ourselves had been the people who were restricting the influx of goods. As a matter of fact, before the war, we had a policy here which amounted to a quantitative restriction on the inflow of goods to this country from abroad, and that quantitative restriction, I should like to point out, is something very different from the imposition of tariffs, and so on. Of course, the two are very often associated, but they are quite different in principle. In the case of a simple tariff being imposed, that does not prohibit the carrying on of trade. It does not prohibit the entry of goods into the country, and trade, naturally, will adjust itself in time, and the general amount of goods coming in will be determined by the law of supply and demand. If, however, you have quantitative control, you will have this kind of inflation, and under war conditions we have had that type of control to the n-th degree.

Now, although, politically and fiscally, we are separated from Great Britain in that respect, nevertheless, we have a kind of a Siamese Twin relationship, so far as financial and monetary factors are concerned. It would appear that we have, just as in the case of the Siamese Twins, certain vital financial and monetary organs in common. Consequently, I hold that we could not separate the two countries, financially and monetarily, without causing disaster to at least one of them.

At any rate, however, the fact that we have that Siamese Twin relationship means that any increase in supply of inflationary poison to the larger twin will mean that some of it will be injected into the veins of the smaller twin. We, however, have not been able to exercise the controls which the British have been able to exercise, so as to prevent inflationary poison from being injected into our veins. Owing to various causes, we have not been able to exercise the controls over the inflationary process that have been been exercised in England. That, of course, is not our fault, because our economy is not so highly organised as in the case of Great Britain, but I think it should be pointed out that one of the methods the British have used, and used very successfully, in restraining an increase in the cost of living, was the method of subsidising the prices of the necessaries of life. I think that their present expenditure in that direction amounts to something like £300,000,000, whereas our expenditure in that direction is only about £5,000,000, and if our expenditure had been anything like on a pro rata basis, our National Debt would probably have been higher than it is.

I think it will be generally agreed that our cost of living is 70 per cent. higher than it was in 1939, whereas the British cost of living, speaking from memory, is a matter of about 35 per cent. higher, but if there were no subsidies in Britain, the cost of living, it is generally admitted, would be nearly about 50 per cent higher than in 1939.

We might inquire, then, whether we could in any way have avoided the discomfort of our present relatively high cost of living in view of the events of the past six or seven years, and the answer quite simply would come under two heads, that we could not have avoided it with our present monetary relationship to Britain. I am not suggesting that we should cut the sterling painter or divorce the Irish pound from the British pound. I do not want to go over all the old arguments we heard during the discussion on the Central Bank Bill. As far as I am concerned, I still maintain that in the sterling parity of the Irish pound we have a valuable asset well worth preserving, but if anyone is interested in pursuing that matter I will leave him to pursue it elsewhere, or he may pursue it here if he likes. On the other hand, I do not think we could have avoided our present discomfort with our present politico-economic-ideology which is in striking contrast, sometimes, with the financial realities of our position.

In practice, our increasing sterling assets during the last six or seven years, meant a corresponding increase in the total of bank deposits, and these increasing bank deposits were constantly trying to spill over into the purchase of goods that simply were not there, and incidentally helping to boost the prices of the limited supply of goods that was there. In practice, we all know that is what happened, but, in theory, the Minister for Finance could, if he liked, have gone on a campaign around the country exhorting depositors in Irish banks to buy British long term securities, since they were not in the position to buy British goods; and if he had done that, and if the people buying these securities had, to that extent, refrained from spending money on consumption goods, then there would have been some diminution in the inflationary pressure exercised on goods in short supply by these expanding deposits.

While I, personally, would like to see the Minister for Finance holding cross-roads meetings up and down the country, because it would be a highly edifying sight, I fear that he would have run up against serious difficulties with the Censorship Department, and for one reason or another we must regret that particular method of procedure could not be regarded as practical politics, however economically sound it might have been.

If that could have been done and had been done, if our bank depositors, to the extent of tens of millions of pounds had insisted on buying long term British securities with their money they would have deflated the balance sheets of the banks, and at the same time removed from circulation a lot of the money which has been tending to force prices upwards within our economy. Incidentally, the banks would have been forced to sell British securities to the extent that bank depositors elected to buy British securities. There are technical reasons for that into which I need not go, but if there were any large scale movements to that extent, the banks would have to unload their British securities to an amount corresponding to that which their depositors wanted to buy.

Sir John Keane

Only for purchases outside the State.

Professor Johnston

I think it would take place in any event. However, as it is a technical matter it is hardly suitable for the present discussion. If that had been done, one result would have been that the proportion of domestic assets in the total of bank assets would have been substantially increased; the banks would have had to unload some portion of their external assets. In this connection, I would like to point out that once in the thirties there was some truth in the contention that the Bank of England or a central bank in any financially sound country could determine the total of bank cash, and, therefore, the total of bank deposits. That may have been true in the thirties, but in the present conditions in Britain and Ireland the depositor is the sovereign and not the central bank.

If the depositor takes his money out of the bank and decides to buy securities with it, then the effect would be to diminish the total of bank deposits to the extent which he decides to buy. Therefore, there is no use in blaming either the central bank or the Minister for Finance for any defects you find in our banking policy. The person ultimately who has the power over the banks is the bank depositor, and if he chooses to act in a different way from the way he has been acting up to the present, different results will be produced. Even now, bank depositors could, if they like, deflate bank balance sheets, and if they chose to spend £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 or £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 in buying British securities, the first effect would be that the Irish banks would lose a good deal of cash in London.

In order to replenish that cash, the banks would have to sell, possibly in England, enough securities to restore their cash balances in the London money market, so that directly or indirectly, the banks would be compelled to sell something like the same volume of British securities which their depositors elected to buy. If they did that in present conditions, with the very limited profit-making assets now held in the country, the effect on the net profits of the banks would be so serious that they would be compelled to expand domestic credit or see their net profits fading away into less than nothing and find themselves in a somewhat unpleasant financial position.

Anyone who wants to make the Irish banks expand domestic credit may do so by buying British securities, if he is the holder of a deposit receipt. When a point is reached, the banks will have to expand their domestic assets unless they are content to make no profit at all. I do not share the view that either the State or the banking system can produce national prosperity by waving a magic financial wand, but it would be interesting to see what would happen in the country if bank depositors should wave their deposit receipts in the face of outraged bank managers and I should like to see the face of my friend, Senator Seán O Catháin, if the owners of £10,000,000 or so of bank deposits did that and told him that they were withdrawing their money to buy British securities to an amount equivalent to what the bank now holds against their deposits. I do not think it is likely to happen, and I do not think Sir John Keane is likely to lose any sleep over it, but I think that if our people generally, when supplies become more generally available, should get into the mood in which they were disposed to realise their bank deposits and turn them into capital goods for the development and improvement of both industry and agriculture, we would be taking a valuable step forward in the direction of greater national production and greater national prosperity. In that connection, may I remind the House that, in the same valuable White Paper, it is estimated that, over the past six or seven years, we have had to diminish our creation of real capital in our own country to the extent of about £100,000,000, at present prices, so that there are serious arrears of capital creation, in the sense of real capital, to be made up. As soon as circumstances permit, I hope the bank depositors will be prepared to realise these bank deposits for that purpose. Whatever immediate effect that may have on the banks, in the long run it will increase the prosperity of the country and, thereby, restore the prosperity of the banks as well, while bringing about an expansion of domestic credit on a sound basis.

We have heard a great deal about the full-employment policy. Doubtless, some of us have read the various books written about that policy. I confess that I sympathise profoundly with the point of view of a book called "Full Employment in a Free Society", by Sir William Beveridge. There are some ideas in that book which might well be studied and worked out in relation to the circumstances of our own country but I think that it is not capable of being applied holus bolus to the circumstances of our own country. I am not yet in a position to say to what extent those ideas are applicable to our circumstances and to what extent they are not. Another book has been written by Mr. Marsh called "Full Employment for Ireland". He has boldly faced the problem of applying those ideas to our country. I do not want to criticise that book unduly in an assembly in which the author is unable to answer back. While I sympathise with some of his ideas, which, I think, are sound, nevertheless there are serious defects of economic analysis in it and also fantastic, inverted mathematical pyramids resting on no real foundation. I should like to take that book with a large grain of salt and I should like to study the whole matter more completely for myself before expressing final or considered views on it. Nevertheless, I think that the whole idea of full employment is one which we should approach with sympathy and understanding. I am aware of many directions in which private enterprise could extend useful production and also of certain directions in which public expenditure, even of borrowed moneys, could be made use of to expand desirable enterprises. But I am not in a position to adumbrate any comprehensive policy of that kind or to work out the relations between those two. They might be the next step in respect of which the Minister might invite the co-operation of those who are in a position to make a useful contribution.

Minister for Education (Mr. Derrig)

I defer to nobody in my appreciation of the nature and the importance of the work of our teachers. If we were to appraise their work at its true value, it would, indeed, be difficult to remunerate them satisfactorily. We have to remember that, as well as being responsible for the intellectual training of our youth, they are responsible for the formation of our children's characters to a very great extent. Many people believe that the teacher takes the place of the parent. There is no doubt that that is true to a great extent and that the teacher has the authority of the parent. He acts for the parent. The moral value of the teacher's work, therefore, gives him a very high place in our esteem. We all feel a debt of gratitude to our teachers individually, whatever we may think of the teachers as a body or as an organisation. We are not likely to forget the debt of gratitude which is due to our teachers. While it is true that, in other professions, members stand out by reason of the respect they show to authority and by reason of their recognition of the rights of others, their disinterestedness, self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, in the teaching profession the teacher has the privilege, as it is his duty, to inculcate those virtues in our children not alone by precept but by example as well. At the present time, it is, perhaps, more necessary than at other times that the obligations of persons, young and old, to others, and, particularly, to the community among whom they live, should be brought home to them. I think that we have not escaped the lowering of standards which has followed the recent cataclysm in the world and, therefore, these lessons are, perhaps, more important here now than they were formerly.

It was with a realisation of the necessity of improving teachers' remuneration so that they would be in a position to maintain that position in the public eye which was due to their profession and that they would be able to carry out their family responsibilities with dignity, that the Government authorised me to carry out negotiations with representatives of the teachers' organisation. I met the teachers early in November and made them an offer which they rejected. Subsequently, this offer was improved very substantially. A considerable amount of the substantial improvement went to benefit the women teachers. The total amount of money involved, at the end, was £1,250,000 over the expenditure on teachers' scales in 1938, or over 40 per cent. of an increase.

The position was that the teachers had been claiming full compensation for the increased cost of living. I pointed out to them that every section of the community had suffered from the increased cost of living and that no section of the community had been able to compensate itself in full for the difficulties which the emergency had brought upon it. I pointed out to them that the future was not clear, that our own economic situation was not clear, that we might very easily have a depression such as we had after the last war, that we might have an expansion and accentuation of the existing inflationary tendencies and that it was very difficult to say what basis we should have for permanent scales for teachers or, indeed, any other class. The teachers were the first class which had their case taken up in an endeavour to make a quasi-permanent settlement, perhaps to be reviewed after two or three years, but, obviously, dealing with their case involved a number of other serious questions such as the Government's attitude to the standstill policy, when that policy would cease to operate, the commitments we had in many other directions, the amount we thought the country could afford and, above all, and, perhaps, most serious of all, the reactions which the fixing of the salaries of teachers would have on the levels of employment in other professions and amongst the wage and salary-earning classes generally. In brief I told the teachers that it was not a question of what we would like to have. The Government and myself would like to treat the teachers as generously as ever we could. The question was what we were in a position to offer the teachers, having regard to these other factors to which I have just referred. The teachers asked for our final offer and they got it.

For many years before the emergency the teachers had been pressing for the restoration of the 1920 scale. The cost-of-living figure when these scales were fixed was something in the neighbourhood of the present cost-of-living figure and the Government, I think, could have made a very strong case to the teachers and the country that if the teachers were satisfied with the 1920 scales away back in the 20s, these scales should be good enough now when the cost-of-living figure corresponds to a very great extent to what it was then. We are giving them substantially more.

Mr. Hayes

Does the cost-of-living figure correspond now to the 1920 cost-of-living figure? Surely not.

Mr. Derrig

I have not the exact figures before me at the moment. It is true there was a very great increase, followed by a decrease, but at the point when the scales were being brought into operation, I think Senators will find that the cost of living approximated somewhat to our present figure.

Mr. Hayes

There is a very substantial difference, I think.

Mr. Derrig

In any case, the point is that the offer of the Government is substantially in excess of the scales for 1920. For example, at the minimum, a woman got 40 per cent. more than in 1920, and at the maximum 21 or 22 per cent. more. A married man at the minimum would get 38 per cent. more, and at the maximum 32 to 36 per cent. more. If we add in the rent allowance, they would get in the neighbourhood of 50 per cent, or perhaps even more. The Government was not, therefore, hide-bound, or was not trying to bind the teachers to accept a settlement which the teachers for many long years had claimed to be apparently something in the way of perfection. We went over and beyond that.

We have been told by those who have not taken the trouble to examine this question that we are treating our teachers very badly as compared with those on the green fields far away. As I have said elsewhere, if we take the fact that the teachers elsewhere have to pay a 5 per cent. pension contribution and a heavy income-tax in addition — very severe in the case of a single man or woman — we find our scales compare very favourably with those elsewhere. In the case of Northern Ireland, if we take away the 5 per cent. pension contribution and compare the figures on the basis of the income-tax in both areas at the current rate, we find that the women are better at all points here. Their cash income on the present figures here would be better. In the case of the unmarried men, it is true that at one point, at the maximum of the efficient teacher's scale, there may be some small difference—about 10/- a week—in favour of the teacher in the North, but in the case of the married men our teachers here under the Government's offer would be substantially better off at all points. At the maxima, that is to say at the top points of the scales here as compared with Northern Ireland, if we go on the present income-tax figures, I calculated that the income of our married teachers here would show a surplus of from £40 to £74 above the corresponding rates in Northern Ireland. The rent allowance, of course, would accentuate the disparity in favour of our teachers, that is to say an allowance ranging from £10 in the country areas to £40 in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire.

Mr. Douglas

Is that based on the income-tax as at last April or next April?

Mr. Derrig

It is based on the present income-tax rates, the rate which operates up to the 31st March of this year.

Mr. Hayes

It is going to be reduced, of course, on the 1st April in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Derrig

I agree. There is that point, but I am going on the figures as published. These figures may change and probably will change here also. They may not change entirely to the disadvantage of income-taxpayers down here.

Mr. Hayes

Is it not true that there will be a lower income-tax as from 1st April in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Derrig

It is. With regard to the position of women, the margin at the maximum between women and men teachers would be less down here under our offer than formerly. I do not know whether those who created the agitation amongst women teachers, probably with the deliberate intention of defeating the Government's offer and throwing us into this chaos, realised this—I suppose they did not take the trouble to find out—that a differentiation exists still between women and men in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. We find that in Northern Ireland a £450 woman's maximum becomes £304, taking into account the reduction for pension contribution and for income-tax, so that the £350 maximum here would be better by from £4 to £30. The difference between the actual scales for women and men in Northern Ireland is £100 at the maximum. Here it is only £30, something in the neighbourhood of half what the difference was formerly.

Now, this £1,250,000 is not to be sniffed at. It indicates a very substantial liability on the taxpayer, something in the nature of 10¾d. in the £ on income-tax, or alternatively, 1d. a pound on sugar and 2¾d. a pound on tea. I think having regard to the comparative security of teachers in their employment and the very reasonable leisure periods they enjoy as compared with others, they cannot grumble. I have not referred to the question of superannuation. Senator Hayes omitted to mention that when a 9 per cent. cut was made in the national teachers' salary in 1934 that was partially in an endeavour to right the teachers' pension fund position, which had got entirely out of hand.

