The President.
Private Deputies' Business. - Immediate Needs of the Unemployed.
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Dáil is of opinion that steps should be taken forthwith by the Executive Council to provide work or maintenance to meet the immediate needs of the unemployed. —(Deputies Morrissey and Anthony.)
I have finished.
Do I understand that the President is not resuming?
I have finished.
May I ask if the President has anything to say regarding the motion? As far as I remember he did not refer to it in his speech on Friday. My motion asks that the Executive Council should find work or maintenance to meet the immediate needs of the unemployed. As far as I can remember the President, in the course of his speech on Friday, made no reference whatever to the question of maintenance which is in the motion. Am I to understand that the President is leaving that to some other member of the Executive Council to deal with?
No. I think our attitude has been explained. Our hope is that almost forthwith—certainly in a very short time—we will be able to get work going, and I do not want to see any incentives not to get going. I want to see first of all that maintenance will be provided if we fail to get the work.
If I may say so, I understood on Wednesday last from the President and from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the definite statement was made in the House that the Executive Council were accepting my motion. My motion reads:
That the Dáil is of opinion that steps should be taken forthwith by the Executive Council to provide work or maintenance to meet the immediate needs of the unemployed.
I suggest there is very little use in the President saying that he is accepting the motion unless he can state to the House what steps he proposes to take to provide maintenance for the unemployed, pending the provision of work for them.
I think that Deputy Morrissey is able to express himself in words. The terms of the motion, I take it, express what he meant: that steps would be taken, and steps are being taken.
Forthwith?
They have been taken even before the "forthwith."
On a point of order. Is Deputy Morrissey entitled to intervene in this debate at least twelve times since the debate started on his motion? If he has any point to put, either expressing satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the statements which have been made from the Government Benches, is he not entitled to put that when replying, but I suggest he is not entitled on this stage to cross-examine any person? There is nobody in the dock except Deputy Morrissey himself.
Deputy Morrissey is entitled to sum up on the motion. He is also entitled, according to the usual practice of the House, to put a question, but not to make a speech.
Would I be in order in suggesting that Deputy Morrissey, out of common decency, might stop trying to make political capital out of the needs of the unemployed?
I suggest that the Minister for Industry and Commerce may be in order, but that he is not acting with common decency. With your permission, sir——
Is the Deputy concluding the debate?
I want to ask a question, sir, with your permission. I want to ask the President whether, in view of the fact that he has made no reference whatever to that portion of my motion which asks for maintenance pending the provision of work for the unemployed, we are to take it that any other member of the Ministry is going to deal with that part of the motion? I think I am entitled to put that question.
The motion that Deputy Morrissey put down was, I stated, accepted by the Ministry and it is quite clear. I do not need to refer to the terms of it. The meaning of it is quite clear, that steps should be taken to provide (a) or (b). Now we are going to provide (a)——
For 84,000?
—and if we are unable to provide (a), that is, work, then the obligation falls on us to deal with the other portion of it. That is our attitude.
On Friday last, when speaking on the motion now before the House, I made a statement which Deputy Mulcahy said was either inaccurate or incorrect. The words he used were to the effect that I was misquoting for the purpose of misrepresenting. I hope now that, when I quote verbatim from the Dáil official debates, Deputy Mulcahy will have the decency to withdraw the suggestion he made that I was misquoting for the purpose of misrepresenting.
Will the Deputy quote the words he used himself?
Yes, I can quote the words I used. Does the Deputy want them as well?
Because I can quote them for you.
If the Deputy likes I will read my whole speech, his interjections and my answers. Speaking on Friday last I said: "Deputy McGilligan, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, set us a headline in every debate on this matter of unemployment, when he said that people would have to starve and that it was not the duty of the Government to intervene." Deputy Mulcahy then said: "Will you quote the Deputy?" The quotations that I want to give are as follows. They are from Volume IX of the Official Debates, column 551. Deputy McGilligan, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, is there reported to have said:
The Government or this Dáil should not be held responsible for the provision of work in the country. It is not its business.
