Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 22 Mar 1946

Vol. 31 No. 13

Central Fund Bill, 1946 (Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage (Resumed); and Subsequent Stages.

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Finance (Mr. Aiken)

Speaking last night, I called attention to the fact that virtually every Senator here demanded some concession from the Exchequer on behalf of some section of the community. In an effort to get discussions of that kind on to a proper basis, my predecessor promised last year in the Budget that he would issue statistics of the national income. As Senators are aware, a couple of weeks ago, we issued this book on National Income and Expenditure, which shows, so far as can be ascertained statistically, the size of the national cake we have to divide amongst us. The community, as a whole, cannot have a bigger cake unless they make a bigger cake by their own efforts. It is true that we could give sections of the community who have a small share of the cake a bigger slice, provided some other section was prepared to forego portion of the share it already enjoys.

The real question which confronts our community is how best they can increase the national cake or the national income. I think that it is the duty of the Government and of the Minister for Finance to do everything possible to assist the community in increasing the size of the national income, so that the community, as a whole, may have a higher standard of life. One of the things that may prevent in the future a rapid increase in the size of the national income is blindness on the part of our community as a whole, or of vital sections of the community, to the opportunities we possess. I think that we are very fortunate in stepping into this post-war world with the resources in men, material and experience that we possess and also because of the lightness of the burden which our community have to shoulder in the way of national debt.

Comparisons have been made with the existing standards of monetary income elsewhere, without relating them to the real income enjoyed by our people. I think that Senator Foran took more than the time from the Irish Times clock. A campaign is proceeding to persuade our people that there is “a far, far better land across the water” and that the sooner we all get over to it the better. We had yesterday a discussion on a demand by a certain section of the community for a bigger slice of the national cake. We had it pointed out that actually those who constitute that section were enjoying a higher standard of real income than their brethren across the Border. In discussing the level of our social services, Senator Foran argued that we should have to increase them very much in this part of the country in order to reach the promised level across the Border and in Great Britain. He left out of account altogether the fact that, under the scheme that is proposed in England, the purse out of which the increased social services have to be paid has to be filled by the workers to a large extent. Here the social services that have been granted are largely paid for out of the general Exchequer without any weekly payment either by the employer or the worker. I think, from the point of view of administration, that a scheme with a lower weekly standard of social payments which does not call for any payment by the workers over a period of 50-60 years, might very well, in the last analysis, be better for the community and for the worker than a scheme with higher scales of payment if the employer and employee have to contribute. However, Senator Foran compared the present payments here, leaving out of account the contributions in kind that are made to people at the lowest rung of the social scale, with the payments across the water. We shall see what happens in other countries in regard to social payments through time. Here we have to face our own problems in the light of our common sense and also in the light of the size of our national income.

I have no doubt that if we manage our affairs wisely, if we are careful not to take any more upon ourselves than we can sustain and uphold, that we can give as high a standard of cultural and material life to our people as is given in most other countries of the world. It would be impossible with our resources, even if we had mechanised to the nth degree, to produce as high a standard of material life as some other countries that are very much richer from the point of view of natural resources but I feel if we husband our resources, if we develop them intelligently, that we can within a reasonable number of years give to every person who is prepared to live in this country, a healthy standard of life and a reasonable opportunity to achieve a high standard of culture for himself and his children. One word of warning—and this goes for An Ridire Seán Ó Catháin as well as everybody else, because he was demanding a bigger slice of the national cake for the ratepayers yesterday—is that we must not try to do more than we are able to do. We must not, by being over-enthusiastic for an immediate increase in social services, discourage production and in that way perhaps prevent the attainment of a national income which would warrant an increase in the general standard of living, particularly at the lowest levels in the country.

What are the resources out of which we can increase our national income? We have our land; we have our factories; we have the brains and the experience of our technical workers; we have an administrative machine which I think is second to none of its size in the world. We have, in addition to the capital resources within the country, certain savings abroad. Our resources abroad have been built up over a number of years and have been greatly added to during the course of the war. The question is: What is the best use to make of our capital resources so as to increase our national income? I believe the Government should do everything possible to encourage the farmers to increase production, to encourage industrialists to increase production and to draw reasonably upon the savings of the community which are now invested abroad.

I do not agree with Senator Baxter that the land of this country or any great portion of it has been disimproved vitally during the last five years. Any farmer who took reasonable care of his land during the last five years, even though artificial manures were not available, still has his land in good heart. With the possibility of getting artificial manures from abroad, and of getting machinery to manufacture our own nitrogenous manures, we should shortly be in a position to restore some of the vital elements of the soil taken out by the wheat, oats, and other crops, and which leave the country even in the bones of the cattle, and we should be able to increase the standard of output per acre.

There will be the same controversy here as in other countries as to whether what we should aim at is the maximum output per acre or the maximum output per man hour. My belief is that in the end, it will be a compromise. If we are to go all out for a maximum output per man hour, the right thing to do is to sweep off 99 per cent. of our farming population and instal the bullock. A few people managing this country as a few large ranches could produce the maximum per man hour. The other extreme is to cover the whole country with glass, conserve every drop of water that falls upon it, and increase the output per acre in that way, because covering it with glass would ensure the greatest possible use of solar energy. If we had the glass and the water, we could continue to restore the vital elements to the soil, and we could go on almost for ever producing the maximum amount per acre.