Five per cent. of that 9 per cent. was restored, and the remainder, 4 per cent., was left as a pension contribution. There is no pension contribution as such now. In addition to the £437,000 which we have to provide in the current year's Estimates for superannuation, the new terms would mean a further increase. It must be remembered that that superannuation is not covenanted by contributions into a pension fund for the future. The whole amount falls upon the taxpayer in the yearly Budget, and although the amount would only increase gradually under the new terms which we offer, still, in 15 or 20 years' time it would amount to another £160,000 a year, meaning an annual liability in respect of national teachers' superannuation alone of £600,000. In these circumstances, I think we have the right to ask the teachers why they feel that they are so much worse off than other sections of the community, particularly in this City of Dublin, at the present time that they can find no way of attempting to remedy their grievances other than by strike action? An effort has been made to secure the sympathy of the public by suggesting that this strike is on a parallel with the ordinary strike of a trade union against a private employer.

Mr. M. Hayes

I made no such suggestion.

Mr. Derrig

May I suggest that there is a very important difference. In this case, there is, despite what Senator Hayes may think about it, in my view at any rate, a definite challenge to the authority of the State if the teachers, or any other body of public servants, should adopt strike action. Moreover, there is a lack of recognition of their responsibilities, of what is right, of what is fitting from what ought to be the class in the community which, above all others, to give good example and a headline in regard to good conduct and respect for authority.

Everybody knows that the working-class people of Dublin have suffered; everybody knows that their budgets have been thrown entirely out of balance; that they have had to pay very severely in very much higher prices for food, fuel, clothing, boots and for every other necessity for their families and themselves, but they have not gone on strike. They have accepted the arrangements which were made to give them an emergency bonus. Like the people who joined the emergency services, and who put the country and the interests of the country first, the working classes of Dublin, the ordinary trade union members, have accepted the position. It would be no wonder, and I think it is the position, that there is probably more resentment from the ordinary trade union members against this strike than from any other class of the community because the strike is not a strike, as I have said, against some private employer it is a strike against the community, it is a strike against the parents and against the children as well as against the authority of the State. I think that the people of Dublin are surely deserving of better treatment than this from their teachers.

When I wrote to the teachers recently after they sent me a strike notice, I pointed out to them that during the negotiations with the executive of their organisation a letter dated the 10th December, 1945, was received by me in which the following sentence occurred:—

"The executive sincerely hope that this is not the Government's last word on the matter, but should that be so, and should this offer of £150,000 represent the final effort of the Government to reach agreement, the executive desires to repeat what was stated to you in the course of Saturday's interview, viz., that the Dublin members of the organisation will be called out on strike on January 17th."

In a letter dated the 11th December, 1945, which I received from the teachers' organisation and which was signed by the vice-president of the organisation and the general secretary, the following sentences appeared:—

"We have learned with regret that a paragraph in the letter addressed to you on the 10th inst. is regarded as containing a threat to strike. That being so, we desire to state that the paragraph in question is hereby unreservedly withdrawn. We feel that in taking this action we are expressing the views of the whole executive."

In view of that circumstance, I think that when I received the letter informing me that the teachers proposed to take strike action yesterday, I was fully entitled to state that, in the light of the foregoing facts which I have just made known to the Seanad, I was quite at a loss to understand the reasons which impelled the executive of the teachers' organisation to decide on the drastic step of taking strike action which must be regarded as a challenge to the Government and as highly prejudicial to the interests of thousands of pupils, their parents and indeed to the teachers themselves. I informed the teachers' organisation that I regarded their executive's recent decision as being in direct conflict with the unreserved withdrawal of the threat to strike conveyed in their letter of the 11th December last and with the subsequent course of events.

Following upon the withdrawal of the strike threat in that letter the negotiations continued. The offer was further improved and a special congress of the teachers' organisation was held. According to the published reports, the motion that the congress reject the Government's offer, and that the members of the organisation in Dublin go on strike, was rejected by a majority. A further motion, that negotiations with the Minister be reopened, and that this matter be submitted by referendum to the members of the organisation was carried. The teachers asked me to meet them again. I pointed out to them that, both in respect of the amount of money which the Government considered should be made available, and also in regard to the date which they had fixed at the urgent request of the teachers to name a date, there was no possibility, in my view, that these decisions could be altered, but that if in these circumstances they wished to call on me I would receive them. I met them and informed them that there was no possibility of a further improvement and that the date which the Government had fixed could not be advanced. The teachers then submitted the question to a referendum of their members, and in putting that referendum they stated if a majority of the members who would vote rejected the Government's offer they would call the teachers out on strike. This action, and this development, in my view, is contrary and, as I have said, in direct conflict to the statements made in their letter of December, and to the trend of events and the negotiations that took place afterwards. If the Senator would like that the matter should be settled and that we should resume our normal work in the educational sphere, I would suggest to him that in view of the facts which I have just brought to his notice, and which he may not have been aware of, his advice and his anxieties might be more properly addressed to the representatives of the teachers' organisation than to me. As far as I am concerned, I have done everything that I possibly could, and I do not think that, at this stage, anything more can be done.

I do not think that I could take the rather easy view that Senator Hayes seems to take of this strike by the teachers. I think that when public servants are involved in such a matter as this, the Government is entitled, is fully justified, and would not be doing its duty as a Government, were it not prepared at the first possible moment to make it clear, and I have made it clear, that nothing would be yielded to the people on strike. If the Government were to capitulate on this matter, the results would be disastrous to the country. Now, what is the object of this strike? In the first place, it is a holding-up of the community to ransom in connection with a very important, very privileged, and very sacred sphere and is therefore an action which we must all resent. It is also, undoubtedly, a threat, a form of compulsion upon the Government, to force it to give terms that the Government is not prepared to give on such a full, conscientious and careful examination of the whole question as it has made for several months. This is the biggest blow that the teachers could have given. The only further thing that they could have done would be to bring out all the teachers in the country as well as in the city. Had they done that, I do not think the strike would have lasted very long.

The Government cannot close its eyes to the fact that the country members of the organisation are subscribing to this; that they have been asked to build up a strike fund, and that, apparently, the intention is, or was, to try to bring elementary education in this city to a standstill and carry on this strike for an indefinite period. I do not know how Senator Hayes or anybody else can think that the Government should yield to that kind of action. If the Government were to yield to it, there would be nothing but very unfortunate happenings in store, not alone for the citizens of this city, but for the country in general. The most saddening part of this whole thing is that conscientious teachers who have tried to do their duty always, have been forced into this action or into sympathy with this action through a misguided sense of loyalty to their organisation. They have been forced into this, and, as a result, have spent many anxious and sleepless nights. This action has been taken as a result of the activities of a small but very active minority of the teaching body, and I think it is most unfair that such conscientious teachers as those to whom I have referred should be forced into courses in which they do not believe, which they abhor, and which they regard as being against their own best interests, the best interests of the country, and certainly against the best interests of the pupils. I believe that if the strike continues, public opinion will turn against the teachers and they will lose in the long run.

Damage, of course, will be done to the children, but I hope that we will be able to repair that in time, but it is the teachers themselves who will lose most, and I think it is very regrettable that those members of the organisation who are against this strike will have to contemplate losing along with the small minority who evidently were bent upon this strike so long as they could not get everything they want. I say that it is regrettable that the majority should lose because of the action of an active minority, because once this thing has started it must be fought out.

If there is going to be a fight, then there has to be a fight, and surely no Senator will believe or suggest that the Government is not fully entitled to take every action that it reasonably and legally can take to end this strike as soon as possible and to bring the teachers to a realisation of the danger and the damage that it is doing. If the strike continues the situation can only become worse. I think that, having made their protest, having called their members out on strike, the teachers' organisation, if it were wisely led and wisely directed, would now take the opportunity to ask their members to go back because I think that everybody realises that there can be no question of beating the Government in this matter.

Senator Hayes seems to foresee some kind of settlement taking place. I cannot foresee that. I could foresee the teachers coming back, as the Senator himself suggested, in the early days of the strike, when we could look at matters more calmly. The alternative is that the strike will continue indefinitely. Why? Because a small but active minority has precipitated this position, has agitated amongst the women teachers and suggested to them that they were not being treated justly as compared with the men teachers.

Now, as regards the numbers involved in the strike, a large number of schools will remain open. Already, yesterday, nearly half of the schools in the city remained open, and that number will continue and will increase. Ninety-nine schools remained open and 116 were closed.

Mr. Baxter

Was there any teaching?

Mr. Derrig

Almost half the number of pupils were attending also—something like 32,000 out of 66,000: that is in the national schools of which I have particulars. Now, with regard to the number of teachers who have gone on strike, I do not believe in threats, but, being a friend of the teachers and anxious to end this strike, I want to tell them the truth, and the truth is, that when teachers go on strike they bring their service to an end arbitrarily, they repudiate their obligations and, therefore, they also bring to an end their salaries and other emoluments, and all grants and benefits. That is the actual legal position. There is no question of a threat there when I make that statement; it is the actual legal position, and it will probably require legislation later on to remedy that situation.

I cannot see the Government, after a protracted strike, when all the arguments and all the facts have been against the teachers, and when public opinion generally is also against them, taking measures easily—just because somebody raised the question in the Seanad or the Dáil—to right that situation.

Mr. Foran

It would be very unfortunate that the matter, having been raised here, should be allowed to rest here. The Minister appears to think that trade unionists generally are not on the same plane as teachers. Well, it is a fundamental principle among trade unionists, "my comrade, right or wrong", so that he need not build very much on those influences, or think that he is going to get any support from the trade union movement in the matter.

It is unfortunate, in many ways, this strike has occurred. The greater sufferers in this dispute will be the unfortunate children, who should be attending school. Many of them will miss severely the school meals they have been accustomed to getting. Neither the teachers nor the Government will have to go hungry, no matter how long the strike lasts. That aspect of the situation weighs much more with me than the justice of the teachers' claims or the determination of the Government to stand fast and not to yield an inch on what they have already.

The attitude of the Government compares generally to the attitude which I have often encountered during a strike —"not an inch"—"this is our last word"—"the strike is unjustified"—"this thing is uncalled for"—"the great majority of people are not in sympathy with you"—I have heard it a thousand times, and because of the determination of the employers in these matters, strikes have been unduly prolonged, but there has to be a settlement, no matter how long the strike continues.

I said in the beginning that it would be very unfortunate if the matter raised in the Seanad would be allowed to rest as it is. I thought I saw a very slight gleam of hope and a suggestion towards a settlement with everyone's honour preserved in the matter, because when a strike of this nature occurs, principle and honour loom much bigger than the wages or the money involved, and to ask the teachers to yield, or give way now is not likely to meet with a response.

When the Minister said that in the event of the teachers returning to their jobs, I thought I heard him say or indicate that the door to further negotiations was not yet shut. I wonder if I am wrong in that? If that is the attitude of the Minister and I hope it is, in the interests of all concerned, I see a great chance of an honourable settlement for all concerned.

I do hope that the Minister will seriously consider that. If these people were impetuous, whether they are right or wrong does not alter the position. They are well supplied with funds and apparently they are quite determined to continue their struggle. They have the backing of their colleagues. But, unfortunately, our children in the City of Dublin will be the sufferers.

Consequently, if I am right in interpreting the information of the Minister, it is that in the event of these people going back to their work the door was not closed to further negotiations. I would be very glad to hear that there is a possibility of settlement on these lines. Apparently the Minister is not prepared to commit himself, and I do not expect him to, but I see every hope of settlement if that were done.

To come back again to the measure immediately before us, I do not suppose we can say much more after what has already been said. Reading the report of the debate on this Bill in the Dáil, one could not help being struck by the effect of an article in the Irish Times on the Minister for Finance. It is extraordinary how an article in the Irish Times generally affects Ministers of State, even the Taoiseach, who is usually very placid and calm. He gets all hot and bothered if there is a critical article in the Irish Times one morning. What is the matter at all? It may be true to say that in these times a great number of people are looking up to the Irish Times but in fact what is happening is that they are availing themselves of a valuable free service. The Irish Times clock is reputed and is generally regarded as one of the most accurate clocks in Dublin. The Minister is alarmed if people are standing around the Irish Times, but if he looks carefully he will see that they are simply winding their watches, and I think that the influence of the Irish Times does not go very much farther than that between the office and the Ballast Office corner on the public in general.

When the Irish Times takes a very independent and free view of matters political and national and so on, to that extent it serves a useful purpose, and I commend the Minister to take the matter calmly. They are not going to affect the national position here very much. But the Irish Timers in the Six Counties apparently are changing their opposition and their hostility on the boundary question. Hitherto, they relied entirely on bigotry and venom, masquerading under the guise of religion. Apparently, that is no longer capable of holding the masses of the working people in the Six Counties, and if we judge by the pronouncements of responsible Ministers and responsible people in the Six Counties, they have switched over to the economic differences between the Six Counties and the Twenty-Six Counties. They are on very much safer ground there because the comparison between their social services and ours is very much against us, and certainly nothing is less likely to induce the people in the North to come in here than that comparison. I have spoken from time to time to a considerable number of working men who are just as good nationalists as we have down here, but are practical people, and their answer to me is usually: “In the name of God, how could we go in there and sacrifice all we have here in social conditions?” Let us look at just a few of them. Unemployment benefit here is 15/- a week for six months, 7/6 for a wife and 2/6 for his child. For a woman it is 12/- a week. Under the new scales to operate in the Six Counties very shortly, a single man will get 26/- a week while a married man with a wife working will get the same. A married man with a wife dependent will get 42/- a week and a married woman who had been working will get 20/- a week: adult dependents, 14/- per week; first child, 7/6 per week. Under the National Health scheme, single men receive 26/-; married women, working, the same amount; married men with dependents, 42/-; married women, 16/-; adult dependents, 16/-. We come down to the old age pensions. We pay 10/- a week at 70 years of age. Under the new scale in the Six Counties, old persons receive 26/- a week at 65 years. So on through the whole gamut of social services.

Mr. Baxter

What are they receiving now?

Mr. Foran

In every instance, the social services down there are better than ours. Consequently, to my mind, the great barrier in the immediate future to the removal of the boundary will be the comparative social services. The people of the Six Counties are taking advantage of the Labour Government. I seriously suggest to our Government that, as we all want this boundary removed, the thing to do is to build up a social service system in this end of the country which will be equal to, if not better than, any in the Six Counties. The people there who formerly relied on bigotry are now relying on economics and there they are on much safer ground. I hope that the Government will take serious notice of that position and remedy it at the earliest possible opportunity. If that is done, then the last barrier to coming in and making this a 32-county republic will be removed.

Mr. Baxter

You little understand the Six-County people.

Mr. Foran

I know a good deal about the mentality of the working-class down there.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Is the right to vote a social service there?

Mr. Foran

A lot of good voting does us here. Under the county manager system, we have the right to vote but nothing else. Another aspect of our social economy to which I want to draw attention relates to the agricultural labourers. These people served the country well both in the Defence Forces and in the emergency forces. They provided food during the emergency when it was urgently needed. They are the lowest paid workers in this or any other European country. Some of the Asiatics might be worse paid than they are——

Sir John Keane

Would the Senator be more precise? He refers to "any European country", which is a big claim to make. Is he certain of that?

Mr. Foran

The Senator wants figures.

Mr. Baxter

Senator Foran should trot across and see how labourers are paid in some European countries.

Mr. Foran

We would not have many agricultural labourers here if they were free to leave.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The Senator would have to exclude the Balkans from his statement.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. McGee)

Senator Foran should be allowed to proceed.

Mr. Foran

The time has come when an improvement should be made in the conditions of those people, if we are to justify our claim as a Christian country. When speaking, Senator Johnston mentioned Beveridge. I am surprised that he never heard of Dr. Dignan. The Senator also mentioned other English writers on social services. The Bishop of Clonfert, Dr. Dignan, put forward a plan of social services for this country and, as a result, he lost his job. In a recent Pastoral issued by that Bishop, he shows the way to prosperity in this country. We have to resist what is going on in the Balkans where the liberty and the freedom of the subject are being bartered for monetary gain. We want to preserve individual freedom. Dr. Dignan says that we could employ many more people and that, if we do employ them, we should pay them a wage which would give them a reasonable standard of living. That is real prosperity. I cannot sit down without referring to the recent wails of the new plutocrats—the members of the Federation of Irish Industries.

Mr. Hayes

We had that all day yesterday.

Mr. Counihan

We heard about that——

Acting-Chairman

The Senator must be allowed to proceed.

