I move that the House do now adjourn until 10th February, 1932.
Adjournment Debate: Unemployment.
I think that before the House adjourns we ought to get from the Ministry some indication of their policy, if they have any, for dealing with the problem of unemployment. We had a debate on unemployment when the £250,000 relief grants was introduced recently. We, from our side, indicated what we thought was a line of policy which would provide a permanent solution for unemployment. When I say permanent I mean as far ahead as any of us have a duty to look. We are now going to adjourn for a couple of months and the unemployed throughout the country are entitled to be told whether they are to be neglected, as they have been in the past year, or whether the Executive is seriously engaged in trying to work out a solution which would give them some hopes for the future. The President, speaking down the country some time ago, was very anxious about immediate attention being given to social and economic matters and suggested to his audience that when a Fianna Fáil Government got into power they would not, on their part, be ready to tackle these problems. He said, I think, that these problems would have to lie in sleep for a considerable time. This problem, at any rate, has lain in sleep for ten years as far as this Government is concerned. The only thing that they have done to meet it has been to bring in a yearly sum of roughly £250,000 in a relief grant to be doled out in or about Christmas.
When speaking on the recent Vote, I tried to show the material losses the nation was suffering by having, as we have at the present time, probably between 60,000 and 80,000 unemployed who could be producing wealth and who instead of producing wealth now have to be maintained by other members of the community. This loss has been going on during these ten years. This unemployment has meant to us a loss here in the Twenty-Six Counties of a quarter of a million people, a quarter of a million people in the prime of life for the most part, people on whose education considerable sums of public money have been spent, people who are just ready to produce wealth, fitted to be good and effective citizens, and the moment they are brought to the point when they are fit, we hand over all that equipment and all that power of producing wealth to a foreign State. The loss, as I have said, has been going on. It has been going on in one form or another and accompanying the material loss has been all the human misery that these conditions meant for the individuals immediately affected and their friends. Surely if there is one problem more than another that should not be allowed to lie any longer in sleep it is that.
The Executive has been appealing to the people to re-elect them on their record. So far as unemployment and dealing with it are concerned, their record has been one of complete impotence and failure. We have at any rate indicated the lines on which we would go. They have not indicated how they would tackle it at all. We had one of the Ministers in the last debate standing up to talk. All he could give us was a long string of abusive epithets—"piffle,""drivel,""fatuous,""ignorant." Words of that kind are words of which three-fourths of his speech were made up. It was a speech made to the gallery, an abusive speech that did not contain a single germ of constructive thought in the whole lot of it. We pointed out that we want to know from Ministers opposite what is their alternative. We pointed out that we are importing into this country every year millions of pounds' worth of goods which could be produced here in this country by Irish labour. We pointed out, for instance, that in one set of articles alone—clothing, hosiery, boots and apparel generally—employment could be provided for as many as 25,000 people.
If you take up the whole of these items of unnecessary imports, you will find that in the production of them here at home, there would be employment for more people than are unemployed at the present time. We said that it is ridiculous giving wages to foreigners for producing these articles when we could organise ourselves to produce them and in the production of them could provide employment. We are told "Oh the Party on the other side offer nothing but high tariffs." We are told by the Minister for Agriculture that high tariffs have brought the whole world to destruction and to a state of bankruptcy. What has brought it to a state of bankruptcy? That is just the question. It was not high tariffs brought England to a state of bankruptcy and I think she would be regarded as being in a state of bankruptcy, just as much as the United States of America at present, for instance. It is not tariffs operating in any country that has brought about bankruptcy and destruction. Under protection the United States was able to build itself up and increase its population and its wealth enormously over a period of years. Tariffs have done the same for other countries. It was all right for Britain to continue with a policy of Free Trade as long as she was ahead of other countries and got a bigger share of the world markets, but once these other countries came in and once these markets were denied her, either because she had to meet competitors in them or because those countries in which she had a market were able to produce the articles which they required themselves, Great Britain had to think about changing her policy.
The Minister states that high tariffs have brought the world as a whole into bankruptcy. Our particular business at the moment is to think of our little world here. That is our first care. By our attitude here we are not going to change the economic policy of the United States, of Britain, Germany, France or any of these countries. The part of the world in which we have an immediate interest and for which we are responsible at the moment is the Twenty-Six Counties. Our next responsibility over and above that, would be to the people of this island as a whole but the immediate part we can make a policy for and determine the lives of the people in is the Twenty-Six Counties. It is not the bankruptcy of the whole world that should concern us. It is the policy that has led to the bankruptcy of this State and the policy that has destroyed this nation. That is the policy of Free Trade forced on this country by Britain which has brought this country to the position in which we fied ourselves to-day. The bankruptcy of the Twenty-Six Counties, as far as finding employment for our people, is the particular thing in which we have to interest ourselves. We said that there is an obvious remedy for it. We say "Give to your own people the money you are sending out to pay wages to foreigners." We say let our people manufacture these goods. Let the people in Britain and other places who manufacture their own goods look after their own particular problems. If each nation looks after its own affairs the world will look after itself pretty well. I say that the way world affairs are driving people is in the direction of each country producing what it can produce and exchanging its surplus for the things it cannot produce.
As far as we are concerned with regard to our policy, tariffs are only a means to an end. We are concerned only with our own industries. We want to see a condition in which it will be possible for people who have got capital to put it into industry, knowing that when they have bought machinery and established an enterprise all their money is not going to be lost owing to competition with countries who have had a long start of us. We cannot start industries without that and the best relief that can be given to agriculture at the present time is to lighten the burden upon agriculture by getting other shoulders to bear it. The only shoulders that can bear the cost of government and the community costs here are the producers of the country. You have got to increase the producers. When we talk about increasing production I want to make it clear that we are not against increasing agricultural production by any means but what we point to is that the result of efforts in that connection is not going to be immediate or as effective as would be the result if the line of action we indicated would be followed because we have got to complete for our agricultural produce in a market where you have New Zealanders and people from Australia, Argentina and Canada all competing against us. There are certain factors which are in our favour I admit in competing with them. Make the most of them. No matter how far we develop ourselves here we are likely, over any time we can ordinarily look forward to, on account of the productivity of our soil and its suitability for agriculture to have, over and above the agricultural products required for our own people, an exportable surplus.
Let us, having full knowledge of that fact, remember that when we are exchanging goods for the things which we cannot produce that it is on those lines we are likely to proceed. We are not going to grow wheat as was suggested by the Minister for Agriculture with the idea of using wheat as our exportable surplus. We are not going to go into world competition with Canada as the Minister for Education suggested. I wish the Minister for Education would spend a little more time on educational matters. We would like to have heard a little bit more from him on them. When he talks about this he misrepresents our position. We have never suggested that we ought to go out and complete with Canada in wheat as an exportable surplus. What we have said is there is a certain quantity of wheat required for the food of our people. We are sending out so many millions of pounds for the raw material and so many millions of pounds for flour. Keep the flour manufacture at any rate at home and keep for the Irish farmer the money that is being spent in buying wheat from outside. We do admit that we are likely to have an exportable surplus of agricultural produce. Make the most of that. Let the surplus consist of that. See that we can compete on the best terms with traders in the market and do everything in your power to make your goods marketable and organise so that you will get as large a part of the market as possible. We say that all you can hope from that in the competition you have before you is not very great.
I was speaking to a man the other day. He was talking about Empire Free Trade and he was saying "I admit you may possibly get, under those conditions, an advantage in the British market." I asked him in what particular articles did he hope for it. He mentioned butter. I pointed out to him that there was an increasing quantity of butter coming from Australia and New Zealand and that the price we got for our butter was uniformly less. He questioned it. I went to the trouble last night of taking out figures from the Butter Tariff Report. As they are in the Report it is not necessary to read them to the House, but if any member of the Dáil cares to take up that report and study the imports there and the average prices he will find that year after year our prices on the British market are below the average. That is one of the particular products upon the organisation of which the Ministry have prided themselves and asked to be returned. In spite of this lauded organisation of theirs, in spite of the efforts they have made to try and get Irish butter in the British market in a fair position, because I think that it is admitted by fair judges that there is no butter superior to Irish butter, at the time when it is in large quantities in the British market yet these reports show that you get uniformly less on the average, not merely than Danish butter and New Zealand butter, but less on the average than the price that is paid for butter generally, including butter from Russia and so on. Is it along these lines we are to look for hope? Is our only hope to be that we are to go on along the policy that reduced this country to its present condition and owing to which our population has faded away?
When the Minister quoted high tariffs as having brought the world to bankruptcy is it not absolutely certain, is not everyone on the opposite benches certain, that it was the policy of free trade which was forced on this country by Britain that brought our country to its present condition? What we have to concentrate on at the present time are the conditions in our own country, what brought these conditions about, and how we are to get into the position which we desire. The fruit of the policy is there. It is clear that we have not been able to maintain in this comparatively rich country our population.
The Minister for Agriculture tells us that this policy is a policy of taking in each other's washing. To my mind the policy of free trade is much more a policy of taking in each other's washing than the policy we stand for. We do not stand for taking in each other's washing. We would have in this country the natural division of labour as there would be elsewhere. I do not want a bootmaker to be a farmer. There will be a certain section making boots, a certain section making apparel. If there is washing to be done let it be done at home so long as there are Irish people who have no other means of living prepared to do it. There is very much more of taking in each other's washing in the policy of free trade than there is in the policy we advocate, but if there is any washing to be taken in, and if there is washing to be done in this country, and if there are Irish people willing to do it and to be paid for it, let it be given to them rather than to strangers.
If we examine this question every one admits that the whole economic situation to-day everywhere is difficult, but what does this difficulty indicate? —that the systems, whether they be free trade or protection as far as international trade is concerned, have largely broken down, and it is because they have broken down that I want to see us concentrate on that thing which has not broken down and that is the power of this country to maintain its population. The fundamental things towards which we should aim is to provide food, clothing, shelter, power and certain services for our own people. Can we provide here in this country the material needs of our people? Is there anybody listening to me who doubts for a moment that we in this country if we happen to be cut off from the rest of the world could not feed ourselves, clothe ourselves or shelter ourselves and provide the necessary power for our industry, and that we would be able to do that with sufficient hands for others to provide the necessary services?
If we were a barren country, if we had any difficulty about providing the fundamental necessaries of life here, then I would be seriously concerned as to whether a policy such as we are advocating would be the right policy or would be successful. We are in this sound, solid position that if we make up our minds that every Irish man and Irish woman have a right to exist, a right to get here by their labour in this country the necessary food, clothing and shelter to be able to arrive at a decent comfortable existence—if we take that as a fundamental principle and act upon it then we can certainly say, examining the problem it would lead to, that it could be solved. There is no one here who would deny if this community were thrown upon itself and if it were accepted as a principle that every one in this country was entitled to get food, clothing and shelter then we could organise ourselves so as to provide food without a doubt. As to the extra amount of food which we could supply we would be able to get some price for it as it is the best perhaps of all the others. We would be able to get some market for it. We might have to sell it at a sacrifice perhaps, but we could do it, and with the surplus food we would be able to buy from abroad the things we could not possibly produce or the things it might be well to leave to others to produce.
At the present time the leaving to others to produce thirty million pounds a year is a matter which I say has not been defended by any member of the Ministry. As I say, it really should be for the Ministry to tell us what they propose to do about it. Every single step, every single line of policy that we have indicated to take the country out of its present position has been met by the Ministry who have a majority at the moment by a flat refusal. When we propose that the money spent on wheat be available here for farmers we are met with a refusal on that. We know we cannot go in that direction. When we say that there are boots, shoes and clothing which should give employment to 25,000 people, when we say that these should be produced here and that you ought to see that they are produced here, and that you ought to give the necessary security to capital so that it will be put into enterprises in this country we are told: "No, these high tariffs do nothing but bankrupt the world." That is not good enough coming from the Executive Council. We expect to do something more definite, concrete and constructive. This energetic and constructive Government we have ought to be able to do something more than tell us: "No, tariffs did nothing good for the world. They brought other countries to bankruptcy and they are no solution here." Let them give us their alternatives then. We can prove that the manufacture of articles of clothing in this country will give employment to 25,000 people. Let them show us the way to give employment to as many. When we say there is employment for from 60,000 to 80,000 people and that other services would go hand-in-hand in which you would have indirect employment for thousands more it is not sufficient for you to say: "We do not believe you."
If they do not believe us they ought, at least, to believe that the problem is there and that the problem has to be solved. They ought to tell us what they propose to do about it. We tell the House definitely what we propose to do about it. Looking at that problem calmly and seeing what are the facts in the case we say that we have made a case that is almost demonstrable. Anybody who wants to keep an open mind at all on the question will, I think, be convinced. We say that the only people who deliberately do not want to see it are those who close their minds against it and refuse to see it. They are the people who cannot see it.
I repeat again at any rate the fact that we have had emigration on an untold scale and yet we have unemployment side by side with emigration. Emigration is now stopped, and as a result we will, therefore, have a bigger problem of unemployment to deal with in the future. I have indicated what our attitude is to the problem and what our solution of the problem is. That is a solution which we believe is there if we only adopt it. We want to have an answer now from the Ministry—not merely that they will, at the end of the debate, answer in a couple of words. We would like to hear now what is their considered policy with regard to the permanent solution of unemployment. We do not want a policy that is merely a dole which will relieve people for two or three weeks.
The Government does not regard that £250,000 as having any relation to their unemployment policy. That amount is simply voted for the temporary relief of distress during the worst period of the year. We do not propose some simple remedy, something which can be stated in a phrase as a remedy for unemployment in the way in which the Deputies on the other side of the House suggest a remedy. We have given a good deal more consideration to the whole question than the Deputies on the other side. We have been able to realise that this problem of unemployment is not a problem that can be solved by any of those methods that can be set out in a phrase. It is a problem which is troubling people in every country in the world. It is a problem from which no country is free. Some countries seem to be faced with the problem of unemployment to a very large degree and some countries have it in a less acute form. There are countries in which the actual number of unemployed is low and kept low because enormous numbers of the pupulation are working for sweated wages or they are working under conditions which leave large numbers of them scarcely better of than the unemployed here—perhaps morally a little better of because they are occupied all the time, but they live under conditions of depression as great as our unemployed are living under. It is not a problem that can be solved in a simple way. If it were a problem of that kind somebody else, some other country, would have found the remedy and applied it and it would not be left for Deputies on the opposite side to solve.
It is clear that high tariffs cannot solve it. There are many countries with high tariffs who find that this problem is a very acute one. I would not say that it is true that it was free trade that brought about the conditions that exist in this country. No doubt free trade was an element in the fact that we found ourselves at the end of the British occupation with very little in the way of industry. If there had been a tariff wall round this island, or round part of it, there would undoubtedly have been some industries. But there was part of the island in which there were industries, though free trade had prevailed there. In so far as our unemployment is concerned, there are in addition to free trade many other things that are responsible. There are many other things responsible for the comparative lack of manufacturing industry here, as compared with the Northern part of the country. Land tenure, though it did not directly affect industries, had an effect on the general social conditions; absentee landlordism, and the enormous and constant drain that landlordism involved, and many other similar factors, were perhaps more responsible for the condition of the country than free trade.
Deputy de Valera said that if we were cut off from the world that we could feed, clothe and house the people here. I have no doubt that we could feed, clothe and house the people according to a certain standard. I have no doubt that human life could be maintained here at that standard if communication with every other part of the world were cut off. We cannot cut off communication with all other parts of the world. I am perfectly satisfied that if we tried to live here under that standard and in that way, if we were to cut off communication with other parts of the world every effort and attempt would be made by great masses of our people to get out of the country. We would have an urge for emigration such as we never had before. Everybody knows that one of the causes of emigration, in addition to the big causes of actual need and want, and almost as important, is the desire for wider spheres and for greater opportunities abroad. Everybody knows that amongst the emigrants who went were large numbers of people who could have a reasonable living here but who went elsewhere because they thought much greater chances were to be obtained and there was the new experience to be got. I have no doubt that if the Deputy's dream, if it is a dream, were realised and if we were able to cut off communication with other countries, that we would have such an exodus from this country as was never before experienced. I do not suppose that the Deputy suggests that we should cut ourselves off from other countries; that we should do without all the things we have been accustomed to and that the people of other countries have been accustomed to; that we should only consume our own products. I do not think the Deputy would suggest that there should be no longer any tea or coffee consumed in this country.
I have not suggested it.
The Deputy is not going to suggest that motor cars are to be put out of the country and that all imports of petrol and paraffin oil are to cease and that we are to go back to the rush candle lights. He is not going to suggest that. If he did he would soon see how the people would respond to it. Without going to these great lengths with these suggestions it has to be borne in mind that while tariffs give advantage, that while industries can be built up behind tariffs—and we have shown our belief in that by the imposition of tariffs when we have found that the case justified them—I want to point out that a small country has much less to get out of tariffs than a big country. America can build up its tariffs and perhaps suffer none of the disadvantages of tariffs. She has big resources and reserves, so large an area and so numerous a population that nearly every one of her industries can be carried on on an economic basis. Wherever mass production is suitable mass production can be carried out for the American markets. Consequently a country like America can have all the advantages and practically none of the disadvantages of tariffs. If you take the smaller countries you find as you go down the list that the disadvantages from tariffs increase. As far as this country is concerned the area is so small and she has so small a market amongst her own people that we get in a very marked degree the disadvantages of tariffs. If we are to have wholesale high tariffs here, not to talk of cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world, we will experience many of the disadvantages of being cut off from the rest of the world. A great number of articles would have to go up so much in price that it would be impossible to use them just as the cutting off of paraffin oil would drive the people in the country back to the use of the old rush-lights. In the same way the high tariffs would put up the price and the people could never afford to purchase these articles.
If we set up some sort of Bolshevic régime here we might change the whole structure of our industry and economy in a year or two but we could not, no matter what machinery we had for doing it, change the character of our general economy without great suffering and great loss. We have here very large numbers of farmers carrying on on a basis which depends to a very large extent on the export market. Nothing that we can do will enable these farmers to carry on without that export market. If we put up the cost of living on them then we are going to make it impossible for a large number of them to exist on agriculture.
I have heard Deputies on the other side talking about derelict farms. If we adopted the Deputy's policy of high tariffs then we will have more derelict farms. There is no doubt about it, because the people who work those farms depend to a very large extent for their revenue upon the export market, and they would get nothing more for their produce while everything they would have to buy would be dearer. The result would be that great numbers of them would find it impossible to eke out a living on the farms, on which they are managing to carry on at present. If we were to adopt the Deputy's policy of high tariffs, and if we were to put 80,000 people into new industries, it is as certain as anything can be that we would put as many people out of agricultural employment. At the time that we were putting these people into employment we would be making it impossible for at least as many people to earn any living out of the land.
To me the Deputy's speech seemed to be very like the speech that one hears at a meeting of a students' debating society. It does not come down to the actual facts as they exist. The Deputy says that we should be able to provide employment, that we should be able to do this, that and the other thing. But the position is that we have an existing economy. We have people who are able to make a living because they have export markets. They can get enough money to meet their expenses, but if we put up the price of necessities, but do not put up the price of the things they have to sell, the result, will be that these people will be made bankrupt or else their standard of living must be lowered. Therefore, the general condition will be worse than the condition which proceeded it.
The Deputy said that the record of the Government had been one of complete impotence and failure with regard to unemployment. The facts deny that. You cannot, in a time of general depression, in a time when in most countries things have been getting worse to an alarming extent, simply point to the problem here and say that the fact that there is some unemployment here proves that the Government has failed. You would get a better picture if you compared the state of things here with the state of things elsewhere. If our policy had not been a good policy, as it is, instead of having the painful problem of relieving a comparatively small number of unemployed we would have here now a catastrophic problem. Our policy has had this effect: that we have suffered only to a minor extent from the depression which has been devastating other countries. If we had adopted any of these quack remedies, any of these drastic, ill-digested policies, recommended to us, we could easily have conditions worse. I am satisfied that the conditions here cannot be remedied in that way, irrespective of world conditions. If there is depression we are bound to be affected by it, unless we take the drastic step of going back to the Stone Age standard of living. If we allow our people the ordinary commodities in use in similar countries throughout the world, and carry on the trade necessary to do that, we are going, no matter what we do, to be affected by the conditions elsewhere. We cannot cure the conditions here in this area, because they are affected by conditions elsewhere. We can alleviate suffering. Our primary responsibility is here.
I do not know whether the Deputy said that we should turn our backs on other conditions. Even if we could do so I do not think that is the right attitude. Anyway there is no good in saying: "I am not my brother's keeper." We are, in fact, tied up with the rest of the world. If we cannot contribute in a general way we should contribute in some way. I am satisfied that one of the things which we can do is to bring about with our influence, in a small way, some reduction of the disastrous tariffs that are prevalent throughout the world to-day. It is absolutely antiquated to talk about producing things here no matter what the cost of production may be. God gave the whole world to man and it is for us, so far as we can, to bring things from places in which they can be most conveniently produced to places where they cannot be so conveniently produced in order to have the best general standard of living for the people. That requires a very substantial exchange of commodities and, within limits, will do great things, particularly for a country which has been left behind in the industrial race, where the manufacturers would be starting afresh and would be under many disadvantages. We have made use of tariffs in that way and we are prepared to make further use of them. We are satisfied that no tariff should be imposed without examination and without endeavouring to ascertain whether tariffs will do more harm than good. Just as it is possible for a tariff to do good it is equally possible, particularly in a small country like this, for a tariff to do harm. Our policy is to have these things examined as quickly as they can be examined, having regard to all the difficulties.
I need not rehearse the long catalogue of things that we have done or have tried to do. In regard to a great many of them we got no help. I am satisfied that a great many of these things have been successful and that the problem we have here is a problem about conditions outside our control. The difficulties we are experiencing will not be remedied in this way, that there is no use for the bull in the china shop policy. There is no use shouting, "Surely to goodness we ought to be able to do this, that and the other." The sound policy for any Government or any Party is to examine the problem as closely as they can to see whether or not it is likely to achieve anything. I am satisfied that a high tariff policy, whatever it may do for industries, will lead to industries being started that should never have been started; it will lead to capital being misapplied; it will lead to continual inefficiency and to the bankruptcy of a great number of our agriculturists.