As I said, I think that like most of the things in life, political life at any rate, we would effect a compromise, but the discussion will go on as long as the world lasts and all we can do at any particular time is what seems to be reasonable to the majority. The Government, as Senators are aware, during the last 14 years has done all in its power to establish as many families as possible on the land who could live in fair economic comfort.

There has been a dispute as to the size of the allotments upon which people are asked to live. There is no doubt that the average farm here, the average allotment given by the Land Commission, is very much less than in countries where you have a small population and a huge amount of land.

Here our average farm is 30 acres; in New Zealand it is 500, but looking the other way, and somewhat nearer home than New Zealand, the average farm here is far bigger than in Belgium. The person who gets an allotment of land of £25 valuation here would be looked on by the average Belgian as a rancher, and certainly the output per acre of the average farm is very much less than the output per acre of the small Belgian and Dutch farms where you have quite a considerable portion covered with glass.

In an effort to bring the very tiny farms in the West to an economic level, the Department of Agriculture had, before the war, embarked on a scheme of glasshouses. The war came on before very many of them were erected, but from the few that were erected, 60 or 70, we see they have done extremely well. As soon as material becomes available freely, the Minister for Agriculture proposes to go ahead and assist the small farmers —any of them willing to do it—to increase the output on their portions of land by covering some of it with glass. There is a limit, of course, to the market for glass products in the long run, but something at any rate can be done to increase the output of some of our western farms through the scheme I have adverted to.

That is a very small scheme and I do not want to lay any particular stress on it. I simply adverted to it because it came naturally out of the two extremes of policy which we could pursue in order to develop our agricultural production. The biggest thing that the Government is doing through the Department of Agriculture for the increase of agricultural production is their educational policy, coupled with the measures which they have taken to make the greatest possible amount of land available for crops. As Senators know, you have the farm improvement scheme operated by the Department of Agriculture and that farm improvement scheme is expended by giving the landholders who want to improve their land or the surroundings of their farm buildings half of the total labour cost of the work. I think most Senators who go around the country will have noticed in the last few years that for the first time probably since 1913-14, we are seeing evidence of reclamation or improvement and of small drains being put into the fields here and there. Up to the present, the Department of Agriculture have been able to give 50 per cent. to an applicant who seeks a grant from the farm improvement scheme. This year an additional sum is being made available to the Minister for Agriculture for such expenditure, and I hope that farmers will do their utmost to improve their land by reclamation and drainage thereby making as much of it as possible available for the production of crops. We have to get our livelihood here out of the resources we have within our territory.

We cannot add to our area of land and the only thing we can do is to make certain that as much land as we have in our territory is made available for production to raise the level of production without exhausting it. In addition to the farm improvements scheme, you have in the Department of Agriculture the various lime schemes which assist the farmers to improve their soil. You have also, in relation to the wheat scheme, the half - crown which is kept back and which will be made available to farmers for the purchase of artificial manures as soon as they become freely available. As there is only a limited amount of them available at the moment, there was no necessity to give to farmers the half-crown that was kept back for artificial manures in the post-war period. As soon as the manures become available, these half-crowns will be given to the farmers to encourage them to buy artificial manures and put them on the land. In my opinion, the biggest and the most important activity of the Department of Agriculture is represented by its general educational scheme. If you look around you see that the Department of Agriculture is interested in every phase of agriculture, and that it is doing its utmost to impart the knowledge which its experts possess to the farming community: to instruct them as to how best they can increase production. I would say that if one-tenth of the energy that is mis-directed in criticism of the Department of Agriculture for failure to do this, that and the other were directed to the farming community by way of asking them to take advantage of the various educational and other schemes that are being operated by the Department, schemes which are placed freely at their disposal, we would be on the road to increasing our farm output.

You have available, freely, for the information of farmers and for their education one of the best books on agriculture that is to be had anywhere. You have staffs that are prepared to answer any question that is put to them, you have seed-testing facilities available all over the country to enable farmers to sow seed of the correct germination. Senators may not be aware that recently the Department of Agriculture gave encouragement to the Seed Growers' Association to develop here high-class seeds. Even if you had the best land in the world, and all the manures in the world, and if you did not sow proper seed, then you are going to get a poor crop. So that, by and large, I would say that the facilities that are available to our farming community should enable them to increase their output.

I suggest that the members of this House, and others who have the public interest at heart and want to see the national output from the land increased, should concentrate their efforts by appealing to farmers to take advantage of the schemes that are available to them to increase their output from the land not only in their own interest but in the interest of the country as a whole. You have schemes for adding to the amount of land available to farmers. You have the farm improvement scheme, and you have in the congested districts special schemes with the same object in view. You have seed testing and seed distribution schemes, and you have the educational schemes to instruct the farmer how to make the best use of his land, how to improve the breed of his cattle, the housing of his stock, and so on. I would say that, so far as the Government and so far as State activities are concerned, we are in as good a position to step off into the post-war world and increase our output from the land as one could reasonably expect.