Mr. Foran

Interruptions do not affect me. If they want repartee, they can have it. These people owe their position of prosperity entirely to the policy of the present Government. They are now complaining that the Government is taking too much off them in the way of super-tax and corporation profits tax. It is just possible that the Government may make concessions to them in the Budget. I have a few suggestions to make as to how those concessions might be made and under what heads. Number 1—I would allow them relief if they reduced the price of their commodities. Number 2—I would allow them relief in respect of every additional worker they bring into employment at a decent standard wage. Number 3—if the Minister would only withdraw the standstill Order, I think the position would automatically settle itself. I do not think there is much more that I want to say in the matter. I suppose I have occupied too much of the time of the House already but I hope that, when the Budget comes along, we shall see an effort made to enshrine in the administration of this country a social service worthy of it.

Mr. Douglas

I think that Senator Hayes performed a very useful service in raising this question of the teachers' strike. I have a good deal of sympathy with many of his remarks although I do not agree with them in every respect. I also have a great deal of sympathy with the remarks made by the Minister in his reply although I do not agree with them either in their entirety. It seems to me that any debate that takes place here in the present situation will not do any good if it is concentrated either in approval or detailed disapproval of the stand taken by the Minister or the teachers, and if it is not designed to see whether it is possible to provide a satisfactory and proper method of bringing that dispute to an end. It is about 25 years ago since I found myself in the position of being invited to try to get in between the then Government and the postal workers on strike. I was foolish enough to try but I vowed afterwards that I would never do it again and I never have.

The speech of the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs could almost be a paraphrase, except in so far as the figures were concerned, of the speech of the Minister for Education to-day. I probably then agreed with the general principles set out in that speech, just as I agree with the principles generally set out by the Minister to-day, but the fact remains that the small children of this city are going to suffer, not only for the moment, but, if this dispute is prolonged, suffer a serious break in their education. One can only hint at the moral effect of a situation like that on the children. Therefore, it seems to me that we should not talk too much about abstract or theoretical principles in this matter. I do not want anything I say, at the same time, to make it appear that I in any way support or approve of strike action against the Government by a number of public servants.

It seems to me that Senator Foran really hit the nail on the head. Some persons or a group of persons—possibly a few members in this House representing different Parties—might make an appeal to the teachers, without prejudice or without expressing an opinion either for or against what they had done, in the interests of the small children in the city to go back to work again and go on with their teaching. At the same time, they might ask the Government, with or without certain independent persons, to reopen the discussion and to see whether an effort could not be made to bring about a settlement.

The figures given by the Minister seemed to me to be faulty in certain respects. I mention this in passing, because just listening to them I am not in a position to criticise them in detail. I did look up the abstract of statistics and the figure given for the cost of living in 1922 was 189 as against 290 now. I think the Minister also indicated that while the pay of teachers in Northern Ireland was not something that should necessarily be copied here, it was something that was at any rate relevant. In view of the fact that we shall have a new Budget here shortly and that we shall know what the rates of income-tax are to be for the coming year within four or five weeks' time, I think it well to point out that the whole basis of comparison may be altered within that time. It might be that the case made by the Minister could then be more sympathetically considered and that the whole position could be revised. I only mention this as one reason why an effort should be made to have the schools reopened pending a reconsideration of the whole matter without any promise implied or agreed to in advance.

I do not think that the Minister's speech, strong though it was, closed the door against any action. 25 years ago my first difficulty was to persuade the postal workers that they were public servants and that they should go back to work so that the matter could be considered. Eventually they agreed to go back to work. They were assured, of course, that there would be no victimisation and that if necessary legislation would be introduced to ensure that their pension rights would not be interfered with. Later a commission was set up to inquire into working conditions in the Post Office. Certain improvements were suggested and were later carried into effect but that was not brought about as the result of the strike.

I think the situation at the present time is not dissimilar. It is one which it should be possible to remedy. I feel that there are people perhaps here and outside, probably with the assistance of the Church or a combination of the different managers, who are prepared to make an appeal on those lines which might bring about a reopening of the discussions. The question could be re-examined after the Budget has been introduced and comparative figures on which the Minister relies very considerably could be prepared regarding the position on the other side of the Border and here.

It is very tempting to follow Senator Foran when he looks over the Border. Far off fields look green and to the Senator the fields in the Six Counties look very green but I do not think the problem will be solved by means nearly so simple as he suggests. So far as I am concerned this is the main point about which I want to speak. I believe it is not going to be by competition in social services that you can settle that or any other problem. To have no unemployment assistance because there are no unemployed and to have to deal only with sickness— that is the goal to aim at, not a competition between social services. If the Government of the Six Counties succeed in maintaining a 90 or a 95 per cent. employment, they are going to beat us to it and that is going to have political repercussions more far-reaching than any comparisons on the lines dealt with by Senator Foran.

I felt a good deal of depression in listening to the Minister's introductory statement. He drew our attention to certain increases and I think he estimated a net decrease, after setting off one item against the other, of £2,500,000. Even in that he was a bit optimistic because he took credit for Supplementary Estimates apparently on the assumption that there would not be any Supplementary Estimates in the next 12 months. To anyone who looks at the legislation promised and expected, it is perfectly obvious that there are going to be Supplementary Estimates and lots of them during the next 12 months. I doubt very much whether we can go on simply piling up taxation without at the same time increasing production and wealth. In fact I am certain we cannot. To find that at the end of the world war we can estimate for only a reduction of £2,500,000, so far as the present year is concerned, without any prospects of increased production, is a very serious position and it is essential that we should face up to it now.

We were discussing the position of the teachers a short time ago. If you are going to pay them what they demand, or a substantial amount of it, then it will have to be found by extra taxation, by savings or by cutting somewhere else. It is quite likely that the case could be made that education is of such importance that you should pay the teachers more and do without something else. In fact, that is my own personal view, but the point is that you will have to do without something else. If, however, those who are not in the Government, those who are generally in opposition to the Government, are not prepared to face up to the fact that in order to give the teachers more you must cut something, then I do not know how you are going to get the Government to do it. We have to be led by the Government of the day, not only in this House but in the Dáil. Finance is the affair of the Executive, and I know that under any democratic system it must be a matter essentially for the Executive. In that situation, I do not see very much hope of the present Government coming along with a scheme for cutting. If the Government were prepared to do that the matter is one that might be considered this year by an expert non-Party committee, one which would consider not simply the question of cost, but rather the question as to whether there could be an overhaul of our machinery so that we might be able to work on a less expensive basis.

The State is, in many respects, similar to a large business. If a business is going to be successful there has to be an examination of its position from time to time. A very clear distinction has to be made between expenditure which is simply expenditure, and expenditure which clearly and definitely will bring in income. I do not think that we here can, at the present time, afford large-scale expenditure except for the purpose of increasing our productive capacity and our national income. I think that we will have to make up our minds that all large-scale expenditure will have to be cut until, first of all, there is income to meet it. That is going to mean a good deal of revision, a matter on which I will have something to say later.

Senator Foran made some rather good suggestions for cuts in income-tax, presumably for the benefit of manufacturers. I think that, in the form in which he put it, his proposal was rather impracticable, but, at the same time, I am inclined to agree that he was rather on the right lines. He said that he would cut the income-tax payable by the very objectionable people who happen to be manufacturers, and who are such great supporters of the Government that they get everything out of it. I happen to be one of the members of the council. I have never supported this Government at any time. Possibly, that is an accident that could not be explained by Senator Foran but, at the same time, it happens to be true. There was something in what the Senator said, only that it was in the reverse order. High prices are, to a considerable extent, due to high taxation, and want of employment may be, and I think is, due to a considerable extent to certain types of taxation, not simply high taxation but rather the form which it takes. I say here in public that any firm that proposed to start a new industry at the present time with the present rules with regard to corporation profits tax, and excess corporation profits tax, would simply be one composed of lunatics. They simply could not make it pay. They could not lay aside enough to write off the capital or to pay even the tiniest dividend. While you have these taxes in their present form, and the rules governing them, you cannot have new developments. I am quite convinced of that.

Sometime ago I went into that question in detail in the course of a long speech here. I am not going to repeat the arguments I used then, but I would ask the Minister for Finance to consider carefully whether he might not be able to substitute a carefully thought out and properly devised tax on industry to take the place of income-tax, corporation profits tax, and excess corporation profits tax which exist at the present time. The points that I set out in detail in that speech did not, I am afraid, create very much interest in the House at the time, but I do know that they did create very considerable interest outside, and that the views which I then put forward have the support of a very large number of thinking persons, certainly so far as the principles advocated are concerned. I would urge on the Minister that these should be considered by him. The Minister's predecessor almost always came to this House and warned us about the danger of high taxation and of how objectionable it was. He warned us of the danger of more and more spending, but he never did a single thing about it except to say that he objected to it. I hope that the present Minister will be found in a more happy position than his predecessor in that regard.

Even if, as we hope, the present Minister for Finance is able to make some reductions in taxation in the Budget this year, I will be amazed if those reductions are in any way commensurate with the increases which are going on under local taxation. It does not matter twopence to a business man, a manufacturer or a private individual whether the tax he has to pay is called rates or income-tax. People running a business must be able to say what it is costing them to run it. The same is true of the manufacturer. It does not matter to them under what head taxation has to be paid. What does matter is that it has to be paid by somebody or the business will go west. I believe that there is a reasonable prospect—that it is better than it was before the war—for the development of a limited amount of sound industrial business in this country, including an export trade. That cannot be done, however, if the overheads here, as a result of State action or the action of local bodies, are made so high that the costs are known to be excessive before a start is made.

With regard to local taxation, I think that the position is bad from two points of view. It is bad, first of all, because it is now too high. That is a matter that I could dilate on for hours. It is also bad because the responsibility is not properly understood. It has been stated that there is going to be an increase this year of 2/6 in the £ in the rates in the City of Dublin. I would like very much to know how much of that is due to the action of the Oireachtas, and how much to the action of the Dublin Corporation? I am told, for instance, that the increase is largely due, first of all, to wage bonuses which were given as a result of action approved of by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Minister for Finance to-day thought fit to draw attention to State expenditure on public health. I think he gave the figure of £108,000, but in Dublin alone the bill for public health this year shows an increase of £146,000, which, I am told, the corporation has not the power to alter.

In the case of the board of assistance, over which they have no control now, as there is a commissioner in charge, I believe there is another big increase; and even in the case of the Cork Street Hospital, in which they have no representative now, and where there is another commissioner, there is an increased demand. The point is that if a large increase in local taxation is not the responsibility of the local body concerned, then I suggest that in the interests of local government generally, the rates should be divided into two: that when a rate is struck in Dublin or anywhere else, it should be divided into halves, one half to be provided by the Government and the other half to be voted by the local authority concerned, because then the voters can put these people out if they see that they are not administering the affairs of the local body efficiently. I think that would be a good and a healthy thing. I think it would be well that people should know what is being done by those who are supposed to represent them, over and above what is being done under our present financial system, and I feel that that could very easily be introduced as a common form.

In conclusion, it may be said that I have advocated a reduction in expenditure, but have not suggested any way in which it could be brought about. I should like to say, however, that I believe that the general line in which we are advancing, towards more and more centralisation, is wrong. I do not believe you can ever effect real economies until you decentralise, and bring it more and more home to the people responsible that they are governing themselves; and if they want to govern themselves badly, then let them do so. I do not think that you will get a really self-sufficient, self-respecting Sinn Féin, in the best sense of the word, local body, if you try to govern everything from Dublin. Let us take the case which frequently occurs now, where the Minister or his Department takes action to abolish a local body. Of course, we can all agree that there are cases where that is necessary, but I hold that if that does take place it should only be done after the holding of a public inquiry. I may be asked why. My reason for saying so is that I firmly believe that the people who elected that body should know why it is being abolished and should have one year, at least, in which to vote these people back or throw them out. But the responsibility should be on these people and public evidence should be produced as to why the members of the local body concerned had not been doing their work. In that connection, I think it was stated by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health that if he had not the power to do so, the local bodies would not vote the rates which had to be levied by Statutory Order. Well, I think that my earlier suggestion would cover that. I think that if Kerry wants a county council, if Cork wants a county council or if Cavan wants a county council, they should be provided with it, and then, if the county council should be found wanting in the performance of its duties, a public inquiry could be held. Then, if they want these people back again, that should be allowed, subject, of course, to the provision of the necessary central finances for the maintenance of main roads and so on. In my opinion, you would get, in that way, a better type of service than you can get by administering the scheme from Dublin. Apart from that, however, I think it would also be cheaper, because Government from Dublin means more and more interference, more and more control, and that is about the most costly method of governing.

I could say a good deal on this subject, but I believe that no Party which will have to face the polls in two or three years will adopt the policy of holding out the carrot in front of the donkey in the way of promises of increased expenditure on various social services, and so on, because, although such a policy might succeed in getting you more votes as against the candidate of some other Party, the people are bound to realise that that will mean increased taxation. For that reason, I suggest that it might be possible to get a small committee to go into this question and examine in what way or by what means the cost of Government in this country, both central and local, could be reduced. We spent a great deal of money on the vocational organisation commission, but I think it would have been better if we had had a smaller committee to go into these matters. I think that, with a smaller committee, better progress might have been made. I think that somebody should attempt to deal with this matter in the way I have suggested. Perhaps the Government cannot do it, and I am not saying that they should, but I think that somebody will have to face up to the facts of the situation. You may be sympathetic to the teachers or to anybody else, but when it comes to a question of new taxation there is always the question of spending just a little bit more, and you have to face the fact that we will have to make some economy in some direction, and my suggestion is that, now that the war is over, you should endeavour to get rid of a great amount of the central control that we now have because I feel that thereby you would be able to save a great deal of money.

Mr. Summerfield

A great deal of ground has been covered in the debate here to-day. At the outset, I cannot help thinking how much better off the country would have been if the standstill Order had been applied to certain kinds of profits in the same way as it was applied to wages and salaries. It seems to me that there is something ironic about the whole thing. Employers and employees had to make the best of the standstill Orders, but no standstill Orders were applied in the case of the collection of rates and taxes. I have every sympathy with the Minister.

He has brought before us figures to-day which are simply staggering. While the Minister has not received too much criticism to-day in regard to the volume of his figures, there will still be requests, some very clamorous and others perhaps not so much, for increased services and, of course, that will involve increased expenditure and increased demands on the taxpayers. If it were possible to pack into this room to-night the citizens of Dublin who are now faced with an addition of 2/6 in the £ on their rates, over which they have no control, I think they would have a lot to say. However, there is no use in making suggestions unless they are constructive. In that connection, I have one constructive suggestion to make. So far as the social services that we have here are concerned, much as they have been criticised, I think that we are not so much worse off than our neighbours. I am not one of those who say that we are much worse off than our neighbours. After all, our neighbours are only emerging from a time of tremendous inflation, and it will be time enough to make a comparison between their conditions and ours when they get back to an even keel. Then we can examine what the social services provided there are as compared with ours. Of course, we should all endeavour to see that the best social services are provided for the community, but I should like to find out what is the cost per head to the State of the maintenance of our sick poor. I am not using the word "poor" in any disrespectful sense. I am referring to a person who simply is unable to pay for his maintenance when he is sick. In that case there is national expenditure as well as local expenditure, and it seems to me that there is a certain amount of overlapping there. The question I am putting, and it is a very pertinent question, is whether that cost has ever been ascertained. I think we should know that. Just in the way that one gets certain impressions of things, I believe that there is a fair amount of waste and overlapping in the handling of our sick population, in regard to national expenditure and local expenditure, and I think that one of the economies which we so badly need to-day could be brought about if we could get a proper accounting in regard to these matters with a view to preventing the overlapping and waste which, I believe, exist.

Reference was made to the clamour of manufacturers for the reduction of taxation. Senator Douglas has pointed out that the manufacturers are not alone in that. The whole community would like to see a reduction in taxation. Taxation, if excessive, kills industry. Senator Foran was good enough to make one or two suggestions from his own point of view, but the real fact of the position is that employers will expand to the very maximum consistent with the volume of business they are able to get, and an important factor in getting that business is the amount of the rates and taxes they have to pay.