The Minister for Finance talked a good deal, but told us nothing. He did not tell us one thing about what the Government proposed to do to relieve unemployment. In the end he told us that the policy of the Government was to examine these things to see how far they could be effective towards relieving unemployment. At an earlier stage he said that the policy adumbrated by Deputy de Valera was a phrase-making policy. Some of us have been thinking that the present Government is purely a phrase-making Government. In this matter of unemployment it has not at least given us a phrase to try to solve unemployment. It has been examining the problems for nine years. What has it done to relieve the situation? To-day when the House is about to adjourn and possibly to dissolve, we have nothing told us by the Minister for Finance for the people—some of whom are at present starving—except that the Government is going to examine the position in order to see what is going to be done. That statement of the Minister is surely an admission of bankruptcy on the part of the present Executive Council. No statement has ever been made from the Government Benches so indicative of bankruptcy towards the relief of unemployment. They have not, in the first instance, endeavoured to make themselves acquainted with the extent to which unemployment prevails.
The Minister for Finance told us that relatively we were not as badly off as other countries and had not as many unemployed. One of his colleagues, Deputy Byrne, told us a few days ago that unemployment was not as bad now as it was some years ago. When one examines the figures given by the unemployment exchanges one is convinced that the figures the Government is depending on do not give a clear index of the extent to which unemployment prevails, so that in order to face the problem they have not the necessary facts in their minds. These places give a list which only includes the number of people entitled to unemployment benefit, but not the number actually in need of assistance. The people who go and register themselves are entitled to unemployment benefit and when it is exhausted they cease to queue up at the exchanges because there is no advantage in doing so. The Government then comes to the conclusion that these people are employed. Therefore, the number on the register is not the number unemployed. I suggest to the Government that before they can consider the position they should make themselves acquainted with the actual number of people unemployed in the Saorstát. One would imagine that in introducing legislation the Government would have before them the position of the unemployed. When introducing fresh legislation one would think that they would take cognisance of the position of the unemployed. Let us take the Housing Bill that was introduced by the Minister for Local Government the other day and see what it does towards giving employment. The financial clauses make it almost impossible for public bodies to indulge in any extensive building schemes.
To indulge!
Mr. Hogan
Local government is, of course, at the present time administered by an experimental scientist, who probably knows something about graphs, figures and statistics dealing with the administration of local government, but when it comes down to general details for putting into operation the necessary schemes that will give some relief to the unemployed he has no conception whatever of the task that is before him.
[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]
Even a superficial examination of the financial clauses of the Housing Bill will show that local authorities cannot embark on housing schemes which would bring any relief to the houseless in any area, because the rents that would have to be charged will make it impossible for people who want houses to take them. Consequently public bodies will not embark on any very large schemes, and employment that might be provided by the building of houses will not be made available.
We suggest that a national housing scheme ought to be considered by the Government. There are 40,000 or 50,000 houses needed in the Saorstát at present, the building of which would give continuous employment to the workers for a considerable period. We suggested that the Government should have set up a Department to deal with that question to see how far the provision of houses would go towards relieving unemployment. During the passage of the Housing Bill it was stressed that the use of Irish materials in the erection of houses should be made obligatory. We find no such support is going to be given to Irish manufacturers by the present Government. That one phase of its administration and legislation shows that the Government has no cognisance of the extent of unemployment and has no idea how to meet it. Of course the Minister stated that the £250,000 is only given for the relief of distress during a particular period of the year. I wonder how much worse it is to be hungry at Christmas than in May; how much worse it is to be hungry in winter than during the autumn? When discussing this matter let us not forget that.
Candidly, I feel ashamed about this, and I do not wish to broadcast it or to make any capital against the present administration out of it. While we are discussing this question there are men, women and children hungry in this State. There are men willing and anxious to work, but they cannot find it. While we are discussing this miserable dole of £250,000, which will give a week's work to these people, there are people hungry and the only policy that the Minister for Finance has is that the Government are going to consider the question. After nine years' consideration as to what should be done about unemployment the Government is still considering the matter. In a speech delivered by the Minister for Local Government it was stated that £60,000 of this relief grant was to be given to local authorities for the relief of distress. That is an indication of what the grant towards the local authorities is to be, and as to how it is to be administered in seeking adequate information in an endeavour to solve unemployment.
The major portion of the grant is to go to the Land Commission. Whilst I do not find fault to any great extent with administration by the Land Commission, whilst I do not say that the Land Commission is not doing its best in a rather difficult situation, with the works that it has to carry out, I say this, that no one knows the country's needs and the ramifications of poverty as well as the local county councillors whose door-knockers are worn by people coming to their houses to do a thousand and one things, to secure home assistance and things of that kind. If the Government want to do the greatest amount of good with this £250,000 they should increase the amount given to local authorities. Local authorities know more about the distress that prevails, and have their fingers more closely on the pulse of the country than any Land Commission inspectors that are sent out. As to the extent of unemployment, we can only argue from the particular to the general. The County Council of Clare, forced by circumstances of the time, unanimously decided to give £1,000 towards the relief of distress in the county. The members of the council know the extent of the burden on the rates and how difficult it is to bear that burden. That Council is composed mainly of members of the farming community who are not anxious to put an extra burden on the ratepayers if they did not see that there was need for it. Of the £1,000, £500 went to one town. What do we find in Ennis? There are 237 people unemployed. Only one person out of each house can get employment under the grant, and with these people unemployment is a normal condition. Well over 200 people are unemployed and are seeking work, but they can only get one week's work and will have to console themselves with the promise that the Minister for Finance is going to consider how far unemployment can be relieved.
We suggested that local authorities might introduce various schemes, and that the major portion of this grant ought to be given to them in connection with sewerage and water schemes and such things. Yet we find from the statement of the Minister for Local Government that only £60,000 is to be given to local authorities. That shows that the Ministry are not well informed as to the extent of unemployment and the best means of distributing the £250,000 which the Minister for Finance told us was only a bit of relief in the worst season of the year. I suppose there is this in the matter of administering it. I read the speech of one Deputy who said that this matter would be administered by a certain secretary, and that he possibly would have a big say as to where it should go. I saw in my own county where a supporter of the Government stated that one of the reasons why they were asked to join the Government Party was because their grievances would get better attention if they belonged to the Government Party.
Hear, hear.
Mr. Hogan
Deputy O'Sullivan says "Hear, hear." If one has a grievance in the matter of unemployment or any other matter that a Government could remedy, a Government ought to remedy it irrespective of whether the citizen concerned belonged to any Party or not. Of course, Deputy O'Sullivan's philosophy is that you must belong to the Government Party before your grievance can be remedied.
Not at all.
Mr. Hogan
Possibly one of the greatest grievances any one can have is to be a member of the Government Party. I suggest that the £250,000 is not going to meet the distress, and that giving the major portion of it to the Land Commission is a wrong and false position to take up in endeavouring to relieve unemployment. The only policy that the Government have adumbrated after nine years considering the unemployment problem is that they are going to consider it for a further period and see what they can do.
I feel in approaching this question of unemployment that sympathy with the unemployed is not the monopoly of any Party. I feel that there is agreement amongst all Parties that the evil should be tackled with a view to its amelioration, if not its abolition. As a representative of Cork Borough, which relatively has the largest number of unemployed in the Free State, I am brought almost daily into contact, and it is a most depressing experience, with numbers of able-bodied men willing to work who cannot find it. At the same time, I am sensible of the fact that there is worldwide economic depression which has had its reactions and repercussions here. There is no use in making Party capital out of the poverty of the unemployed. Every man in this House is in full sympathy with the unemployed. Whilst I hold that the Government might have done a lot more to relieve unemployment, I feel that if they were not sorely handicapped by the keeping apart of serious-minded people, who might make some contribution, at any rate, towards solving this terrible and tragic problem, we might be somewhat better off. If we had less talk about 1922 in this House and less references at the cross-roads and elsewhere to these matters, and if we bent our backs in an endeavour to solve this problem, while we could never hope to solve the whole of the problem, we might alleviate it or ameliorate it to some considerable extent. If there is any sincerity behind all the fine phrases that we hear uttered here from time to time, an opportunity will present itself in the very near future. I suggest that all of us who will have to face the electors in a very short time should, instead of directing our attention to such things as the tragic occurrences of the civil war, go to the country on our economic policy and on that alone.
I have heard it suggested in the House that tariffs are going to settle everything for us. Tariffs have not settled unemployment in America. Tariffs have not settled the unemployment problem in any part of the world. As I said often in this House, I do not care whether it is Deputy de Valera or the President is in power. To me it is of more concern to see 100 persons put to work and wages distributed to the families of 100 hungry persons. That is of far more concern to me than the question of the oath or the question of your flag. I regret to find at this hour of the day, when all this mouthing and fine phrasing is going on about the unemployed, that we still have recriminations at our public boards, and even in this national Assembly. I fell that in this Christian and Catholic country we might have a national examination of conscience to see how far we can relieve this problem. Let us cut adrift from all this partisanship and this jockeying for position at the general election. Let us direct our best efforts to an attempt to solve this problem. Above all things, let us not forget that we cannot, in present circumstances, even under the most roseate view of the circumstances, ever solve this problem in its entirety. Even at the height of the American boom there was unemployment in America. There was unemployment here to an extent, of course not to the extent that the evil exists at present. I suggest very seriously that we should cut out all this cackle we have listened to so frequently at the cross-roads and side streets and in the Dáil and make an honest endeavour to settle the question.
I do not believe in blaming the Government for everything. It is rather unfortunate that we grow up under a tradition, which will take not care to adopt the role of blaming the Government for everything. I do not care to adopt the role of blaming the Government unless I feel that they are entirely or partly responsible for any of the social evils I see around me. We grew up in that tradition. It was engendered and fostered when the British were in occupation here. Now, if we have a Government in power, it is the people of the Saorstát who put them there. It will be my job at the next election to get them out and put a Labour Government in, even though I am divorced from the Labour Party. It is just, as the lawyers say, a mensa et toro. I have suggested that the solution of this problem to a very large extent lies in our hands. I have also suggested that no country in the world, with tariffs or without tariffs, has yet solved this problem in its entirety. Let us acknowledge these three or four naked truths first, and then proceed to discuss and devise means whereby we may ameliorate or partially solve this unfortunate problem.
Certain methods have been indicated as to how this problem might be partially solved. The representatives of Cork County Council who are members of this House will agree with me when I say that the County Council and the Cork Corporation might be allocated sufficient money, at any rate, partly to relieve the distress at present prevailing in the City and County of Cork. Public bodies certainly are in closer contact with these matters than the Executive Council could expect to be. I hope I will not be misunderstood. I do not want to accuse the Government of any partiality. It is my experience in Cork that no man has been refused work because of his politics or his Party affiliation. I should like to contradict that statement if it has been made. I suggest that we might have, on the eve of the general election, a "cease fire" order in two camps—in the Fianna Fáil camp and the Cumann na nGaedheal camp. Let us have a "cease fire," and if we are going to the electors, which I dare say we will in the course of the next few weeks— nobody knows that, I suppose, except the President, and he is usually a very close-minded gentleman in that respect —then we will go to the country, not on the question of what we did in 1916, not on the question of who burden the Four Courts, not on the Constitution Amendment Bill, but on the policy of what we propose to do for the unemployed and how it is proposed to do it. In suggesting that, let me say also that I hope that no wild-cat schemes will be promulgated, that we will not have persons suggesting that this country can do any more than countries far richer can do. I hope that these words of mine will be borne in mind.
Deputy Anthony said he hoped that in any discussions that took place in connection with the general election, not so far off, there would be no speeches made to the people which would induce them to believe that this small country can do what far richer countries cannot do. There is one thing that this small country, or rather this part of this small country, can do and which we want it to do, and that is to give employment to those who are willing to work, who are unemployed, and many of whom, as Deputy Hogan said, are hungry to-day. Deputy Hogan can speak for his own county, Clare. He is, I am sure, in touch with many people of all classes, and particularly the poor and the working classes, and I believe him when he says that he knows there are many people hungry to-day in his area. I can say the same for the area I represent. In the City of Dublin there are thousands of people who would not have a meal to-day were it not for the home relief they get and were it not for the generous help of all classes of people in Dublin. There are hundreds upon hundreds of families in that condition. I would not say that the Free State Government are wholly responsible for that. There will probably be people hungry, as Deputy Anthony said, no matter what Government is in power. That will probably be as long as conditions are what they are. As long as human nature is what it is, there will be people poor. The poor we shall always have with us. But there is unnecessary unemployment and there is hunger and starvation in the Twenty-Six County area that need not exist if we had a Government that took a proper, serious view of the present conditions.
Many years ago those of us who were brought up in the Sinn Fein movement were told that if we had a Government elected here by the free will of our own people, controlling Irish destinies, the people elected would, as they could if they were the proper type, make this country a prosperous, peaceful and happy country. It has not, for one reason or other in the last ten years, been very peaceful. We are not satisfied, despite the conditions that have existed, that proper efforts have been made by those in control to make it prosperous. The President will remember, I am sure, what I remember, and what the Vice-President ought to remember, that the old Sinn Fein gospel was to get control of Ireland's destinies, to make it an industrial country, to develop industries here, to give employment to the people, to grow our own food, make our own clothes and boots, and to do the things as Deputy de Valera suggested we could do in the country, to stop the importation of those goods that can be manufactured here, as long as there are people here willing and able to make them, with a Government in charge that would encourage industry by every means that a native Parliament could put it in their power to do. That was the old gospel. I was not surprised—I have been used to it—but I certainly find it difficult to understand how the Vice-President of the Free State, who has been Minister for ten years, could tear up, as it were, all the teachings of Griffith, if we do not even go back any further. He now tears up all the things he was taught and read as a young man and that he himself endeavoured to teach for a good many years. He tears them all up now and throws them aside, and adopts the British Empire gospel of Free Trade as a suitable gospel for the Free State. That is what has happened.
We all know the old doctrine of Dean Swift who recommended that this country should burn everything English except her coal. That gospel was not new to Ireland even in Swift's time. It was preached before his time and after. The ablest exponent in our day of the economic principle involved in that statement was Griffith. It might be said that this Free State, such as it is, is due economically as well as politically to the teachings of Griffith.
I have here a booklet lent me by one of my colieagues from which I propose to read some extracts from the writings of Griffith in order to remind the President and the Vice-President of his teaching. There is no use reminding the Minister for Agriculture of them for he never read them because he was not at any time a disciple of Griffith's until Griffith became a power.
What did Griffith say was our national need and economic salvation?
I shall tell you if you have a little patience. There are four extracts that I want to read. Here is the first:—
During the few years of Grattan's Parliament Brooke's cotton factory in Prosperous, Co. Kildare, employed no less than 7,000 hands. Irish coal was mined with energy, Dublin alone taking 10,000 tons from Kilkenny, and out of an import duty levied on English coal, the present Parliament Street in Dublin was built. Foster's famous corn laws, under which duties were imposed on the entry of foreign corn and bounties were granted to farmers on the export of Irish corn, while prices in Ireland were regulated to prevent any profiteering at the expense of the Irish people, turned the country in half a dozen years into one of the greatest corn producing and exporting countries in Europe.
That was written on 29/9/1917.
What was Canada's output of corn at that time?
Here is another extract:—
It is part of the policy of the national council to bring about that unity of material interests which produces national strength, to convince the manufacturer that every improvement in agriculture will increase his home market, and the agriculturalist that every extension of the manufacturing industry will promote his welfare, to convince both that there can be no permanent prosperity for Ireland unless the nation as a whole is prosperous. We must offer our producers protection where protection is necessary. And let it be clearly understood what protection is. Protection does not mean the exclusion of foreign competition. It means rendering the native manufacturer equal to meeting foreign competition. It does not mean that we shall pay a higher profit to any Irish manufacturer, but that we must not stand by and see him crushed by mere weight of foreign capital. If an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as an Englishman or other foreigner, only because his foreign competitor has larger resources at his disposal, then it is the first duty of the Irish nation to accord protection to that Irish manufacturer.
And here is another one:—
We have not only ceased to feed ourselves but we are becoming unable to feed our cattle. The destiny of Ireland was marked out for her by the English free traders. She was to become the fruitful mother of flocks and herds, the cattle ranch of England. We have the flocks and herds and we are importing the food with which to feed them.
I do not know the date of this next quotation. It is not marked:—
A London daily newspaper commenting on Sinn Fein writes:—"Are they (Irish) prepared to run the risk of a hostile British tariff against Irish goods?" As to Ireland being prepared to run the risk of a hostile British tariff against Irish goods, Ireland smiles broadly at the idea. It happens that Ireland imports more goods from England than any other country in the world imports from England with the exception of the United States. The loss of the Irish market which would follow her hostile tariff would be a greater economic blow to England than the loss of the combined markets of Russia, Italy, Spain, Austro-Hungary, Japan, Belgium and Portugal, which, all taken together, do not buy as much goods from England as Ireland does. Ireland is England's richest market.
That is not as true to-day as it was at the time it was written, but it is essentially true that the Free State is one of the richest markets that England has. I shall finish these extracts with another quotation:—
A hundred years ago we fed ourselves on our own wheat and exported thousands of tons to feed the people in other countries. Now we import 344 days' supply of wheat to feed ourselves. In the whole country we only raise enough wheat each year to provide us with twenty-one days' supply. It is by buying Irish manufactures and by manufacturing those goods for which there is a domestic market that the population can be retained and this country can be prevented from degenerating into a cross between a grazing ranch and a workhouse.
As I have said, these things are not new; these extracts are not new to the President or the Vice-President or some others on the Government Front Bench. But it is necessary, I think, and it is useful, judging from the speech we heard to-day from the Vice-President and judging from the policy of the Government since they came into control, that the country should be reminded what were the underlying principles of those, including some of the gentlemen on the Government Benches here, who were active in the Sinn Fein movement itself. They believed in these things and preached them and helped to preach them ten years ago.
What has happened since to change so completely their point of view economically is something they have not explained, something that I cannot understand, but the fact is that they have not made so far as I can see, any sincere effort, to put that policy, so well described by Griffith, into operation. The Minister for Finance did say that they were not against tariffs. We know they have been forced, probably by criticism from this side of the House, to adopt some tariffs, but the method by which they adopt tariffs I think should be more aptly described as a Tariff Defeat Commission than as a Commission to promote the industrial welfare of this country by the imposition of protection by means of tariffs or otherwise. The sum and substance of the speech of the Minister for Finance is that there is to be no hope whatever for the unemployed, that the 80,000 unemployed, or whatever the figure is, so many of whom are in my constituency, who are begging for work, are to be told that there is no hope. They cannot emigrate, they cannot get sufficient even of home help to keep themselves and their families in food without talking of clothing or shelter, so the prospect before them is a very bad one. They are faced with starvation and an early death. That is the sentence which the speech of the Minister for Finance imposes upon them. He talks of the difficulties of a small country imposing tariffs.
We are a small country from every point of view, small in population, small in area, smaller still as a result of the mismanagement of the gentlemen opposite in having six counties lopped off. Small as the Free State is, it buys from England more than £29,000,000 worth of goods every year. From January to September of this year £29,056,000 worth of goods were bought by the Free State from England. India, with a population of several hundred millions, buys £25,000,000 worth of goods from England. France, with a population of well over 40,000,000, buys £24,000,000 worth. Germany, with a population I think bigger than France, buys £23,500,000 worth. The United States buys £18,000,000 worth from England. It is remarkable that, while the Twenty-Six Counties called the Irish Free State buy £29,000,000 worth, England buys from us £26,000,000 worth. But while England buys from us £26,000,000 worth she buys £35,000,000 worth from Denmark, also a small country, and Denmark buys from Great Britain £6,500,000 worth. Judging by these figures it is not absolutely necessary we should buy everything that England cares to send us here and buy at the price which England can dictate. We could carry out the policy of providing for our people, first of all, all the necessaries of life that we can make with advantage and give employment to the people. If we rely on these figures, on what we see happening under our eyes every day in the year, in so far as the relations between Great Britain and Denmark are concerned, there is no reason on earth why not alone Great Britain should continue to buy £26,000,000 worth from us, but while, if we improve, as we can improve, the quality of our goods, we should not extend that market and sell as much as Denmark, £35,000,000 worth or a great deal more, on the English market.
Bearing in mind what I have said about Griffith's policy, and the fact that Ministers opposite or certain gentlemen amongst them were advocates of that policy of a self-supporting Ireland, bearing in mind that that was the policy of Republicans, that they have had ten years to put that policy in operation if they wished to do so, if they wished to show that they had faith in the policy which they preached for so long, they could have improved conditions in Ireland. They could have increased tillage and industry and increased the population of the country. What do we find is the fact? We find that since 1923, since they came into power, the population has decreased by a quarter of a million, tillage has decreased by practically the same figure, 244,000 acres, and the number of cattle has reduced by 248,000. The number of pigs has also decreased. The number of sheep has gone up but the number of pigs has decreased to the extent of 59,000. That, in sum and substance, is the result of ten years roughly of Free State policy.
I am quite satisfied to adopt what Deputy Anthony says would be a good thing for us to adopt in this coming election. I would be quite satisfied that the country should judge the Free State Ministry by its economic policy and leave every other question aside, but that will hardly happen, because Ministers are so found of dragging in the civil war. We do not mind how often they drag it in; we are prepared to meet them on that, but if they wish to confine themselves in this coming General Election to their economic policy we will be happy to meet them. For the reasons I have just given it is very unlikely that they will. They will talk of war and rumours of war, shootings and murders. They will try to hide as best they can the shocking results of their maladministration, financially and economically, in the country. They will try to hide the housing conditions in Dublin, the abominable conditions that are there in greater number than when President Cosgrave took control, the President who, we were led to believe, was the one man who was sincere in his efforts to improve housing conditions, the abominable conditions which he knows are worse now after his administration than they were ten years ago.