Later in the same column he said:
To state broadly and definitely that this Dáil ought to be able to provide work for the country is giving this Dáil functions which it has no right to take upon itself.
Will the Deputy read what is in between the two quotations he has given?
I will read the whole lot if the Deputy likes. Following the first quotation I have given, Deputy Morrissey intervened in the debate and asked: "Does the Minister say it is not the business of this Dáil to see that people do not die of hunger in the country?"
I hope the Minister for Industry and Commerce will mark that that was 1924 and I was then talking about unemployment.
Mr. Brady
And you are still talking about it.
I am at least consistent.
Might I remind Deputy Morrissey that it is not his fault that Deputy McGilligan is not still over here.
I can see no improvement.
Dublin people can see a lot of disimprovement.
Mr. Brady
Yes, in the Opposition.
After that interjection by Deputy Morrissey, Deputy McGilligan said:
That is a totally different thing. The Government has, in so far as the Unemployment Insurance Act is concerned, seen that hunger will be stopped. I do not say it goes far enough. They have started certain relief schemes to keep off hunger from other people in the country. To state broadly and definitely that this Dáil ought to be able to provide work for the country is giving this Dáil functions which it has no right to take upon itself.
I can give further quotations if the Deputy wishes.
The Deputy did not quote all that the last day.
I stated on the last occasion that the difference between this Party and the Opposition was that we took the responsibility upon our shoulders of providing work for people who are able and willing to work, and that the previous Government stated that that was not one of its functions. Now, in column 562, Deputy Johnson, who was in the House then, intervened in the course of Deputy McGilligan's speech and said, "But if they die this year?" To that Deputy McGilligan replied, "There are certain limited funds at our disposal. People may have to die in this country and may have to die through starvation."
Go on.
Deputy Colohan then intervened and said, "That would solve the problem."
And the next sentence?
And Deputy McGilligan said, "It might solve the problem."
I must get the rest of that quotation read—"It might solve the problem, but not in the way that I desire, or the Deputy desires."
But the fact remains that the Deputy, when he was Minister—I have the whole lot of them, if you want them.
If you quote in the same way as you have quoted these, I will stay here the whole night waiting for them.
I am glad that the Deputy has learned the value of waiting on us.
I should have expected that the honour of Deputies would have relieved me of the necessity of standing up in order to correct such obvious misquotations as have been shown up here to-night.
What conduct of the Deputy's would lead him to believe that?
I repeat that the common understanding of what was in Deputy McGilligan's mind then was to the effect that it was not the function of the State to provide work for men who were unemployed, but willing to work, and unable to find work.
That is not my statement.
That is the statement of the Deputy, and if I am misquoting or misrepresenting him, I should be sorry to do it wilfully. I can only take the interpretation of the exact word.
You did it blatantly.
I did not; it is in clear language. Deputy McGilligan stated: "To state broadly and definitely that this Dáil ought to be able to provide work for the country, is giving this Dáil functions which it has no right to take upon itself." Previous to that, he says: "That is actually taking place, and there will be some approach to it, but the Government, or this Dáil, should not be held responsible for the provision of work in the country. It is not its business." That is clear and distinct and explicit and not implicit. Again, the Deputy stated that people might have to die of starvation.
But go on.
Very well. I will go on further, and if the Deputy can put any other construction on it, he can do so. "It might solve the problem, but not in the way that I desire, or that the Deputy desires. To say that would solve the problem is no answer, is not facing the fact that there are limited resources in this country. It is better to husband these than to spend any money you have and see that people are fed this year, even though they go hungry next year. That is not good policy." We had the policy of the Opposition——
Not as you stated it.
And my only purpose here to-day was to show Deputy Mulcahy that these words were on record. His insinuations were that they were not on record, and that they were not correct. I hope he is now satisfied that they are on record. Does Deputy McGilligan want to make out that it was not part of the policy of the last Government to take that attitude? I would like him to explain why they allowed the cancer of unemployment to grow up, as it has grown up, and why they permitted people to die of starvation.