I feel it is time we asked ourselves what is the size of the burden the community can bear. We are told, and rightly told, that a considerable increase in our social services cannot be expected unless there is an increase in productivity. If we can gather anything from activities in the country during the last few years, the farmer is going full belt all the time. Is it to be assumed that the farmer is going materially to increase productivity in our material wealth? Is there not an effort already to keep him in the position he has reached? If it is not the farmer, it must be the much abused industrialist, and if industry is to thrive, it must thrive on level terms. The manufacturer is chipped that he is concerned largely with the domestic market. He may have looked to that market during the last few years, but plenty of manufacturers are seeking export outlets for their manufactured goods now, and they are preparing to market goods which will sell in competition with the rest of the world. But I am not going to take up the time of the House on that in a debate on the Central Fund Bill.

I do feel that the Minister to-day has a rather unpleasant task. He has to submit Estimates to the House on a colossal scale, and he has to face a continual clamour and a continual demand for more services as well as a call for the reduction of taxation. I say to the House that when anybody suggests increases in national expenditure, he ought also to be required to put up suggestions as to how the expenditure can be met.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I feel very strongly, in view of what has been said by previous speakers, that we should avoid saying anything which will have the effect in the least degree of exacerbating the situation between the teachers and the Government, but it is equally necessary that those making a case for the Government should be fully aware of the effects of the arguments they are making.

I wish to raise the question for the purpose of allowing the Minister to refute me if I am wrong. It relates to the arguments based on assertions as to what the cost-of-living index is at present and what it was in 1920. It is not possible for either side to be completely dogmatic on that point because there were no cost-of-living figures for Ireland in 1920, although we had United Kingdom figures. But the official statistics for Ireland do give us certain figures which would not support the statement of the Minister for Education.

I find, taking the quarterly Statistical Bulletin, that the last cost-of-living index figure for November, 1945, is 298. The earliest figure given in this table, although not perhaps immediately relevant to the argument, is of some importance as showing the present position of the teachers, is for the year 1933 when the cost-of-living index figure was 151. That is to say, the cost of living has doubled since 1933. But, going back to the figures quoted by the Minister for Education, I find that the earliest Irish figure for the cost-of-living index — I quote from the Statistical Abstract, 1931-34—is for 1922, and for that year the average taken over April, July and October would be approximately 190, so that our earliest Irish cost-of-living index, as compared with the present one, is, roughly speaking, as two to three.

Mr. Hayes

And it was in 1922 that the scales came into operation?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes, in 1922.

Mr. Aiken

And in 1920, when the scales were signed, the cost-of-living figure, at the date of signature, was 276.

Mr. Hayes

May I interrupt, Sir? I do not want to be at loggerheads with the Minister at all. I had some interest in education in 1922 myself. The teachers got an increased scale of salary but as the Minister indicates, in 1920, the scales were so fixed that they came into operation gradually and they reached a particular point in 1922. In that year the average taken over April, July and October would be approximately 190, so that in our earliest Irish cost-of-living index I think the relevant figure is for 1922 rather than 1920.

Mr. Aiken

The position is that the teachers are discussing now what they are going to be paid next September. The figure that affects them is what it is likely to be in September, and in 1920 they were negotiating for salaries and signed the agreement when the cost of living stood at 276.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The figures I have been given are Irish official figures, taken from official Irish publications, mostly Government publications. Indeed, those figures which are taken from the quarterly statistical bulletin of the Central Bank of Ireland may be regarded as equivalent to Government figures. With regard to the Minister's last remarks as to the cost of living in 1920, I think I am correct in saying that there are no separate Irish statistical figures for that date. I have before me the British statistical tables of the cost-of-living index figures for that year. I find that, in 1920, the index number in respect of food only was 256. If all items are taken in, it was 249. There is not much difference between those figures. But those figures which are taken for the year and compounded of all the months show a relation to the present of roughly 250 to 300. That is to say, there is a difference of about one-sixth. I do not know what the Minister is quoting in respect of the figures he has given to the House.

Mr. Aiken

The Statistical Abstract.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The English Statistical Abstract.

Mr. Aiken

No; our own. These were the cost-of-living index figures in 1920, as computed, and they are published in our Statistical Abstract.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

They must not have been computed for 1920, because we had not separate figures then. Perhaps the Minister would give me the reference to his figures.

Mr. Aiken

I shall get the reference for the Senator.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

If the Minister has been able to get an accidental coincidence for a month, I suggest that the argument based on a monthly coincidence of that nature is not a sound one and that we have got to look at this matter on a broader basis. I am not arguing for or against either side but we must get it into our heads, as the basis of our calculations, that since 1933 the cost of living has doubled and that, taking the all-over figures for 1920, it has increased one-sixth. But I want to put the issue on a broader basis than any calculation, which I introduced only for the sake of clearing up the matter. I agree with Senator Douglas that, as compared with other expenditure, expenditure on education, from the national school teacher up to the university professor, is inadequate. It may be that, as the son of the head of a college and as one both of whose grandfathers were heads of schools, I have a more vivid appreciation of the difficulty and importance of education than most people have. It is easy to get money to enable people to produce motor cars, bridges or houses but it is difficult to get money for the architects of the mind and the engineers of character.

I believe that the importance of obtaining the very best people as our teachers is under-estimated. I have spoken in this House on more than one occasion regarding the secondary teachers and I have given figures. When I was speaking before a Minister for Education, he always said to me: "I entirely agree with you that they are much underpaid but what can I do with the Minister for Finance?" When the Minister for Finance happened to be there, he said: "I cannot say how strongly my opinions coincide with yours but no detailed plan has been put before me by the Minister for Education". To-day, for the first time, I saw the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance present in the House. If they were not sitting side by side, they were running in tandem.

Mr. Douglas

It did not last long.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I thought, when I had them both here to confront one with the other, that, without going through statistics which I have given this House broadly once, and in detail on another occasion, I might at least be able to get out of this sort of Box and Cox position. In one of Dickens' works, there are characters called Codlin and Short who blame each other for the dirty work. I am convinced that, in this matter of education, the importance of remunerating all branches of it is under-estimated. Not enough money is spent on it. You are losing your teachers. Make no mistake about that. In the secondary line, especially, the best men are going out of the country because they are getting much larger salaries elsewhere. Can you afford it? Is not education that type of productive expenditure which, as Senator Douglas has pointed out, must take pride of place over all other expenditure?

If you are to increase the ability and the character of the growing generation—from mechanics to those who will inhabit the exalted heights of the Seanad because that is what the younger generation is potentially— you have got to get the best and most contented teachers for them.

Without any direct reference to the immediate disturbances of this week, I do urge upon the Minister that all branches of education from the initial stages in the primary school to the final stage in the university, taking in technical education, should receive paramount consideration when the Government cake is being divided up and that it should be a primary care of the Minister for Finance to see that adequate salaries are provided so as to secure the best and most contented men. It is all very well to say that people work for love. They do frequently and a number of people do it all the time. Still, the fact that they are to be rewarded in a way they think adequate will, in the first place, attract good men and, in the second place, will help to keep their minds on their work. The late Mr. Justice O'Shaughnessy used say that it was very short-sighted policy for a solicitor to give a barrister a brief without giving him the fee, because his mind would not be centred on the case but would be divided between the case and the consideration whether he was going to get anything for his work. If your teachers are better paid, you will not only have better men but you will have more contented men. On these broad grounds, without trespassing on the immediate and narrow issue which at present is disturbing the city, I urge that the national budget should be so adjusted that the teaching profession and the teaching interest will receive a greater amount.

Sir John Keane

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

Sir John Keane

Since the House adjourned, I have come across a statement in an evening paper with regard to the school teachers' dispute which I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister and if he sees fit he might be able to deal with it in his reply. I think it is customary to give the source of a quotation. This is taken from the Evening Mail and it states:—

"A member of the Strike Committee at the Teachers' Club told our representative that the teachers' decision to reject the Minister's salary offer was dictated not solely by purely financial reasons. The outstanding feature of the Minister's offer had been the retention of the rating system, he said, which ran right through the salary scale. It was resented very strongly by the teachers. He explained that the rating or ‘the efficient and highly efficient' system was based on the answering of children. A teacher rated ‘highly efficient' in a school of well-nourished brilliant pupils could lose that rating if he went to another school where children were under-nourished with a consequently lower standard of answering when the Department's inspector called."

I think that is an important point because it does offer a possible ground of settlement or compromise without affecting the financial position.

With regard to certain matters that have arisen in the debate on which I should like to comment, I would, at the outset, say that I welcome a debate of this kind. Some people may think it a waste of time to range over such a variety of subjects, but I think that, in the rather backward state of our political education, it is a good thing occasionally to have matters of a general character discussed, because there is a great tendency to take just the simple and facile view of a problem without hearing both sides, and to the extent that this House partakes occasionally of the nature of a debating society it is to the advantage of our political education. The lack of political education, I venture to say with all diffidence, applies not only to the public generally but also to the members of our Legislature.

I was interested in Senator Johnston's incursion into the realms of high finance. It was interesting to hear his explanation, which I accept, of the special aspects of inflationary tendencies in this country.

He showed how, despite all the efforts of our Government to prevent inflation, inflation has been forced upon us through association with a neighbouring country with the same currency standards. That is interesting because it is a rather new aspect, based on the same fundamental principles, of inflation. I could not quite follow him in his references to the banks. It seemed to me that he was rather impish there because the transfer of deposits into securities would not really affect our national position. It would only mean that our foreign assets, instead of being held by the banks, would be held by private citizens. Of course a lot of them are already held by private citizens but an increasing number would be held by private citizens and a decreasing number by the banks. I do not think that the banks need be alarmed if there was a reduction in deposits. The suggestion that the banks would have to increase their advances to protect their deposits could not be taken seriously. The banks neglect no opportunity of lending provided they get reasonable security. In fact they take considerable risks when they consider a proposition has a fair chance of commercial success. The only effect, I should think, of further attempts to lend would be not to protect profits but possibly to create bad debts. Nobody could expect the banks to do that wittingly.

I was interested in Senator Foran's remarks with regard to the present high prices of local products, and in his suggestion that he would give in some way compensatory advantages by means of lower taxation to any manufacturer who would reduce his prices. He also suggested that a reduction in taxation would tend to a reduction in prices. I am not at all sure that that would be so. If I could feel convinced that, in some way, it would be possible to relate a reduction in taxation to a reduction in prices, I should very much favour giving a reduction to local manufacturers, but I feel—I may be wrong in this—that there is a distinct absence of a consumer's consciousness among many of our local manufacturers. The tendency is to make all you can.

I have even seen that tendency among retailers. You will find that the same article is sold at different prices in different parts of the city. I suggest that there is little systematic approach to price-fixing. To a large extent, it is based on what the public will pay, and not on what a legitimate profit would justify. I feel that the whole situation is, to a certain extent, encouraged by the monopolist position enjoyed by many of our manufacturers. The whole tendency of our economic policy has been to narrow markets and to restrict free competition. That was bound to have the tendency to exploit the public. I think there have been distinct indications of that in recent years. One has only to look at the figures in the last Budget to see what an enormous increase there was in corporation profits tax. That increase can only be justified by high profits resulting from high prices.

I am very much in sympathy with the demand and the wish put forward by Senator Foran for better social standards. I hope that the Government will not follow blindly at its face value the standards of social insurance, reliefs, pensions and benefits paid on the other side. The whole scheme of social insurance in Great Britain at present is in the nature of an experiment. It has still to be proved whether the country can stand such a very expensive, although undoubtedly ideal, system of social services. I think that we should proceed more on the lines of an examination of our own conditions, and not be tempted to follow suit an experiment which is still unproved. Senator Foran also made a plea for a system of social services worthy of our country. These, I think, were the words he used. I would like to know what he meant. After all, every system of social services must be based on a country's resources. One could reduce the thing to an absurdity by asking, "On a desert island that has no resources, what social services can you have?" Social services must be conditioned by the resources of a country. We are not a rich country. We have certain resources, but we have to import coal, oil, and a number of commodities essential to production.

By that very fact we cannot provide social services on the scale that much richer countries can afford. Some scheme of social services is probably in course of preparation. I would plead with the Government not to introduce it piecemeal. I would ask that we should see the framework of a complete scheme with an estimate of the cost before any legislation is introduced. Let us first of all see the full picture so that a discussion on the matter can proceed in an atmosphere of reality. There is an unfortunate tendency now of edging in a little bit here and a little bit there, and not saying where we are going until we suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed with more than we can bear. Let us, as I say, see the full picture, and have an estimate of the cost. When that has been done the legislation can be introduced. I am not going to deal with this further because I intend to go into the whole matter when the motion which appears on the Order Paper in my name comes up for discussion.

There was a certain amount said about local and central taxation. I do not agree with Senator Douglas that it does not matter how a citizen pays, whether he pays in local or central taxation. It makes a very great difference with regard to our primary producers. In the case of central taxation, a citizen can, to a large extent, escape a good deal of it if he wishes. If he does not drink or smoke he avoids the payment of very large sums by way of indirect taxation. If he has no profits, he has no income-tax to pay; but, in the case of our primary producers, the farmers, they have to pay. Their local taxation is a fixed working charge on them, irrespective of what profits they make. If farmers make a further profit, then they have to pay more taxation. That difference is to be noted between central and local taxation in its effect on our primary producers and our wealth production.

I think that some reform is needed in regard to the tendency of imposing burdens on the local rates by means of legislation without any consultation with the local ratepayers. I deplore that tendency and I think that an examination of it is long overdue. Because of that tendency you have the position that prevails in Dublin to-day with its high rates. I hope to develop that point further when the Local Government Bill comes before us.

I think these are the only points that occur to me. In conclusion, I should like to join with Senator Johnston in congratulating the Minister on the new financial publication recently circulated. A lot of it is hard to understand. Some very complicated subjects are dealt with, and it may be that it was not possible to simplify them.

I do hope, however, that this will be an annual publication and that, as the years go by, there will be further issues and that they will increase in value from the point of view of the guidance and information of our people.

Mr. McGee

This has been quite an interesting evening and, much as has been said, some of us can agree this evening, whatever we may have felt about yesterday evening. This evening, Senator Foran hit the nail on the head when he spoke of the position of the agricultural labourer. Yesterday evening he was not so complimentary to some of us. I think he referred to some of us as chamber of commerce people, or at least he put us on that level.

Mr. Foran

I did not.

Mr. McGee

The facts are that if you look for the greatest employers in agricultural labour in rural Ireland you will find them in the case of the much condemned bullock. If you have the bullock on your land, you will be all right, and you will be able to establish a balanced economy as between tillage and grazing. In this part of the country we have rates on our land, but that is not the case in Northern Ireland. I think that I can say to Senator Mrs. Concannon, in regard to the case she mentioned in connection with rates on land, that the quicker she can bring the man to whom she referred up to our part of the country, the better, and we will civilise him there. The farmers in Northern Ireland have no rates on their land. I notice that the rates in Dublin are up by 2/6 in the £, and the same may apply to me where I live, and to other parts of the country.

In that connection, I saw last year where one member of the Federation of Irish Industries, which was referred to yesterday, actually stated, in regard to a sum of £6,000 which he had invested, that it was a mere bagatelle— his name was Walsh, I think. However, in the midst of our anxiety to keep our social services going, we have to ask the Government not to go too fast. I admit that the Minister, this year, gave us rather decent grants for agricultural land; but on that score so many improvements and additions have been made, not only to social services, but to other activities carried out by public bodies, that it occurred to me that it might be no harm to mention to the Ministry that as we have gone out on a scheme for the provision of new and better roads, which are so badly needed, many of the other schemes could await the accomplishment of that scheme. I suggest that we should let the roads get finished first before we start on the provision of immense hospitals. Then let the hospitals be finished before you embark on schemes for the employment of extra nurses, doctors, and all the rest of it. It must be remembered that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and in the case of a farmer with a holding of a certain valuation, and who owns a tractor worth £300 or £400, when the added rates come on him, the first man to be asked to shoulder the burden is the agricultural labourer. Take the case of a man who owns a tractor worth, say, £300. The man who matters there is the agricultural labourer who is in charge of that tractor, and the success of the farmer depends on the ability of the labourer, just as the success of the man at the top of the ladder depends on the success of the man at the bottom of the ladder.