There are hundreds of families living in slums and cellar dwellings. Many years ago these same cellar dwellings were outlawed by the then medical officer of health, but under the administration of President Cosgrave, a Dublin man himself, an administrator for a long time in Dublin's municipal affairs who knew the conditions well, these same cellar dwellings have had to be opened again, and people have been obliged to live in them because of the neglect of the President and his Ministers to deal adequately with the awful crime which is at their doors of allowing human beings to be forced to live under the conditions in which they have to live in the City of Dublin. The housing conditions are very bad, and it is largely the result of their economic policy. The two things are interwoven. If a serious sustained effort had been made to carry out the old industrial economic policy of Sinn Fein by these late disciples of Sinn Fein, the housing conditions in Dublin could have been better as well as the unemployment situation. One would advance with the other, but because unemployment and industrial development have been neglected, have not only been neglected but retarded by the Ministry opposite, the housing conditions in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Drogheda and elsewhere are as bad as we know them to-day.
There is to be no hope for the unemployed if we are to accept the Vice-President's word as speaking for the Ministry. They are to remain there and rot in the cellar dwellings and slums of Dublin, to rot and die of rheumatism and the various diseases that improper, bad housing and want of nourishment engender. There is no hope at all for them, rearing up their families in hunger, misery, hardship and want, dying, as many infants do die, in the City of Dublin. The rate of mortality amongst infants is inordinately high in this great City of Dublin. A great deal that charity can do is being done, but not everything that can be done. The citizens deserve a good deal of credit, but so far as the Government is concerned, with the big resources they have at hand—the resources of a State which can buy £29,000,000 worth of goods from England—the resources of that State should have been put into industrial development long ago, and if that were done the housing and health conditions in Dublin and other urban areas, not to speak of rural areas, would be vastly improved. Instead of that, we have to accept that there is no hope for the unemployed except to get rid of the Ministry opposite. I hope the people will do that very quickly.
If, instead of voting £250,000 for the relief of unemployment, we voted £2,500,000, we could have relieved ten times as much unemployment. There is no reason why we should not vote £2,500,000 for the relief of unemployment if we had the money. We could find it if we doubled the income tax and doubled the tax on tea and sugar. That would be one way of finding it; or if we retained the land annuities, that would be another way of finding it. We should have done that, and that would have gone very much further towards dealing with the problem. It would also have the advantage that probably increasing taxation to the tune of £2,500,000 would give more employment than taxing consumers to the same extent. Deputy de Valera gave it as his opinion that if we were suddenly cut off from all intercourse with the rest of the world we could feed and maintain ourselves here. That is also true. Robinson Crusoe proved that. He was cut off from the rest of the world, and he managed to feed, maintain and clothe himself, and he lived very happily. Whatever Robinson Crusoe may have thought of his position, I absolutely refuse even to consider the problem of living in this country cut off from the rest of the world, listening to Irish constituent assemblies talking about the Oath, about the difference between Document No. 1 and Document No. 2, the limitations of majority rule and all the other questions that interest Deputies opposite. As far as I am concerned, I refuse to consider that position.
You prefer Buckingham Palace?
Mr. Hogan
I would actually prefer Buckingham Palace, I would much prefer it. As far as I am concerned, living in this country cut off from the rest of the world and listening to the sort of drivel you hear in this place, and which we will be treated to under certain circumstances, would be too much for me. Apart altogether from the elementary nonsense talked by Deputies I have an objection to people being charitable at other's expense. This and every unemployment debate resolves itself into the fact that you have Deputy after Deputy getting up on the benches opposite and explaining at great length, as if he were a patriot, how exactly he would like to spend other people's money and the whole time there is not a blush or the slightest conception that people are making themselves ridiculous and adopting an attitude that would not be adopted in any other country in the world. As far as I am concerned I decline to waste my time teaching elementary economics to Deputy de Valera or telling Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly why we have not got cotton mills which would employ thousands of hands, or why we do not produce sufficient wheat to supply the home market and also to export.
We refuse to take these propositions put forward either by Deputy de Valera or Deputy Lemass seriously. I believe that neither of them knows anything about business. They have been in politics all their lives. They are professional politicians and they will continue to be professional politicians to the end. They mistake that for patriotism. They know nothing about business; the drivel they talked to-day is futile nonsense and I refuse to take it seriously. I will not enter into a discussion as to tariff reform and free trade. I will say this. I would rather have one preference from England economically than all your tariffs; one preference on one big item in agricultural exports would give more employment and produce more prosperity in this country than all the schemes advocated from the opposite benches put together. I have no fear either that if we succeed in getting any such preference we would thereby cause any injury to our nationalism.
The Minister for Agriculture (Deputy Hogan), of course, is very fond of getting preferences from England. He would like to wash John Bull's dirty shirts for him. I suppose that is what he is going to do now, running with his tail between his legs. All this about taking in each other's washing is bunkum. What is the whole world doing but that? This question of export and import that the Minister for Agriculture is talking about will some time in this world have to be dealt with in the proper manner, and we here will some time have to say that the export and import trade will have to stand on its own feet. We should only buy from abroad what we can pay for by exporting goods. The Minister for Agriculture would like one little preference from his old friend, John Bull. If he cannot get his dirty linen to wash he wants one little preference. I would say if the British gave us ten per cent. on butter it means a matter of £100,000 at the most. If they gave us ten per cent. preference on our cattle it would amount to half a million, or a million at the most. Our agricultural exports have been decreasing. If the President and the Minister for Agriculture had only the manliness to stand up to the British and say: "We in this country buy from you more than any other country in the world and you are taking less from us than you are taking from our competitors," they would get something from the British. As Deputy O'Kelly pointed out, we buy £29,000,000 worth of British goods and the British buy only £25,000,000 worth from us. Yet the British are buying £35,000,000 worth from the Danes, and the Danes are only buying £6,000,000 worth from them. There is a case for talking to the British if you want to get them to deal in a fair way with our exports. We are buying five times as much as the Danes and they are buying less from us than from them. This crawling after the British for a little bit of their washing has brought this country to what it is. The gentlemen over there who sneer at Griffith's policy should go over to England and do John Bull's dirty washing. Let them stay there, for God's sake, and leave men here who will stand up for the Irish people against the British, or against any other people who will try to crush them. The Minister for Agriculture has damned impudence to get up in this assembly after climbing into power without ever doing anything except running around pretending he was backing Griffith's policy. He has damned impudence sneering at Griffith's policy.
He backed it when it became profitable for him.
Surely the Deputy ought not to interrupt speakers on his own side.
Deputy Hogan wants to know where we are to get this £2,500,000 which he suggests would relieve unemployment. Where would we find it, except from the foreigner? We have been giving an average of £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 a year unnecessarily to foreigners during the last ten years. Instead of crushing the income-tax payers or others any more we should find relief for unemployment out of the money we are at present giving to foreigners. That is where to find it and that is our policy. If they want a little bit of it immediately, we would find some of it from the large salaries that the Ministers and others are at present filching from the people who are in want of bread. The Minister for Agriculture, at least, should not talk about professional politicians. The one man who made a financial success out of politics without any risk to his own skin was the Minister for Agriculture.
Deputy Hogan, from Clare, with his usual keenness, saw through the speech of the Minister for Finance. He pointed out that the only thing the Minister for Finance said, and the only hope he held out for the future that the Government would deal with unemployment, was that they were going to watch conditions. I think his exact words were "they were going to watch the economic position carefully." The Government have been examining the position so carefully for the last few years that they have succeeded in creating unemployment for almost half a million people. They have created unemployment for 300,000 who had to leave Ireland and for the 80,000 who are here at the moment. They are going to examine the question carefully in the future and create employment. We ask them for God's sake to give up examining the position and let some one in who would do a little bit of work. The Minister said that this £250,000 was given a few years ago as a means of temporary relief of distress in the worst period of the year. If each of the workers got his share it would mean £3 per head, or about a week and a half's work at £2 per week. Contrast that treatment of the 80,000 workers of this country who want to work with the treatment given to the Governor-General. They are going to give £250,000 to workers at £2 per week for a week and a half. Since this Government has come into operation, they have given the same amount for the upkeep of one establishment here in this country: that is the Governor-General's establishment. Surely we should have some little sense of proportion in dealing with public affairs. Any honest man looking at the state of the country, and seeing how anxious people are to work, would say that it is a disgrace that a thing like that should go on. It is the same in every other Department of the Government. If the Minister for Agriculture would apply himself a little to cutting down extravagances here instead of running after John Bull's dirty linen he might do something more for the unemployed.
The whole situation is very serious in this country. This year 17,000 less of our unemployed emigrated than last year. 17,000 young people who are willing to work and who would ordinarily have gone abroad are in this country. It certainly is an insult to this country that the Minister for Finance should say that our people left it owing to a "longing for wider spheres." It is as great an insult as to say, as President Cosgrave said, that those who emigrated from this country left it to see their friends abroad. The 43 or 45 per cent. of the people who were born in this country and are now abroad left it because it was made impossible for them by the enemies of their people to live here. Certainly from the results of the policy of the Ministry, they must be classed with the enemies of this country because of the result of their policy. Deputy Anthony qualified for Cumann na nGaedheal in the coming election when he palavered the Government and said that we could do nothing here unless someone somewhere else did something else. That is the antithesis of Griffith's policy— that if we were given the means to make our people rich in the material and moral way we should set ourselves to make them rich and happy no matter what happened anywhere else. We can do it. If our foreign trade is to stand on its own feet we can set about giving everyone who is able to work employment. The Lord knows that if we were sensible men we should be glad that there are 80,000 people who are there to do all the work required to be done in this country.
We have plenty of houses requiring to be built. There are plenty of roads requiring to be made, there is reafforestation to be seen to, and there is the proper care of the sick. There is plenty of work for these 80,000 spare hands to do. Why on earth do we not keep at home the money that we are paying foreigners is more than I know. I believe that the people on the Government Benches since they took over the protection of English sovereignty in this country from the British, have imbibed a large proportion of the British mentality. That mentality to-day is something of the same sort as the mentality of the landlords who allowed our people to die of starvation in great numbers during the Famine years. They have the mentality of the old British Government and the old British representatives in this country who believed that in order that a few people might be well off somebody had got to starve. Under the existing system of economic development there should be at least no excuse for that. We are living in a country now, and any single man can produce more of any single article in a specified time than hundreds of families could use. With the modern equipment we have in this country we could produce enough wealth to enable twenty millions of people to live. Yet with all that possible abundance and produce why should we allow our people to starve? Why should we allow them to be housed in hovels is more than I can understand.
[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]
In my opinion this state of things would not be allowed to go on by men who were living up to real Irish traditions, men who knew their people and were working for a national, political and economic policy in line with the ideals and with the wants of the people. We have plenty of work here to be done. We have 80,000 idle hands. We have plenty of food that would keep these 80,000 hands in good working order to do the work that requires to be done. I hope that if this is the last sitting of this Dáil the people in the country will have the wisdom to kick out the Government who have made such a miserable failure in governing the country. These gentlemen over there have made this failure of the government of the country after having spent over £250,000,000 during the last ten years. Who in the country outside their own immediate friends have benefited from the expenditure of that money? What business man who is not an active friend of the Government is any better off for the expenditure of that money? What farmer, what labourer or what shopkeeper is any better off for that money? Not a single one. We have been all crushed by taxation in order to keep in luxury a few people in this country, and in order to pay debts abroad which we do not owe, either legally or morally. That is the record of this Government and I hope to goodness the people will have the wisdom in a few weeks' time to give them a good kicking out when they get the opportunity.
It is rather pitiable that on the occasion of every adjournment in the Dáil we have to debate the problem of want and unemployment in the country. If there was one thing more pitiable than another to-day it was the excuses that the Minister for Finance put forward for the inaction and total uselessness of the Executive Council during their period of office. We had one excuse after another put up by him. And on top of it all we were told "Oh! if you put on tariffs you will ruin the farmers. That is the last straw." That is, that the employment of 80,000 people who are at present being fed, housed and clothed by the farmers out of the rates by home assistance and taxation—that the absorbing of these people into employment was going to burden or to wipe out the farming community.
That is the last word we had from the Minister for Finance as to the policy of the Executive Council, which has taken 227,000 acres out of tillage, and he then turned round and told us all about sweated labour in other countries where tariffs are imposed. If there are any people on the face of God's earth who are at the present day in a state of serfdom it is the farming community, the farm labourer, who is working at from 5/- to 10/- a week, or the farmer's son, who is working for nothing at all but his board and lodging. What worse position can a farmer be in who is producing milk at 4d. a gallon; who is producing oats at £4 10s. a ton, barley at £7 10s. a ton? What worse position can these farmers be in than they are at present? Yet out of their sweat this benevolent Government hands over 3¼ millions of money yearly to John Bull. That money is handed over out of the sweat of these unpaid serfs.
We have heard from the Minister for Finance all the evils that attened on tariffs. He had the impertinence to tell us that he had examined the problem of unemployment closely and the problem of tariffs closely, and that whatever tariffs were necessary were put on by him. Certainly he did. He examined the position closely, and everywhere he found out an industry a tariff on which would bring in some revenue which would not interfere in any way with the amount of foreign goods imported, but would increase the amount of revenue to his Department, he put on a tariff. His sole concern with the tariff was that it was a tariff out of which he would get some revenue to spend on his friends and relations and the friends and relations of the Executive Council, who need not go to see their friends and relations in America in order to get a livelihood.
We are told of the £800,000 a year that we are paying to the foreign millers for milling flour for us. If that money were given to keep labourers here in employment, he said, it would have the effect of robbing the farmers. That is one of the things we heard from the Minister. He told us that the £165,000 a year that we are paying to maltsters in the North of Ireland and in England for malting barley would, if paid to labourers in our own country, rob the farmer. These are the suggestions that we hear from the Minister. If there is anything more ridiculous than those arguments it is the miserable dole that is being served out here always, particularly on the eve of a general election, in order to dupe with a sop the poor unemployed people in the country until the election is over. The people can then starve for another five years. That, however, is a thing that the labourers and the workers of this country are too wise to swallow just now.
If there was anything more pitiable than that it was the statement made here by the most Christi n and Catholic Independent Labour Deputy who has lately grown wings preparatory to his flight. If there is anything more pitiable than that it is to hear his declaration that it was the bad times in America which caused so large a proportion of unemployment here. The only remedy that the Independent Labour Deputy could find for unemployment in this country is to deport them to America. I am very glad that the situation has arisen when the people of this country, if they cannot find work for the unemployed, will have to feed and clothe them at home. We can no longer deport them. We cannot any longer send out 30,000 boys and girls every year. I am glad we cannot any longer carry out the policy of Lord French, who said at one time that there were 100,000 too many young men in the country, and that they should have been got rid of.
That has been the policy of the British Government here, and it has been faithfully followed by the Executive Council in the last nine years. The Government have taken a very good lesson from their predecessors. If that £250,000, small and all as it is, were devoted towards starting an industry in this country which could be fairly protected, it would give permanent employment to, say, 500 men. It would be money well spent. But this things of throwing £3 to a man around the Christmas time to keep him quiet until the election is over is worth nothing. The unfortunate position that we find is that there are young boys from 21 to 23 years of age who never did an hour's work since they left school and who can get no work to do. What is to become of those when they go on for three or four years more? After three or four years more of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government these young men will become regular drones and will be good for nothing. That is the condition of affairs that we find everywhere.
Down within a mile of my house on last Monday night there was a meeting of the unemployed. It is a purely rural district and there were 93 men present, fathers of families who could not get an hour's work. There are Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies sitting here who saw that as well as I did, yet in the very place where these men could get employment the machinery was being sold as scrap iron to the Jews. And we have that position whilst our Navy is sent up to Belfast for repairs.
We have the same condition of affairs existing in Youghal, where you have 280 fishermen starving. Why? Because of some immoral relations between Queen Elizabeth and some old lad to whom she gave a charter. That charter is used at present to starve those fishermen out of the country. That is the charter that is preventing fishermen in Youghal fishing even for sprats in the mouth of the Blackwater. And then we are told that this is a National Government. Down in the town of Midleton you have £22,000 a year taken out of the mouths of the workers through the importation of foreign flour and malt. In other words, you have one-tenth of the total relief grant that is now being given taken from the workers in one town. Deputies here will remember that when Rank's were taking over control of the flour milling industry some time ago we were told: "Our Minister for Industry and Commerce and for Japan and China is going to keep a careful eye on the import of foreign flour and see that there is no increased importation, for if there is he will take drastic steps to deal with it." When 10,000 extra tons of flour were imported this year where was the Minister? What action did he take? What is the Minister getting a salary of £1,700 out of the people's money for? Is it for settling strife between the Chinese and the Japanese, or is it for looking after the unfortunate people here who are being starved out of existence? I find the same condition of affairs in every single town in my constituency. The people of this country are asked to subscribe generously. Does anyone for a moment think that the people of this country are fools enough not to see through the circular that was issued by the old landlord gang the other day?
Now let us get back to the unemployment debate. The Deputy will have to leave the general election outside.
I will keep to the unemployment debate. I have no intention of bringing the general election in here.
The Deputy has tried to do so.
The election will be dealt with all right. Every fellow will get his due.
This is a debate on the adjournment.
It is a debate on unemployment on the adjournment.
There has been no agreement about it.
In the town of Cobh there is a complete dearth of employment and no effort whatever is made to remedy the situation. In Youghal the fishermen are starving because an old charter must hold sway. In Midleton the flour mill workers are starving because the Minister for Industry and Commerce is looking after the affairs of the Chinese and the Japanese, the Geneva Convention and the Imperial Conference. I am sure the £50 that was subscribed by the flour millers of East Cork towards Cumann na nGaedheal at the last general election will not be forthcoming this time. They paid for the £50 all right. That is the condition of affairs that is existing in every town owing to the inaction of the Executive Council. Is there ever to be an end to it? We had the Minister for Grass getting up and telling us all about agriculture. I could carry out the agricultural policy he has carried out for the last nine years, and I would not want any land to do it. The Minister's agricultural policy consists of driving bullocks into a yard and feeding them with foreign meal. The policy of the Minister for Agriculture is to grow grass on 400 acre farms. That is his policy in a nutshell. In my constituency that policy has reduced the number of agricultural labourers from 11,000 to less than 5,000. In five years over 6,000 labourers have been deprived of employment. That is a pretty good record for the Minister for Agriculture. That is the condition of affairs we have existing here.
The people are living long enough on doles and sops. I think the time has come to place a Government in power that will do something better than giving doles and sops. We have been asked where we will get the money. While £250,000 is being given to the unemployed, £360,000 could be given as a cost-of-living bonus to civil servants who have salaries of over £400 a year. That is the comparison. £350,000 for fellows with £400 a year and £250,000 for the unemployed. That is the policy that has been carried on year after year. This Government can be very generous with other people's money. As this is, I hope, the last occasion on which I will be looking across at the present Executive Council, I do not wish to be too hard upon them. If I come back to this House I hope when I look across at the opposite benches that there will be someone else there besides the gang that has starved the people of this country for the last nine years.
I would like to repeat what has been said by other Deputies that it is a great reproach to the House that at very frequent intervals in the course of our work we have to return to this question. I listened with great disappointment to the speech made by the Minister for Finance. When he sat down I felt that this debate was likely to prove as fruitless as many other debates on the same subject. In a recent statement the Minister for Finance laid down the principle that schemes of work to absorb unemployed people should be economical more than productive. I think that was the view he took. When one considers that something like £56,000 or £60,000 has to be provided for outdoor relief one sees that there could be no worse form of uneconomic effort than the payment of that money, or the continuation of a situation that necessitates such payment. The Minister for, Finance asked us to be careful about taking steps that might have the effect of reducing the standard of living. That argument would sound very good if we did not know the actual condition of a great many of the people. Within the past three or four days I met a man who has been idle for 12 months. He has to maintain a wife and family some way, has to pay rent and to buy boots and clothes. I ask the Minister to suggest how anything that could happen here could reduce the standard of living of a man in that position. A case was reported to me recently where a kind neighbour visited a large family in a certain part of West Cork and found them around the table enjoying the luxury of boiled turnip and salt. I ask the Minister, what hope have people of that kind? What prospect do they see of conditions of that kind being ended? Is it any wonder that people in that unhappy position are apathetic about elections, about parties and about recording their votes? They have reached the point when they begin to despair. They come to the conclusion that no party is going to do anything for them. To intensify the apparently callous disregard that has grown up with regard to unemployment, one has only to turn to certain public statements. I read almost with despair a statement that was made in public during the past week in which it was pointed out that there was no situation that could not have been worse. If that is the message that is to go out to 80,000 people who are unemployed, then these people will reach the stage when they will despair of there being any hope for them. They will begin to feel that they are absolutely disregarded and that we have developed a mentality in this country in which we regard unemployment as a natural condition of things, and that did not demand any remedy.
Ministers tell us that the safety of the country depends on sound finance and the maintenance of high credit. Sound finance and high credit are very necessary, but it seems to me, as it always seemed to Deputies on these benches, that the highest form of credit we can have is the credit of being able to absorb our people in employment and in being able to point to the results in the productive efforts in a contented people. I agree that there must be some relation between conditions in other countries and the conditions that obtain here, but I could never understand how it is that we must always inevitably take comfort in our own misfortunes in the fact that things are bad elsewhere. It seems to me that we were in a very favourable position as a result of getting control of our own affairs, and that under the new conditions we had a new future before us, and an opportunity of reaching a time when the bulk of the people would have a chance of living in their own country. I do not think this should be a party matter. We have never approached it from that angle. One regrets that all through the nine years we had to deal with this subject we had the same tales of piteous misery recited here year after year. It is a reproach, and somewhat of a degradation, to us to have to open up and to dilate on the miseries of the people. There does not appear to be any other way of fixing the attention of the Ministers on them. I am glad to say that the efforts made in this House during the past eight or nine years have had some effect. Thinking people who have considered the question note with pleasure that outstanding figures in the Church in this country to-day, as well as gifted preachers, have been devoting a great deal of attention to it for some time. They have unanimously termed it an un-Christian and an unnatural situation, and they have been very definite in their declarations that remedies are available for attacking the problem if they are availed of.