Deputy Briscoe said, in the speech referred to, that "Deputy McGilligan when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce set us a headline in every debate on this matter of unemployment when he said that people would have to starve, and that it was not the duty of the Government to intervene." Deputy Mulcahy then intervened, and asked was that a true quotation, and Deputy Briscoe now admits it was a false quotation. It was a monstrous thing.
I think Deputy Dillon is slightly incorrect. Deputy Briscoe does not admit it; he has only proved that it was a false quotation.
Am I to take it that what Deputy McGilligan said was a falsehood, and that I am now proving it?
The Deputy is to take it that, while he is talking, and misquoting the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce, the number of unemployed, at the present moment, in the City of Dublin, is over 5,000 more than it was at this particular date in any of the past four years.
On what figures does the Deputy base that contention?
On the live register in the City of Dublin.
To prevent any other Deputy from making the same mistake, I would like to explain that the number of people on the live register has been inflated from two causes, firstly, that people are coming on, who were not on before, in anticipation of work arising out of the Eucharistic Congress, and secondly, in consequence of appeals to them to register.
They were made before and they did not work.
I want to explain that the reports which have reached me from the Manager of the Labour Exchange in Dublin indicate a number of additional registrations arising out of these causes.
And I want to explain this, that through the Union Commissioners——
And the number of persons in receipt of unemployment insurance benefit has been decreasing steadily.
That proves nothing.
Neither figure proves anything.
I agree.
Through the Union Commissioners, for a number of years past, anyone applying for outdoor relief in the City of Dublin, has been forced to be registered for unemployment, and if the Minister comes up against causes such as he speaks of now, can he tell us on what date the notices were given to register in a particular way, and from what date this year this particular rise has occurred, because it is characteristic of this particular year, as against any other year, that, instead of continuing the fall from the peak in January, the unemployment figures for the City of Dublin have begun to rise and, as I say, where for the last four years the figure has been 7,000, 6,000, 7,000 and 7,250, the figure for the last period in April, the figures to-day are 12,000, 5,000 more than for any other April in the past four years.
I do not want to represent the unemployment situation as being any less serious than, in fact, it is, but notices are appearing in the Exchanges, to the effect that certain classes of people will be required in large numbers, during the Eucharistic Congress period, and these classes of people are asked to register so that they will be available. Deputy McGilligan will inform Deputy Mulcahy that the publication of the figures of registered unemployed was discontinued by him, because of the fact that they were misleading, and calculations based on them were likely to be deceptive.
The increase in the number of registered unemployed may or may not be indicative of an actual increase in unemployment. There is no reason to believe that it is indicative of an increase in unemployment.
If it means anything what is the likelihood?
We think, as the Deputy knows, that they are no sure index of the volume of unemployment in the country.
If the increase means anything, what does it mean?
It means that there are more registered as unemployed than formerly.
Is Deputy McGilligan not aware that the Dublin Corporation have been asked to employ their workers through the labour exchange, that patronage is ended, and that now everybody is getting a fair chance?
May I ask a question?
Deputies
Chair, chair.
I am asking a question through the Chair of the speaker who last spoke but one. Did the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when I decided to discontinue the figures on the grounds that they were deceptive, agree with my contention that they were deceptive? I do not think he did.
I do not think Deputies on this side ever took up any other attitude except this one, that the number of registered unemployed was no index as to the volume of unemployment.
They did show that the figure rose when the volume of unemployment was on the increase.
I qualified it.
The Minister never qualified the statement until now.
I am quite prepared to publish the reports that come into me from the labour exchanges explaining the increase in registration of the Dublin branches. These reports state that the increase in registration arose out of the fact that there will be a considerable amount of work of a certain class during the Eucharistic Congress period, and we are endeavouring to secure that employers will recruit their labour through the exchanges. To enable us to supply their needs we have asked them to keep registered the class of people they require. The principal class is waiters, waitresses, and hotel workers. A number of people not ordinarily seeking employment have come on the register so as to be available for that particular class of work for that period. That explains to a great extent the increase.
Has Deputy Mulcahy concluded?
I was drawn into the discussion by Deputy Briscoe.
On the point of order raised by Deputy Briscoe——
It was not a point of order; it was a point of explanation.