We had on the other side appeals made for further help for industrialists. I think the industrialists of this country are being given great opportunities. One of the dangers that I see in a great deal of the public criticism and abuse that is hurled at industrialists is that it may tend to stop people from engaging in what is a really vital activity from the national point of view, and that is to increase our industrial output as well as our farm output. I would be delighted to get their products from the industrialists at the lowest possible price, and at the same time to get the highest possible amount of taxation out of them, but I think it is unwise to regard them as people on whom abuse should be heaped. When we came in as a Government in 1932 we appealed to the people—I appealed myself to the people in the County Louth—that, instead of investing their money abroad, they should pool it and start industries at home. We told them that if they did so we would give them reasonable protection. I think that those who came forward and started industries did a job for which the community should be grateful. At the same time, of course, the community is entitled to expect, and to ensure as far as it is possible, that our industrialists will produce goods at the right price.

Again, viewing the future from the point of view of industrial production I think there is nothing to be doleful about. After all we were managed for 700 years, or thereabouts, as an out-farm of a big empire, and in a few years we were able to pull ourselves together, so much so that during this disastrous war we were able to produce sufficient industrial products and agricultural produce to enable us to keep our community with their heads above water, while practically every other country in the world was slightly below water. When we consider all that we have come through, I think that if there is any kind of peace in the world in the years that lie ahead, we should be able to make very much greater progress than we did in the last 14 years. I do not want to go back over 14 years, but Senators will remember that it was not only in the last five or six years that we had difficulties in the matter of encouraging an increase in our agricultural or industrial output, and that one of the biggest obstacles of all was to instil into our people the truth: that if they pulled themselves together, applied their brains, pooled their own capital resources, they could produce practically all that we required. In 1932, however, a section of the people here believed that we could not produce anything in this country; that the only policy to be pursued was the old policy of buying coal from England, sending to England our livestock, looking to New Zealand for our butter and to the Argentine for our wheat. All that has been changed, and I believe that our greatest asset in the post-war world will be our belief in ourselves. I think that anything that anybody says to discourage a proper evaluation of our assets is doing something to discourage the building up of our national income out of which our general standard of life can be im-improved.

Senator Baxter, Senator Foran, and other Senators yesterday spoke about the emigration that had taken place during the war. There is nobody who regrets that more than I do, or more than the Government do, but we were forced by circumstances to allow that to take place because we had not fully developed our resources here to the extent that would enable us to keep all our people employed, and the alternative was either to allow them to remain idle here or give them leave to go abroad.

We could, of course, have used the bayonet to keep them at home, or we could have used an inflationary procedure to keep them at home. If we had increased our National Debt at the same rate as they did in England, the amount, pro rata, in this country, would be about £194,000,000 per year. If we had done so, I am certain that we could have kept the people at home doing non-productive work of some kind or another, just as the British people were employed in doing what, from the point of view of the immediate standard of living, was non-productive work; but we did not spend the £194,000,000 per year. We did not, as we would have, if in this country we were spending at the same rate as the British, add over £1,000,000,000 to our National Debt. During the war, all told, I think that the addition to our National Debt has been less than £15,000,000, and I think that, stepping into the post-war world, regrettable as it has been that we have had emigration in these last five years, or in the last 20 years, or in the last 150 years, we have an advantage from the other side of the past evil, and that is that we are not overburdened with a National Debt, that in the future we can draw upon our national credit to build up the country, and that, of the cake that we have to divide, not such a large portion of it is set aside beforehand, as in the case of Britain and other countries, in order to pay the holders of the National Debt.

Senator Johnston yesterday gave us a lecture on certain aspects of our financial affairs during these last five years, but to me it was not very satisfying. I suppose that pupils have to put up with a lecture being left in the air, but when a man steps into the political arena and is discussing the affairs of the day with people who are concerned to improve these affairs, I think he should draw conclusions, and there were no conclusions of any major character drawn by Senator Johnston yesterday. He made certain inside references to alternative procedures, but there was no over-all conclusion by him as to what procedure we should adopt, in our circumstances, to improve the national income of our people.

Professor Johnston

I was relying on the Minister's intelligence.

Mr. Aiken

Well, I am not quite as intelligent as all that. If the Senator left it to my intelligence, then I am afraid that I have not sufficient to provide a cure-all for the ills of the rest of the world. However, the Senator gave as one of the reasons why there was practically no inflationary process here, the way in which the various banks, commercial and otherwise, in this country, handled their business generally. He gave other reasons also, but he left out completely the big effect that the expansionist policy in England had upon our economy and upon the level of prices here. Now, apart from wheat, apart from beet, and apart from butter, there was no element of direct domestic policy here which affected our level of prices. The Government deliberately fixed the level of prices for wheat; they deliberately fixed the level of prices for beet; and they deliberately fixed the level of prices for butter. All that was manufactured of these commodities within the country was sold within the country. Every other element of price rise was due to non-domestic circumstances, either arising from the general world transport situation created by the war, or by British domestic financial and economic policy. These were what dominated and conditioned our level of prices, apart from three commodities which I have outlined. The British were prepared to go into debt to a huge extent during the past number of years in order to attract our commodities from here and in order to attract our people over there to work for them. This year, the British are winding up. I saw it estimated that the increase in their national debt was £2,000,000,000. I do not know what will happen there in the future. In a few weeks, we shall see what the estimate of their future by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer will be. We shall wind up this year with a very small increase in our National Debt.