In the "Cork Examiner" this morning there is a report of the opening of a bureau in Cork by the Lord Mayor yesterday, where unemployed could register, which is very illuminating as regards conditions in that city. The building was crowded out and the people swarmed along the stairways and corridors and queued up in hundreds in the streets. The Parish Priest, at the opening of a bazaar in aid of the unemployed in Passage yesterday, described conditions in that town as the worst within the memory of the inhabitants. I had conversation with home-assistance officers in my constitutency lately who told me of cases which had been brought to their notice where not acute poverty but actual starvation existed. Even with conditions of that kind existing in one home, the head of the family stoutly resisted the advances of the home assistance officer to afford assistance to him. He declared that he would not accept home assistance, while he admitted that he was in extreme want. He preferred to endeavour to find some employment if he could rather than accept assistance. That is typical of the outlook of a large number of our people. The home assistance figures, the figures of those registered in the employment exchanges, and the figures available to charitable societies do not at all represent the position so far as a large number of the people are concerned, because they have always hidden their needs and have rather resented inquiries and investigations into their position. I agree with the statement of one Deputy in relation to the point made by the Minister for Finance that we should not take cognisance of the conditions of unemployment prevailing in other countries. Sweated labour and sweated conditions, he said, were responsible. The position of the small farmer in this country and of the agricultural labourer is as bad as it could be. The agricultural labourer, earning 7s., 8s. or 9s. a week in a great many places, with his food from his employer, must be in a desperate condition. I know that such a man cannot maintain his family with any semblance of decency unless there is some means of supplementing his earnings, and that means has to be found in the shape of home assistance occasionally. The condition of the farmer in these places is very little better.
I am not going to go into the question raised by the leader of the Opposition, but I would urge the Minister for Local Government to see whether it would not be possible to develop schemes of employment that would have a very far-reaching effect. It has been admitted time and again in this House that the operations of the Forestry Department have been slow and tedious. Is there no way by which the acquisition of land for forestry purposes could be speeded up? We have had legislation introduced to speed up land purchase in the form of vesting. We have had legislation for the removal of the legal difficulties which arose in connection with the advance of loans to farmers by the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Is there no short cut by which the huge tracts of land that are little better than waste at present could be taken over speedily and utilised for this purpose? Is there any reason why the policy adopted with regard to our trunk roads could not be applied speedily and effectively to our secondary roads? It seems to me that what is needed is courage and vision. I agree that the Government have been courageous in many matters. One regrets that in this big, dominating question there has not been any forward movement by undertaking big schemes in order to relieve what is a desperate position. I repeat that I entirely associate myself with the suggestion from a certain quarter of the House that this question ought not to be approached in a Party manner. I think that all of us should help in contributing to its solution in a very definite way. I can only repeat an offer made some years ago in this House by the then leader of this Party, that the people for whom we speak are quite anxious to join in any big national effort that would be made to remedy it. It is a job for all of us. This Parliament will stand condemned if it is not done. I hope that before the debate ends some indication will be given that some of the matters I have mentioned will be considered not in twelve months or two years' time, but will be the subject of speedy consideration, and that the obvious remedy which is in the hands of the Government responsible to the people in the country will be speedily and effectively applied.
It was my intention in this debate to refer to a few matters connected with the land problem the solution of which might remedy unemployment, but I cannot allow to pass the remarks made here by the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture referred to professional politicians, and so styled Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass. He said they had always been and always would be professional politicians. I submit that Deputy de Valera as a professor for teachers with a good record which can be examined in the Government offices did more national work than the Minister for Agriculture in his solicitor's office in Loughrea; while Deputy Lemass, in business as a draper in Dublin, knows more about practical business in this City than the Minister for Agriculture. But if Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass were professional politicians they might have sat on the front bench opposite and Deputy de Valera would have drawn much more than the £17,000 which the Minister for Agriculture has drawn within the last ten years. I also submit that Deputy de Valera took risks for this country which the Minister for Agriculture never did. I make no reproach against the Minister's comrades on the front bench, but when he spoke of professional politicians he might have turned his eyes right or left on his own Front Bench. I am not taunting these men. National service deprived some of them and many others of making a professional career for themselves. It is unworthy of any Minister to fling a taunt like that across the House. It is unworthy of a Minister, but not unworthy of the Minister who did it.
We have had advice from Deputy Anthony: "Let us deal with the economic problems and leave the nationality out of it." I hope his colleagues on the Labour Benches do not believe that you can divorce the economics of a country from its nationality. We are told here frequently that Denmark is our example. Denmark has progressed because she is intensely national. The Minister for Agriculture speaks of our "wild-cat schemes." He speaks of getting preference in one large item from England. Why has he not got it? How is it that Denmark can send twice as much to the British market as we can and buy from England only one quarter of what we buy? Still we get no preference.
They produce it.
Why do we not produce it? They send twice as much as we do, and buy only one quarter as much from England. Tell us why we do not get a preference. Suppose we did get a preference in one product? What would it mean to this country— £100,000 or £150,000? Will that bring us salvation? We are told that tariffs are no remedy. People trot out the case of America, meaning the United States of America. Do they remember that tariffs built up America until she had half the world's gold, which may possibly choke her now? I do not know, as I am not an authority on the gold standard, but, at any rate, we might risk the danger of some of it if we got it to develop our lands. By means of tariffs and protecting their industries the American population was multiplied by ten while ours went down by half as the result of free trade. There is a point which I should like those who compare the two countries to consider. We are told that we are a small country and that we can do nothing. Look at what happened to others. We have been told by the successor of St. Peter, and reminded of it by the Most Rev. Dr. Mageean and other thinking men, of what has happened the world at present and where the present systems are leading. I submit that a small nation or a small country has a much better chance, especially a virgin country like this, so far as industry is concerned, of doing something to guide the world than many of these big over-industrialised States have. This unemployment is a danger. All thinking men in all countries realise that. There is a social danger. There was unfortunate relief for our unemployment through emigration and also through migration. The migratory labour from Mayo and Donegal is no longer so much needed in England or Scotland. These labourers get very little to do now. As a consequence you will see the labour markets in Athenry, where they stand for hire like slaves, will largely be increased. The same thing applies to Kerry labourers going to Limerick. I would rather see them working here than in England or Scotland for moral and other reasons. You are going to have the problem aggravated. You are going to have 17,000 additional people per annum in this country. How do you propose to meet that? I am not suggesting that we should double this grant at present, as it would have to come out of taxation. Economic developments are necessary to meet the problem. You have emigration stopped and migration is no longer a solution. These are two serious questions. In reading a report written many years ago on the Dublin housing problem, it was stated that it would be a social danger, a grave danger, to the State if the disease were not remedied. It did not develop into that danger because it is largely the down-and-outs, those who have lost hope, that are in the slums of Dublin; but in the country you are going to have now the farmer with two or three sons who cannot emigrate, who get even very little pocket-money. They are young and vigorous, and if you do not provide employment for them there is danger. The Government knows that. Therein lies a bigger danger, I suggest, than any attack we may have by Communists—a much greater danger, to have hundreds or thousands of active young men with no money and no employment available.
We are told about wild-cat schemes. I read recently that since the war Greece has divided her land so that no farm exceeds 75 acres. Consider the contrast. The Land Commission is very busy. It is doing very important work in connection with vesting under the 1931 Act. It is dividing land, but it is dividing it very slowly. Let us take figures here which I have just abstracted from the Agricultural Statistics for 1928 and the Statistical Abstract of 1931. In Connaught I find that above 5 acres and not exceeding 30 acres per holding there are 67,000 holdings. Of above 100 acres there are 3,100 holdings in Connaught of the Congests. From the other publication I have got figures about acreage. 92,000 holdings with 1,102,000 acres or an average of 12 acres each in Connaught; and of holdings between 100 to 500 acres there are 1,963 with an acreage of 616,200; that is to say, 2,000 holders in Connaught have half as much land as 92,000. That is a problem for the Minister for Agriculture to ponder over. I do not say that it admits of an immediate solution. I do not say that we should get all our land down to a dead level of 30, 40, or 50 acre farms. For our agricultural policy it may be necessary to have farms of 300, 400, or 500 acres, but I maintain that 2,000 holders in Connaught having more than half as much land as 92,000 holders is a danger and that a goodly proportion of this land must be divided. What is the attitude of the Government on the question? Have they a policy? I cannot go through all the acreages, but I find that in Leinster of holdings above 5 and not over 30 acres there are 33,000, and above 100 acres, 11,000 holdings. How are you going to provide for the agricultural population unless you take steps in that matter? You must divide much of that land. Otherwise unrest is inevitable. Much of the present unrest is due to that. Part of the unrest is due to the fact that there is a section who do not think that Cumann na nGaedheal or even Fianna Fáil is travelling fast enough along the line of unity and full freedom for this country. I have no use for terrorism, but I hope there will be always men, whoever is in office, who will be more advanced than the Government, without using terrorism as a means, and who will endeavour to secure 32 counties of a free Ireland.
On this agricultural problem I submit to the Minister for Agriculture that land division is not a wild-cat scheme, to ask that investigation be made to find out whether it is right that there should be 33,000 holdings of less than 30 acres in Leinster, and of holdings over 100 acres that there should be nearly 11,000. Is that their land policy or their agricultural policy? I believe I am debarred from referring to one aspect of the present unrest and that is to ask the Minister for Justice what exactly is the position regarding remand prisoners or prisoners awaiting trial, or whether Arbour Hill is to be used as a prison for those sentenced to, say, five years.
The Deputy seems to be debarred in a rather curious fashion.
I submit to your ruling.
Deputy Aiken has described, in a highly adjectival way, the audacity and the impertinence of the people who have spoken on the subject from these benches. I think it would be very hard to equal the audacity of Deputy de Valera in his treatment of this particular subject. Deputy de Valera, in his newspaper this morning, in big letters says: "Sixth Dáil adjourns; will Seventh Dáil meet February 10th?" After coming into this House in 1927 as a member of the Second Dáil he now speaks of this as the Sixth, and because, in his opinion, the Sixth Dáil is ending he discusses unemployment, taking up the pose of Rip Van Winkle in the hope that that pose will lull the country into sleep and enable them to forget—as he would like to forget—the period of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Dáil and all that was done for this country during that time.
This is very germane to the subject of unemployment.
It is germane because, unlike Deputy Anthony, when I hear Deputy de Valera speaking of unemployment, when I hear Deputy de Valera asking to be entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out this magnificent policy, described in such airy terms that no one can make anything out of it; and when he writes finis to what he now accepts as the Sixth Dáil, and raises again the unemployment standard, I cannot help recalling the words of the officer in charge of the Kerry No. 1 Brigade of the Irregulars on 26th February, 1923: "Unemployment, if increased, will help us."
What did you say in 1918, 1919 or 1920?
I cannot help going back to a discussion on unemployment here in September, 1922, when this amendment was before the House——
The Minister may go back in his thoughts, but I do not like to hear him going back in his speech.
In this matter of unemployment we can promise nothing for the future that is not indicated out of our past and if I am not allowed to quote an amendment dealing with unemployment on 12th September, 1922, I certainly bow to your ruling.
The Minister of course, can quote from the records of the Dáil.
The amendment was moved to a resolution introduced on behalf of the Government and is as follows—
That the resolution be and is hereby amended by the addition of the following words:—
"But regrets, in view of the grave economic perils that confront the nation, alike in matters industrial and agricultural, in matters of credit and local Government, and in every department of the national life, and especially in view of the problem of unemployment, which is at the root of much of the present discontent, that the President should not, on behalf of the Ministry have outlined a definite constructive policy which it could commend to the earnest and instant attention of this Dáil." (Parliamentary Debates, 12th September, 1922, Col. 145.)
That was an amendment to a motion that the Dáil approve of the action of the Government taken to assert and vindicate the authority of Parliament. In dealing with that amendment I had occasion to regret then, as I have occasion to regret now, that I should be one of the speakers to the amendment who had occasion to look back, and having dealt with some things in the past that had to be spoken of, just as things in the past have to be spoken of now, I turned my attention to what the Volunteers at that time hoped they might be able to do in the matter of work, giving an opportunity, that Deputies realise now, of taking the resources of this country and developing them. They were prevented from doing so. I dealt only with that class of work which perhaps Deputy Hogan addresses himself to in connection with local authorities, to the class of work that might be done by those in the volunteer movement who might not have been able to get back into the ordinary constructive everyday work of the country. I indicated what we had in mind was organised bands of civil workers, just as organised bands of military workers existed at that time, applying themselves to work on roads, work on drainage and work on housing.
I spoke against that amendment for the reason that the armed resistance to the Parliament of the time was such that we could not address ourselves to these things, but expressed the hope that when the Government had put down this armed challenge to authority or if we could be persuaded, as it was attempted to persuade us at the time, that there was no challenge to that authority, then we could get ahead with the work.
Looking back now, when we are challenged as to our policy on employment, we ask the House, did we succeed, having established the supremacy of this House, in tackling the work on roads and in having our roads constructed in a way which served the needs of the country? Did we succeed in addressing ourselves to the housing problem, and in addressing ourselves to the drainage problem? I mentioned one particular drainage scheme at that time—the Awbeg drainage. It has been done since and 3,061 acres have benefited by work carried out there. In discussing drainage to-day, as a result of the work of the Government in every part of the country, the local authorities are being driven up against the problem that drainage for drainage sake is no use any more than road building for road building's sake is any use, and to spend money indefinitely on drainage or on roads, from which there could be really no return, would be simply spending money in a way that would lead to financial instability. People are facing the drainage question to-day in this way. They want a more economical way of carrying out drainage work. Substantial road work has been done. One of the last things that this House has done to-day is to put the final touches to a Housing Bill which, following the assisted erection of 24,000 houses in that way, gives, as Deputies have admitted, a better machine for tackling the more urgent and the more necessary work of housing.
During that time a considerable amount of public health work has been done, and the most useful work that lay to the hands of local bodies has been faced in a systematic, thorough way. We are progressing towards better machinery for carrying out that work effectively and economically. In dealing with the unemployment situation at that particular time, I suggested that there was a class of work which might be sought in the country zones so that according as the general circumstances developed or unemployment arose these public works might be undertaken. Given the system of local government that we contemplate, and given a county engineer in each county, a more complete schedule of the possibilities of work in that particular direction can be got and a much more systematic scrutiny obtained to see that the work that is done is, so far as possible, productive work, and in so far as it is not productive, that it is done in an orderly way which will not mean using money on unproductive work such as would injure the credit of the country. We are progressing towards improved machinery that will give us, in the different conditions of the country, a better approach to the type of work that Deputies have spoken about. During all that time, too, by the application of tariffs and the giving of credit facilities to industry, as Deputies are perfectly well aware, we have increased the amount of employment in quite a large number of industries. Deputies know very well that we have much less unemployment than we had back in the years 1924, 1925 and 1926. They know that the unemployment position in the country is in such a reasonably satisfactory way that it has been possible to reduce the contributions in respect of unemployment insurance both on the part of the men and of the employers to effect a saving of £60,000 a year.
Because you cut out uncovenanted benefit.
I am not comparing the position in regard to these figures with the position when there was uncovenanted benefit. If the Deputy wants to see us put financially into the same position as England as the result of the payment of uncovenanted benefit, then I think there is a very large number of people in this country who are very proud of the fact that the Executive Council in 1925 stopped the payment of uncovenanted benefit and put the unemployment insurance scheme on the sound actuarial basis on which it was originally founded.
I do not want the Minister to compare figures that are not correct figures. The figures about which he is talking are not the real figures. There are thousands who are not on the unemployment register, because uncovenanted benefit is not paid. They would be on the register if uncovenanted benefit were paid.
The thousands who are not on the unemployment register are thousands whose unemployed condition is apparently such that they do not think it worth while sending an unstamped card to the Exchange to indicate that they are unemployed.
Mr. Hogan
rose.
This is the old story when a Minister is speaking. Let the Minister make his speech. Then Deputies can answer his arguments afterwards in their speeches.
I am saying that during all that time there has been an increase in employment owing to the application of the type of assistance to industry that, after careful examination, suggested itself to the Executive Council. Deputies are fully aware of these figures. They are fully aware of the figures without taking into consideration the position that existed before uncovenanted benefit under the unemployment insurance scheme was introduced, that there are less men unemployed than there were following the cessation of uncovenanted benefit. During that time, going back to 1923 and 1924, when conditions were improving, there was a reduction as between 1923-24 and 1930-31 in the tax revenue raised of £4,300,000. Out of the reduced revenue, it was necessary to provide very much increased sums to be given over to local authorities to carry out local work and to reduce rates. The policy that lies before us in future is the policy of facing facts, realising that there is a limited amount of money that can be raised from the people and realising that except the amount of money that is raised from the people is kept within the tightest possible limits, except it is spent as economically as possible, we are only creating more unemployment for our people instead of the improved situation which can be brought about by laying down sound principles and seeing that as industry is started it is built upon a satisfactory foundation.
It is impossible to understand from Deputies on the opposite side what they mean by protection for industry. In so far as it is a question of tariffs, they can take the various publications that have been issued showing the industries we have, and if they are not satisfied with the tariffs that have been imposed, they can quote a different tariff. The only industries mentioned here by Deputy de Valera, at any rate, were those engaged in the production of apparel—clothing, hosiery and boots. All these industries have been protected by us. During our period of futility or inactivity, as Deputies may call it, all these industries have been given protection. We have never been told what is the additional protection that is wanted. We do not know from the Fianna Fáil side what interpretation we are to put on the resurrected motto of Dean Swift, resurrected by Deputy O'Kelly—"Burn everything from England except coal." Is that to go down on the Fianna Fáil programme as the next part of their industrial policy?
We are asked what has brought about the change in the attitude of Deputies on this side of the House from the days in which Arthur Griffith was writing up the philosophy and policy of Dean Swift in his pages. A very definite thing has happened. We have entered into a Treaty with the British people for international co-operation for the purpose of bettering our people here and bettering the British people in Britain because we have always held that the policy of the British in the past towards us was doing themselves as much damage as it was doing us. We are to-day attending to our business here in a spirit of co-operation with the British, particularly, with whom we are so closely knitted economically, as well as with any other people with whom we have dealings, and we know no better way of improving the condition of this country than to work in a spirit of co-operation with the British. Deputies have mentioned the Six Counties and the destruction of our industries here. Part of our work here is to undo the things that have been done and the effect of these things, to undo the effect of hundreds of years past. Deputies, explaining their policy for agriculture, say that it cannot be all brought about in a day. We cannot undo the industrial conditions that have been brought about here in a day. Whatever blots there are on our social and economic condition here can be removed, but can only be removed gradually, and, in my opinion, can only be removed in a spirit of co-operation with the British people.
Deputies have said we are producing more agriculturally than we are able to sell here, and that we have an export surplus. They belittle the British market, or I understood them to do so. They say that there is hardly room for us there, but they do not say what other markets are available. Deputy de Valera talked particularly about butter, and he asked what preference are we getting in England. Canadian, New Zealand, Australian and Danish butter is coming in there, and he says we get no preference. Deputies again shut their eyes to the position that exists at the present moment in England and the policies that in co-operation with Canada, Australia and ourselves have to be examined and must be adopted by Great Britain in the very near future. That will bring us into a more favourable position even than that in which we are at the present moment in getting our surplus agricultural produce into the British markets. Deputies on the far side are fully aware of it. In their Press to-day they quote figures to show the reducing amount of butter from the Free State entering the British market for the last three years, and they also quote figures to show the increasing amount of Russian butter going into that market. We did not hear anything to-day from Deputy de Valera about Russian butter.
You did.
Not a single word.
I wish to protest against that statement. It is not correct.
What is the point about it, anyway?
The point about it is that in their Press the Fianna Fáil people realise that it would be an advantage if anything should happen that would mean that Russian butter would be kept out of the British market, that then there would be more room for our butter. When Deputy de Valera says that we cannot change British policy, when he wants to talk like that, he does not say a word about Russia. He talks of New Zealand and Canada. Deputies then come along here and in their foretellings they say: "This is the last day of the Sixth Dáil," and they think of what the O.C. of the Kerry No. 1 Brigade on 26th February, 1923, said: "Unemployment, if increased, would help us." Simply that.
I think this is about the ninth Christmas adjournment at which I have been present. On each motion for the adjournment for the Christmas holidays we have had a debate on the question of unemployment. I am doubtful if I ever listened to a more futile debate than we have had to-day. We had a much more useful and a much more intelligent debate when we had a much smaller Opposition than we have now, because at that time the Opposition was concerned with the position of the country, and particularly with the unemployed.
Your Party supported you then.
They did. It is quite clear from the debate that there is as much sincerity on one side of the House as there is on the other. I heard from the Government side the very same argument as I heard nine years ago. No one can deny that there is a greater number of unemployed in the country to-day than there was two years ago. Fortunately there is a very much lesser number than there was nine years ago, or seven years ago. When one reads in the newspapers of Deputy Harris talking about £250,000,000 having been spent within the last nine years, and when one listens to Deputy Aiken talking of the Government having squandered £250,000,000 in the last nine years, one begins to ask oneself whether the Deputies are including all the expenditure for the last nine years and if they have in mind the destruction on which most of that £250,000,000 had to be spent. I hope the Deputies keep that in mind. (Interruption.) Deputy Briscoe ought not to interrupt, but ought to remember that I was a member of the first Committee of Public Accounts that was set up.
What about it?
The Deputy knows all about it.
On a point of explanation, might I ask Deputy Morrissey where the House would get confirmation that most of the £250,000,000 was spent in providing compensation for destruction?
It is no part of my duty to instruct members of the Fianna Fáil Party as to where they would get information.
Half-baked teachers and all the rest of it.
If Deputy Anthony has referred to me as a half-baked teacher —I do not care what he calls me—it shows the value and the respect he has for the dignity of the House.
The Ceann Comhairle is not going to hold that the word "teacher" is a term of reproach.
"A half-baked teacher"?