I had not intended to intervene in the Debate were it not for a statement made by the President in the course of his speech last Friday and because a number of people have spoken about it since. They have even expressed grave uneasiness as to the purport of that particular statement, taken in conjunction with the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce at Longford to the effect that "It is proposed to ask the Dáil for powers to control the number of foreign companies which might operate in particular industries." This is what I want to emphasise: "The Government was determined that our industrial efficiency would be made good and he would not hesitate if they found themselves driven into that position to mobilise the nation's resources in its own hands to achieve its ends."
Hear, hear.
I can understand that that might appeal to Deputy Davin, but I can assure him it has caused, as I said, a great deal of uneasiness among the ordinary people of this country, taken in conjunction with the statement of the President on the last occasion, namely the following:
It may be that under the present system we cannot do the full work we would like to do but we are going to try. I am going to say this, that if I try within the system as it stands and fail then I will try to go outside the system and I will go to the country and ask them to support me to go outside the system.
Hear, hear.
Again I see that is accepted by the combined Parties that now sit on the other side of the House. I will take it for granted that the President was quite correct when he said that on these matters the ideals of the Fianna Fáil Party were identical with those of the Labour Party, and as we know already their ideals in other matters, political matters, are identical. The dividing line between them, I suggest, as the country has been inclined to believe for a long time, has practically vanished. However that is not what I would have wished to deal with were it not for the extraordinary way in which Deputy Davin occasionally breaks the self-imposed vow of silence that has been upon him for some time. I am not quite prepared to accept the view put forward in this City by a very well-known public man that no statement of such import has been made in recent years outside Soviet Russia. I do not want to put that interpretation on the President's words.
Try Communism now.
No, I will not, but I suggest that statements of that kind at a time when the industry of the country is passing through a very critical phase, made through carelessness or otherwise, are calculated to cause a great deal of uneasiness to people who have any kind of investments in this country.
A Deputy
Messrs. Jacob.
In the speeches we have listened to here on this motion I fear there is ground for this uneasiness. For instance, I think the only contribution made by the Fianna Fáil Benches on Friday week was a prolonged attack on the biggest industry we have in this country. The attitude adopted in this House by some members practically comes to this, that any person who puts his capital into industry in this country becomes immediately unpatriotic, an oppressor of the poor and of the labouring people of the country. That is the attitude that has again and again been taken up in this House. I suggest there are grave grounds for the uneasiness expressed to me, when the President says if the present system fails, he is prepared to go beyond it and when many people in this country believe that his policy in many respects is calculated to bring about the failure of the present system.
I rose merely as I say because I think a statement of that kind coming from the head of the State, coupled with the general tone of the speeches made here confirms the idea that he is more anxious to tax or quite as anxious to tax what he calls luxury as to prevent starvation. In fact I have no doubt, again, that if he were to advance to this particular length he would receive the applause of Deputy Davin, but he does seem to be perilously near preaching a class war in some of the speeches he has recently made. That has undoubtedly come forth from the speeches made in this House. I think the statement made is one that should not have been made by a man in his position. I should like to know what the other system is into which he intends to go when he leaves the present system.
There is one very important point that I think has been overlooked by the members of the Opposition. That point I would put very briefly. It is this that not alone were the present Opposition, when they were the Government, unable to find employment for 80,000 unemployed, but they were also unable to find employment for a quarter of a million able-bodied emigrants. If these people who were compelled to leave this country through want and starvation had remained in this country there would have been more to die of starvation in the country than were mentioned by the late Minister for Industry and Commerce. Furthermore now that emigration has stopped to the United States, the present Government is faced with the situation of providing work for those people who might have emigrated if conditions obtained such as obtained during the past ten years. Deputy Mulcahy says that there is more unemployment in Dublin than has existed for the past four years.
Those people whose outlet is dammed to the United States are coming along now for employment in this country. Formerly it was an easy way out for the last Government to have these people emigrate from the country. And not alone could they not find work for these people, but there remained behind them 80,000 unemployed men in a state of starvation, and the late Government could not find employment for them. How then can they expect that this Government, which has been only a few weeks in power, could find work for these 80,000 unemployed and for those boys and girls who are growing up and who are prepared to take work if work could be provided for them?