Now, while the Minister has a responsibility for the provision of social services, it seems to me that we are doing as reasonably well as we can expect. In my part of the country, I admit, it is hard to hold agricultural labourers because, human nature being what it is, the tendency is to go where things seem, obviously, to be best: a country, for instance, where you have not a tariff of 7/6 in the £ to pay and where there have been hundreds of thousands of pounds to spend, of which, I admit, we got our share. In this part of the country the solid foundation—and it was a solid foundation—which Fianna Fáil established or sought to establish here was, firstly, the production of wheat, and, subsequently, the production of beet. Now, I have spoken so often on this question of beet that I think the members of the House must have it off by heart. I heard the Minister speaking recently in Dundalk, and I certainly am not dissatisfied if the Government will pursue their endeavours to provide a solution for the production of beet north of the Boyne. I think that a solution for that will be found eventually, but I must say that I am rather disturbed about the matter of wheat, because I saw that certain encroachments have been made on the rights of the wheat-growers in the last year.

In recent years we saw advertisements pasted up on walls around the country about a guaranteed price for wheat of a certain bushelling content, but the next thing we heard was that that price was subject to a reduction in cases where there was a 25 per cent. moisture content. I do not know how you could easily reach a decision as to the moisture content of the wheat, but at any rate that was there, and that is the only possible flaw that I saw in the wheat scheme. The wheat would be taken from the farmer by the miller, whose mill might be many miles away, perhaps, and how was the farmer to know what was the moisture content? I saw it stated somewhere that in the South of Ireland it is very rare that an application of that kind would be made, but still the millers asked for the moisture content to be taken into consideration, and I consider that that is an encroachment on the price that was guaranteed to the producer. It certainly leaves a certain amount of uneasiness in the minds of the producers.

I had an experience in connection with a man who had about 600 barrels of wheat, and at the top of the rick there were about 60 or 70 barrels that had an undue moisture content, and he asked permission to be allowed to take it home to feed to his cattle. He was an honest man, and confessed to the fact, but still he was refused permission to take those 60 or 70 barrels home to feed his cattle, and had to send all the wheat on to the millers. In that connection, I may say, that I came to the Ministry here and was directed to an office in St. Stephen's Green, and we came to an agreement which resulted in this man receiving about 47/6 a barrel for his wheat; but if that man had been allowed to take those 60 or 70 barrels of wheat home with him, it would have been worth at least £2 a barrel to him just as feeding stuff for his cattle. Now, when I say that, I do not want to put any spoke in the wheel of the Minister's policy. I am only putting this to him as a member of my own county, who is responsible for the growing of wheat in that county, which, undoubtedly, is the best substitute for barley; but I do not like to see, in my time, maltsters, brewers, and millers, all growing rich as a result of what I might call Hitler methods, while the ordinary people of the country of my class are growing poorer.

For 12 years the wheat scheme has gone on successfully and well except for last year, and to my knowledge, in one townland a hundred acres of wheat less is being grown this year, through nervousness on the part of the growers that the conditions in regard to moisture content might operate. When I see such vast sums of money by way of subsidies allocated to wheat-growing in this country and examine the results, I often feel that the mills should be nationalised and placed directly under the Minister of Agriculture. If the millers for the past 15 years are not satisfied with the rule of law in this country, then I say there is plenty of room for them in other countries.

Mrs. Concannon

When I read in the paper this morning that Senator Hayes was to bring into this discussion the unhappy strike under the shadow of which we are meeting to-day, I must confess I had misgivings. My misgivings centre around the fear that some word might be spoken, or some remark might be made which would make a bad situation worse. I am glad to say that my fears were not well-founded. I think the discussion we have had has served a useful purpose. Nearly everyone said that we are not concerned with the dispute between the Government and the teachers. It is not primarily that. It is the interests of so many children who are so vitally affected.

Even though some of the schools are open, we learn that at least 35,000 children here in Dublin are in the streets. That is a situation which fills one with enormous anxiety and leads us to hope with all our hearts that this state of affairs will not continue. Someone has to take the interests of these children to heart, the Church, the managers, and the Government, as well as we in the Oireachtas. It is our duty to see that something is done to save the children from the terrible consequences which will follow if the situation is allowed to develop and go on to an end that may be disastrous for the whole country.

That is why I do hope from something that emerged from the speech of the Minister for Education and which was interpreted by Senator Foran as a sort of hope, that if the teachers return to work, a compromise must take place. Senator Hayes made that plain. A compromise must inevitably come out of every deadlock and if the teachers would go back, and I say this with a great sense of responsibility, that compromise might be reached but no Government could yield to any teachers or any other paid public servant on strike. No Government could do that, and if I were in the Government, I would rather go to the country, if necessary, than give way, if I felt that could be done. It would not be too much to ask for sacrifices on all sides in the interests of the children. We know the magnificent work which the teachers of Ireland have done and are doing and we expect the Government, as a matter of honour, to appreciate that too. After all, the Government are the servants of the country just as the teachers are, and we know that the country would wish to see the teachers getting a fair show and we cannot accept what has been said as the last word. I do not think it is the last word. At all events, we ought to do our utmost to bring about an end of this dangerous situation. Everyone in this House who knows the dangers of the situation ought to use his or her efforts to try to bring about the end of this strike.

I do not know whether the teachers are to blame, but I certainly think—I am going to be quite frank about it— that the Government did not handle the negotiations very well. It was a process of bargaining, like bringing a beast to a fair, and trying to get as much as you could for it. That was not the way to meet the demand at all. I feel, too, that the women had a great grievance. It was not so much in the differentiation of salaries in the final offer. It is an accumulation of grievances that decided their attitude and I think this accumulation of grievances was reflected in their vote.

In the first place, there has existed a discrimination between men and women. A woman is put in the position that she must choose between marriage and her profession. In the case of some of the older women, who were in the service before that was made a rule, they can teach continually after marriage, but now a girl must choose between her natural right to marriage and her profession. That, certainly, is a grievance. It may be in the public interest. I have never quite made up my mind about that, but, certainly, it is a grievance.

The next thing is that a technical legality was availed of to make it almost impossible for a woman to get her full pension. A man can keep on teaching to the age of 65, but a woman only to 60, except in special cases where she may be given a year or two under special circumstances. That should not be. Men and women should be treated on the same level in those circumstances.

The third thing which leaves a sense of grievance is the question of the bonus attaching to a degree. If a woman has a degree she may get only £16 bonus, whereas a man gets £20. All these troubles leave a sense of grievance, and that is very deplorable, but these things have happened, and we must only hope that if negotiations are resumed, and I pray they will be soon, something will be done to bring the two parties together again to reach a compromise that will save this city from disaster.

Mr. Baxter

I should like to join with Senator Mrs. Concannon in my approval of the action of Senator Hayes and the way in which he stated his case before the House to-day with regard to the teachers' strike. I should like, too, to commend Mrs. Concannon's approach to the situation, which was very objective, impartial and wise. We find ourselves in a really unfortunate position. We are not called upon to pass judgment as to where the fault lies or with whom the responsibility is for the situation which has arisen. It is a situation which none of us desires should continue. The sooner we see a termination of this strike, the happier everybody will be. If it continues, it will be a source of great unhappiness to thoughtful people everywhere, and it will leave its mark. When dealing with teachers, you are dealing with a group of people different from those who have employed the strike weapon in the past. While I know nothing of the frame of mind of the teachers of Dublin who have gone on strike, I feel that, now they have taken this decision, it may develop into a battle of the spirit. That is a very dangerous test to which to put people. Quite a number of those on strike are of our own generation. Many of them gave service to the nation at a time of difficulty and in trying circumstances. They had their spirit tested and that spirit withstood the test. The Government have their responsibilities and difficulties, but neither the Government nor the people can hope to solve any of our problems unless we are broadminded and tolerant in our approach to those problems. These are our own people. The Minister, speaking to-day, left us under the impression that he and the Government only were concerned in this matter. That is not true. He suggested that the action taken was taken almost against the parents of the children. The parents have not been consulted. Neither have the managers. If they were consulted, one does not know what they would say. The strike will end some time, and it will not be a victory for the country if it ends ingloriously for either side. If that is to be avoided, a fresh approach must be made to the problem.

It may be that the Minister did leave a way open by which a new approach can be made. Perhaps, if recognised educationists like Senator Hayes, who approached the whole matter objectively, and Senator Mrs. Concannon would busy themselves in the matter, a way out might be found. I make that suggestion. I pass on to an aspect of our taxation problems which I want to discuss, though I feel somewhat in a difficulty regarding it. I read portion of the debate in the other House. Some very excellent speeches were made there, especially the speech by Deputy James Hughes. This is not the first time I have addressed myself to the problem involved in our taxation scheme, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity of addressing myself to a Minister who can claim to know something about agriculture. We were always confronted with the difficulty here that the Minister for Finance could make the apology that, not being a farmer, he knew nothing about land. In that way, he escaped the obligation of replying for the Government in relation to their policy of agriculture and agricultural production. One could address oneself to this matter in two ways. One could endeavour to score politically over one's opponent or one could approach the problem in the hope that impartial examination would bring beneficial results in the future. It is in the latter spirit that I shall try to look at the position.

Senator Foran has left the House. I feel somewhat impatient when I hear members of the Oireachtas pleading for extension of social services. I am no less impatient when I hear Ministers, or their supporters, lauding the Government because of extension of social services. My view is that there is something inherently wrong when demands are made for additions to the social services. I do not think that a Ministry should boast that conditions are such as to demand a considerable extension of social services. If our standards were right and if our whole scheme of life was right, I do not think there would be any necessity for the extension of social services which is demanded every day.

If our production was planned as it ought to be and if it were used as it should be when we get possession of it, the incomes of our people would reach so high a level that there would not be any necessity for the social services for which so many of our people are clamouring. Senator Foran made comparison between conditions here and across the water. That showed how contradictory positions can be in respect of social services. In the evening paper, we have enunciated a scheme of health services which is to apply to everybody in Great Britain. We all know of the new approach of the Labour Government to the problem of living in England but will somebody explain to me how a country where the people are half starved and where they are so much in debt that they cannot hope to live for the next two or three years unless they get thousands of millions from another country, is able to have all these social services? Perhaps our Minister for Finance would dilate on that subject. Obviously, there is something inherently wrong in our approach to those problems. The truth is that this is done in Great Britain by a process of monetary manipulation. Unfortunately for us, we are suffering the disadvantages of being within this monetary economy. Senator Douglas made the point that we have got to do one of two things: we have got either to reduce our expenditure or increase our production, so that we shall have incomes which will enable us to bear the level of taxation which the Minister for Finance is demanding of us.

I am convinced you have got to do either one thing or the other. I do not think that our economy at present can withstand the burden of payments that are being demanded every day, nationally and locally. I have no doubt whatever that our scheme of local taxation is going to break down before two years have passed unless we are put in a position by such an increase in our productivity and by such an addition to our incomes as will enable us to bear the added burdens of taxation. How do you get increased production? If Senator Summerfield were in the House, he could tell us how one gets it in industry. In my opinion if you are to get it from agriculture, you can only get it by machines, men and materials. Obviously that is the only way to get it. The first point I want to make is that I am afraid the Government have not taken cognisance of the necessity of linking these three factors. They either fail to grasp the necessity for increased production or they fail to realise the factors necessary to get this increased production.

The Minister for Agriculture attended a convention of farmers in my county recently. The Cavan farmers who were at the meeting raised several questions with regard to the situation in agriculture. My colleague, Senator McCabe, was there, and he made certain good points. The various speakers drew the Minister's attention to the facts that were obvious to every one in the country. The Minister in reply made the extraordinary statement that "he did not see anything abnormal in the flight from the land." He said "that it was perfectly natural and that it would be a bad thing if more people were to stay on the land than were on it at the present time. The agricultural population had gone down for the last 20 years but output was the same and that was a good thing". In the first place, I deplore that anyone in this country should make the statement that the flight from the land is a perfectly natural thing and that it would be a bad thing if more people were to stay on the land than are on it at present. The Minister for Finance can discuss agriculture as well as the Minister for Agriculture and I should like to hear him discuss that aspect because I think on its consideration depends our whole approach to the problem of increased production.

How are we going to get increased production unless we can get more machines and more men to work them? There is an outcry all over the country that there are not enough men to do the work on the land at present. I do not think that the Minister will suggest that the productivity of our land is anything like what it could be, what it should be, or what we must aim at making it. The Minister has had the advantage along with his colleagues of studying the reports of the Emergency Committee on Post-War Agricultural Policy. I would have hoped that we would have a declaration of policy from the Minister with regard to their attitude on these series of reports. It is quite definitely laid down, practically in the three reports, that there are immense possibilities for increased production. I am sure the Minister will not challenge that, but if we are going to increase production of tillage crops or of animals, is it suggested that you can do that and handle that increased production without having more people on the land? It simply cannot be done, and I suggest that the Minister for Agriculture must begin over again. If we are to accept it that we must have more people on the land, what plan have we about keeping them employed? I have said that we have had no statement with regard to the Government's attitude on these reports with perhaps minor exceptions. In fact, the trend of thought with regard to Government policy all through seems to accept the view that there is nothing for it only to have less people on the land, and in fact less people in the country altogether. If that be the position, how can we possibly hope to increase production? I want somebody to tell me how it can be done.

Sir John Keane

By mechanisation.

Mr. Baxter

Yes, but machines cannot be operated without men, and if machines are to be used to bring about increased productivity, what are we going to do with our increased crops? Are we going to ship them out of the country, or are we going to feed them to our animals? The animals cannot be sent to fetch their own meals to the fields or the granaries. We must have plenty of men to handle all these crops and to attend to these animals.

On the report on income and expenditure which was commented upon by Senator Johnston and later by Senator Sir John Keane, in discussing the subject of employment and unemployment in paragraph 10, we get this astonishing statement. I do not know whether it represents the views of the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Agriculture but it is an extraordinary statement:—

"Principally on account of the safety valve of emigration this country has had a relatively favourable unemployment experience during the emergency though in fact this favourable position did not approach that in belligerent countries where unemployment practically vanished. The situation has been mitigated also by recruiting in the Defence Forces."

Imagine, after 25 years of home Government we have reached a state where we welcome "the safety valve of emigration" to relieve the problem of unemployment.

Mr. Aiken

It is recounted there, not as a desirable fact but as a fact which is not blinked. It is an unfortunate fact.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Probably an inevitable one.

Mr. Baxter

What is the policy in regard to it?

Mr. Aiken

I am saying that the statisticians did not try to blink the fact that we had this unfortunate emigration or, that if we had not got it, we would have considerably more difficulty in dealing with unemployment.

Mr. Baxter

I shall be glad to hear the Minister on that. After all I do not know who prepared this statement. I do not know whether some Minister is responsible.

Mr. Aiken

I am responsible.

Mr. Baxter

If the Minister for Finance is responsible for having put into the report the statement that, principally on account of the safety valve of emigration, this country has had a relatively favourable unemployment experience, I can only draw the conclusion that the viewpoint of the Minister for Finance is that we could not have found employment for these people here.

Mr. Aiken

That is so.

Mr. Baxter

I do not accept that. If it is the Minister's viewpoint that we could not have found employment for them, then we are poles apart. I do not know how much there is to be done in the country from one end to the other, looking at the rushes, the brushwood, and the furze that everywhere meet the eye.

Those same fellows whom we permitted to go out of the country were employed by British farmers on their farms cutting ditches, cleaning fences, and doing all the work of reclamation on their land that needed so badly to be done on our land here. Senator Sir John Keane and Senator Johnston spoke this evening about the inflationary position that has been created, and gave certain evidences of its origin. It is true, of course, that the men who left this country through the safety-valve of emigration went and did work on British farms that was as urgently needed to be done on Irish farms, and that a good deal of their earnings came back here and were employed in the purchase of physical goods produced by a minority of our people at home. They did that at a time when their services could have been employed at home, adding to the stock of physical goods available for our own community.