I wish that your ruling that every member of the House has an equal right to speak would be observed with the same unanimity as the statement you have just made. There is no use, as Deputies have stated, at the last meeting of the present Dáil—whether that is true or not I do not know—to try to make capital out of the misfortunes of those who are unemployed. That is what this debate has resolved itself into. We are not going to help the unemployed by misrepresenting each other; we are only building up in this country a contempt for Parliamentary and Party Government amongst those who are unemployed by carrying on in this way.
Deputy de Valera delivered a speech here. I listened to the speech for about seven minutes and for the first seven minutes it was the very same speech that he delivered in this House a fortnight ago. There was not even the change of a word or a gesture. Tariffs are to cure all. I am one of those who believe in tariffs and who voted for tariffs before Deputies on the opposite side ever came into this House, but I am not so foolish as to believe that the tariff policy either of the present or prospective Government is going to cure the problem of unemployment. I do not believe that Deputy Lemass believes that his proposal will remedy the unemployment in this country. He knows quite well that it will not. We had Deputy Aiken talking about tariffs, about agriculture, about the growing of wheat and about the absorbing of our unemployed on the land as if that were possible. Why I blame Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches more than for any other thing is that three years ago in this House they were denouncing the Government because there were 30,000 young men and women leaving the country every year. This year they are denouncing the Government because there are no young men or women leaving the country. The only Deputy on those benches who is honest about it is Deputy Corry. He said he was glad that not one young man left the country.
Deputy Aiken went further. He said the President talked foolishness when he said that many of the emigrants went to America to see their friends. I agree with him. That was a very foolish statement. He coupled that with some statements which he said the Minister for Finance had made here to-day. He said the President and the Minister for Finance had insulted the Irish in America. I want to ask Deputies to cast their minds back to a date earlier this year or perhaps at the end of last year when Deputy Aiken made a statement on his return from America, when he said that when he arrived in America—I think on the 1st. January—there may have been a man, woman or child in New York sober, but unfortunately he did not see them. That is a bigger insult to the Irish in America or to the whole American race than the statements the President or the Minister for Finance made.
Did he say they were Irish?
Does the Deputy challenge the statement?
He has not sense enough to challenge anything. Go on.
My reason for intervening in this debate is because I have spoken in as many if not more debates on unemployment in this House than any other member of the House, and because we were fighting for the unemployed, when those who are now shedding crocodile tears were fighting against the unemployed and creating unemployment. I want to place the responsibility for what I call the abnormal unemployment on the right shoulders. In that respect, in my opinion, both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil are equally to blame. I agree, and every person who is prepared to tell the truth will agree that no matter what any Government could do—it applies not only in this country but throughout the world—for the last two years, that if you had the most sympathetic Government you could possibly get you would have a certain amount of unemployment. We ought to face up to the fact and to realise that if there had been common sense in this country and if Deputy Lemass, Deputy de Valera, Deputy Aiken and their colleagues had been prepared to admit in 1922 what they are now admitting openly and above board there would not have been as much unemployment in this country to-day as there is.
On a point of explanation, Deputy Morrissey made some allusion to public accounts. I should like him to explain that.
Things cannot be explained here.
The Deputy has nothing to say then.
Deputy Morrissey has delivered his swan song. I do not know if anybody is any clearer as to what the burden of it is. He told us his only reason for intervening was that he had spoken in unemployment debates more often than any other Deputy. That may be a very good reason, but I do not know that the House is any the wiser concerning the unemployment position because Deputy Morrissey has intervened. He told us that the quality of the opposition has deteriorated considerably since he left it. Deputy Morrissey said that and he is entitled to that opinion. I do not think it was altogether necessary for him to supplement's policy or the Government's policy to deal with unemployment. I was very considerably astonished to hear from Deputy Morrissey, despite his new political associations, the assertion that unemployment here cannot be remedied.
On a point of order.
Deputy Lemass is in order.
Deputy Morrissey is after speaking here, and the burden of his speech, if any, was that unemployment cannot be remedied. He said that if protection will not remedy it the agricultural policy of Fianna Fáil cannot remedy it, that the policy of Cumann na nGaedheal cannot remedy it, and that he himself had no remedy for it. That is Deputy Morrissey's contribution to this problem.
You are not at the cross roads.
I am facing Deputy Morrissey here. I am not taking the report of his remarks from a newspaper. Every Deputy heard what he said. I submit, and I defy contradiction on that point, that he did not make one suggestion as to how a single man may be provided with work. The burden of his speech was that it could not be done, and he tried to put the onus for this unemployment on Fianna Fáil because of events in 1922.
And Cumann na nGaedheal.
Let me give Deputy Morrissey a little political advice. He has joined a new political party, but his association has been so short that he has not learned its tricks. He has got to guard against that. It is a most dangerous position to let himself get into. If he finds himself coming to believe that there is any truth in the propaganda of the Party with which he is now associated, then it is time for him to re-examine his position very closely. Most of the money collected by this Government in taxes, he tells us, was spent in giving compensation for the destruction that took place in 1922. In the first place that statement is not true. The untruth of it can be easily demonstrated.
How far is it untrue?
Some portion of it was spent in giving compensation to persons whose property was destroyed in 1922. If Deputy Morrissey wishes, he and I can debate on whose shoulders would the responsibility for that destruction lie, but I do not think you, a Chinn Chomhairle, would allow us. Let us admit right away that that is a debatable point. We are not agreed that the entire responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Fianna Fáil Party. Deputy Morrissey now pretends to believe it does. He did not always believe that; he has only believed it within the last two months.
I never said so.
Well, I understood him to say it a few minutes ago. Deputy Morrissey's speech, in the main, amused me, but one part of it disgusted me. He said that Fianna Fáil were only trying to make political capital out of unemployment. If there is one man in this House who should not parade himself on the ground of his sincerity, it is Deputy Morrissey. If there is one man in this House who has shown a more cynical outlook upon public affairs and a more callous determination to make Party and personal propaganda for himself out of events in the country than Deputy Morrissey, I do not know him. Deputy Morrissey particularly should sing very dumb when the sincerity of any of us is being questioned. The Deputies on this side of the House know something about unemployment. We come up against it day after day. I represent a constituency in which unemployment is probably worse than in any other part of Ireland, and I am not going to have Deputy Morrissey telling me that if I come here as a public representative trying to get the Government to do something to remedy the unemployment evil that I am concerned with making political propaganda for myself out of it. I do not know if Deputy Morrissey believes me when I say that I have not made political propaganda for myself out of it. I do not have to make political propaganda. I never stood as a candidate in the constituency I represent. I will probably be elected again, and I will be elected because the people of that constituency believe that in trying to relieve unemployment I am actuated only by the desire to get the thing done, and personally I am trying to do it myself.
I think Deputy Morrissey's speech was very undesirable from the Cumann na nGaedheal point of view. The Government Whips should have consulted with him before allowing him to deliver that speech. The speech which preceded it from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health was a much more clever attempt to defend Government policy. Until I heard the Minister for Local Government I was very much puzzled by the recent declaration made by the President of the Executive Council to the reporter of the "Daily Express" to the effect that this country, he is now convinced, after nine years' experience, is not fit for responsible government. When the President made that statement to the representative of a foreign newspaper, that we are unable and had not the training nor the ability that would enable us to stand alone, I thought that he was talking clotted nonsense as usual, but the speech of the Minister for Local Government has showed the mentality behind it. It is obvious that the members on the front bench believe —first, that they are the only possible Government for this country; secondly, that anything they cannot do nobody else can do; and, thirdly, that having failed to remedy the problem of unemployment, that problem cannot be remedied. Deputy Morrissey comes in merely as an echo of the attitude taken up by the Minister that the present is the only possible Government. They say: "We cannot do it, and, therefore, it cannot be done." Deputy Morrissey juggled with figures and pretended that unemployment was not a serious problem here. He took the usual Cumann na nGaedheal attitude that this thing is merely a trifling problem, that we should not waste our time nor absorb our energies in trying to deal with it.
I think it was the Deputy for Meath, Deputy Duggan, who got most badly caught up in that connection. He went down to Meath and he made the usual Cumann na nGaedheal speech that unemployment was trifling and that the problem was less serious here than elsewhere. He advised the people listening to him not to worry about it. Unfortunately the report of that speech appeared in the daily papers side by side with the figures published for the first time relating to unemployment as ascertained by the Census of 1926. That Census revealed that the total number unemployed in 1926 was 78,000. I do not think there is anybody in this House, much less outside it, who is stupid enough to believe that 78,000. people unemployed is only a trifle and that the problem is a trifling problem. Since this speech by Deputy Duggan the position has worsened, and the Government has got wise. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health tried to disguise the effect of these figures by stating that in certain industries there were more people employed now than in 1926. The general position has got worse from the middle of 1929 down. In the figures available —that is, the figures relating to registered unemployment—there has been a steady increase in unemployment in some industries and a drop to vanishing point in others. There are some industries which have given increased employment, in consequence of the inadequate protection afforded them, but the coach-building industry, the glass bottle-making industry, the transport and other industries have been allowed to die out. The fact is that there is a much more serious unemployment problem here now than there was in 1929, because it is a more hopeless problem in so far as the Government do not even pretend that they are able to do anything to deal with it.
The Minister for Local Government and Public Health referred to the apparel industry, the hosiery industry, and the boot industry. He said these gave additional employment and that there was additional production because of the tariffs that have been placed on these industries. No other method of assistance, he says, has been suggested. The Minister is wrong. Not a single one of these industries got the tariffs they asked for, and I defy the Minister to produce here any information from any representative body of manufacturers in any of these industries to the effect that they are satisfied with the degree of protection afforded them. I pointed out that in every single application brought to the Tariff Commission the recommendation made by the Tariff Commission to the Government always contained a modification of the application. In very few cases were the applications conceded.
What about boots?
Does Deputy Anthony pretend that the boot manufacturers are satisfied with the 15 per cent. tariff?
Nothing would satisfy any of them.
Fifteen per cent. tariff does not satisfy them, and the fact that only 10 per cent. of the boot requirements of the country is supplied by the home manufacturers proves that.
What is the reason for that—is it not the high cost of living here?
Has the cost of living been raised because of these tariffs? Will Deputy Gorey take hold of the "Irish Trade Journal" and look into the index figures? If he does he will find out whether the cost of living has gone up or down. Civil servants know that it has gone down.
It actually went up last week.
This is sheer bunkum to say that the cost of living has been raised. The fact is that the cost of living has proportionately fallen more here since 1926 than in any other country in the world.
Does the Deputy know that it was raised within the last few months?
Deputy Morrissey says "Even Deputy Lemass does not pretend that the protectionist policy is going to abolish unemployment." It is. That is an outstanding factor that the figure of 80,000 unemployed represents the number that can be absorbed into employment if we give protection to our industries. That number of unemployed can have work found for them. There is coming into this country every year £18,000,000 worth of boots, clothing, apparel, furniture, bacon, flour and articles that can be produced here by our own people. It would take the labour of 80,000 men and women to produce these goods. At the present moment those 80,000 people are employed in factories in England, Germany, United States, and Japan making these goods to be sold here in competition with the products of our own factories. We are depriving that number of people of employment here. We could transfer all that employment here if we want to do it.
Have tariffs prevented unemployment in the U.S.A.?
The conditions in America are different to the conditions here. This is the only country in the world since 1922 that has a continuously falling population. It is the only country inhabited by white people that has a falling population. That fact, and that one fact alone, distinguishes the problem here from the problem in any other country. The population of Great Britain, the United States, Germany and these other countries is going up, and the unemployment in those countries is due, unfortunately, to some extent, to the fact that opportunities for work are not increasing in the same proportion as the population is increasing. That is why unemployment exists in those countries. Unemployment persists here and is getting worse despite the fact that so many people have emigrated since 1922.
Has the Deputy considered what has happened in Australia?
Let us consider the problem here. Deputy Law cannot quote Australia for me in order to ignore the fact that we are importing into this country goods that we can make for ourselves and goods which represent the labour of 80,000 people. That is a concrete fact that cannot be got over, and it is because this Government has ignored it and has allowed these things to continue that it deserves such severe condemnation, not only from the Dáil but from every responsible person in this country. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health tried to ride away upon the old canard that we were opposed to selling goods to England. That is sheer nonsense. We are prepared to sell goods to England.
We are prepared to sell every single thing that we produce and that we do not want for ourselves in England or anywhere else. But the one fact that we want to emphasise is that there is available at home a market for Irish products that has been neglected. We are not getting a fair deal from England. That has been pointed out not merely by the Fianna Fáil Deputies but by the Minister for Industry and Commerce himself and by the High Commissioner in England. The High Commissioner in England has repeatedly called attention to the fact that the English are not giving a fair deal and that they are not buying our produce to the extent that we are buying their produce. The three million people here are buying more British goods than any other country in the world, and that fact should not be forgotten when there is any question of negotiations for trade facilities as between ourselves and England. That is one fact that we should rely on to safeguard our position.
The Danes do not buy one-third as much from England as we buy, yet England buys from Denmark almost double the amount of goods she gets from us. We have a market here at home that this Government has persisted in ignoring because the eyes of the Government are on Britain all the time. We are not belittling the importance of the British market. We realise its importance, but we do not want you here to belittle the importance of the home market. The home market is more important for us. It is the only market in which we can conserve our position and regulate our prices so as to ensure a fair return to our producers. So much for the Minister for Local Government.
There is a personal note I want to introduce now. I was informed that the Minister for Agriculture, replying to the case made from these benches, made a personal attack upon myself and on two other members of the Fianna Fáil Party. He said I was a professional politician and was making a living out of politics. To a certain extent that is true. It is true to this extent that I am giving my whole time to the furtherance of the cause with which I am associated.
I have alternative means of earning a livelihood if I choose to avail of them. It is true to that extent, and true not merely to-day, but for a very long number of years, that since 1918 and during that period opportunities of improving my position, opportunities of adopting a profession, opportunities of feathering my nest were allowed to slip. I gave, as I said, the whole of my time to the furtherance of that cause, and I am still doing it. In my opinion I have nothing to apologise for in doing that, and I do not think the jibe of the Minister for Agriculture is going to carry any weight with people who know the situation. I can say that such conduct on my part must appear very foolish to a Minister with the mentality of the Minister for Agriculture. It is certainly true that never to my knowledge did he sacrifice a penny on behalf of any cause since he announced his conversion to the national movement by subscribing five shillings to the Dáil Loan in Loughrea. I can retort by saying that he is a professional politician, and can point to the fact that he is on the pay-roll of this nation to the tune of £1,700 a year; I could point to the fact that he is not the first nor the only one of his family to be on the pay-roll of this nation. He poses here as a farmer. Let Deputies on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches inquire as to how exactly the farm came into the possession of his family. They will understand that in the West of Ireland the old slogan of "the land for the people" has been changed to the new one of "the land for the Hogans." I do not like dealing with this matter, but I feel that the jibe made here is one that may be made again. It was one inspired by the President of the Executive Council, who has repeatedly wagged his money-bags before us and told us he has not to depend on politics for a livelihood. Neither have I, nor any member of this Party. So long as the cause with which we are associated has not been victorious we are going to continue until we bring it to victory. I think members opposite should feel a sense of shame if they think that someone like the Minister for Agriculture, by a jibe of that kind, is going to help the political fortunes of their Party.
I am sorry that anything the Minister for Agriculture has said should hurt Deputy Lemass. I must say that I have a great deal of sympathy for politicians on any side of the House. I think it is the last life a man who is matured like me should tell any young man to select. At the same time, in repelling the charge for the Minister for Agriculture I am afraid the Deputy did not speak strictly to facts. The Hogans always had land, plenty of it, and they got it honourably. I will not say any more about Deputy Lemass in his references, because he was done more than justice by Deputy Fahy during the absence of the Ceann Comhairle.
I was here for that. What strikes the Ceann Comhairle is that the term "professional politician" ought not to be a term of reproach at all. I think the House is foolish not to take up the attitude that in fact the term "professional politician" is not a term of reproach.
A Deputy
It was meant to be.
I know that Deputy Fahy kept his tongue in his mouth when there were abominable charges made against Ministers on the Front Bench, when it was stated that they set up dumps on the eve of the Kildare election. I am not going to make any apologies for saying that. We have heard a great deal about protection. There has been a very considerable measure of protection in this country, and it does not seem to have had any great effect. We have protection on boots, and an energetic Cork firm took advantage of it. They have certainly done very well at it. Why are there not more factories of the Cork type throughout Ireland? Is there something wrong with the other people who have boot factories? If they had succeeded as well as the Cork factory we would not be in the position that we are in to-day of having to import such quantities of boots. It would be well to be candid about these things. We have tweeds and woollens on which there is a very stiff tariff. I have scarcely ever seen an advertisement by manufacturers of Irish-made goods— and splendidly made, I must say they are—as to where these Irish-made goods can be had in Dublin. When I was looking for a suit made with Irish materials I had to tramp half the city making inquiries where I would get it. While Deputies opposite were making all these speeches I was surprised that so little was said by way of telling the people why they should use Irish goods.
Deputies on the opposite benches must represent nearly 40 per cent. of the population and if that 40 per cent. supported Irish manufactures there need not be such weeping here to-day. We heard a lot about the price of Irish butter in England and that normally it is not bought there. Why? Before the Minister for Agriculture took up the question of the production of butter under the best conditions it was a very poor article in Ireland, and it left an unsavoury reputation in the chief markets that we had. The position is quite different now. If the Minister had never done anything else than placing Irish butter on the English market as it is placed there to-day he deserves well of the country. It is the same way with the breeding of cattle. When I visit a fair now and compare the cattle with what they were twenty years ago they are certainly 30 per cent. better bred to-day. The Minister was attacked about grass land. We heard about Meath, Limerick and Tipperary in support of that attack. Some of these counties, especially Limerick and Tipperary, are dairy counties. If you take up the list of insured people you will find that proportionately these counties have a larger number of insured persons than any other county in Ireland. That is rather instructive when we hear reference to grass land. It all depends upon what grass land is for. In Meath many of the people who fatten cattle in the summer, stall feed them in the winter and in that way give a good deal of employment. The Irish market, unfortunately, is not of very great importance for the simple reason that it is too small. We could never consume in this country all the beef and butter that we produce. We must find a foreign market. If the new conditions in England are what we believe they are to be, there will be a substantial improvement here within a few months. There is already a very great improvement in the price of wheat and oats. That is not due to the Irish market, but to the English market.
How does it affect the Irish farmer? He has to pay more for the feeding of his cattle, and whether fattening them or keeping them for stores when he exports them he gets no better price at present, so that the higher price of corn in England has done the farmer no service there. That was the policy of the Opposition all the time. If you increase the price of feeding stuffs you see what the result is.
Deputy Aiken referred to the gentlemen on the front benches and used the word "gentlemen" sarcastically. He told them that they should go to what he considered was their spiritual home—England—and to do the washing for the English people. Looking at Deputy Aiken physically, tegumentally, and pigmentally, he is the last man in this House that I would call an Irishman. I think that if we are going to be lectured someone with an Irish name should stand up and lecture us.
Somebody with Irish blood anyway.
I have spoken in this House on many occasions on unemployment, and I think it is rather a pity that there is a necessity to do so again. In view of the fact that there are, even according to the Government figures, approximately 75,000 people unemployed, there is a big necessity for Deputies on these benches to deal with it. To my mind the discussion this afternoon has been noticeable for three things. In the first place, it has been noticeable for the absence of speakers amongst the rank and file in Cumann na nGaedheal, with the possible exception of Deputy Hennessy. As far as Deputy Hennessy's contribution to the debate is concerned, I regret to say that his speech was an apology for a lack of policy on the part of the Government. I am sure the Deputy who represents Dublin City South would not deny that unemployment is rampant in his own constituency, either in Inchicore, the Coombe, or other districts. The second point for which the debate has been noticeable is that not one of the six so-called Farmer Deputies has taken part in it. That is understood, in view of the fact that the Farmers' Party has been swallowed up by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. It is well known that the Farmers' Party in this House does not speak on behalf of the small farmers. The third point for which the debate was noticeable was the speech of the Minister for Finance, in which he did not endeavour to outline a Government policy for the cure of unemployment. After hearing that speech, one naturally came to the conclusion that the Government have no policy with regard to this big problem. In the course of his remarks the Minister said that we must get down to actual facts as they exist here. One of the faults that I find with the present Government is that they do not look the facts as they exist in the face. They have survived for a number of years on a policy of make-belief, by endeavouring to persuade the people that the country is prosperous. We have been told that we have turned the corner. According to some Ministers we have turned the corner so often that we can hardly keep up with our own shadows. The Minister for Finance treated the House to a lecture on economics. In my opinion, that was quite in keeping with the Manchester Liberal School of Economics, from which, apparently, the Minister for Finance and the Government take their policy. He told the House that unemployment was a relatively small problem in the Saorstát, although according to the figures issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce there are about 75,000 people looking for work and unable to secure it.
The Minister for Finance apparently has taken his cue from the speech delivered here on the last occasion by Deputy Byrne when we were discussing this matter. Deputy Byrne seemed to think that we have something to console ourselves with in the fact that unemployment exists in other countries to a large extent. But, although it does exist in other countries, that is no reason why Deputies should not endeavour, in a sensible, businesslike way to cure this unemployment problem. One other statement made by the Minister for Finance, in my opinion, proves that the Government is bankrupt in policy when it is a matter of dealing with this question was this: he said, "We cannot cure conditions here in regard to unemployment." That statement that we cannot cure conditions here in regard to unemployment, in conjunction with the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce some time ago, in which he said it is not the duty of the Government to find work for the unemployed, is an admission of failure on behalf of the Government to cope with this problem. It proves that they have no policy with regard to unemployment.