There is just one matter that I should like to draw attention to.
Has the Deputy not spoken before?
I have, but I should wish to draw attention to one point in the President's speech.
The Deputy is not entitled to make two speeches on the motion.
I do not intend to, A Leas-Chinn Comhairle. I merely wish to call attention to the fact that the President is presumably going to produce a plan for unemployment at once. In the remarks that I previously made, I gave two specific instances——
This is remarkably like a speech. I cannot allow the Deputy to proceed any further.
Then with great respect, I ask whether I can get an answer to the question that I raised in my former speech?
Stillorgan is all right.
In my opinion, Deputy Morrissey deserves the thanks of every unemployed man and woman in the country for the presistent sympathy that he has shown towards the class he represents in this House. Deputy Tadhg Murphy, another Labour Deputy, has stated in his speech in this House that if there was one mandate more than another that the President of the Executive Council got, it was a mandate for the relief of unemployment. The President is in a very friendly atmosphere in this House. The whole sympathy of this House is with him in any plan he may bring forward for the relief of unemployment. But the Minister for Industry and Commerce made a rather strange speech in this House when he said that the first step towards the relief of unemployment must be the abolition of the Oath. I cannot follow that line of argument.
Forget all about it for an hour and a half, anyway.
As I said, if the Government were to tackle this question seriously and leave these other matters alone—these matters that Deputy Murphy mentioned there was no mandate for—if the Government were to bend their energy in the direction of solving the unemployment question, they will have the help and the sympathy of every member in this House, because this is, needless to say, the most important issue before us. But remarks like those of the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he regards the removal of the Oath as the first step towards the relief of unemployment create unrest, and from unrest we have unemployment. Remember that the firm of Jacob, the biscuit manufacturers, got scared after the introduction of legislation for the removal of the Oath——
Does anybody remember what they said in 1916?
That the Free State would be outside the Commonwealth of Nations and, if so, that they could not propose to carry on their industry in this city, as they may have to meet a charge of 10 per cent. against them.
Why? From where?
It is very disquieting that the head of a firm should make a statement like that.
They have made many ridiculous statements in their time.
We know they are a very decent firm. They have been all the time very sympathetic to Irish aspirations, and I have never heard any fault against Jacob's firm from that point of view.
Does Deputy O'Connor say that there is an import duty on biscuits into England?
The point I make is this: that the Jacob firm felt that owing to this unrest and if this legislation now introduced would put the Free State outside the Commonwealth, they will not be able to carry on. This was the statement they made.
Why not?
Jacob's give employment to close on 3,000 people here, and serious consideration should be given to their fears. I have heard cheap gibes uttered in reference to them, and I have also read in the Press that Jacob's and people like them, because they are employers, should not dictate the policy of this country. I have also seen cheap gibes in reference to Messrs. Jacob and their "ha'porth" of biscuits. What we want is good feeling between the employers and the workers, and we do not want any remarks like that because they are not helpful to our country.
Could the Deputy say something about the motion, by the way?
And lose sight of the Oath for an hour anyway.
As I have said, if we could get down to the business of trying to create employment, that is the mandate that we got at the last election. House building has been a source of great employment in this city. Speculative house building for the last seven years has been the best known in the history of Dublin. But of late, especially for the last two months, there has been a complete slump.
A Deputy
Why?
For the last six months.
A Deputy
Why, why? Tell us why now.
Allow Deputy O'Connor to make his speech.
Well, I am sure a good deal of it is due to the unrest that we feel and to the statements made on the opposite benches.
What about the last Housing Act?
What about the last Housing Act?
It is wrong.
It stopped housing.
