It is, I believe, very desirable that a scientific examination of the causes of unemployment should be conducted, and conducted impartially, by people with a knowledge of the causes. I do not think, however, that this is a suitable place for the conduct of such an examination. I think, further, that the necessity for the relief of unemployment is too great to delay until such time as we can find a suitable atmosphere and suitable people for the examination of the problem. If there emerge from this discussion certain fundamental principles I think we will have advanced a good deal along the road towards a solution of the problem. I was very sorry to hear Deputy Cooper saying that he could not accept it as a principle that the State is responsible for finding work for its citizens, especially when that statement came from such a good constitutionalist as Deputy Cooper. I should like to refer him to some things that probably he had forgotten when he made that statement. One of the things I would refer him to particularly is Article 3 of the Constitution under which we are functioning. That Article distinctly sets out that all the citizens of the State are entitled to all the privileges of the State. I would ask any impartially-minded individual, any person who views the position in an unprejudiced light, how can it be claimed that the 50,000 or 60,000 or 80,000 people who are at present unemployed, and who are insufficiently fed and clad, whose children are not receiving all the consideration they should receive in these matters, are receiving the same advantages under the Constitution that many of the other citizens are receiving. That is a matter that Deputy Cooper overlooked when he stated that he could not accept it as fundamental that it was the duty of the State to provide employment.
I would put it to Ministers in another way. If it were possible that 20,000 or 30,000 citizens were in danger of death or serious illness, would we not consider it the duty of the State to make an immediate attempt to come to their aid? Would we not think it our duty more or less to pool all the resources of the State to try and save those people? Has it not been said in connection with the recent terrible happenings on the West Coast that it is the duty of the State to come to the aid of the dependents of those who were drowned, and to see that no further catastrophes of the kind occur? Therefore, I think it cannot be argued that it is not the duty of the State to preserve the lives of citizens when they are threatened. It must be accepted that there is as much danger to the lives of the citizens through hunger and cold, through being insufficiently clad and badly housed, as there may be from attack either from external or internal forces, or from physical violence from any quarter. That is the position of the State towards its citizens. It is the fundamental duty of the State to see that every citizen gets employment.
It is at least a consolation to know that one Party in the State has accepted that as a fundamental principle. If we can accept that, we then come to the other question: what is the extent of the present distress and unemployment? I do not propose to follow, because I confess I would not be able, the highbrow economics that have been indulged in here by Deputies on both sides of the House. I should like to remind those people who indulge in these highbrow economics that the question before us at present is: what are we going to do within the next three or four months to relieve the very acute distress prevailing? We should come down to bedrock and ask ourselves what is the number of people we have to look after and what is their condition? In normal conditions we would naturally turn to Government Departments for information as to the number of unemployed. Our experience in this matter, however, is not such as would lead us to believe that we can accept the information available to these Departments. We cannot accept it that they have sufficient figures to enable even themselves to come to a decision as to the number of unemployed. We have, therefore, to turn and see what is the number of unemployed in the various districts that we come from. We must inevitably say something about local conditions, because we have no information that we can rely upon as to the number of unemployed in the country.
It was very interesting to hear the Minister for Finance tell us that if there was sufficient distress in the country there would be no cure except by the restoration of uncovenanted benefit. One was surprised to hear another statement coming from the same benches, made by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, that there was between £300,000 and £400,000 paid in home assistance. One would imagine that ought to be sufficient proof that there was sufficient necessity for the restoration of uncovenanted benefit: that there is at present paid out between £300,000 and £400,000 by way of home assistance. It would be interesting to know what the Minister for Finance meant when he said that the Government could only embark on economic schemes, and that anything given by way of relief to unemployment must necessarily put an impost or extra cost upon industry. Can we get away from the fact that we have to maintain the unemployed at the moment? Can we get away from the fact that we spent this £300,000 or £400,000 in home assistance for something that produces nothing? Yet we hear talk that everything we do in this connection must be economic.
I would like to give the Minister some information of what is happening in this matter in the County of which I have the honour to be one of the Deputies. I find that in my County £250 a week is paid out in home assistance to some 2,000 people. If we dismiss 50 per cent. of those and say they are unable to work, we have still one thousand. Is it put forward as a practicable proposition that this thousand must continue to draw home assistance until such time as we can have economic schemes on which to provide work for them? Is it suggested that this expenditure on home assistance is in itself economic? Cannot something be done to prevent the expenditure by people who can ill afford to pay it of this £250 a week on home assistance?
The suggestion seems to be that we are not inclined to indulge in productive work. On behalf of the workers of my district, and I think every Deputy will say the same on behalf of the workers of his district, I say what the workers require is work not commiseration. They do not require commiseration or anything in the shape of relief if it can be avoided. The worker wants work and is prepared to give something in return for it, but until such time as work is available we suggest to the State that inasmuch as industry will have to maintain the unemployed as it has to maintain them at the present time in some form or other, then, until productive work can be found, uncovenanted benefit should be extended and those people should not be allowed to send their children to school in a semi-starved condition and they ought not to be compelled to live themselves in semi-starvation as a good many people are living to-day.
If we accept these two principles, that it is the duty of the State to do something in this direction, to conserve and preserve its citizens from cold and hunger and distress, and that there is a very large amount of hunger and distress in the country at the present moment, then we can probably advance a further stage.
But here people will say the difficulty is: where is the money to come from? We will be told that, I am sure, from the Ministerial Benches. We have been told that the credit of the State is high and I believe it is. We are told we will be able to find money quite easily. Then what is there to prevent a larger loan being obtained than has been suggested, not from the Ministerial Benches, but from other sources—I do not know whether the information is correct or not as to a larger loan. What is to prevent a larger loan being floated to such an extent that public works would be put in motion that would increase the wealth of the nation, because, after all, it is not merely relieving distress without getting something produced. At present, I think, without indulging in highbrow economics the need of the nation is more production and increased wealth. After all we need not be afraid of applying for a larger loan. If we do so, we probably will have less fear of unemployment in the future.
There is another source, and I think it is as well we should refer to it, because the President told us that credit was shouldering national and international obligations. I suggest that the shouldering of national obligations is the primary duty for us. The people of this country, if I may say so, have the first mortgage on the resources of the country and whatever we are paying by way of yearly levies, to any outside country, might well be postponed until our own national difficulties are settled. The other country and those other people who claim that we owe a certain amount of money—£250,000 to be paid for 60 years—could wait for such time until we find ourselves able to pay. I think there will be some difference of opinion as to whether we owe that money or not but I am not going to indulge in any argument on that question at the moment. But there will be no difference of opinion as to the need of the money in this country at this moment. Probably an agreement could be arrived at with the people who claim that we owe them this large sum of money so that it could remain in this country for a number of years. They are not in such need for the money as we are. Therefore, I suggest that if Ministers set themselves to the task they could find sources from which money could be made available. I do not intend to travel further upon this subject, because I think it has been very well argued, than to lay down three propositions that should be followed by the Ministry. The first is that it is the duty of the State to save people who are in destitution, for many people are in destitution, and many people to-day accept semi-starvation as their normal conditions of existence. Semi-nudity and semi-starvation are the accepted normal condition in some districts at present and it is the duty of the State to prevent that and to save citizens imperilled by these attacks just as they would be saved if attacked by internal or external enemies. The second proposition is that there are in this country scores of thousands of people who are in immediate need of that consideration and, thirdly, that the national problem is a matter of greater concern than any other problem outside the country and that, therefore, any obligations that we are imposing upon ourselves in the discharging of international obligations should be waived in consideration of the obligations we have within the State.