With regard to agriculture, the Minister for Agriculture has said that, while the agricultural population had gone down in the last 20 years, output was the same, and that that was a good thing. Are we satisfied with our present output? I am not, and I hope the Minister for Finance is not, and that he thinks as I do that on probably two-thirds of the land of the country we could have a 100 per cent. increase in our present output. That could be achieved if the land were properly farmed, and if a good many of the things that should be done, so far as the land is concerned, had been done during the period of the emergency when hundreds and thousands of our young fellows were leaving the country. If those things had been done, then, the land would now be in a healthy condition, and we would be ready to prepare for the competition that we shall probably have to face in the future.

What do we find from our statistics? It is true that it can be argued that the gross volume of agricultural output has declined only by 7 per cent. since 1938. That is what this report states. It adds that the actual net volume of output has increased by 5 per cent. I suggest to the Minister that that 5 per cent. is really not a correct criterion of what we have achieved. I should explain to Senators, who may not understand, that gross output means the total output of agriculture, and that net output is represented by what is left after you have taken away what you put into the land, such as artificial manures, etc. It is true that we had less of these things during the war than we used to have—machinery, fertilisers and feeding stuffs. They were not available. Our net output has been increased due to the fact that we, apparently, did not buy feeding stuffs. The Minister for Finance and every farmer knows quite well that, when you import feeding stuffs to utilise on your land, you are doing something to increase the fertility of your farm above and beyond anything that you can do yourself. To the extent that net output appears to have increased, to that extent one must say that to a much greater extent our land has been impoverished during the last five or six years, simply because we have not been able to draw on the soil of other countries in the way of bringing in the grain that we used to get or in having fertilisers available. I have no doubt whatever that, far from our net output having increased, we have lost something the value of which we cannot calculate. That is due to the fact that the fertility of our land has been so drawn upon during the last five or six years. The whole character and physical constitution of our soil have been altered in that period and especially our poorer soils. You cannot put a cash value on that. That fact is, in my opinion, going to influence considerably our production for a number of years in the future, and it is an aspect of our production that we will have to take cognisance of.

The Government have not given us any indication of what their general policy for agriculture in the future is going to be. Will the Minister for Finance say what his attitude is to the recommendations in the reports with regard to the capitalisation of agriculture in the future? All three reports indicate that the amount of capital necessary for agriculture is very considerable. Dr. Kennedy's report is the one to which I am prepared to give most support, because in my opinion it is the most searching, logical and constructive of all three. He suggests, and I agree with him, that a sum of £200,000,000 is not an outside figure to put down against the proper capitalisation of our agricultural industry. What does the Minister think about that? It is a factor that cannot be ignored. We have got to face up to it. I do not want to be told that if we had some capital in the last few years that we could not have done a great many things on our farms. I say that we could. I am not disputing the fact that certain improvements have been effected by the grants that were made, but these have hardly been more than a flea-bite in relation to the sum that is required to deal with the big problem that is there to be faced.

Senator McGee raised certain questions with regard to the problem of farming on the tillage side. The Minister may answer me and ask, has the Government not stated its policy with regard to dairying? To that question I answer "yes" and "no". I suggest that there is not much stability for the dairy farmer in the policy outlined by the Government. It is true that they have given a guarantee with regard to milk prices for five years, but that is conditional. The present price is to remain the price so long as the present costs of production remain as they are. One finds a table of costs written into this guaranteed market in the White Paper issued by the Government dealing with prices for dairy produce. We are told that every cow producing 520 gallons of milk will require a certain ration, that the ration will tot up to £11 4s. 3d., or a cost of 5.12 pence per gallon of milk. There is a calculation given of the cost of winter feeding in future years, and we are told that the final price of concentrates to produce a gallon of milk, as published in the Irish Trade Journal, will be used. If bran and pollard and maize meal, etc., are available in quantities the price of these as well as of oats and barley will be taken into consideration, and the cheapest selected in making up the cost of the concentrates. If cakes are used, the cheapest may be taken in substitution for meat meal.

Then they went on to discuss the prices of other commodities, but what I want to direct the Minister's attention and the attention of the House, and, indeed, if I could, the attention of the country to, is that the present price of milk will remain so long as the prices of feeding stuffs remain as they are. As soon as the prices of feeding stuffs change, then the price of milk will change also. In other words, as soon as the importation of foreign feeding stuffs, such as maize meal and so on, will come about again, then the prices for the producers of milk will also change, because, naturally, there will be the competition as between our own home-grown feeding stuffs and the imported feeding stuffs, and our farmers here will have to face that fact. They will have to face the fact that if, as a result of large imports of foreign feeding stuffs, the prices of feeding stuffs, generally, come down, then the price of milk must also come down.

Now, it seems to me, if I read the position aright, that there is not yet in the mind of the Government any idea of arranging for fixed prices for the grain producers in this country for the future. At least, that is my interpretation of the position. I may be wrong, but I should like to know from the Minister whether or not that is the position because, if so, it means that all our talk about growing more and more wheat and so on only amounted to a lot of hot air, and I do not think that it would be desirable that such an impression should be created. I agree, of course, that it is very difficult for the Government or for our farmers to stand up against the competition that will come from the great grain-growing areas of the American Continent when normality is restored. I appreciate the fact that we can have great floods of grain of all sorts coming into us here— perhaps not as much as we had in the past, but at any rate sufficient to produce an amount of instability in this country with regard to the prices of grain, and which may involve great hardship to our farmers.

My last point is that we cannot have increased production in this country unless we have an increase in the number of men available for work on the land, and an increase in the number of machines. Unless you can guarantee increased prices over a considerable period for our producers, you cannot expect men to go in for the production of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, or any other type of tillage produce. You cannot expect any man to go in for that kind of production if he does not know what he is going to get in return for his labour. That, in my belief, was the chief cause of the decline in tillage in this country in the past. The Minister, in the other House, referred to the matter of wheat production, and I went to the trouble of looking into the figures. As a result, personally, I think that the increased growing of wheat here was due to the war more than to the policy of the Government. I think that it was the war that was responsible for the great increase in wheat-growing.

Mr. Seán O'Donovan

Oh, no, Senator, that is going too far.

Mr. Baxter

Well, I do not want to enter into that matter in detail, but I have some figures here which, I think, will back me up in my contention. As regards wheat, for instance, in 1931, there were almost 21,000 acres of wheat grown. In 1935, there were 163,473 acres of wheat grown, in 1936, there were 254,521 acres of wheat grown.

Mr. Seán O'Donovan

Yes, and against great opposition at that time.

Mr. Clarkin

Yes, due to the economic war or the "comic war", as somebody described it.

Mr. Baxter

Well, I am not going to enter into that.

Mr. Sweetman

I think we should be grateful, as it seems to me that this is the first time that Senator Clarkin has ever spoken in this House.

Mr. Baxter

Well, as I was saying, we had in 1936 some 254,000 odd acres under wheat; in 1937 we had 220,000 odd acres under wheat; in 1938, 230,000 odd acres under wheat; in 1939, 255,000 odd acres under wheat, and in 1944, 642,000 odd acres under wheat. Now, that is not the whole story. Let us take the figures for the total tillage. In 1931 we had 1,425,000 acres under tillage. In 1935, there were 1,591,000 acres tilled. In 1937, there were 1,592,000 acres tilled. In 1938, there were 1,568,000 acres tilled. In 1939 there were 1,492,000 acres tilled, and in 1944 there were 2,567,000 acres tilled. Now, those are the figures for the total tillage of the country during those years, and I think that they show that from the point of view of tillage we were not really achieving a great deal. Actually, we were only transferring from one group to another, and that is what really happened. I suggest to the Minister that not alone do we require an immense extension with regard to the capital necessary in every farm for greater production on the land—and that is what we have to look for if we want to have real production—but we require more men, more machines, and so on. We require to add to the fertility of our soil, and we also require drainage everywhere. I do not know whether we are so much in need of the new main roads that we hear so much about, but I suggest to the Minister that you cannot have stability here unless you have international agreements.

It is my belief that stability of prices here will be determined by the relations between the various producer nations in the future, and the sooner we can get into that scheme of things and meet the people who are thinking of these matters outside this country, the better, if we are to arrive at any kind of stability so far as our own products are concerned. The sooner we get into contact with these people the better. I understand that early in the next month there is to be a gathering in London of the Food and Agricultural Organisation Conference, at which European and American countries will be represented.

I think it is to meet on April 3rd. I have here a cutting of the London Times of the 10th January, in which their correspondent discusses the situation with regard to food, and he suggests that amongst the people who will be invited to this conference are some ex-enemy countries and some neutrals. Now, I do not know what our attitude here is in regard to that. I am sure that we cannot be regarded by any of these countries as an ex-enemy. If any fault is to be found with us, it can only be on the ground that we were neutral. On the other hand, in proportion to our general food production, we have a considerable quantity of food available for export, and I think we are not making enough of that fact. Definitely, the time has come for us to make a more vigorous effort to have our views heard, especially at this forthcoming Food and Agricultural Organisation Conference, and I suggest to the Minister that we should endeavour to find a place there.

I have the report of the last gathering of these people who assembled in Quebec, and I find this rule with regard to the admission of new members:—

"(1) Applications for admission to the organisation shall be addressed to the Director-General and shall be transmitted immediately by him to member Governments.

(2) Any such application shall be placed on the agenda of the next session which opens not less than 90 days from the receipt of the application.

(3) Any decision by the conference to accept an application shall be accompanied by a determination of the proportionate share of the expenses to be paid by the applicant.

(4) The Director-General shall communicate to the Government applying for membership the decisions referred to in paragraph (3) above. Such Government may then deposit with the Director-General an instrument accepting the constitution of the organisation and shall become a member from the date of such deposit."

I suggest that our place ought to be there, if we can get there. I suggest that we cannot get very far, until we get there, on the way to stability in agricultural prices, because it is the sittings of bodies like these, meeting internationally, which are going to determine the measure of price stability by which we will be influenced whether we are represented or not. A terrible obligation is on us, and on our Government especially, to make an effort to be represented there. I think we have a perfect right to be there. We are not going as beggars looking for something from these people.

We have something any country would be proud to have, and as such we have a claim that few people can ignore. Only in that way can we reach the stage when we can feel we are building on a foundation that will enable us to bring such stability into agricultural production here as will justify everybody in seeking that 100 per cent. increase in agricultural production which specialists are convinced we can get if we tackle our task in the right way.

Mr. McCabe

I have listened attentively to the debate this evening since Senator Hayes raised the question of teachers' salaries and the present strike. From his remarks, one would think that the Government has no responsibility to the community and that the Government should be more or less shocked because the teachers took it upon themselves to decide that there were reasons for a strike, and actually went on strike. I know that for years past, and indeed, until quite recently, very few people in this country knew exactly what the teachers were getting by way of salaries, but quite recently the Government were manly enough to put before the public the scale of salaries paid to national teachers and also the increase which, according to the figures given by the Minister this evening, would cost the country £1,250,000.

Personally, I feel that the teachers are well paid. They are well paid compared with other classes in this country. When we take into account what the last speaker has mentioned about production and the need for help to produce the food we require, we must consider very carefully the pay given to workers on the land. They have to work six or seven days in each week. They have no right to a pension when they reach a certain age; they have no fixity of tenure, and surely, they have no holidays. There was a great deal said this evening in connection with the unfortunate children in the City of Dublin. We were told that it is a very serious matter to have them running around the streets, but we can see them running around the roads and streets in the summer for six weeks and perhaps for a month at Christmas and a month at Easter, and if there is the slightest suspicion of an epidemic in the country or the city, the schools are closed in 48 hours, and that means two or three weeks more.

Certainly, I do not want to be hard on any class of the community, but I say that there are people working to produce food for this country and they have very poor pay. I am certain that if a Deputy or Senator on a platform to-morrow explained the salaries paid to the teachers, there would be an uproar by the farmers and producers of the country on finding that the teachers are paid far ahead of what they expected. I think the teachers should be manly enough and have patriotism enough to agree that their action in going out on strike is not one that would commend itself to the people of this country.

Mr. Tunney

I am glad that Senator Baxter is not the Minister for Education. I am afraid that if he were we would never have a settlement of the teachers' strike. Dealing with the teachers' strike the only thing I would say that as an intelligent and educated body of people they would not go on strike unless they had very grave reasons for doing it.

Mr. Baxter

Are you referring to Senator McCabe or to me?

Mr. Tunney

I am sorry. I meant Senator McCabe. However, I hope the strike will come to a very speedy end, and I hope the teachers will be successful, because they did not go on strike until they felt there was no other course open to them. Nobody can say there was anything political or communistic about their action. That they are an important section in this nation everybody must agree and they took this step only when they had to do it.

I want to bring before the Minister the question of agricultural labourers. Nearly every Senator has mentioned the teachers' strike. I hold that it is a very serious strike because the teachers come next to the parents in relation to the children so far as seeing to their morals are concerned, but what would be the position of the nation if the agricultural labourers went on strike? They are the people who have the right to go on strike. They are the people who produce our food and is it not sad to think that while they have the life of the nation in their hands, the nation can only give them £2 a week?

I am sorry that it is not those people who are ready to go on strike, though I think that it would be a calamity if that should happen at present. I am sorry that the agricultural labourers are not sufficiently organised to make a demand on the people for a living wage. The farmer and the farm labourer are the people on whom every section of industrialist and industrial worker must depend. Why should the farmer and the farm labourer not have security? Neither the farmer nor the farm labourer has a pension in old age. Why should they not have the same security as other sections? The Agricultural Wages Board, as at present constituted, does not represent the agricultural labourers, whatever may be said about their representing the farmers. Every farmer in this House would admit that the farm labourer has not sufficient to keep body and soul together, so that I am not satisfied that the board represents even the farmers. No farmer here will say that a family of five or six can exist on £2 per week. I referred to this question last year. There has been no change since in the position. Within the past 12 months practically every type of worker has got some little bonus, but the agricultural worker got no bonus in that period. I hope that the present Agricultural Wages Board will disappear and that persons will be appointed who can speak for the farmers and farm labourers.

Despite what may be said about our social services, I am afraid that we forget certain sections. I admit that there have been great improvements in our social services. The present Government has done a great deal so far as that is concerned. Still, there are a few classes who deserve better treatment even if it involved extra taxation. I do not think there would be a grumble in connection with the raising of the money. I refer to the case of the non-contributory widow. In the Constitution, which we all appreciate so much, it is set out that the widow and the aged person are to be looked after by the State. But the position of the non-contributory widows is deplorable. They have to go to three different sources for their miserable pittances. They go, in the first place, for the pension. Then they go to the relieving officer and then they go for the family allowance. Out of all they receive on an average about 23/-. The children of those people are being made into beggars because they are going around for vouchers. The number of these people is small and we should be generous with them. It is bad enough that a woman should lose her breadwinner, but it is worse when she has to suffer hardship and poverty and be made into a beggar for the rest of her life. Let us not blind ourselves to the facts. That is the position. Why should there be a difference in the rate paid to a widow in rural Ireland and in the cities? There should be no difference. We all want to encourage people to stay on the land, but in this case there is every encouragement to leave the land and move into the city. If a widow remains on the land she receives less than she would receive in the city. She should, at least, get the same amount, because her children would get an opportunity of working on the land instead of roaming around the streets of Dublin. I appeal to the Minister to see that that distinction between rates in rural areas and in the cities be eliminated.

I hope that the position of another class will be improved this year. I refer to the person who falls ill and whose family has to live on national health insurance benefit. I was not here when Senator Foran spoke but I hope he referred to this matter. There is a very serious position in regard to those people. We had a case not far from here of the head of a house who became unwell. The family went for relief and did not get it. The entire family moved into the Dublin Union last week. The head of the house had been removed to Dublin Union hospital the previous week. There were five children and they had nothing to live on. It is disastrous that these people should be obliged to leave their home and go into the union. That happened within a couple of miles of where we are and we are speaking of all our social services. People within a couple of miles of us are absolutely starving. We talk about our big health schemes and of the building of hospitals. How can you expect healthy children when there is such a state of semi-starvation? Give them enough to eat and half the number of people will not be going to hospitals. That is my idea anyhow. It is a tragedy that, when a man becomes genuinely ill and is removed to hospital, his wife and children must be removed to the union. That should not happen in a Christian country.