The fact that we have wound up the recent war with the tiniest increase in our National Debt places us in a very good competitive position for the future if we cultivate a reasonable and sensible approach to economic and financial questions. It is true that, instead of imposing taxation, the Government could introduce legislation to manufacture money. But if we did that and scattered it widespread throughout the country, in proportion to income, we should not leave anybody better off. If we doubled everybody's income and had only the same level of production of goods, prices would go up not doubly but, perhaps, a hundredfold.

Mr. Baxter

Is not that largely taking place already?

Mr. Aiken

It has not taken place to any alarming extent. There again, I want to point out that, apart from a couple of countries, we have the smallest proportion of increase in prices in the world. In Great Britain and New Zealand, they have succeeded in keeping down prices. In New Zealand, they have kept down all prices. There are reasons for that. In Great Britain, they have succeeded in keeping prices somewhat lower than they are here for a fixed and limited range of commodities. If a person here earning a few pounds a week were to go over to England and obtain twice that amount, he could not live to as high a standard as he is living here. In Great Britain, they have a basic ration, the prices of which are being kept low. If you go outside that ration and endeavour to get the supplies of meat, eggs or other commodities which people are able to get here by going to the shop counter, what will you pay?

Mr. Baxter

You cannot get them at all.

Mr. Aiken

You can. I do not want to go into the question of the black market but you can get them and they are being got—for a price. The excess of wages obtainable in Great Britain over the wages obtainable here in the case of a man earning a few pounds a week, would not enable him to get such an extra portion of the rationed commodities there as would bring him up to the level of consumption freely available here. There is one other aspect of the question which deserves notice. The keeping down of the increase in the price of the basic ration to a very small level in Great Britain was inflationary. It was kept down artificially by huge subsidies from the Exchequer which were not paid out of taxation but were put on the long finger, increasing the national debt.

That left the worker with additional money to spend in the black market, or in securing additional commodities. Despite all the criticism that has been levelled at the Government, I am convinced that the policy pursued here during the war—the policy of standstill in relation to wages and salaries— was the proper policy, and that we approached our problems in the best way available to us. It is very easy to increase standards of monetary income, and it is very difficult to get them down. It is very easy for a nation, as for an individual, to overspend. We should be well advised in the future not to go too fast in non-productive expenditure. Let us, of course, make certain that our people are able to consume up to the level of production. Nobody wants to see a repetition of what happened in the past, when surplus commodities had to be destroyed for want of a market while people were in dire need of them. But do not let us go to the opposite extreme. Do not let us follow the policy of expansion of wages and salaries to the point where we will have such a surplus of purchasing power in active circulation amongst the people as will drive up prices without increasing our standard of living. The working classes who are dependent on their weekly wage, and those with fixed incomes, would be the persons who would principally suffer by that policy. At no time when prices were rising rapidly did the weekly wage packet expand accordingly. It is also true to say that, at no time when prices were falling rapidly, did wage rates fall equally rapidly. If it can be achieved, I hope that prices will in the future fall without any decrease either in present wage rates or salary rates, so that we shall have an automatic increase in the standard of life of those classes. We held very strongly against increases in wages during the war, and I think that also was very much better than the alternative offered to our community.

I think I have dealt with the principal points in the discussion so far as I could gather them yesterday. I do not propose to answer in detail the individual cases that were mentioned here yesterday. I want to conclude by saying that I see no reason for being doleful about the future of this country. I see no reason why any section of our community should praise the alternative standards offered in other countries. I see every reason, if we use our brains and resources in a reasonable and energetic fashion in the next few years, for hoping that the standards of life of our people generally will improve.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining stages now.

Bill put through Committee without recommendation and received for final consideration.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be returned to the Dáil."

Mr. Sweetman

I want on this last stage to refer to a few small points raised by the Minister. The Minister in dealing with the agricultural position made reference to two matters, both of which come specially under his domain as his Department is in charge of the Revenue Commissioners and both of which are causing some difficulty at the present time. They are both technical matters which I am merely raising as the Minister has mentioned them, but I do not expect that in either case the Minister would be in a position to answer them offhand. The first arises in connection with the use of glass on farms. There is very considerable uneasiness amongst many farmers, particularly in North County Dublin, in regard to the position arising out of a certain court decision as to the assessment of farmers under Schedule D instead of Schedule B, so far as products under glass are concerned. The Minister is probably aware of the broad details of the decision which were that where a farm was being mainly used for the cultivation of products under glass, it was to be assessed under Schedule D and not under Schedule B. The difficulty arises as to what is meant by "mainly". In the reference made, it is not at all clear as to whether the proportionate part to be considered has to be taken by reference to the area under glass, the monetary value of the products under glass as against the products on the rest of the farm or the scope of the employment given. I have had considerable discussion on that matter particularly in regard to farmers in the North Dublin area. I would suggest to the Minister that it would be desirable that the exact method of assessment should be defined in a clearer manner so that farmers as a whole might see how they were going to be assessed, whether they were going to be assessed on the basis of the monetary value of the commodities produced under glass or on the basis of what was produced on the remaining portion of the farm, whether it was to be taken in respect of the area alone or whether employment also would come into the question. The Minister, I think, will agree with me that certainty in respect of the taxable liability would assist people in making up their minds as to what would be the proper utilisation of their land.