Up to the present three Ministers have spoken. I presume another Minister will speak before the debate comes to an end, but no Minister who has spoken so far has endeavoured to outline the policy of the Government on this matter. They have no policy to cure this condition of unemployment and to find work for the unemployed. The Minister for Finance said they will not adopt any quack policy. What policy have they adopted or what policy do they intend to adopt for the future? We have not been told, either by the three Ministers or the one Deputy who spoke from the Government Benches. Deputy Hennessy, who represents Dublin City, pointed out that the Irish manufacturers, so far as his constituency is concerned, are not advertising as much as they should do. I quite agree with that. And in that respect I would draw Deputy Hennessy's attention to one matter. There is in this city a firm known as the Donegal Tweed Company. They have two branches, one in Henry Street and the other in George's Street. They have been registered in a Government Department here as the Donegal Tweed Company. They are not an Irish firm at all. They do not sell five per cent. of Irish stuff. They are a cross-Channel firm owned and controlled by cross-Channel people, nevertheless the Department of Industry and Commerce allows them to be registered as the Donegal Tweed Company, misleading the citizens of Dublin. So much for the question of advertising Irish tweeds raised by Deputy Hennessy. I am one of those who believe that one of the principal duties of the Government of any country is to legislate in the interest and the welfare of the people. I believe that any Government that allows 75,000 of the people to be unemployed has failed in one of its primary duties to the people.
It is no consolation to the people of Donegal, or to the people in Kildare, in Kerry or in Dublin to know that unemployment exists in other countries. The only apology put forward from the Government Benches for the unemployment that exists at the present time is that unemployment exists elsewhere. It has been pointed out that we import every year millions worth of clothing, hosiery and boots. Speaking quite recently, the Most Reverend Doctor Mageean, at the annual meeting of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, said it was deplorable, so far as this country was concerned, that there should be so much poverty in the midst of plenty.
There are, as I have said, seventy-five thousand people unemployed. There are in the City of Dublin alone seventy-eight thousand people living in one-room tenements. Housing scarcity is not peculiar to Dublin. In my own constituency in Donegal there are forty-two thousand people living in two-roomed houses. In Mayo the housing conditions are as bad. I mention this condition of housing to prove the fact that while there exist unemployment and lack of work there are people looking for houses, waiting for them to be built. If there was a proper policy in regard to housing in this country, both in the urban and in the rural areas, it would go a long way to absorb the unemployed.
Some speakers were more concerned with taunting each other in regard to what took place in the past than in an endeavour to solve this problem. I believe that a great lot of the time of the Dáil has been wasted in enacting legislation of comparatively little importance when contrasted with the big problem of unemployment, and now, when the Dáil is going to adjourn until the 10th February, we are curtailed in the number of hours that we are allowed to devote to this discussion. I believe that if the Dáil were to do its duty it would close the doors of this Chamber and lock in Deputies of all Parties until such time as they found a proper solution which would absorb the 75,000 people unemployed, and in addition to that found a solution that would help to improve the economic position of the small farmers and fishermen.
There would be a riot.
If things do not improve as far as the unemployment of small farmers and fishermen is concerned there is going to be more economic discontent in this country now than ever there was before. Emigration is cut off. We were told by the Minister for Finance that some of the people who emigrated did so from a desire for further opportunity. Quite rightly so! The majority of the people who emigrated from this country did so for one reason and that is because they were unable to find work at home. They were unable to eke out a livelihood and provide for their wives and families. If some of them did emigrate from a desire for further opportunity it was owing to the fact that our agricultural and other industries have been neglected to a large extent in the past.
While some Deputies maintain that this question of unemployment is not so big, it might come as a great surprise to some of them to know that so far as unemployment insurance benefits are concerned they are lower in the Saorstát than in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and there is a large number of unemployed at the present time looking for work and unable to find work who are not getting any unemployment insurance benefit—not one half-penny. Contrast that with the fact that expenditure on the prison service, taking into consideration the officials and cost of maintenance, amounts to £2 per head. We are prepared to expend £2 per head as far as our prison service is concerned, but on an unemployed man with a family possibly in a state of semi-starvation, we are not prepared to expend anything in the way of unemployment insurance benefit. Surely such a system should not be in existence. I say this to the Government, and I say it very seriously: It is their duty to get on with the business of finding work for the unemployed and if they are not prepared to do that it is their duty to clear out and make room for an Executive Council who will be prepared to face up to the problem and find work for the unemployed.
I am rather loth to intervene in this debate, which has largely been what I might call a sort of electioneering talk by the Opposition. The sort of the thing we have had is Deputy Lemass saying how things have got steadily worse here since the figures of the last census return were published. These figures were published in 1926, and Deputy Lemass said that things were in a worse condition now, and to prove that he says that unemployment has increased since 1929. The fact is that there is less unemployment here now than in 1926. The Government's general economic policy has been to increase the productivity of this country. That can take the form of either increasing the amount of production, or increasing its relative value in relation to other commodities produced elsewhere. At the present moment, when there is this extraordinary world condition, which to some extent has been produced by this rather mad policy embarked on in many countries of high tariffs, when the value of practically all commodities is falling in this country, where our enormously outstanding industry is the agricultural industry, the value of which, in terms of exchange, has been diminishing, while in many cases costs of production and overhead charges remain more or less stationary, it is actually proposed that we should embark upon a system of wholesale tariffs to improve our economic position.
Boots have been quoted. There is a tariff of 15 per cent. on boots at the moment. That means that the Irish bootmaker has a margin of 15 per cent., and can charge 15 per cent. more before he meets, on equal ground, competition from imported boots. It may be that boots have not gone up 15 per cent. But it does seem pretty clear that if there is business initiative and ordinary efficiency amongst the workers 90 per cent. of the boots imported, having to fight against the 15 per cent. tariff wall, would be produced here, if tariffs were going to be such an enormous salvation to the economic life of this country. It is suggested that a 15 per cent. tariff on one commodity, which, generally speaking, works out at a 15 per cent. increased cost to the consumer, is not enough. But at the moment, when the real productive industry in this country, farming, is facing up to a condition that is universal from world conditions, it is proposed that the price to the consumer is to be increased in order to make life more difficult to people actually producing, and that 15 per cent. tariff is not sufficient.
We are told about clothing and about cloth. There is a tariff on both of them. Yet we are importing a great deal. We have to put a much higher tariff on, we are told, and in the meantime what is to be done for the real producer in the country? Deputy de Valera said that he had no objection to our exporting a certain amount of our surplus industrial produce to England. The only sound economic policy is for us to consider what we can produce most economically in this country. It is well known that, with the advent of dry farming and owing to certain developments, the wheat-growing area of the world has increased enormously. The cost of production, however, and of wages in the great wheat-growing countries is about one-fifth of what it would be in this country. Part of the Fianna Fáil policy is that we should expend in money or labour five times as much as it is necessary to expend elsewhere to produce a commodity that can be produced better elsewhere. That is the policy that is to be the economic salvation of this country. We talk sometimes about taking in one another's washing; that, roughly, is the proposal of Fianna Fáil. But in ordinary economics it is not a matter of taking in each other's washing. It is a matter of the natural resources of the country, plus the intelligence and labour of the people in producing wealth. Fianna Fáil says we are not producing boots and cloth, for example, and that we have 80,000 unemployed here. Of course, the figures are all wrong. We are told that if we manufactured all the things that we want here we could employ the 80,000 people at present unemployed. It is proposed that the farmer must pay more for his boots than at present, while he is to compete, so far as exports are concerned, in a world market, that he must pay more for his clothes, and the ordinary people must pay more for their bread, so that we can have Irish wheat instead of imported wheat. It is assumed that we could produce all these extra things, that we could produce 500,000 extra acres of wheat and still continue to produce exactly what we are producing at present. I would call the whole thing childish, except that we know that it is not honest. The Fianna Fáil Party have used this occasion, as they do every year, to appeal to the most stupid and ignorant people in the country, because they are likely to have more force with them; they assume a depth of ignorance and stupidity in the country as a whole that is rather over-estimated.
The Government have produced a state of affairs in this country whereby we have less unemployment at the moment than any time since the census was taken—considerably less unemployment, and we have that state of affairs at a time when practically every other country has seen unemployment increase by leaps and bounds. Deputy Lemass said it is no good comparing this country with America. The United States of America has the greatest resources of any country in the world, except possibly Russia and Canada. It is not over-populated. It has a population of 120,000,000, whereas if populated at the rate of Europe generally the population would be 500,000,000. The United States is under-populated; it has enormous capital, and it is, industrially, enormously efficient, with all the latest machinery. It is a country with enormous natural resources; it is a country that has overwhelming tariff protection, and yet it is a country with an enormous amount of unemployment. Deputy Lemass says we cannot compare ourselves with the United States. We are a country with fewer resources. Our resources are in no way comparable, even allowing for the great difference in size, with the United States. We are a country, as far as our industries are concerned, badly equipped; we are a country equivalently populated with the United States relatively, and we are told now we can do what the United States of America did, by putting up this enormously high tariff wall. The United States, with its enormous populous areas, has great economic units for all its great production in its own area. We have nothing of that sort. It can indulge, without any exports, in the most enormous mass production which cannot be carried out here if we are to depend upon the home market.
Yet Deputy Lemass says for the semi-illiterates presumably who read Deputy de Valera's paper "Do not compare us with America. Everyone can be employed, we can keep on our standard of living and rates of wages. We can improve the position of the farmers generally. Do not compare us with America, because we, with our natural resources, are more favourably placed than the United States. Do not compare us with Australia." Australia is a continent almost as big as Europe. It has twice as many people as the Free State; it has enormous resources and it has enormous wheat-growing areas. But Australia has also enormous unemployed. We should not be compared with Australia or the United States because we have not the natural resources and advantages that those countries have. The Party opposite try to play upon the misfortunes of the people of this country. They said in 1922: "The more unemployment the better it will suit our policy." That is what is happening now. They spent the whole afternoon preaching that there is the most dire and appalling situation in this country, exaggerating that side, and at the same time saying that the whole limitations placed upon humanity can be overcome, that everybody here can be employed and well-to-do, in spite of the world conditions, that we can supply everything people need in every commodity, and at the same time export to England our surplus commodities, which does not happen in any other country. What are the conditions in this country? Less unemployment now than three years ago, the only country practically in the world in that condition. Our conditions of labour are better practically than those of any other country in the world. Our rates of wages are better practically than any other European country. Our standard of living is really high, because, although our people may not live as well as other countries, the value of the consumption in the ordinary household is higher than in any other country, because we have in this country more waste than in any other European country.
What does the Government propose? The Government proposes to use every means in its power, as it has done in the past, to increase the value of our production. It may be that our butter and eggs are actually getting less than some time ago when world prices were higher. Relatively we get much higher prices for our butter now than we would be getting for our butter if we were producing under the same conditions as in 1922. We have never preached to our people a panacea or nostrum that is going to overcome all suffering in the world, because there is no such thing and the people who preach that doctrine are simply dishonest. We have told the people that there is to be no escape from hard work. In 1922 and 1923 Fianna Fáil were telling the people that they did away with unemployment by burning houses and carrying on the work of destruction. That idea is at the back of their heads all the time. As a Government we cannot, even if we wanted to, deceive the people as our friends opposite can.
We have improved the quality of agricultural production. We have selected certain tariffs and applied them where the conditions of the country indicated it would be possible to produce economically with them. We never proposed that we should grow our own tea in glass houses rather than import it from China or India. That is the sort of doctrine preached by Deputies opposite. They try to terrify them, as Deputy Lemass did, by a little dishonesty and by saying to them "there is more unemployment now and things are worse now than they were in 1926." He proves it by saying that things have disimproved since 1929. We are about the only country in the world, thanks to the sound policy due to the courage of this Government, and we are about the only country in the world in which there is less unemployment to-day than there was in 1926.
What about emigration contribution? You had not that in 1926.
We had emigration in 1926.
If you had not?
I am comparing the position now with that of 1926. If we take such countries as England, United States, Germany, with their big tariffs, and assume that every emigrant is back here and add these to the number of the unemployed here—we know that at this moment men are coming back from America to this country because they expect conditions to be better here than in America—taking all that into consideration I still say that our conditions have improved, and that these conditions are entirely dependent upon the Government and are a tribute to our Government. Deputies opposite pretend that the Government can do everything. It does not matter whether people work or are decent citizens, the Government can do everything and produce heaven on earth for all the people. On that basis, taking these things into consideration, it will be found that we have done better than an enormously wealthy country like the United States, better than Germany and better, practically, than any other European country. We have done that in face of particular difficulties because we have no great natural resources. A man in the United States may become a millionaire overnight by discovering some enormously valuable mineral deposit. That does not happen in this country nor is it likely to happen. Production here is largely agricultural. There is not going to be any sudden accession to wealth, there is only going to be the exploitation of the resources of the country by the hard work of the people. People who go about pitying others, telling them that they have to work too hard, that they ought to be far better off than they are, that there should be no unemployment and that they can indulge in any wild policy they like, and that everything can be made perfect by putting the people who give these assurances into power, are dishonest and are preaching a policy that would lead this country to disaster. We have no policy that will make this country enormously prosperous to-morrow or next month. Our policy is to improve the position of the country and to safeguard the well being of the people in a way that has not happened in any other country in the world.
By our financial policy we saved this country from disaster such as happened in Australia. We have not indulged in an enormous tariff policy; we had a sane tariff policy which to a certain extent has been successful. Our observation of it, and we are in a better position to judge than people who write only for propaganda, for the purpose of getting advantage out of it, but who have no real interest in the facts, is that it works well. They taunt us, and ask what have we to propose to the people. What we propose is this: The people have seen that in those years which have been a disastrous period in world history this country has held its own as no other country has. Has that been done because our wealth was more, and we had greater resources than other countries? Nothing of the sort. We had fewer resources than other countries. This country has held its position because things have been well managed so far as the Government of the State has gone. And it has been well managed in spite of every vilification and in spite of every attempt to undermine the authority of the Government, and despite the covert support of people who aim at the disintegration of the country. The Government have improved the position of the people in this country—a poor country—while the Governments of rich countries have seen their position disimprove. That is due to the fact that you have a Cumann na nGaedheal Government here and not a Government going round with their panaceas and nostrums without any care for the well-being of the people and only anxious to fool the people and to get their votes.
rose.
When shall I be allowed to conclude the debate?
Does the President want an hour to conclude?
If he were not interrupted he could do it in less than an hour.
Is it agreed that I start at 9.30?
We will give him a good hearing.
The position is that the debate must conclude to-night in the nature of the motion. There is nothing to prevent the President from intervening at any time.
I understood that there was agreement yesterday that the debate would conclude in two and a half hours. It was generally agreed that that would be quite enough. We have been four hours at it now, that is two hours beyond the time allotted yesterday. I should have thought that the time acceptable yesterday would have been acceptable to-day.
We are prepared to allow the President start at 9.30.
The Minister for Defence in that brilliant intellectual manner that characterises him, when he talks about ignorant people and semi-illiterates, has taunted the Fianna Fáil Party, as other Ministers have done in the past, with preaching panaceas and nostrums for the cure of our economic ills. It is a very unfortunate thing that there are ignorant people and illiterates in the country, but these ignorant people and illiterates, in my opinion, because they belong to the lower class of the unemployed and to the most poverty-stricken section of the population, deserve more consideration from Ministers than the wealthy people who, no matter what they have suffered in the recent financial crisis, nevertheless are able to carry on. They know that next year they will be able to carry on. At any rate, they know their families are not going to starve. The position of the unemployed is quite different and when the Minister tells us that we are saying things for the special benefit of the ignorant and the illiterate, I simply have to say that it is a fact that the Fianna Fáil Party has the support of a large section of the people whom he would characterise as ignorant and illiterate. It does not matter how ignorant or how illiterate they may be they are entitled to their rights under the Constitution and to their full rights as citizens. I submit that under the theory of government as it is now understood, not perhaps under the Minister's theory, but under the theory of government as now understood in every civilised community, you will have to pay attention to the plaints of these people whether you agree with them or not. If you continue to ignore them, particularly when these people are increasing in number, you will soon find yourself in the position that you will be compelled to do things that you have scorned to do previously. That is the position we are in in this country. As Deputy Morrissey has pointed out, up to the present we were in the position that we were exporting a large section of the population, but we are not doing that any longer.
When Deputy Dr. Hennessy comes along and tells us that we have a very valuable asset in the lands of Meath, Limerick, or Kildare, or some other county, in the agricultural economy of the country, my reply to that is to put against it the thousands of people who live in the bogs of the West of Ireland and ask further whether you are going to make a choice, as you will have to make a choice, as to whether you are going to persist in your present agricultural economy or whether you will make a determined effort to place these people on the land, give them some security on it, and show them that they can exist on the land. Where you are up against conditions of that kind you will have to make a choice, and I suggest the Government should have that point of view. I suggest that whatever Government may be in power they should not allow the situation to drift as it is drifting until these people are driven into methods as a result of which they will not be allowed to plead their case in a constitutional fashion. When they are outside the Dáil they are characterised as anarchists, criminals and bandits, and if the second largest Party in the State dares to assert that they have the same rights as the President and the Minister for Defence, monied men as they may be, we are told then that it is electioneering tactics and that this Party is making the utmost capital they can out of the question of unemployment. I think the Ministers must know that the question of unemployment is one for the community, and that no matter what Party is in office, and no matter what arrangement is sought to remedy the situation, there will always be people in the country who will cry out that the Government is not taking satisfactory steps or proper steps to deal with the situation. Whether the Fianna Fáil Party are dishonest or not they would certainly be lacking in intelligence, greatly lacking in intelligence, if they pretended to the country that this question of unemployment could be solved overnight. It cannot, but what they say is that you want a determined effort to solve it, and that the policy of drift that is at present imposed is leading nowhere, that unless you turn your ship round and sail in the opposite direction you are going to have confusion worse confounded and the present depression and state of affairs aggravated.
We hear a great deal of talk about the English markets. We have often heard it stated in the wilder moments of the Minister for Finance, if you can imagine the Minister for Finance having wilder moments—he is not a man who as a rule has wilder moments —that if you adopt a certain policy England is going to put a tax on Irish cattle going into that country. That is not the first time that that threat was used. It was used 100 years ago when the Irish people were fighting for the abolition of the tithes and fighting for a national government, when they were crushed by an ascendancy. They were told by the ascendancy and the agents of the British Government in this country that if they dared to assert their rights England would put a tariff on our cattle. One of the Catholic leaders of the day, Dr. Boyton, remarked: "Well, if the struggle comes, let it come, but I ask who is going to lose most in the contest. Is it we who are exporting food, the staff of life, who are going to lose, or is it the English who are exporting manufactured articles to us, because through their manufacturing ingenuity they are able to confer an immense value on articles of little intrinsic worth?" Is it they from whom we are purchasing 80 per cent. of our imports, is it they from whom, as Deputy Lemass pointed out, this country, with a population of only 3,000,000, is nevertheless purchasing more than any other country, is it they or we who are going to suffer most if a situation should at any time arise in which the British Government could say: "We will refuse to buy your food in future"? I submit that when this question comes to be settled, if it has to be settled, the men who represent this country need have no fear. No matter what happens here the Irish people are not going to suffer. England is feeling the pinch to-day more than ever she did.
The Minister for Defence made a number of statements comparing this country with other countries, and suggesting that our circumstances were infinitely better. Some of the statements he made in the burst of rhetoric that flowed from his lips are absolutely devoid of foundation. I do not care what statements have been made by the Fianna Fáil Party either here or down the country, they have a better foundation in fact than some of the statements made by the Minister here to-night. He has said that our rate of wages is higher than that of any other country in Europe. That cannot be substantiated. In fact, if the Minister for Defence goes through the report of the Tariff Commission on the tariff for oats he will find that agricultural wages in the Free State are lower than in any other country in Europe except one. If you add to that the fact that large numbers of our agricultural labourers unquestionably cannot get employment, that unquestionably large areas have gone out of cultivation, that unquestionably large numbers of farmers are unable to carry on or to give employment—so much for the position of the agricultural labourer. And if you tot up all the other factors in the agricultural situation in the Free State I do not know how you could possibly say that our agricultural conditions are comparable with those in other countries. Certainly, I think the Irish Free State farmer, in regard to the produce he is able to put into the English market or any other factor of importance, is not to be compared with the Danish farmer.
Let us turn to our position in the British market. We are not, as the Minister for Defence stated, getting a higher price in the English market than other countries. As I stated before, and as I repeat, we are being passed out on the English market not alone by Denmark and old competitors who had a great advantage over us at the start in that market, but we are being passed out by new countries like Finland, Esthonia, and Lithuania. The Minister has also stated that we have increased our productivity. Wherein have we increased our productivity? I grant that were it not for the measures taken by the present Government our farmers would possibly be in a very much worse position. Nevertheless the fact is that we are losing ground as compared with these competitors. Not alone are we losing ground, but we are not even exporting now in the total volume of our agricultural exports what we were exporting before the War. We are only exporting 45 per cent. of our bacon and 80 per cent. of our butter. How can the Minister conclude after nine years in office that we have increased our productivity when they have lost ground in the way I have indicated? Deputy Dr. Hennessy expressed the pious hope that conditions are improving in the English market. There may be some fluctuations. Temporary advantages may accrue to the Irish farmer, at Christmas time, for example, because of increased sales. But everyone knows that if conditions do improve it will be a long and tedious process. If the Government are prepared to concentrate on the Irish market they should know that the Irish farmer's cost of living has not been substantially decreased, although wholesale prices have fallen very considerably. How is the Government going under this policy of concentrating on the English market, to secure a larger income for the farmer either by securing increased prices as compared with the low prices he is getting at present or by getting a larger amount of Irish produce placed on the English market? If you are banking your hopes on the Empire free trade policy you must remember that we are selling 96 per cent. of our exports to Great Britain and under what quota system or system of Imperial free trade are you going to improve that position for the Irish farmer?