The other matter to which I want to refer is that of old age pensions. I do not know whether Senator Foran referred to it or not. Despite the fact that our bill amounts to £53,000,000 the position of the old age pensioners is a disgrace. Let us go back for a moment. The British Government, whom we rightly fought to drive out of this country—they are not out of it all yet—gave 10/- a week as pension when they were here. The Cumann na nGaedhael Government took 1/- off that. That was the first step in the wrong direction. It was the beginning of the end of the Cumann na nGaedhael Party. I am very far from defending the Cumann na nGaedhael Government but I defy contradiction when I say that, at the time they took that 1/- off and left the pensioners with 9/-, they were better off than they would be with 16/- to-day. How can any responsible body of men expect old age pensioners to live on 10/- a week? Last year, or the year before, these unfortunate people were asked to go to the relieving officer for a subsidy of 2/6, with a means test.

When we speak of the national position and the abolition of the Border, how on earth can we expect a Nationalist old age pensioner at present in receipt of £1 2s. 6d. in Northern Ireland, and who will be shortly in receipt of £1 6s., to vote for re-union under a Government which will allow him to starve on 10/- a week? Apart from that there is the fact that these poor people are going to their graves much earlier than they would if they were given a sufficient allowance to lead a normal existence. Surely, after paying rent out of their 10/-, particularly here in the city, they cannot afford many luxuries on the 5/- which is left. Of course we are told that there are vouchers but I think that system is a disgrace. I think it is a disgrace that we should ask a person who has had to work all his life, from the age of 14 to the age of 70, to exist on vouchers. Somebody has referred to the fact that the rates in Dublin have been increased by 2/6 in the £ but I think that, if it meant even an extra 2/6 for every person in the State, no one would complain if by making such a contribution the old age pensioners were enabled to live in a reasonable measure of comfort in the end of their days.

There is then the question of the means test. Take the case of two brothers as an illustration. One happens to have worked all his lifetime, and, because he was industrious, he has been able to establish a little home and to enjoy a little comfort in his old age. The other was a useless fellow, living on every dole and charity he could get. When he comes to the age of 70/- he gets the 10/- per week, for what it is worth. I say, of course, that he should be getting £1 per week but the other person who was an industrious citizen all his life gets nothing at all. That is the reward for thrift in this country, and I defy any person to contradict that statement. The dishonest waster when he reaches the age of 70 automatically gets 10/- a week but the thrifty citizen gets nothing. I hold that we should be generous to all these people and I think that generosity should go the length of paying them an allowance of at least £1 per week. I am certain that if such a proposition were left to a free vote in the Minister's own Party there would be a 100 per cent. favourable vote.

In regard to general administration, I desire to refer just to one item on which a huge sum will be expended this year, namely, turf. It is far from my intention to detract in any way from the praise due to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce. I am satisfied that during the years of the emergency the present Minister for Industry and Commerce handled the situation in this country as competently as any other person in the nation could have done but I am afraid that the Minister is not aware of the position in regard to the traffic in turf. You can call it a racket or anything you like, but it is a disgrace. There is a huge turf scheme at present in course of preparation but I can assure the Minister that if a better job cannot be made of that scheme than has been made of the turf scheme for the past five years, it would be much better to leave it alone. I know that at the commencement of the emergency the Minister's hands were full and we were prepared to make all due allowance for that but I can make no allowance for the present position under which the producer in Mayo or Kerry is given 15/- per ton for his turf and the public must pay a subsidy of £1 8s. 6d. per ton on turf which is sold to the working class at a rate of £5 per ton.

Mr. Patrick O'Reilly

I do not think that is correct.

Mr. Tunney

That is correct. I wonder is there anybody in the country controlling this turf traffic? No later than last week—I do not mind whom I hurt—we had a gentleman up in court who said that he was able to make 32/- per day profit by delivering one ton of turf and £3 4s. 0d. on Saturdays. That turf was delivered to workers. I wonder if that man will still be allowed to rob the workers of the city? The working class in the city have to pay 2/- for a bag of turf which does not provide even one decent fire. We would put more in one fire in the country than is contained in these bags sold for 2/- to the working-class people here. I know working-class people living beside me who, out of their income of £3 15s. 0d. or £4 per week, must pay 15/- per week for one decent fire of turf in the day. One would think that there is nobody responsible for administering the turf scheme.

I say—and it applies to people outside delivering turf and people inside drawing huge salaries—that there are people in prison for crimes less serious than for allowing the present state of affairs to continue. That is a rather serious statement for me to make but it is a fact. I issue this challenge to the Minister: Give me a free hand to-morrow and I shall deliver turf at £3 4s. 0d. per ton, weighed over the scales, though, mind you, the unfortunate workers who are paying that price in addition to the £1 8s. 6d. subsidy are not getting a ton at all. I hope that the Minister for Finance will request his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce to take some steps to end the turf racket and the reign of the turf racketeer. There are some people dealing in turf whose financial position it would be very easy to estimate in 1939, but I should like if their bank accounts were put before the Seanad to-day. I think that the one thing on which the Department for Industry and Commerce fell down completely was the turf question.

I wonder if I would be in order in referring to the Department of External Affairs, and saying that I am not satisfied that it has taken advantage of the changed position in Britain during the last 12 months. Has any approach been made to the newly-elected Government in Britain? Has there even been a gesture of appreciation of the change that has taken place in the Government there? Heretofore, the Governments there were hostile to Ireland. The fact that we have a Border in this country is a serious one. I feel—I may be wrong about it—that the time is now ripe when a move should be made by the responsible Department here for closer contact with the new Government in Britain. I had the pleasure of meeting an English-born member of the British House of Commons—Mr. Coyle—when he was over here on a visit recently, and I was very much impressed by the way that he was willing to act as regards bringing about a solution of the Border position. I may be told that he was only one man. Well, is it not a good thing that there is even one English-born member of Parliament who is so anxious to see the Border removed? You may have in England 101 or 201 such people. In this matter I am expressing my own personal view. I feel disappointed that there was no expression from the Head of the Government here of the fact that there has been a Labour Government elected in Britain. I think that that Government will look on Irish questions from a different aspect to that adopted by the previous Governments there.

Mr. O'Dea

If it were not for the fact that Senator Baxter made a long speech in which he dealt with different matters I do not think I would have intervened in this debate at all. I will not enter into the question of the teachers' strike beyond saying that I would be very glad if the teachers would hearken to the good advice given by Senator Mrs. Concannon. I think that she has shown them the way to make the first move, and I hope that will be done.

Senator Baxter asked why we had not the same social services as they have in other countries. He seems to have forgotten the history of this country: that up to 1898 we had here a grand jury system composed mostly of landlords. Their chief work appeared to be to make roads between their estates at the expense of the county, and not to realise the requirements of their tenants or other poor people. The landlords at that time were responsible, I think, for the payment of half the rates. For that reason they did as little as possible. We inherited the legacy of their neglect in 1898. In that year a standard rate was fixed, and the remainder of the rates was put on the tenants who were members of the local councils. They found it very difficult to expend large sums of money on the various services that were required in the different districts at that time and up to recently whenever an area required a water supply or some other local amenity, the area had to bear the full cost of it. The present Government recently passed a law providing that all improvements made in particular areas would be met by a county-at-large charge. In consequence of that a great number of improvements will be made that otherwise would not be made. Local representatives in the past were afraid to ask even for improvements for their own areas because the people would object to the charges falling on them. Because of that a lot of work was not done that should have been done. At present we have to do works that could have been done at about one-twentieth of the cost if they had been undertaken at the proper time.

Senator Baxter also referred to unemployment. I think that he must have forgotten the great work done by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce in the setting up of new industries, and the large amount of extra employment which they provided. All that was done during the short period of seven years—between 1932 and 1939. Then the war came, which made it impossible to start any more new industries. The result was that a certain amount of unemployment was caused through no fault of any member of the Government. That is really what gave rise to unemployment. Now that the war is over we hope that progress in the industrial lines will be resumed, and that in a short time we will have very little unemployment.

Senator Baxter also referred to some food conference, and suggested, I think, that this Government should apply for admission to it. I do not know that we need go begging for admission to any foreign conferences. A very short time ago certain people in business in this country went over to England and asked for certain goods. They were told that they would not get them, and that perhaps in 15 years' time they might forget that we had remained a neutral nation and did not help them in the war; that possibly at the end of that time they would forgive and forget. But we found that we could get from other countries everything that we asked from them. They have since sent their travellers around begging the people that I speak of to take the goods which they refused to give them one or two years ago. As I know the Minister wants to speak, I shall not detain the House any further.

Mr. Baxter

On a point of explanation, I want to say that there was nothing further from my mind than to suggest that we should go begging to get into any conference. I think that no one in this House would be more reluctant than I would to go begging to any conference. I did not make any such suggestion. I was thinking of a formal application, and that if it was not accepted I would be quite prepared to remain at home.

Mr. O'Dea

My friend would have to draw up the form of application to be made.

Mr. Patrick O'Reilly

I think that the debate on this measure has covered a very wide field indeed. It has dealt with matters varying from the teachers' strike to agricultural production, and then went on to make a comparison of the social services as between this country and Northern Ireland, and many other different matters. As far as I know, practically everybody who spoke, except Senator O'Dea, started off by referring to the teachers' strike, and I suppose I should take example from my elders and betters by doing the same thing. I must say that I am very worried about the position that has been created with regard to the teachers, and I think it is a tragedy that this strike has taken place. I do not propose to enter into the merits of the case because I do not understand it sufficiently, but I do think that no matter where the blame may rest it is unfortunate that the teachers should be the first people to use the strike weapon after the terrible war conditions that have existed all over the world for the last few years, and particularly when old-established institutions are crumbling up in many other countries. For that reason I think it is unfortunate that the strike weapon should be used by the teachers, since they are the biggest group to go on strike, as a body, in recent years.

As I say, I do not know where the blame rests, but the situation that has been created cannot have been brought about in a day or a week, or a month or even six months. I am always inclined to take the view that when situations like this arise there must be a certain amount of blame on both sides. The Minister more or less convinced me, by his correspondence in the newspapers, that he had a good case, but then I did not hear the other side of the case. The Minister seemed to have a very good case when he pointed out that the teachers had first withdrawn their strike notice, and then decided to go on with it. I think there must be something wrong with the Department of Education when such a thing should be allowed to happen. After all, the teachers in rural Ireland in the old days were always looked upon as the big men in the parish, the men who bridged the gap between the ordinary people and the higher civil servants, as they were able to fill up forms, write to the Castle or other Departments on behalf of the people of the parish, and so on. In those days, these teachers would never have dreamed of going on strike, so how has this kind of thing crept in? Is it because you have a different type of people teaching in the schools now, or is it due to a change in the Department of Education itself? Is it a case of non-co-operation between the Department and the teachers over a long time that has brought about this position, or is it the result of a change in the type of person who has adopted the teaching profession?

I remember a great statement that was made on time by the Archbishop of Dublin—it struck me very forcibly at the time—when he said he would like to see the teachers being drawn more from teaching families. I think there is a lot in that. Just as in the case of a woman driving a motor car, as some one has said, drivers are born, not made, the same, I think, applies to teachers: they are born, not made. If there has been a change in the type of people going in for teaching now, that might possibly be due to the methods of the Department. At any rate, it is unfortunate that this strike should have occurred. I agree with Senator Baxter that it would be a pity if this strike were to end, to use his own words, ingloriously for either the teachers or the State. We all regard the teaching profession as a very important one, since the teachers are the trainers of the people who will own and rule this country to-morrow, and if these young people are not properly trained, then this country cannot hope to improve in outlook or in spirit. Because of that the teachers' responsibility must be regarded as a fundamental service in this country. Now, if a position is to be brought about, as between the State and the teaching profession, where there is non-co-operation, resulting in strikes and so on, it means that the standing of the teacher in the community will be impaired, and that is a bad state of affairs. I should also say, however, that the State has its responsibilities as well as its rights. Naturally, the Minister must take the attitude, to use his own words, of "Not an inch; no surrender". I think, however, that it has been suggested by Senator Mrs. Concannon that some way should be found to bring about a solution that would not entail an inglorious end to the strike either for the teachers or for the State, and I put it to the people who are in the position to do so, that they should endeavour to think out some plan to secure that this strike will be finished without ending ingloriously either for the teachers or for the State.

Having regard to the rising taxation in this country, the Minister, no matter what he might like to do, must take a stand on what he considers to be reasonable, having regard to the taxable capacity of the country, but I suggest that when this position of deadlock was arrived at, it ought to have been possible to solve it without strike action. Whether there is non-co-operation between the teachers and the Department or not, I do not know. Everybody is complaining about the rising trend of taxation in this country.

In this country, we seem to have three methods of collecting taxation, the indirect method, the direct method and taxation by local authority. Someone has described indirect taxation as a sugar-coated pill. It is true that you will not hear so many people complaining about it as you will about direct taxation by the State or the local authority. I would suggest to the Minister that when he wants to increase his revenue he might consider using the indirect method. Far fewer people will complain about it than if the money is raised by the direct method.

Several speakers to-night have stressed the need for increased production. If we have not increased production to balance increased taxation, we must end in stalemate sometime. Senator Baxter suggested that local taxation would break down in two years. I do not know whether that is a right guess or not, but I know that it is becoming a very serious matter in some counties, so serious that it is causing worry to members of local authorities who take their responsibilities seriously.

The fact is that the real wealth of the country is in the elbow-grease of the people and if people produce more, the State will be in a position to raise taxation and to collect the money. But something should be done to ensure that local taxation is more equitably distributed. In that connection, I rather welcome a statement made by the Minister for Local Government at some meeting in this city when he indicated that rational administration in local government was desirable. What he meant, I am at a loss to know, but any changes in regard to the collection of local taxation would be changes for the better, especially in areas like Western Cavan which Senator Baxter knows. That area could not exist if it were not subsidised by the richer areas of East Cavan. Similarly, if all County Galway were of the same productivity and had the same soil as West Galway, then the local authority would not be able to give the services they are able to do.

In Leitrim, everything is pretty even. We have a poor soil and a lower taxable capacity, a capacity so contracted that we have a rate of 19/- in the £. We cannot collect anything like the same amount of money as they can collect in the Midlands or in some of the southern counties who, with a much lower rate, are able to give good services and are able to get as good value in labour content in the carrying out of works. That is the position and I think it should be seriously considered by the Government with a view to securing equalisation in local administration.

In actual practice, local administration at the moment amounts to centralised government. The passage of time will prove whether the county management is wise or unwise. The county manager is invested with a lot of authority, and the local authorities are to a great extent there for window-dressing purposes. I agree that there are certain things they can do, but they are pretty limited.

There is the county manager. He seems to have as much loyalty to the Custom House as to the local authority. Perhaps these managers feel they are a sort of civil servant. But that seems to be their position. Seeing that that is the situation about us, I do not know why there should be inequity in the matter of raising local taxation. Even though the poor law valuation may be equitable for the county, the collection of rates as between one county and another is not always equitable.

Turning to the social services, we heard Senator Foran making a comparison between Northern Ireland and the State here. I agree that some people may claim that certain social services are a mistake. Sometimes, according to the humour I am in, I think that unemployment assistance is a mistake. But, if it is a mistake, I feel in the end that it is a mistake in favour of the poor, and it is far better to make a mistake in favour of the poor than against the poor because it is so seldom that mistakes are made in favour of the poor.

The fact remains the people who really produce wealth are the people who work and earn in field or factory. They only are in the position to pay taxes. They are the greater bulk of our people. You will have a small percentage of the people rich enough to live on the income of their capital and you will have a lower percentage, unfortunately, who become parasites on society, but the 60 per cent. of the people in between earning from £2 a week either on the farm or on the roads are the people who really count.

They are the people who, by their elbow-grease, keep the country going, pay the taxes, and if by excessive taxation some of them are driven out of existence and into the group of parasites living on social services, it will be a bad day for this country. I am afraid we must admit the cruel fact that there are people who live on the social services. To force more people to live on the social services would be an unfortunate state of affairs.