The second question arises out of the Minister's reference to artificial manures and also concerns the Revenue Commissioners. I have come across a case quite recently where it has been alleged by the Revenue Commissioners —of course, the matter is only at the stage of being dealt with by the inspector of taxes but he is an officer of the Revenue Commissioners—that where a man puts manure into his land for keeping the land in heart, the cost of the manure so applied should be taken into account, not in the year of application but as a graduated thing over a series of years. I am not referring to cost of manure that has not been actually applied to the land during the year in question because obviously if the manure is still in the farmer's yard it cannot be considered. It appears to me that if that system is adopted, it will act as a serious deterrent in certain cases to the proper ploughing into land of manure and a deterrent to the restoration of fertility to the soil. I suggest that where the Revenue Commissioners are satisfied that the manure has actually been put into the land in the year in question, the cost thereof there should be considered as a proper expense for that year alone and that it should not be averaged over a period of years, because if it were averaged you might find a situation in which a man might have anticipated his expenses for income-tax purposes by way of an accumulation over a great number of years and obviously with the present rate of taxation that is a course which no prudent man is going to adopt. If the matter is dealt with in the way in which it is now sought to deal with it, I suggest that it will act as a great deterrent to putting manure into the land at all.

I was glad in one way that the Minister did not pay too much attention to one of the speeches made late last night in which it was suggested that he should express appreciation of the change of Government in another country. If any other country expressed any viewpoint in regard to a Government which we happened to have elected here I should very much resent it. It would be equally improper for us to comment upon the Government of any other country.

The same Senator also referred to the question of turf. We are going to get another opportunity of dealing with turf in the near future and I think Senator Quirke and I might reserve our contributions for that occasion rather than inflict them on the Minister for Finance who, I think, had a sufficiently long session with us yesterday.

The Minister referred at some length to the question of cost of living here as opposed to the cost of living in England. It appeared to me reasonably clear that the difference between the real cost of living as apart from the monetary cost in the two countries can be described very simply. It is, I think, cheaper to exist in England than it is here, but it is much cheaper to live here than it is to live in England, but unfortunately I am afraid, a great many of our people are on the existence level, and I think it is up to us to see how we can get them on to a living standard.

I do not want to refer to that question at any greater length, but it is only right that I should make that passing remark. Neither do I want to refer to another question to which the Minister referred at some length—that is the industrial angle. The Minister made the whole basis and kernel of his speech that the world, so far as we were concerned, commenced in 1932, and that anything that happened before 1932 might as well have happened B.C. for all the effect it had on our everyday lives.

The Minister will realize that without going into past history and prior to 1921, there were one or two really good industries in the country before 1932. I remember an amusing effort that was made some little time ago by a certain person, who shall be nameless, to pass off Guinness's as one of the Fianna Fáil industries. That is one of the industries we can recollect was here. I hope the Minister will be frank enough to admit that we owe our safety during the war years to two things, the Electricity Supply Board and the beet sugar factories, the two things which were named by the Minister's colleague as white elephants saddled on the country.

We could not possibly have carried on without that light coming from the Shannon to supply the main part of the country, and we could not possibly have carried on were it not for the fact that we were able to get sugar from beet, sugar that arose from experiments started courageously at Carlow by Paddy Hogan, the late Minister for Agriculture, and carried on subsequently, and equally, as those things happened prior to the dawn B.C. to which I referred. I am not going to take the same angle as the Minister, however. I admit frankly that there were certain good industries started since 1932. The Minister sees one in his own county. The cement industry is a first-class industry, and one of which the country as a whole should be immensely proud; and there were other industries started since 1932 which did excellent work, not only during the emergency, but after it, and they will continue to do it in future.

I am concerned with another aspect of the matter: with the method that was adopted of rushing in and saying we must have the industry at all costs, without considering and properly investigating the possibilities. In consequence of that, we got certain industrial magnates, in their own mind, who were prepared to jump in and take advantage of that natural desire, without proper regard for the consumers, and make fantastic profits at the expense of the consumer.

I want to make certain that in the era we are now meeting in the future, when it will be possible again to obtain raw materials, that the few who were able to cash in and who were able to make themselves rich at the expense of the consumer, will not be able to do it in the future. During the past week there was the termination of a case which showed during the course of the evidence that substantial sums were able to be made at the expense of the public of this country. There have been other cases running over the past four years, where it has been shown there were huge profits made and got away with.

The fact that those things happen does no credit to the general industrial employer, and I think the average industrial employer realises they do no credit, and would join with me at once in asking that there should be an effort made in the future to make certain that a type of racketeering like that cannot be carried on, and that proper development of industry would be along the lines of the great factories we have got over the years I have spoken, and that any policy so adopted should not be either hasty or global in such a way as to leave a loophole for persons like that who wish by being covetous to get rich at the expense of the community as a whole.

