I do not care to be more particular than to say from some quarter. It might be regarded as a specific, and there would be coming from various quarters of the House different answers to the question. Now before putting forward this Bill as an answer I want to make one thing clear. It probably is clear to the majority of the House, and it is a point that I want to stress for purposes of my own, that unemployment is at present abnormal in most countries. It is abnormal here, but it is abnormal from a different set of circumstances here from that which operates in other countries. There is unemployment here, as there is elsewhere, due to the destruction of national wealth since 1914 and up to 1916. There is unemployment by reason not so much of the direct action of war resulting in the destruction of business property as in the aftermath of war—the lack of confidence felt by the investing public in this country to put money into industrial enterprise until they are assured that the conditions are definitely stable, and likely and certain to remain so. These two things definitely are factors here, but there is also a third thing, and there is a certain danger in so putting it, but that danger must be faced. It is due to the fact that emigration, which for long abnormal in this country, has ceased to a certain extent. There is danger in putting that, inasmuch as I may be represented in hinting at an increase of emigration as a cure or a remedy for the present state of things. I do not mean to urge that at all. It does not enter into the consideration. But what must, at any rate, be adverted to is this: that counting that the drain of emigration has lessened even in the normal circumstances pre-war in this country, there would be a larger percentage of people unemployed than probably would be elsewhere. That is due to historical conditions in this country. It is not very easy to get money to flow from the investing public to industrial enterprise here. People have not got a habit of investing in industrial enterprise in this country, and we want to loosen the flow of money towards our industrial enterprise. We want to create an investing public, and more than that, we want to bring here the creators and directors of industry; of these we have some, but not enough.
In stressing the point about emigration, I stressed it for this purpose: to show that even if we get back to a pre-war state of things in this country we would still not have settled the unemployment problem and have to go further afield and create industries where industries, previously did not exist. Unemployment, as I have said, is a problem with most Governments at the moment, and where unemployment is the problem it will almost automatically be found that one of the main ways of facing that problem has been some such measure as this. Those who are acquainted with the history of the matter in England must know that the extension of credit under the Trade Facilities Acts has been made the main plank in the programme of all political parties on the other side.
Having arrived at the point that industry must be stimulated, various ways of stimulating industry come to one's mind. There is the direct one of subsidising. That has its advantages, but it has very big disadvantages. It immediately increases taxation and, to a certain extent, raises the cost of living. Excessive taxation is, of course, one of the reasons in this country, as in many other countries, why there is less purchasing power and less money for enterprise. Subsidising has already been attempted in certain things here as a secondary approach to the unemployment question—subsidies towards housing and roads. There are certain national undertakings which may have direct subsidies given to them, but the field is very limited. The main thing is that others have to be stimulated into starting up again the machinery of production, in the hope that when the machinery is started, and when it is rotating, it will draw in other industrialists. Once the wheel is started, and it goes full circle, then there is hope that everything drawn in by that, when all added together, may make a definite impression on the unemployment question which would not be made by any small single undertaking. The cumulative effect, the snowball effect of such a Bill as this, has its value to start the machinery going. There is hope then that further additions may help in solving this big problem. That is one of the effects looked for under this Bill.
There is a second which, to a certain extent, I consider even more valuable than the first. I have spoken already of the lack of confidence that there is in the country with regard to conditions, and the lack of confidence on the part of the investing public. There is a psychological effect created by a Bill of this sort which is very valuable. If a scheme is investigated and passed by an Advisory Committee, it is then submitted for departmental criticism, and finally emerges as a scheme which has won for itself the guarantee of security. That immediately constitutes a hall mark on the scheme, inasmuch as it has passed the barrier of criticism and survives, and is valuable to that extent.
There is the further point that if the Government shows it is ready to run up a certain amount of productive debt in its attempts to stimulate industry, and if particular schemes are favoured in that way, that brings to the people's minds the thought that this industry has a better chance of prospering, because the Government want it to prosper. It might lead to such a side issue as this. If, for instance, certain State contracts had to be placed and the competing firms were firms in the Free State and firms outside it, the Irish firms having got guarantees through this Bill, obviously, apart from patriotism, the State would be bound to support in preference to others, the particular undertakings which had secured this guarantee. That is the psychological point of view that it tends to show the Government is making a serious attempt to stimulate industry and that particular schemes have won through, have survived criticism, and are being put forward as schemes for investors.
As to the machinery of the Bill, I do not think it will require any great explanation. There is an Advisory Committee. That committee is outside the Government departments. It is to be nominated by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in conjunction with the Minister for Finance. The Advisory Committee will not be a departmental committee in the sense that it will include officials. It will be composed of outside experts brought in to pass judgment upon certain schemes. I do not think any exception has been taken in a Bill of this sort to that method of appointing the committee. It has been found better to have an outside committee in such cases, as the schemes would then be approached from two points of view, that of the expert financial or business man outside, acting on the Advisory Committee, and that of the departmental official afterwards.