It is very easy for me or any other member of the House to criticise taxation. After all, we are the people who come along and suggest that the Government should do this or do that or something else which will mean the expenditure of public moneys. In the long run, it boils down to the fact that the Minister is left to decide who will pay.

Mr. Meighan

Seeing that so many have touched on the teachers' strike, I would be tempted to refrain from saying anything. I would not say anything if I had not such a great dislike for strikes. I have had experience— not personal—of a strike over 20 years ago in Ballaghadereen which lasted for something like six months. It had very bad effects. Before the strike took place the greatest amity existed between employers and employees.

On a very small matter, a strike took place and, as in the case of every other strike, the people on both sides became proud. One would not yield to the other. Everybody was leaving it to somebody else to interest himself in the matter. Nobody intervened and the strike drifted on. Even at present, the effects of that strike are being felt. I am glad that no hard words were used to-day which would antagonise either party to the present strike. That is one thing for which the House and the country should be grateful. If anything can be done in the matter, it should be done. Personally, I think that the Government made a very decent offer. That is my personal opinion, taking into consideration the salaries of people in other walks of life. While I say that, I suggest that a readjustment may be required amongst the various grades. A case has been brought to my notice within the past fortnight or three weeks in which a lady teacher who retired has to live for the remainder of her life on about £1 per week. She was a junior assistant mistress. Extreme cases such as that require a little reconsideration. I shall not say anything with regard to the merits of the strike, seeing that the parties concerned — the Government and the teachers—are, as in most strikes, a bit high and proud. Neither of them wants to bend the knee. I do think that a great service would be done to the country if Senator Hayes, who introduced this matter, and Senator Mrs. Concannon put their heads together with a view to effecting an arrangement. They could get a number of members of this House to act with them and, if necessary, they could invite members of the Dáil to cooperate.

They could suggest to the teachers to go back to work and that they would take the responsibility of acting as intermediaries and getting whatever points are in dispute reviewed. From the tone of speeches I think that members of this House would be unanimous in their support of such a development and, if the members succeeded in doing as I suggest, they would have the gratitude of the House and of the country.

With regard to social services as they affect rural Ireland there are a few things to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention. One of these, which affects many people in rural Ireland, is cul-de-sac roads. In County Roscommon, these roads have been a bone of contention for many years. Rates have increased by 2/6 in Dublin and by about 1/6 in Roscommon. Yet, families living on those roads who find it impossible, during three or four months of winter, to bring a horse and cart into their premises cannot have the roads repaired. These could not be called roads at all. They are waterlogged. Not a penny of rates can be spent upon them. The ratepayers of Roscommon—I am sure the position would be the same elsewhere—would not object to paying 1d. or 2d. in the £ if those roads could be given attention. But, no matter what rate is struck, these roads cannot be dealt with. We shall, probably, be told that a certain number of these roads can be improved by means of minor relief schemes. But there is very often a snag in those schemes. In a particular case in which 16 or 17 farmers were concerned, a drain was made in 1929 under a minor relief scheme. The place is waterlogged again. The supervision last time was very bad and the sides were slipped in and never taken up. The ganger took the easy way and thought the flood would sweep it by but, instead of that, crops and meadows are in constant danger of flooding. A number of them suffered loss on up to two acres of meadow last year. The parties concerned applied to have the matter attended to under a minor relief scheme this year. The work was passed but about a fortnight ago they were informed that there were not sufficient unemployed in the area to warrant a minor relief scheme. There were only 17 unemployed on the list, with the result the work failed to be done. I do not like to see the dole being given to able-bodied men.

Many people in the West do not like to see it either but I suggest that this is an invitation to people to go on the dole. A number of men in that area, for the sake of getting the work done and getting some of those grants, will go on the dole next year, as it is the only means left. I think that is a bad principle. I should be very slow to refuse unemployment assistance to people who need it. A certain type of person prefers to work and I think the regulations should be amended in such a way as to enable able-bodied men to be put on relief schemes and get a decent wage. In districts where they do not want it, it should not be forced on them but works which are badly needed should be carried out.

The next matter to which I want to call attention is that of the prices fixed by the Government for clothing and boots. I have first-hand information on this matter because I myself got some stuff at prices lower than the prices marked on the materials. Merchants and traders admit that they are being treated very generously and that, if it were left to themselves to fix a profit, they would be satisfied with less. That is proved by the fact that they are prepared to take less than the fixed price. I have heard the opinion expressed—I should not like to believe it—that the idea of the Government in fixing those high prices is that merchants will have big dividends and be able to contribute to the exchequer in income-tax. That is said but I should be slow to believe it.

Like Senator Baxter, I was amazed to see the statement by the Minister for Agriculture that he thought there were enough people on the land. I think there is room for a lot more on it. One has only to travel by bus or rail from here to the West to have one's eyes opened to the fact that there is scarcely a mile of the road along which drainage, the cutting of hedges or the planting of shrubbery of some description is not necessary. In my own townland there are about 20 fewer homes than there were about 30 years ago. A few families have been transferred to other places but there are at least 18 fewer families in a townland of about 40 families than there were 30 years ago. All through rural Ireland the experience is that school attendances are decreasing. I know schools where in my own young days 30 or 40 years ago there was an average attendance of about 120 and to-day the attendance is down to seven, eight or nine. There are many late marriages in the country, and in many of these homes one finds old bachelors and spinsters. The situation is not very bright or hopeful from that point of view. I think it is for the Government and the Minister for Agriculture especially to examine the position and to see if anything can be done to improve it. If people leave the land and if rural Ireland becomes a wilderness there will be very little prospect for the cities or towns afterwards.

Mr. Campbell

I did not intend to intervene in this debate but lest my silence in regard to the unfortunate strike now in operation might be misinterpreted I should like to say a few words in regard to the position that has arisen. I do not intend to refer to the merits or the demerits of the case but as a trade union official and somewhat of a leader for the last quarter of a century in the trade union movement, I should like to say that this particular strike seems to differ in many respects from the ordinary industrial dispute that takes place in this country. Firstly, I should say as a result of experience gained during that period as a trade unionist and, as I say, somewhat of a leader in the trade union movement, I have come to the conclusion that we should resort to every device to settle industrial disputes before appealing to the arbitrament of force. It is my opinion that a new outlook in regard to these matters is overdue in this country and I do not see why we should not follow the devices or methods followed by other countries to settle disputes. While saying that, I do not want to suggest that we should divorce ourselves or separate ourselves in any way from labour movements in other countries but I do think that there is an Irish way of settling our difficulties and that we should avail ourselves of these methods without resorting to the arbitrament of force to determine these questions.

This is a peculiar dispute. The teachers made an appeal to the Government or to the Minister for Education for a new scale of salaries. The teachers, I have no doubt, were justified in making that demand. The Government went a certain distance towards acceding to that demand and they arrived at the position in these negotiations where several anomalies, as I understand, became manifest in the scales of salaries offered. As a trade union leader who has been concerned in various disputes, I must say that we would not have broken at that. We would have appealed to some other authority to help us in the determination of these anomalies which apparently are manifest in the scales submitted by the Government. I do not want, as I say, to get into any controversy about the merits or the demerits of the dispute which has eventuated in the strike. The teachers are probably justified in the attitude they took and they have the right in any event to adopt that attitude. When I speak of new methods of determining labour troubles in this country, I do not want to say for a moment that I am against the strike but I am against resorting to a strike until every effort at settlement has been tried. It is for that reason that I would urgently appeal to the teachers' organisation and to the Minister to endeavour to come to some accommodation and to reopen negotiations to end the impasse that has occurred.

I felt that I should speak on this question having regard to the fact that I am associated with a certain organisation of workers in this country—I refer to the Congress of Irish Unions— to which they are not affiliated and lest it might be thought that I was reluctant to speak because they chose to remain with another body of workers.

My sympathies are with the teachers in their efforts to improve their conditions, but I would seriously suggest that every effort would be made even now by the Minister—I do not think the Minister is an impossible man; I think he is susceptible to reason and argument—to reopen negotiations and that whatever differences exist in regard to scales of salaries now is the time to come to a settlement. I seriously suggest that as a trade union official of 25 years' standing, and as one who has tried to settle disputes concerning my own union in an accommodating manner. I think that in the near future we shall see a greater development along these lines and that there will be delays before a final appeal is made to force by way of a strike. My firm conviction, after a quarter of a century's experience, is that when a body of workers go on strike they have fired their last shot. Some people think that when workers go on strike they fire the first shot, but my experience, as I say, as a trade unionist is that you have fired your last shot when you go on strike. For that reason I again, even at this late hour, ask the Minister and the teachers to try to get some other body to intervene to bring about a settlement. Like Senator Baxter I do not want the teachers to come to an ignominious settlement and I do not think the Minister or the Government desire that either.

Senator O'Reilly adverted in some way, unless I am misinterpreting him, to parasites who live on social services. I do not know to what body he refers. As a representative of the organisation to which I have already referred, I have to say that there are no affiliated members of that organisation who want to live on social services. If he was referring to any body of organised trade unionists I want to say that there are no parasites among them. Their great trouble is that they cannot get sufficient employment. When the Senator talks about social services, he must remember that these workers contribute to these social services and that they are a form of insurance which they are legitimately entitled to claim when they are unemployed. My colleague, Senator Foran, can speak for the general body of workers but I speak for the craft unions and, so far as the craft workers are concerned, I can assure the Senator that there are no parasites amongst them. They made tremendous efforts to get employment, even during the period through which we have passed, by going to England at great disadvantage to themselves. They were barely able to exist there on the sum of money left to them after they had sent an allowance sufficient to maintain their wives and families at home. If the Senator meant that they were parasites——

Mr. S. O'Donovan

I do not think that he was referring to any organised body of workers, but rather to the n'er-do-well type.

Mr. Campbell

I would resent the imputation as much on their behalf as I would on behalf of those for whom I was speaking. At this late hour I do not want to go into the matter further. I know that the Minister is anxious to reply to the debate, but I simply rose to deal with that point.

Mr. O'Callaghan

Many Senators have referred to the fact that the figure of national expenditure is a staggering one. I would like to re-echo the suggestions made by a number of Senators that the only way to meet that expenditure is by increased agricultural production. Senator Baxter referred to the White Paper issued in connection with dairying. The only fault that we have to find with it is that the price offered is not sufficient. We agree that it represents a step in the right direction. I hope that White Papers will be issued in connection with other farm products. Suggestions have been made that the Government should shake up other Governments and get a reasonable deal from them. I have full confidence that our Government will do all that is necessary to be done in that respect. I hope the time will come when we will have guaranteed prices for our live-stock products, as well as for all our farm products.

Reference has been made to the expenditure on turf, electricity and at Rineanna. I was at Rineanna recently and met there a man who is anything but a supporter of the Government. He was very much struck by all that the Government have done there. The great need in the country at the moment is the provision of houses. There is a great shortage of them. Money spent in that way would be productive, because the houses would be utilised to provide accommodation for workers on the land. I will conclude by asking the Minister to proceed with a scheme for the stabilisation of prices for all other farm products as well as milk. The Minister knows more about farming problems than any other man in the House. My final word is that I am prepared to leave all these matters in his hands.

Mr. Aiken

I am afraid it is true to say that we had the usual type of speech here all day. Practically every Senator who spoke wanted relief for some particular section. There was a plea for relief from taxation or for more subsidies from the State. This publication, National Income and Expenditure which has been circulated shows the limits of what the State can do, and what the community can do for the relief of various sections. All that we can distribute between all classes of people in our community is what we produce ourselves. I believe that we should be very slow to increase various social services until we are certain that we can support them. There is no use in taking a rush forward and then a gallop back. The policy of the Government for a number of years has been to increase the social services gradually: to increase them as we thought we could maintain them. We took no step until we were pretty certain that the country and the community could sustain and maintain the step that we were taking. While we did not move as rapidly as we ourselves would desire, or as a lot of people said that we should—well, at least we did move in the right direction. It is untrue to say, as some Senator has said, that the old age pensioners are getting 10/- a week. What an old age pensioner in the city of Dublin is getting is 15/8 a week effectively, because you have to add to the 10/- the value of the turf, the butter, and the bread which that person gets. When you tot all that up you find that such a person gets in cash and in kind the equivalent of about 15/8 per week.

We had here to-night appeals made by nearly every Senator who spoke for another section of the community, that section being the teachers. The Minister for Education recounted, for the benefit of the House, the negotiations that took place over a period of many months between himself, as representing the Government, and the representatives of the teachers' organisation. Senators can see for themselves that the Minister wanted to do what he thought the community could afford to do for the teachers in our circumstances. The line that he took up here to-night was the line that he took with me and with the Government when making demands on the Government to do the most that the Government thought could be done for the teachers in our circumstances. I want to say that I think the teachers of this country, in the offer that was made to them, have got a very fine offer indeed from this community. I am not paying the teachers' salaries out of my own pocket nor is the Minister for Education paying their salaries out of his pocket, but we are paying the teachers out of the pockets of the general community.

We are paying the teachers out of the pockets of the parents of their pupils, by and large. We had appeals here to-night that we should promise to open up negotiations. The Minister for Education indicated to-day that there was no chance that the Government would go any further than they have gone in the offer they have made to the teachers, and the sooner that is realised the better is the prospect for peace. The Government went as far as it could, as far as it thought this community could afford to go, to give the teachers the highest possible salary that we could give them. We cannot go any further. However, it was indicated that if at the end of a few years the situation was such that the scale should be re-examined, we would be prepared to do so, but that, in present circumstances, the furthest we could go was the scales that have been offered to the teachers.

Now, to judge those scales, one has to keep in mind the clamour that the teachers made during these last 20 or more years, since the cut in their salaries in 1923. They have been always saying that they got the 1920 salary scales from an alien Government and that the first thing a native Government did when it came into power was to cut their salaries by 10 per cent. We should also remember that they did not strike against that 10 per cent cut. at that time. Now, the scales that have been offered to the teachers, as the Minister for Education pointed out, are ever so much higher than the 1920 scales. There is a 40 per cent. increase in the case of women, 28 per cent. in the case of single men, and the increases run up to 62 per cent. in some of the cases of married men. At the same time, the difference between the agreement which they signed in 1920 and to-day is less than 8 per cent., but the salaries offered to them now are, on an average, about 40 per cent. higher. I am comparing the two costs of living and the different scales between 1920 and now, because the teachers themselves, as everybody knows, made that complaint; that they got these grand scales from an alien Government, and that their salaries were then cut by one native Government after another.

Again, to make a comparison in connection with what we have been trying to do for them compared with the Northern Ireland scheme, I think that on the very first day of the strike one of the first advertisements issued was pointing out the difference between the scales of the Northern Ireland teachers and teachers here, but they omitted to state that in the case of the Northern Ireland teacher there is a reduction of 5 per cent. for pension purposes, and after that a deduction for income-tax. Now, I would be prepared to pay the teachers here the same pay as the teachers in Northern Ireland if they paid back into the Exchequer here what the Northern Ireland teachers pay into their Exchequer. If they paid me back here what is paid back by the teachers to the Government in Northern Ireland, that would mean some hundreds of thousands for the Exchequer, and that, of course, is leaving out what they pay for their cigarettes or—if they drink it—their pint of beer. I should not like to see this strike come to an ignominious end, as somebody has said, but there is nothing that we can do about it, and, actually, from the point of view of the national financial purse, the longer the strike goes on, the better it is for the finances of this country, since we will not have to pay the salaries to the teachers. However, I think it is well for the teachers to realise that it would be better for themselves and for the children of this country to accept what has been offered to them, on the understanding that in about three years' time the matter will be gone into again, and we can then consider what position we are in with regard to the payment of teachers' salaries. It is now, Sir, five minutes to ten, and I do not want to delay the Seanad on this particular Bill. A number of points were raised.

Mr. Baxter

I do not think there is any objection to the Minister going on with this measure.

Mr. Sweetman

Are we not sitting to-morrow morning?

Mr. Aiken

Yes, we will be sitting to-morrow to discuss the Defence Forces Bill.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 22nd March, 1946.