Mr. Foran

With much of what the Minister has said I am in thorough agreement, particularly as regards the national cake. It is in the distribution of the cake I disagree with the Minister. The working people are not getting a fair share of the national cake—that is where I have to complain. Like a famous woman in French history, the Minister talked about the cake to-day, but I will not go into that. He told us the policy of the Government was to go slowly regarding social services. I would like to point out briefly what going slowly means generally in doing permanent injury to the development of proper social services in the country. All the people in protected and sheltered industries are securing themselves at the expense of the mass of the people. By the time the Government makes up its mind to institute a proper social system in this country, we will find all the obstacles entrenched against a national system.

Take Córas Iompair Eireann—and I am sorry that when Senator Sweetman was mentioning the good things, he did not refer to that—I think it is one of the best strokes of business the Government have done in organising our transport system under proper control. For the first time for many years the country will have an efficient and competent transport system. Without such a system the industries mentioned could not hope to prosper. A very large number of the employees have secured their own social services, and therefore there will be no desire to come inside the national social system. The same thing applies to the employees of many of what I might call protected or national institutions.

The Minister in this direction is entirely wrong and the policy of the Government entirely wrong. The working classes of this country are tired of all these doles, tired of being looked upon as paupers. The time has come when they want to assert themselves, to claim these things as their right, and to pay for them. They do not want these services handed out to them as doles and the sooner the Government devotes attention to that aspect of it, the better for all concerned.

Yesterday, some people mentioned the Balkans as an agricultural comparison. What has happened in the Balkans can happen here if we do not give sufficient attention to the matter, and we can do that very well if we develop a proper national service within the country wherein everyone can share and share alike, and not as it is to-day. Its distribution to-day is out of all proportion so far as certain sections are concerned. If the national cake is there, the working classes should get a fair cut of it, and if they do they will have no complaint; but they see to-day, what Senator Sweetman talked about, the employers and the industrialists getting all the profit and all the cream. That ought to stop. The industrialists are doing a good job and their reward should be commensurate with their efforts, but the same thing should apply to the working classes.

The Minister compared conditions here with conditions in England. We ought to remember that we were neutral during the war, and by reason of that we ought to be, by very many stages, better off than the people who had to endure the horrors of six years of war. In addition to being neutral in the war, the working classes here have been neutral in regard to strike action. The workers of this country have shown great patience and great tolerance under the conditions prevailing here in order to help the national effort. I suppose that within the period of the emergency there have been fewer strikes in this country than at any other period within the last 50 years. That should not be taken as an indication that the workers are going to be quiescent in the future. Due notice should be taken and credit given for their action in the past. There is now no war and no emergency, and I think the time has come to withdraw the standstill wage Order. There should be fair play for the working classes so that they may get their share of the national cake.

I am in agreement with most of the things the Minister spoke about. There are others that I do not intend to refer to at the moment, but I think the sooner they are attended to the better. When people in prominent places take a side on behalf of the workers and decide to differ from the Government, I do not think it is right to victimise or penalise them.

Mr. Douglas

I should like to express my substantial agreement with what the Minister has said, particularly with regard to the comparison he made between the conditions in this country and those of our nearest neighbour. My business made it necessary for me to be in England three or four times each year during the war. I saw a good deal of the bombing there. What I saw made me have a very great respect indeed for the masses of people: for the way in which they stood up to it. I also had many opportunities of judging the conditions there from my contacts with quite different classes of people. I often found myself, particularly in the last two years, in the strange position of having to try to convince my friends on the other side that this country was not a heaven on earth or that it was vastly superior to everything they had, and on the other hand of trying to persuade people over here of what is an absolute conviction with me, namely, that any man in any class of job here who goes over to England, thinking that he is going to do better for himself, is simply a fool. He will not do any better. He may start off on a job there with a higher wage than he would get here, but I think that as soon as he works it out: as soon as the income tax deductions are made, as well as allowance for the cost of living, particularly for any person who has not a settled home in that country, he will find that he is not a bit better off, or in fact as well off in many cases, as he would be if he had remained at home. I discovered that from conversations that I had with people on the other side whom I met when travelling and on other occasions. The only difficulty really is the question of getting a job. It is easier at the moment to get a job in England than it is here. That is a problem which we have got to remedy. I believe that the remedy for that problem should, to a large extent, be found in the policy which is adopted by the Minister for Finance. Personally, I felt that the whole trend of his speech showed the same cautious, realistic and practical policy which, in the main, represents the Department of Finance, and that that is going to be maintained under him. I should like to say that, to that extent, I believe the Minister will get the support of responsible members of all Parties.

Mr. Baxter

I recognise that the Minister made a very fair approach to the matters that were raised in the course of this debate. I should like to express my appreciation of that fact. There cannot be much encouragement for any member of the House to give thought to these problems and raise them in a reasonable way unless he feels that they are going to be approached in the same spirit by the Minister. On that point, I have no complaint whatever to make. At the same time, may I add that I am not at all satisfied with what the Minister has said. So far as I am concerned, he did not say half enough. I am not going to take him over the ground again, and point out defects here and there, or matters on which he could have dwelt at greater length with, I think, advantage to our knowledge of the whole position. I am not disputing the value of all that he says has been done, but my point is that that does not represent any new policy at all. From my point of view, the Minister's speech was too remote. I raised a number of concrete questions on which I should have liked to have heard the Minister speak. However I am not going to invite him to do so now. We shall have another opportunity of addressing ourselves to these problems, particularly those relating to agriculture.