If the English people are going to make a bargain with the Irish Free State, let the Minister for Local Government, who seems to have changed his attitude very remarkably to that great institution, the British Empire—he is now so terribly anxious to have a spirit of co-operation I almost wonder is he the man who led the Irish Republican Army against them a few years ago—but let not the Minister for Local Government deceive himself into believing that it is in any spirit of goodwill only that this question will have to be discussed. It has got to be discussed on a business basis. On what basis do the present Executive, if they are returned to office, propose to discuss it? Are they going to discuss it on the basis which the Minister for Finance has mentioned, that the reduction of disastrous tariffs which have ruined Europe should be the aim of this Government? Is it contemplated that under a bargain with Great Britain we are going to reduce our tariffs? When the Minister for Defence emphasises to the House this argument about the increased cost of living, let me remind him that although the farmer has not yet got the full benefit of the fall in prices, and that the Government are not taking steps to see that he will get the benefit, they have not taken strong measures to keep down the cost of living or to see that the decrease in wholesale prices should be shown in retail prices, rents, and so on. Nevertheless there is undoubtedly a general reduction in the cost of living.
To come back to the question of Imperial free trade, how is this Government going to improve the situation of the Irish farmer in the British market? They have not taken any steps here to improve his position in ways that lay directly to their hands. They have not reduced taxation in conformity with present prices. Neither have they sought to bring down retail prices and the cost of living, generally, in conformity with the prices the farmer is getting. If the Government said, "We believe to such an extent in this policy of the free market that we are prepared to recommend to the country a cut all round that will not only apply to the general expenses of a Government, but to the cost of living," they would then, I submit, be taking some steps to bring the position down to bedrock, which is necessary if they mean to continue this policy and enable the Irish farmer to compete on fair terms with his rivals on the British market. They are not doing that.
There is this position also, that our imports represent many million pounds more than our exports, and even if you make allowance, as has been argued over and over again, for invisible trade items, I submit a good case can be made out to show that during the past seven years your adverse trade balance, even including the invisible trade items, is something like £60,000,000. Whatever it may be, on the visible trade balance there is a deficit in the last seven years of £120,000,000. When the Government say that there is no panacea for economic difficulties and for unemployment, my reply to that is that that is no excuse when there is a period of depression and the probability of a continuing depression for allowing the position to drift. That is no excuse for your failure to put forward an alternative policy to the policy Deputy de Valera has put forward here to-night. That is no excuse for the policy laid down by the Minister for Finance that a reduction of disastrous tariffs which have crippled Europe is the aim of the present Government. The present Government have such a high and mighty opinion of themselves, since they got mixed up with the British Imperial Conference and the British Cabinet, that they actually think, because the necessities of the British Empire demand it, that other countries on the Continent of Europe are going to abolish their tariffs to accommodate John Bull. At least if they are going to do it it will be in the belief that their own economic system has been sufficiently established and built up to enable them to weather the storm themselves. They are not going to allow Britain, or any other country, to flood their markets with foreign goods.
If there is something in the argument that our conditions must be different from big countries like the United States, and so on, there are other arguments which make it more necessary and imperative that you should have, on account of your peculiar circumstances here, and the smallness of your resources, a very strong protective policy. You are up against a powerful manufacturing country that has been crushed out of other markets. Her chief market lies here, and is it seriously contended that the little tariffs you put on are a serious obstacle to people in Northampton and Leicester if they wish to dump their goods here? We know that these people will not close their mills. Many of them have made a sacrifice in keeping their mills open at great losses to themselves. When they have collared their home market and secured it for themselves, what is to stop them from dumping their surplus manufactured goods into this country? Remember that under their new currency arrangement they will be able to export goods at an advantage. At the moment it will be to their advantage heavily to increase their exports and lower their prices to foreign countries. I believe it will be their policy here also, although you claim that your currency is the same as theirs.
The Minister for Finance goes even further. Not alone has he departed, as Deputy O'Kelly pointed out, from the policy of Griffith, but he has departed from the policy of every other Irish national leader who believed that the first duty of a National Government should be to build up our own industry and our own country, and to get away from the existing system forced upon us by the Imperial Parliament within the last century—a policy which involved the ruin and depopulation of our country. The Minister for Finance has not alone departed from Griffith's policy, I submit he has departed from any shred of national policy in the extraordinary cosmopolitan views he put forward to-night. He says that God gave the whole world to man in order to get the best general standard of living he could. If that statement came from Deputy Heffernan, who is cosmopolitan by nature, and who believes to the last extremity in buying in the cheapest market, I could understand it, but coming from the Minister for Finance, who claims, on the one hand, that he believes to a certain extent in tariffs, and that the Government have done a certain amount in tariffs, and that in a carefully examined, selective way it will perhaps do more in the way of tariffs, and in the same breath assures us that the tariffs in Europe are the obstacle to the economic construction, let us say, of the Continent of Europe, what are we to believe? Is that the policy that is being preached in your Free State Embassies in Europe? Are we taking it in advance that this policy of Imperial free trade is going to be such a wonderful thing for the Irish people that we are going out in advance to herald it abroad? I would be very glad to know, when the President is replying, how long this policy of "down with tariffs" is in operation. Is it the settled policy of the Government, and has it been communicated to other Governments with which our Government is in diplomatic communication? God gave the whole world to man; but He gave us the Irish Free State to make what we can out of it. God does not expect that we should leave everything to Him. The policy of the Government is that of laissez faire. Leave everything alone. Do not interfere with anything. The policy of Fianna Fáil is a hard one. The people will have to make sacrifices. Deputy Dr. Hennessy said that he could not find Irish suits. If he goes down to the biggest wholesale shop in Dublin they will ask him to buy nothing but Irish suits. I agree the Fianna Fáil Party could do a lot in urging people to buy Irish material. Could not President Cosgrave, the Minister for Defence and the other monied men in the Government Party, and the monied interests outside who wish to be allied with them, not come forward when they saw a crisis in England and saw that their investments were in danger of being lost and say: “The Irish Free State is our home. It is the place we are interested in. We should appeal to those people to bring their money home before they lose it abroad”? It would be nonsense on my part to pretend that the Government can do everything, but I say if the Fianna Fáil Party were in power and did very little indeed they would be doing far more than the Government have done in the last nine years to bring that money home to Ireland to be invested in Irish industry.
The policy of drift, of laissez faire, of depending on something which may not happen, of depending on something which will or will not happen at the Imperial Conference, and so on, is not going to get this country out of her difficulties. Her difficulties are not insuperable. We have a small population. The Ministers in our Government should hang up charts of the number of unemployed in the country in their offices when they take office after the next general election, so that they might look at that chart every week, and if the curve is not declining, and coming down to the base line, say to themselves, “We are not doing our duty.” As to the number of unemployed in this country, if we set about organising and have a proper plan and programme we may be able to absorb them. We may not be able to absorb them all in two, three or four years, but in five years we ought to have made a considerable advance in a policy of wholesale reconstruction, a policy in which all parties will be able to co-operate and to which every Irishman would naturally and sincerely be able to lend his support and be able to be enthusiastic about, a policy that, he felt, whatever small financial sacrifices it meant either in putting his own money into industry or being taxed to support it, would, in the long run, be worth the sacrifice, as these people would be definitely absorbed.
Your present policy is that you have a quarter million pounds being spent in the congested areas. It is being spent through the Land Commission. If I went on the same lines as the Minister for Defence, and if I were to assume that all the men on the Front Government Bench were villains and rogues, and that their only anxiety was to make whatever capital they could and to get back into office by whatever means were at their disposal, I could argue and I could make a very good case to show even from recent utterances of the people on the Government Benches that that £250,000 was being used for political purposes and that the Government themselves, even those on the Front Bench, were not above taking an advantage that would accrue to them out of the spending of that money. Therefore, if we are talking about crocodile tears and about people not being really sincere about unemployment, let us carefully examine our own house and let us remember that people in glass houses should not throw stones. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health, who is now in the House, stated with great emphasis, or, rather, pointed out and emphasised that Deputy de Valera did not refer to Russia when he was talking about people and countries who are sending their butter into the English market and ousting our butter from that market. The Deputy did mention Russia, as a matter of fact.
He did not.
I do not know what particular significance the Minister had in that. Is it suggested that Deputy de Valera had his eye on the Soviet as the "Anglo-Celt" had its eye on Mr. Stalin? Is it suggested that by the omission of Russia from his speech he was acting deliberately, or that if Deputy de Valera mentioned Russia he was somehow going to incur the displeasure of the Soviet Government? I do not think that the Soviet Government are going to worry very much about what Deputy de Valera or the Minister for Local Government says about them or what they do not say about them. They are going to carry on whether we agree or disagree with them. They are going to carry out their policy whatever points in their policy we agree or disagree with. Whatever points are in their policy that we cannot agree with and that we feel are not suited to the conditions in our country, we must admit that they are making a real effort to build up their country. They have taken a number of years and they have said that at the end of that number of years they expect to make their country self-supporting as far as their manufacturing industries are concerned, and they feel that they are certain to do that. We could do with a little more of that spirit in this country. We could do with a little more of their will-power and determination and a little more appreciation of the difficulties. The Church and everyone else have emphasised that unemployment is the greatest social evil now existing. The present Pope has given it as his instruction to every Government in Christendom that it must be their duty no longer to say that unemployment is not their business, or that it is not their business to provide work for the unemployed. The Pope has said that in the future every Government must recognise the fact that if they do not make a serious effort to get the people behind them in a wholehearted endeavour by planning and by organisation to secure work for the unemployed that the unemployed are going to rise up against them.
That is what is going to happen in this country. Let not the Ministers shirk their duty. Let us take the attitude that this question of unemployment is too serious a question to be bandied about in a political debate. It is a question that demands the most serious and sympathetic consideration. We want to see the wisest and the best minds in this country attempting to solve it. We want all Parties to co-operate in future in building up this country. I sincerely hope that the outcome of this debate may be to send us all back to our constituencies with a firm resolution that no matter what may happen in the future we are all going to do the best we can and bring the best will of the community into the efforts that ought to be made for dealing with this pressing problem.
A great deal of play has been made in this debate and in nearly every other debate regarding the general economic conditions in the country, and especially as they apply to the agricultural situation. In the first place, on the question of supplying the home market we have had it preached to us that the first duty of the farmer is to supply the home market, and that when the wants of the home market are supplied then the surplus produce could be exported. To my mind that policy, as put forward, must be dishonest, and any man who examines it impartially must come to the conclusion that it is also unsound and dangerous. To what position would such a policy lead our farmers? It would lead them into working on lines that unfortunately would not be to their advantage but would lead very definitely to their disadvantage.
It must be accepted by those Deputies who talk about the desirability of commanding the home market as an axiom of trading that so long as we have an exportable surplus the price to be obtained in the home market will always be governed by the price that can be obtained in the outside market. Now, we have an exportable surplus with regard to bacon, butter, beef, mutton, eggs and so on, and if by some manipulation of subsidies or the control in some way of prices, we secured for the farmers the home market and then exported the balance, how do we benefit the farmers? Surely that is not good sense or sound policy. The primary consideration with the farmer, in fact the only consideration of the farmer when producing his goods, and the consideration which must govern all producers, is the question of price. Unless we can, by concentrating on production for the home market, increase the price of the article which the farmer produces, we do not stimulate the farmer to produce in great quantities. The policy put forward by the Opposition Deputies is a policy that is dishonest and unsound as well. I agree that it would be desirable perhaps from the national point of view to see the Irish people consuming, to a large extent, the produce of the land of this country. We would prefer to see the farmers consuming Irish bacon to seeing them consuming American bacon, but the policy put forward is unsound in this way: Our main market, our principal market for agricultural produce must remain, if conditions are to remain as they are, an outside market. Anybody who has any knowledge of conditions in this country knows that our main market must be an outside market. One of the primary considerations for us if we are to maintain our place in that market is not only to improve but to increase and maintain the quality of the article we export, and as far as possible to see that the quantity we are exporting will be as large as possible and that there is continuity of supply.
It has been stated here that the position of the Irish butter in the outside market has been steadily lowered. It has been lower than the price of the Danish butter. The price of our butter has been higher than the price at which some other butters are sold in the English markets. Generally the price of our butter is around about the price that is paid for New Zealand butter. But in the opinion of experts and all authorities one of the reasons for that, indeed the main reason for the low price of our butter, is that we have not been able to maintain continuity of supply and we have not been able to send the quantity of butter necessary to make the English people realise that our butter is an important commodity in the English market. The consumer of our butter in the English market is not yet aware of the fact that Irish butter is coming into the market in any considerable quantities at all. Even our people in many of the important towns of England do not know that Irish butter is coming on the English market at all.
They know that Denmark is an exporting country; Danish butter can be had in the shops the whole year round. Anyone with experience of agricultural produce will acknowledge that Irish butter at present is as good as any butter in the world. I am absolutely confident that butter going from Irish creameries to the English market to-day is as good as any butter that goes there. The price is not as good. Why? Because we have not held the market and because people have not become accustomed to Irish butter and do not ask for it. What would be the effect if we restricted the supply of butter that we send to the English market as we did last year by a tariff? It would injure us on the English market. I maintain that the same argument applies to every article of agricultural produce that we export.
What has been done to remedy that position?
Everything has been done that could be done. We have taken steps to improve the quality of the butter, to improve the condition of the creameries, to improve the farming, but there is the question of continuity of supply.
I prefer to hear the Deputy on unemployment.
It seems to me that the lesson of this debate is that we are dealing with unrealities, that Deputies are dealing with matters that, so far as they are concerned, do not exist. With the possible exception of Deputy Derrig all the speakers on the opposite benches assumed that the Government has power to cure unemployment if they would only assume that power. Deputies who assume that the Government has that power are confusing the situation. They are confusing the powers of Government with the powers of Providence. They believe that the Government has only to say "let it be so," and it will be so. "Let us not have unemployment and we will not have unemployment." What remedies have been put forward for unemployment? The main remedy put forward was the old remedy which we have up and down the country, and which we will hear about during the next two or three months and between now and the general election. We will hear that the cure for unemployment and for economic conditions is a policy of tariffs. We are going to have a policy of general tariffs.
When listening to the debate I was struck by the unreality of it and the lack of appreciation on the part of Deputies opposite of the serious situation that exists not so much amongst the unemployed—serious as that may be—as amongst the agricultural community, where the people are partly employed but are getting an unremunerative return for their work. We are told that the remedy for that situation is tariffs. We were told by Deputy de Valera that if steps are taken to produce for our needs here all the articles which we can produce, and that if we give protection, we can give employment to 80,000 people at once. We were told that if steps were taken to deal with the production of wearing apparel, including boots and clothes, we could provide employment for 25,000 people. Surely it is accepted that if we took such steps there would be an increase in the price of wearing apparel, and an increase in the present protective tariffs. There is already a protective tariff on boots of 15 per cent. and on wearing apparel of 25 per cent. We have also tariffs on woollen materials. We are now told that these tariffs have not had the effect of securing the home market for Irish manufacturers. We are asked to take steps to secure that home market for our manufacturers. How? Evidently the only step we can take is to increase the prices.
I would not like to be misunderstood. I did not say these were the only steps at all. A number of other steps will have to be taken of a much more active kind.
At least one of the steps that must be taken is to increase the tariffs.
The abolition of the oath will do it.
And the seizure of the land annuities.
How are such steps going to improve the economic conditions of the agricultural community? The members of the agricultural community are carrying most of the financial burden of this country on their shoulders. Already, owing to tariffs, these people have to pay increased prices for what they buy. I think it is foolish and dishonest to deny that these articles are not higher in price here than they are in outside markets. They can be had cheaper outside this country. I acknowledge that tariffs may be imposed in certain situations for the purpose of developing industries. I acknowledge that industries have been developed, and that they can be developed to a greater extent by higher tariffs, but always at a cost. In my opinion that cost would be an increase in the price of the tariffed articles. Taking into account the dire condition of the agricultural community —and that condition is very nearly desperate at present—we have no means at our disposal for increasing the price of what it produces and exports. Farmers get the export price. There has been a great fall in export prices. On the debit side of the farmer's ledger the prices which he has to pay for goods have not fallen commensurately with the fall in the prices of what he sells. Taking that into account, surely the economic condition of 50 per cent. of the community cannot be remedied by increasing the price of the things which these people must buy if they are to live and to operate. Surely that is not the way to stimulate and improve economic conditions for that section of our people. While it might improve employment in particular industries, the effect certainly would be to increase unemployment amongst the agricultural community. We would simply drive many of the agricultural community out of production. It is quite clear that many amongst that section are on the margin line. They are producing almost at a loss. It only requires the last straw to break the camel's back and to put many farmers out of production. The remedy we are offered for that situation is to increase the cost on the farmer.
I took a note of Deputy de Valera's remarks, and while I am not sure if I have his exact words, his speech was an extraordinary example of his outlook on agriculture. The Deputy said that we should first cater for the home market, and having done that endeavour to sell at any price we could in the export market. To my mind, that is an extraordinary attitude for the Leader of the main Opposition Party—one who possibly has ambitions to be in control of the economic policy of this country—to say that we should be prepared to sell our surplus agricultural produce at any price we could get in an outside market. Surely it is not our policy to dump what is left and to take any price for that surplus.
What are you doing with it now?
As Deputy de Valera indicated, he is prepared to take steps which will have the effect of increasing the cost on the farmer, thereby worsening the position. He is prepared to offer a remedy. What is it? It is the old remedy which we have had repeated again and again, which I thought was dead and buried, if not forgotten. The remedy was to encourage Irish farmers to grow wheat. In what way? If we are to take the policy laid down by the Deputy's Party it is to be by means of a subsidy to the farmers.
The same as beet.
A subsidy which will depend on the price of the article on the outside market. Farmers here can only produce wheat economically at 30s. a barrel. The Government would be obliged to make up the difference between the price the Irish farmer would get for wheat and the price of the imported wheat. Let Deputies opposite who support that policy examine the position. Let them look at the prevailing price of imported wheat during this season, and they will find that it was cheaper than it has been in living memory. I have not the exact figures, but I think it would be necessary to subsidise home-grown wheat to the extent of 15s. a barrel. Taking into account the quantity that would be required to supply the home market, the cost of the subsidy would amount to about £3,000,000. Yet that is put forward as a serious panacea for the evils of farmers.
What was the world price of wheat when 30s. a barrel was put up?
The price of wheat was very much higher than it is at present. The cost of production to the Irish farmer is still the same. I think the Opposition will accept the statement that the Irish farmer will require to be paid something like 30s. a barrel before he could be induced to grow wheat. The cost to the taxpayer would be something about £3,000,000. A subsidy of that kind would be a tax on the farmers because ultimately they are the people from whom most of the taxation must come. We are going to help the Irish farmers out of the position in which they find themselves by asking them to pay their share of the £3,000,000 subsidy, in order to induce them to grow a crop that is least suited to this country, and which can be bought cheapest in the world market. If we force the farmers to grow wheat we will put them out of production in some other article of agricultural produce which they are at present producing and selling in the export market. If that is the easy solution of the farmer's troubles I do not agree with it. It is not a solution. It would definitely worsen the situation. I agree that the problem is not confined to this country. It is a world-wide problem. There is depression all over the world, but the effect is greater in other countries than it is here. Unemployment is greater in other countries than it is here, but of course, that does not in any sense lessen our responsibility. We are trying to find a way out. It is our duty to try to find a way out. This Government is not bringing forward any newly found panaceas. Its policy is known to the country, and while conditions are bad, and the depression very serious, they are not as serious as they are in many other countries.
I would like heartily to endorse the sentiments expressed in Deputy Derrig's speech when he stated that the solution of unemployment should be the work of all Parties. I have always held that it is not the duty of a Government to solve unemployment, though it may help in certain ways. Even if it could solve unemployment I do not think it would be wise to entrust the solution to any Government. In my opinion a Government can, by wise and useful legislation, give assistance to people who are engaged in industry so that more employment may be given. We are living in a small country and I think the mistake that was made is that we have always before our eyes the four unfortunate years of the great war. The world has been going on for 1931 years, but we take four unfortunate years and set them up as the basis of our comparison. Everyone knows that the produce of the fields, which, after all, is the foundation of the wealth of the State, is practically back to pre-war prices. Anyone who faces facts must admit that. How can we expect to do this, that and the other thing when revenue is decreasing day by day? For instance the Minister for Local Government stated that he is only providing so much money for housing this year. Do people realise that it would take £2,500,000 to build to-day as many houses as could be built for £1,000,000 in 1914? That is the position we have to face. What we want is a sacrifice on the part of everybody, in order to try to build up industry and in that way to give much needed employment. It has been suggested that one of the means for solving our unemployment problem would be by the provision of more houses. And the suggestion has been made that the best way of solving the housing problem would be to set up a housing board. Does any man of commonsense think that by the setting up of a housing board under Government control houses could be built more cheaply than they are built to-day? A house costing £300 to-day built by a builder or by a public authority by direct labour would, under the conditions advocated by certain Deputies if a housing board were set up, cost £500. I shudder to think what would be the cost of a house under a housing board.
I ask Deputies who advocate the setting up of a housing board to read the report of the scandal in connection with houses built in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. We all know the history of that board which was set up by the Belfast Corporation—graft, corruption, thousands and thousands of pounds gone astray, bad materials put into houses which were badly built, and the superstructure rotten. We all know the sensation that that created. Yet we have Deputies here putting forward this means as a serious solution of the housing problem.
I say that if instead of talking about unemployment each of us did our part in our own respective districts much useful work could be done. I do not want to eulogise what has been done in my district, but during the past year a sum of £45,000, £25,000 of which was spent on wages, has been spent in Dundalk. Within the last three weeks the Urban Council without waiting for their share of the unemployment grant of £250,000 have spent night after night devising ways and means of giving work to the unemployed. As a result of their exertions about 170 men have been given a couple of weeks work before Christmas. In addition to that, anticipating the grant we have put up a scheme which will be reproductive and we have got a contribution out of the £250,000, and we hope as a result of the assistance we have received, backed by a contribution from the Council, that we shall be able to give employment to fifty or sixty men after Christmas. I hold that the Government cannot solve the unemployment problem on their own. It is only the people by their united efforts can solve it. Who built the City of Dublin? Was it not the citizens of Dublin? Who built up the principal industry in Dundalk, Carroll's tobacco factory? Was it not the members of the Carroll family, who by their business capacity have been the means of making that factory one of the foremost tobacco factories not only in the Free State but in Great Britain? They are giving far more employment now than they ever gave before. Does anyone imagine that were it not for the attention they pay to their business it would be in the flourishing condition in which it is to-day? They have done all that without Government aid and above all without Government interference. The less interference the Government have in industry the better. Look at what happened in England when a party belonging to the people, the Labour Party, dabbled in this question of unemployment. We know the results after two or three years. Three millions unemployed in England and conditions worse than ever. The result was that the workers themselves rose up and hurled the Labour Government out of office at the last election. I would impress on both Parties in this House that the only way to solve the unemployment problem here is to stop all this talk that is going on and do away with all the suspicion and distrust at present prevailing. We want to restore confidence in the country. Let us all work together for the uplifting of the Saorstát and if we do that the problem of unemployment will be well on the way to solution.