There is one matter, however, which I should like to refer to. I raised it when speaking, and it was afterwards referred to by Senator O'Dea. It is the question of our representation at the Food and Agricultural Conference which is to be held in London. I should have been glad to have heard the Minister speak on that. I am not going to press him to discuss it now if he does not think it can be done advisedly, but our attention has been drawn to the fact by way of reports in the newspapers, that the representatives of Holland have put on the agenda for the Food and Agricultural Conference in London this question of our admission to the conference. I drew the attention of the House to the fact that an authoritative organ like the Sunday Times had published an article in which it was stated that some neutrals are to be at that conference. I did lay stress on the other point which, to me, is always in the front of every decision that we are going to take with regard to agriculture. That is the stability of agriculture in this country is going to be determined by what stability we can help to bring into agricultural prices throughout the food-producing countries of the world generally.

I am not going to hold the House any longer except to say in a general way that the Minister has faced up in a satisfactory manner, both in tone and in matter, to the problems that are confronting us, and I am very glad for one to have had that experience.

Mr. Tunney

There is just one point. I am sorry that I was out of the Chamber last night when the Minister referred to old age pensions, but taking up the Irish Press this morning, I see that the Minister, if he is reported correctly, stated that the old age pensioners were in receipt of 15/8 a week.

Mr. Aiken

In Dublin and large areas.

Mr. Tunney

Dublin is not the nation, so far as I am concerned. Old age pensioners in this nation generally are in receipt of 10/- a week. In some places they get a subsidy from the local relieving officer, but only after the relieving officer is satisfied that they are destitute. Let us not try to get away with the fact that they have 15/8. Now, I assume that the Minister has taken into account that those people are in receipt of a cwt. of turf in Dublin, and I assume there is a certain value put on that. If a voucher for a cwt. of turf is given to an aged person in a top room in Mountjoy Square—say the turf they get is good turf, the best turf in the nation—they do not get it for 1/6, because they must pay 1/- to somebody to bring it to them, and then they do not always get the cwt. If it were delivered it would be an asset, but giving an invalid a voucher for a cwt., and letting him pay somebody to go for it, is a different matter. That is the only point I want to raise—that old age pensioners are in receipt of 10/- and not 15/8.

Mr. Hayes

In regard to the matter dealt with yesterday about the teachers, it was stated explicitly by the Minister for Education in a letter to the teachers, and was stated again, I think, by members of the House, that the strike of teachers is a challenge to the Government and a challenge to the State. I regret very much that there should be a teachers' strike. I think it is a very lamentable thing for a variety of reasons but in the present state of the law and in the present facts about industrial disputes generally, it is not fair to say that a number of people who exercise their legal right to go on strike against their paymasters on salaries or conditions are challenging the State or the authority of the Government. That, Sir, is not so. The situation of the teachers, as I said yesterday, is a peculiar one. It arises from the arrangement under which, while they are actually the employees of the managers, the Minister for Finance is ultimately the paymaster. That is a situation which may be peculiar but it works. It leaves it a fact that the teachers are not the servants of the Minister for Finance and what makes the strike or any dispute of this kind all the more lamentable is that, as the Minister for Education said yesterday, taking the narrow and short view, the teachers are benefiting the Exchequer and harming the managers, with whom they have no quarrel, and the children in whom they are, of course, peculiarly interested. It is for that reason that the strike is lamentable, but it should be added that those on strike are not challenging the authority of the State.

On the question generally—I am not arguing it for the moment—people may apply all sorts of adjectives—that the strike is ill-advised and what you like, but to say it is challenging the authority of the State is not fair in all the circumstances. The people on strike are using a legal right. Not only is this particular strike lamentable but all industrial disputes which lead to a strike or lock-out are objectionable. Machinery to avoid them or minimise their occurrence has been rejected in this House by the Minister for Industry and Commerce after argument lasting some length but it seems to me that at some time a scheme must be provided for minimising the number of strikes; and at some time, the Government itself, which is becoming increasingly an employer, must devise some machinery other than the mere ipse dixit of the Minister for Finance.

I am not a person who advocates at all that somebody outside the Government should be in a position to say: "You must pay so and so to your employees," but what was suggested here was that before a dispute came to the position where there was a stoppage of work there would be an inquiry conducted in public, conducted by a judge specially appointed and an award given by that court, which award would be before the public but which would not be mandatory on the parties, before the stoppage of work took place. That is a scheme which I myself advocated and which has worked exceedingly well in other places. I am not saying that it would be the best scheme for Government employees but I do suggest that in a situation such as now exists, where more and more the Government, not merely the Government of the Minister's Party, but almost any Government, tends to employ more and more people and being in the position of paymaster, they must devise some scheme whereby disputes between them and their employees will be subject to the inquiry, if not the decision, of outside bodies. I think the Minister will agree with that and that there must be, in the case of Government employees and semi-Government employees, who occupy positions of importance, such as employees of the Electricity Supply Board, and now of Córas Iompair Eireann, employees of the Turf Development Board and so on some system of conciliation which will at any rate put back to the last possible moment the stoppage of work.