There are two matters I should like the President to say a few words about. The first is the question of a bacon tariff which is connected with unemployment, because if the President looks up the returns he will find that the imports of bacon into the country are increasing continously while our exports are decreasing. It is quite clear that the consumption of bacon here is not increasing, so that the output of bacon must be going down, thereby causing unemployment. I was speaking to four or five managers of bacon factories the other day at a certain meeting, and they all said that they were getting more breeding sows into their factories to be killed than they could deal with. That is a bad position to have, because it shows that the people are getting out of pigs. The prices quoted last Saturday for pigs were 28/- per cwt. live weight, and 24/-for heavy pigs. That is the lowest price reached in living memory. What Deputy Heffernan said is quite true, that the farmer has reached his lowest point and another straw would be likely to break his back altogether. I think that the President ought to give us some hope that the Executive Council will not allow the bacon industry to go altogether. The Executive Council have powers to apply an emergency tariff in this matter. The second matter which we would like the President to say something about is in regard to the prisoners.
That is clearly away from the question of unemployment.
I did not think we were confined to one question.
I think we are.
Deputy Fahy spoke about this.
Deputy Fahy introduced it by saying that he was debarred from speaking of it.
Are we confined to one question in this debate?
On occasions like this when a general debate may be taken, it is better to choose a particular subject and the subject chosen to-day was unemployment. That subject was chosen not only by the main Opposition Party but by the Labour Party, and I think we are confined to it.
The Deputy just wishes to put a question.
I shall let the Deputy ask a question.
We are all aware, although the Executive Council took particular care that no information should get out, how the prisoners are being treated in Arbour Hill. The Government even went so far, I believe, as to make counsel and solicitors sign a declaration of secrecy when interviewing prisoners. We are aware, however, from a released prisoner, that the conditions are as bad as they could be in Arbour Hill, that there is no heating and that the cold is intense, that the windows are altogether too small and that sufficient exercise is not allowed. These conditions are not such as prisoners, no matter how the Executive Council may hate them or how they may have hunted them down, should be asked to live under.
I protest against the suggestion that the Executive Council hate or hunted them down.
What else have they done?
I protest, sir, against it. In the first place, it is stretching things a little bit too far to introduce the question of the prisoners into this debate, but when the introduction of the question is made the occasion of an attack on the mentality of the Executive Council in the operation of the recent Act, I must protest.
Show some mentality.
The question we are discussing is unemployment, but in view of the long adjournment I am prepared to let Deputy Ryan ask a question. I think he will see himself that the longer the time he gives the President to reply the more likely he is to get information on this or any other topic. I think he ought to ask the question without making the matter the subject of a speech or of attack, because the matter is not open to discussion. I shall show him all the leniency I can in the circumstances.
I would be finished now only for the interruptions. I only want to ask the President, who has the reputation of being a very pious man and having a conscience, if he is going to give the House an undertaking, or whatever way he likes to put it, that these men will be treated as ordinary human beings during the term of their imprisonment, whatever it may be.
Ordinary human beings and ordinary Irishmen are responsible for the administration of the Act passed by the Oireachtas some time ago to deal with a particular public matter. Ordinary Irishmen having a conscience are engaged in the administration of that Act. I am quite satisfied to rely on their word, rather than upon the word of propagandists, as to the treatment of the prisoners. I have had considerable experience of this propaganda about prisoners. I am quite satisfied that if there was more truth in the statements made in respect of them much more consideration would be given to any representations made. But it is an unscrupulous, an un-Irish, and an unpatriotic attitude to take up, that Irishmen charged with the administration of affairs would be guilty of what the Deputy has said.
You ill-treated prisoners before.
We had experience of it ourselves.
From what I see of Deputies opposite they do not look much the worse for it.
Would you like to hear our experiences? We have personal experiences.
You can tell them on the hustings.
I want to put one question.
Deputies
Order, order.
Let us hear the President. This debate has been going on since 4 o'clock. The President is entitled to make his speech.
Will he allow an inquiry?
The position is that ordinary patriotic Irishmen are administering this Act, and I am not going to take the word of propagandists in respect of allegations against them. Better Irishmen are administering it than those who are attacking them—much better. As regards bacon, the matter is under consideration. My recollection is that the Minister for Agriculture put forward an application to the Tariff Commission which is under examination at present. This whole debate savours of a general election. Practically all the speeches I have listened to from Deputies opposite, and some of the speeches from the Labour Benches—there were some notable exceptions—evidenced a desire on the part of Deputies to make their first election speeches here. I do not comment on that further than to say that unemployment is too serious a problem to be made the sport of politics. The recommendation which came from their Lordships the Bishops a couple of months ago inviting or imploring men in public life to sink political differences for the moment and see how far it is possible to find some solution for this and other social problems has apparently been forgotten, if it were ever read, by Deputies opposite. We have heard for some time past about the coming out of a great national newspaper. A great case could be made in respect of certain people who have impeded progress in this State, interrupted its industry, interfered with its commerce, sapped the confidence of the people and of capitalists who might be inclined to invest money in it. We have heard of an invitation from them to have a conference in respect of a group such as that. We have had no suggestion of an invitation from that great so-called national newspaper that was going to have truth in the news. The "Irish Independent" a couple of days after the debate on the Bill providing £250,000 for unemployment took the right note when it drew attention to the fact that no advertence was made in connection with that Vote or in connection with the problem to the desire of their Lordships the Bishops to have the matter considered in the light of commonsense, free from Party politics, to have some effort made to get a sensible, sane, business-like contribution towards what is admitted by all classes to be something which would require the wisdom and help of all sections of the community to solve it. It is a remarkable thing that a relatively small group of people could draw tears almost from the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party when a conference was mentioned before, but there was no invitation whatever in connection with this very serious, very important and vital issue, not alone for this country but for every country.
What is the problem to be solved? Without pretending to be an economic expert, I say that there are four or five important issues in connection with unemployment. There is the peace and good order of the State. How many times during the past ten years has the business of the State been held up in an endeavour to restore public order when attention might have been given to this or other economic problem of much greater moment to the country and to the reputation of the country? There is the question of the value of the goods which we produce and the sale of the goods produced. There is the question of industrial peace. For some years in the early stages of this Government we had not industrial peace. For a couple of years past there has been industrial peace. There could be still greater industrial peace. There is the question of the credit available. There is the question of State and municipal charges. Most of the economic experts we have listened to this evening excluded these matters entirely from consideration. They are important matters; they are, as a matter of fact, essentials.
The main industry in this country is agriculture. Efforts have been made during the last ten years to improve agriculture. Various Acts were passed with a view to improving our agricultural production—the Live Stock Breeding Act, Acts to improve the quality of butter and the reorganisation of the industry, the sale and marketing of eggs and, within the last couple of months, the Dead Meat Act. It is obvious that the Ministry responsible for Agriculture in this country was alive to the interests of that important industry and that it did its duty. How have these measures been received? From Fianna Fáil platforms all over the country we have had references made to the cost of reorganising the butter industry. We have had criticisms of the low price of cattle and so on. In addition to all these things we established the sugar beet industry at a cost to the State, as I stated in July last, of £1,562,000 up to that date. Deputies made great play with that figure. On that occasion I stated the actual sum which the factory had either paid out in dividends or had in reserve, and the total sum was £560,000. We have had the statement made from Fianna Fáil platforms that the factory did not pay for the beet it got, that on account of a subsidy the beet was practically delivered for nothing at the factory. The facts are that somebody got £1,000,000 in excess of what the factory has made out of the transaction during the five years of the existence of the industry. That money was circulated within the counties growing beet and outside them, in railway freights and in various other ways. It was a considerable help to agriculture. The bargain we made was a better bargain than was made by the British Government in connection with the beet industry.
We have spent huge sums on drainage and afforestation. In one particular case, the drainage of the Barrow, the Government's contribution was very close on quarter of a million pounds. As a result of that scheme a great improvement was made, not alone in respect to the lands drained, but in the health of the people in and around the area of the river. We inaugurated a great scheme on the Shannon and carried out the contract there for a very small percentage in excess of the estimated amount, generating current at a price not greater than was estimated. We have had all sorts of criticism about that. When Deputies indulge in criticism they should remember that it is not this Government that is suffering most by reason of these criticisms. It is the confidence of the people in the capacity of Irishmen to do the business of the country.
There are certain matters that are above and before politics, as I have often stated, but the incredulous people opposite do not believe them. They seek to put a political label on practically everything that is done in this country. Every act of Ministers has a political design. I read a letter in the Press the other day from a Fianna Fáil Deputy in connection with the Shannon scheme, and he mentioned that the Dublin electricity undertaking had contributed large sums towards the relief of the rates, and that contribution was no longer going towards the rates. The facts are that something like £52,000 was levied in rates in respect of the Dublin undertaking up to 1910 or 1911. The last payment made by the Electricity Department in relief of rates was made in 1928-29, and the exact sum which the rates had contributed from the initiation of the electricity undertaking in Dublin up to the date I have mentioned was repaid, so that there was no real contribution towards the rates. The next question is: What was the price? The price charged in Dublin, as furnished by the Corporation, was an average figure of 2.5d. It has transpired that the actual sum was 2.7d. The new rate is 2.3d.
Another service referred to in the course of the debate was housing. Deputy O'Kelly charged me practically with responsibility for housing conditions in Dublin. I have not been a member of the Corporation since 1922. I believe the last meeting I attended was in May, 1922. The Deputy was a member of the Dublin Corporation up to 1924, and he is a member of the Corporation now. Does he absolve himself from all responsibility in connection with this, or do I bear a larger share of the responsibility than he does? The help given by the State towards the construction of houses in Dublin was far in excess of the wildest anticipations of the wildest Fianna Fáil enthusiast in this House or outside. As I said on many occasions, over 6,000 houses were constructed with the aid of Government funds in Dublin City. One would imagine from all that has been published in connection with this matter that Dublin was a most unhealthy city. The death rate in 1880 in Dublin was 35.0; in 1890, 26.0; in 1900, 27.5; in 1910, 19.9; in 1920, 18.1; and in 1930, 15.0 per thousand, notwithstanding all the criticism in connection with housing conditions. The Minister for Defence, speaking about the standard of living here, mentioned that it was high. Those figures show, if there are serious housing conditions in Dublin, that the standard must be fairly high when the death rate is not higher than 15 per thousand.
Deputy O'Kelly read some extracts from the writings of the late President Griffith. I have one of them here:—
We must offer our producers protection where protection is necessary. Let it be clearly understood what protection is. Protection does not mean the exclusion of foreign competition. It means, rendering the native manufacturer equal to meeting foreign competition. It does not mean that we shall pay a higher profit to any Irish manufacturer, but that we must not stand by and see him crushed by mere weight of foreign capital. If an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as an Englishman or other foreigner, only because his foreign competitor has larger resources at his disposal, then it is the first duty of the Irish nation to accord protection to that Irish manufacturer.
Deputies opposite have undoubtedly gone further than that—very much further.
You have not gone so far.
We have gone much further than that, very much further. It only needs a very hasty reading of the Tariff Commission Act to realise how much further than that we have gone, and there is in the records of the enactments of the Oireachtas ample evidence of the fact that we have gone further. As I said, housing was referred to. The Minister for Local Government in introducing the Housing Bill, mentioned that the total subsidies paid by the State up to date amounted to £2,500,000, and the total cost of the dwellings constructed was £11,000,000. I direct the attention of the Dáil to these figures. Of the £11,000,000, practically 25 per cent. was contributed by the State. What was it? It was a subsidy. Tariffs are much the same as subsidies. They mean that somebody else has to contribute towards the cost of a particular article.
Here is something which was stated in the Seanad by a Labour Senator on 25th March, 1931, when speaking of the furniture industry:—
Before that industry can ever be developed, Irish furniture manufacturers will have to develop some sense of honesty and some sense of the fitness of things. I think the Senator will agree that there is a general complaint about furniture manufacturers in this country working fresh timber and selling furniture in that condition. I have Irish furniture in my own house and I would be ashamed to admit to any foreigner that it was a product of Ireland. It is cracked and split. I am living in that house only four years, and the Irish-made doors and windows are falling to pieces simply because they were constructed of fresh timber. That is not the fault of the workmen, but it is the fault of the manufacturers. The Irish manufacturer who sells furniture of the type I have described, and who has the advantage of a tariff of 33 1-3 per cent. which was given by the Government to Irish producers, is guilty of a gross act of dishonesty, and is guilty of sabotaging the Irish furniture industry.
Does the President agree with that?
I cannot bear that out myself. My furniture is well made and it is of Irish manufacture.
Why did you read it?
I read that as a statement which a Labour leader in the Seanad made last July.
But the President does not agree with it?
I say that has not been my experience.
You just read it to slander an Irish industry.
Certainly not. If the Deputy or anybody else, foreign or at home, wishes to see some good Irish furniture I will show it to him at any time, and I am glad to say it is paid for.
Most of us could do the same thing.
I mention that because it is the statement of a responsible Labour representative.
I question that.
What is the point? The point is that we must get value for our money.
But it is not true.
I did not interrupt the Deputy. It is true, I am positively certain, if the Senator said it. It is just one of a number of instances that one does not get satisfaction everywhere and at all times. What I do say is that if we are going to make goods here they must be the best. We are in world competition. It is no longer a question of the village practically supplying its own needs. It is useless for us to try to hide our heads in the sand and say, "Anything will do." It will not do. Everybody engaged in industry in this country must turn out the best work, and this country can only hope to keep its position in commerce or in industry by doing its work well. I hold, and it is my deliberate opinion, no matter what the consequences may be, political or otherwise, we cannot afford to pay twenty-five per cent. over and above the cost of any article to Irish operatives, and the sooner they know that the better for this country. Agriculture cannot bear any further imposts, as Deputy Ryan has stated. The Deputy immediately thought that I was going to say something or other about tariffs. Nobody in this House knows better than Deputy Ryan that the farmers cannot afford to pay any further imposts of that kind or afford to pay any price for goods other than the lowest price.
If we get an acceptance of the fact that better work must be turned out we have done something, at any rate, in this debate. Deputy de Valera's statement was, "Have a whole pile of tariffs. There are so many million pounds' worth of goods which can be made here." It is very much like a teacher addressing a group of schoolboys, getting a blackboard and chalk, and saying, "There are £30,000,000! How many people would be employed by that?" The Deputy knows now, better than he did before he started his newspaper, that that is not the way to do it. The question is how to get your outgoings met by your incomings. He realises that now, and he realises that reporting speeches and writing leading articles do not make a newspaper. You must get something better than has been out yet, and the Deputy realises how hard it is to do that.
Deputies opposite object very much to having the exact facts of a situation disclosed. What are the facts in respect of employment, because employment after all is a more important subject than unemployment. The energies, the industry, the genius of this Government have been devoted during the last ten years to making sure that persons in employment would be kept there, and that the number of those employed would be added to, and we have succeeded. The number of people registered in insurable occupations in 1922 was 242,000, and this year the figure has risen to 295,000. How would richer countries compare with that. What is America's position with regard to 1931 and 1932? What is England's position with regard to it? Even now, with all its wealth, what is the position of France? We do not pretend to be greater than these people, but there is none of them that we are going to look up to. We are going to be on the level, whether inside or outside the British Commonwealth. We have, by a tariff policy, given employment to 30,000 people; approximately 5,000 others have been employed through the operation of various Acts. We have, however, to pay attention to the fact that agriculture cannot bear any impositions in respect of its economy beyond its capacity. We must pay attention to that factor. Our main source of wealth in this country is agriculture.
Reduce the cost of government.
I can give the Deputies the figures as to the cost of government. In 1922, when Deputies were not considering economic questions at all, the cost of the Government was £25,000,000, of which £1,000,000 was given to local authorities. The cost of government now is £21,700,000, of which £3,700,000 is going to local authorities; £24,000,000 for the State in 1922, and £18,000,000 for the State this year. That is one of our contributions to economic production and the economy of the State.
What about the farmers? How hard was it for them to pay £24,000,000 in 1922, and how hard is it for them to pay £18,000,000 now?
These are times when we require, as I have often said, the co-operation, the assistance and the benefit of the combined wisdom and wealth of the nation. Recently the Leader of the Opposition has taken great pride and pleasure in publishing a list of gentlemen looking for subscriptions for the Cumann na nGaedheal Party.
On a circular printed on English-made paper.
That was a pity. That was a great mistake. I would like to know what unemployed man there is who would refuse employment from any of the persons whose names are on that list. I would like to know which one of the signatories, if they offered to subscribe to the coffers of the Deputies beyond, would be refused, and whether the subscriptions would be sent back. Deputies make this mistake: when citizenship is exercisable and is given by the Constitution to all citizens in this State they think that there are some who are not to be permitted to exercise it. We do not stand for that. We never did, and we do not intend to. Deputies mentioned on platforms that something like £300,000,000 have been collected by us during the last ten years. If it has, it is all distributed to the people of this country, with the exception of £2,000,000 for pensions abroad.
Of the grants to local authorities in 1931-32 which helped to relieve rates and so relieve unemployment there was £1,058,762 in local taxation grants; then there was a supplementary agricultural grant of £599,011 and there was an additional supplementary agricultural grant of £750,000, making a total of £2,407,773 in relief of rates. The road fund grants allocated in 1931-32 were £900,000. The housing grants were, for local government £213,563, and for Gaeltacht housing £80,000. Under development of industries there were £53,550 in the Lands and Fisheries Vote for rural industries, and £66,786 for Marine Products Industries. We have made available guarantees under the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Acts amounting to £322,000, of which the State has already paid £175,424. That reminds me of Deputy Derrig, who said this evening in the course of his speech that they would insist upon people bringing their money back and investing it here. Is that not a good advertisement for them? There is, as you know, much expenditure in estimates which relieves unemployment. Take 1931-32, for example. For Local Loans you had £1,170,000, for Public Works and Buildings £791,962, for Property Losses Compensation £187,100, for Haulbowline Dockyard £5,800, for the Beet Sugar Subsidy £162,500, for the Land Commission Improvement of Estates £211,250, for Unemployment Insurance £296,474. Deputies opposite do not seem to realise that the Dáil has voted £425,000 for direct relief of unemployment this year alone. Relief schemes were estimated at £140,000 and there was a Supplementary Estimate of £35,000. The Unemployment Relief Act cost £250,000. This was on top of actual expenditure on relief schemes to the end of 1928-29 of £1,450,000. These are remarkable evidences of the Government's efforts for the relief of unemployment.
The depression here is admittedly due to international causes. Deputy de Valera says there is a national remedy. If there is, then, according to that, he tried to show that the part is greater than the whole. I do not think that even the Deputy will stand for that. Last year we introduced a measure here reducing the contribution of employers and employees to the insurance fund. It is a very remarkable thing that in a difficult time it was possible to do that, but throughout the whole sphere of Government activity for the last eight or ten years an attempt has been made to reduce the burden on industry, to remove, so far as it was possible, every possible impediment that there could be to the expansion of industry, to make every effort in connection with our administration to assure all persons in the State that there was peace, order and security for the investment of capital in the State. Unfortunately we did not get from people who called themselves patriots that co-operation which any sensible minded politicians should give. The sooner Deputies scrap that line of policy the better. This country is ours for the making. There is a big responsibility for making a contribution in peaceful times towards building up the State. We should remember that it needs the active co-operation of all citizens to make good our conditions of affairs here.
Deputy Lemass said in the course of his speech here that having heard General Mulcahy's advocacy of co-operation with Great Britain he was now in a better position to understand a statement attributed to me in the "Daily Express" that after nine years I had found out that we were not fitted for self-government. In the first place, I never made any such statement, nor did I say anything remotely approaching it. In the second place, while the Deputy and his colleagues may regard, or pretend to regard, anything like co-operation with Great Britain as unpatriotic and anti-national, we, on our part, having no complex of inferiority and conscious that we stand on a basis of complete equality with Great Britain, welcome such co-operation at any and every time that we think that co-operation is calculated to promote this country's interests. That is the only criterion by which we form our judgments. We are even content to suffer the ignominy of the attacks of Deputy Lemass if we feel satisfied that we are doing the right thing.
If that is the President's election speech he can bow himself out.
If the Deputy likes to think so, he is welcome.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 64; Níl, 43.
Tá
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlan, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Davis, Michael.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Dolan, James N.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Dwyer, James.
- Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Hassett, John J.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Jordan, Michael.
- Kelly, Patrick Michael.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Law, Hugh Alexander.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James E.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Higgins, Thomas.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Reilly, John J.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, William Archer.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- Vaughan, Daniel.
- White, John.
- White, Vincent Joseph.
- Wolfe, George.
- Wolfe, Jaseph Travers.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Buckley, Daniel.
- Carney, Frank.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cassidy, Archie J.
- Clancy, Patrick.
- Clery, Michael.
- Colbert, James.
- Cooney, Eamon.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Reilly, Thomas.
- Powell, Thomas P.
- Ryan, James.
- Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
- Smith, Patrick.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P. Doyle and Conlan; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Motion declared carried.
Before the House adjourns, I wish to say that there is a Message from the Seanad stating that the Seanad has agreed with the Message sent by the Dáil in regard to the amendments to the Town Tenants Bill. That means that the Bill has now passed both Houses.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.25 p.m., until 10th February, 1932, at 3 p.m.