I think, therefore, it is unfair to say —I want to use the word advisedly and calmly—in a stoppage of this particular kind, while it may be ill-advised and have lamentable results, that the people exercising their legal rights, because their legal rights are the same as before challenging the authority of the State. They are merely exercising their legal rights against their paymasters and they are in the anomalous position that they are not servants of the State.

Mr. Aiken

Senator Sweetman raised a couple of technical questions on income-tax. It is the first time that I have heard about the cost of manure used in one year being distributed, for income-tax purposes, over several years. I will have to look into that matter.

Mr. Sweetman

I will give the Minister the case privately afterwards.

Mr. Aiken

The other case is about the glasshouses and market gardeners. As the Senator is aware, there were a couple of cases in which the Revenue Commissioners were successful in getting income-tax from market gardeners. I was concerned that the law as it stands would not prevent what I regard as a desirable development, the growth of small glasshouses here and there all over the country, and I took the matter up with the Revenue Commissioners and I was given to understand by them that they were not going to apply, and would not apply, and would not regard as a market garden an ordinary farm on which there was a glasshouse of less than one-twentieth of an acre, which is a rather large glasshouse. That would be a rare type of glasshouse, and I could not deny that if a person built a glasshouse of more than one-twentieth of an acre, he would be really going into the market-gardening business, that he would have to keep books, in any event, in order to look after his own and his customers' interests, and that, therefore, it was no great hardship on him, if he stepped over that line, to ask him to keep accounts and pay on his business, as a business, instead of on the ordinary valuation, as a normal farmer does. After discussion with the Revenue Commissioners, we arrived at certain conclusions as to what would be their interpretation of the law, and any Senator who is interested in this will find the whole matter set out in an answer that I gave to a question by Deputy Seán Brady in the Dáil on the 28th November, 1945. I do not think there is any necessity for me to go into that now. As a matter of fact, I think that, as a lot of things were happening on that particular day, the Press did not publish the answer. It was a very long answer, but anybody who is interested in this question of market gardening or glasshouses, and who wants to know how the law operates in regard to them, will find it set out in the Dáil Debates for the 28th November, 1945. I am sure that Senators all get copies of the Dáil Debates.

Now, Senator Foran said that as between industrialists, farmers and workers, their reward should be commensurate with their efforts. One thing that I tried to stress here this morning was that the reward for the nation as a whole is bound to be commensurate with their efforts because it is according to our efforts in production that we will have rewards distributed between ourselves, and, of course, as long as the world lasts, I think we shall hardly ever get to the time when every section of the community will be satisfied with the share of the national loaf that it is getting—that is, if Senator Foran prefers the loaf to the cake.

I agree with Senator Douglas that the difference as between our economy here and in England is that it is more difficult to get a job here, and the whole effort of the Government and the community should be concentrated on seeing that it will be as easy for a man who is prepared to live here on our standards to get a job here as in any other country. With that purpose in view, all during the war the Government were preparing a programme for post-war conditions, in connection with housing development, turf development, electricity development, and the various other schemes of development that have been published from time to time, and I think that if we can get off our mark pretty rapidly, and if the owners of capital, the workers, and the scientists pull together, we should be able to develop our capital resources to such an extent that if anybody is looking for a job here he can get it. I think that, instead of Government policy being too remote and too much in the air, it is, indeed, very concrete, so far as human beings can make a policy, in unknown circumstances, concrete. Senators know what was being done in relation to housing before the war, and it is the Government's intention to go ahead, as rapidly as possible, and as soon as materials become available, with the job of housing so that as many people as possible will have a decent house.

Senators are also aware, or at least they will hear within the next week or two, that the Government are shortly going to take up the work of bog development where it was stopped, practically, at the beginning of the war. Up to the beginning of the war the Government were trying to get machine-won turf produced, but that development had to be halted because it was practically impossible to get machinery made.

I think it was only possible to provide two of the very big machines, which were made in Dundalk and were put on the bog. Now, £3,000,000 have been made available to the Turf Development Board to enable them to produce machine-won turf, and if they can go further or more rapidly than they have planned up to the present, then I am perfectly certain that the Government will place the necessary money at their disposal. It must be remembered that even to the extent that they had developed machine-won turf and hand-won turf before the war, it at least saved us from a lot of hardship during the war. It is all very well for people to decry the turf that was produced under such tremendous difficulties. I admit that some of it might have been somewhat slow in boiling the pot, but at least people did not have to break up the furniture in order to boil the pot, as they had to do in other countries, and, accordingly, I think it was very lucky for us that even that amount of turf development had taken place.

I do not propose to go into this matter further. I have no objection to Senators criticising the Government— after all, that is their job—but I do hope that Senators will not go so far in their criticisms as to create a doleful attitude on the part of our people in regard to the future. If any reasonable proposition is put up by anybody in regard to the development of agriculture or industry, I can assure Senators that it will be supported by the Government with all its force. There are unlimited opportunities here —well, perhaps, not unlimited opportunities, but very large opportunities— for private enterprise to get going on the land and in the factories in order to produce the things that our people require. Apart from that, there are other developments that are not suitable for private enterprise, but which are being promoted by the Government, and I feel that if we devote our energy to these problems in the next few years, we can increase our standard of living here very rapidly.

Question put and agreed to.