I do not think the position is bad at all if we face up to it. It is not as bad as the position the late Government faced in 1923. They had to face up to a position in which they had to meet a demand for £30,000,000 as the outcome of the civil war. Anyway, they set to work, black and all as the position was, and we know that they tackled the Shannon Scheme and the Carlow Sugar Factory, and they started work on roads and they subsidised house building. Why should not practical schemes such as these be set going by the present Government? As I have already said, they will have our sympathy. We will not cut across you. We will help you in every way and assist you in any scheme you put forward for the relief of unemployment. I think that they should do that and forget other matters that have been taking up the attention of this House for the last week or more and for which as Deputy Murphy said—and I thoroughly agree with him—there was no mandate for the present Government at the last election. There was a mandate to try and come to the immediate relief of people out of work. I appeal to them to forget things that do not matter, for the thing that does matter at the moment is to try and find employment for the workless.
I am sorry to see a good old republican like Deputy O'Connor now professing his faith rather in the sale of biscuits than in the republic for Ireland. It is a great change from the old times when he went out to fight for a republic. He did not think in those days that the time would come when he would prefer to see Jacob's selling their biscuits in England than to see a republic for Ireland.
That has nothing to do with the case.
That is disposing of the argument put up by him just now about the connection between any effort on our part to go forward towards greater development of the freedom of this country and the prosperity of the country. I submit that a person with a history like Deputy O'Connor should be the last person in the Dáil to deal with such a question the way he has dealt with it. If that attitude of mind came from businessmen who never in their lives have been republicans, we might deal with it in a different way.
We have heard enough about republicans now.
Perhaps you will allow me to finish my sentence. Coming from a republican like Deputy O'Connor, his argument is simply estopped. I need not pursue that line because nobody pays any attention to him. I should like to deal with some remarks of Deputy O'Sullivan who hinted, as he hinted all through the election—I happened to hear some of his speeches— at the sinister revolutions which would be brought about by President de Valera. At that time, he was saying that if we got into power we would stand for some dangerous revolution in the country. He was followed up by various people connected with the former landed aristocracy in this country. I read a circular issued by these people during the election to frighten the innocent and uninformed into voting for Cumann na nGaedheal on the grounds of these sinister suggestions now being repeated by Deputy O'Sullivan. We, on these benches, do stand for any necessary changes in the systems as they at present exist. If Deputy O'Sullivan wants our authority for requiring these changes, we need not go further than the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI issued last year, which is in fact one of the most revolutionary documents produced within our generation. Pope Leo XIII spoke of the necessity of changing the conditions of the working classes, changing the system, and doing it quickly, or, he pointed out, great evils would come upon the people. The present Pope has followed that up and pointed out in detail where the system should be changed. I suggest to Deputy O'Sullivan that both the Labour Party and ourselves will find common ground and a common platform in interpreting that Encyclical to the great benefit of the working people and the removal of unemployment.
I should like to say something about speculative building. I happen to have had a little experience indirectly rather than directly of speculative building during the last five or six years. The experience of those I was in touch with was that speculative building for the class that supplied that market during the last seven years has decreased so rapidly that houses were difficult to sell during the last six or eight months. Prudent speculative builders feel that that market is almost exhausted. There is a market for houses for people of more limited means, which is a different market from that supplied up to this. The very statement of Deputy O'Connor, that the last seven years have been very good years for the speculative builder, points to the fact that the period is coming to an end, that the market is gradually getting glutted, and that builders now will have to turn to building of a different type. Speculative builders up to this have not accustomed themselves to building for people of more limited means. How far they may be able to do that will depend upon the local authorities and their applying in their own districts the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. Under that Act there may be a future for them. These are matters which have purely to do with what you might call the technical details of the various building schemes, and have nothing to do with the condition of unrest in the country.
I should like to tell the Deputy that speculative builders built houses for sale, and usually the houses they built were sold to people of the middle classes who were fairly well-to-do. If they built working-class houses the workingmen could not buy them.
Exactly.
Why should they be subsidised for that purpose to make a profit?
I hope the Minister for Finance will pay attention to what Deputy Little says.
I have built houses for which I got no subsidy.
I agree with the Deputy that the speculative builder built houses for sale. When, gradually, he finds the houses will not sell, if he is wise he will get out of the business of building for the class the Deputy mentioned, and that is what the speculative builder is doing, because that market is very nearly exhausted. The housing of very poor will have to be dealt with under a national housing scheme because there is nothing in it for the speculative builder. But between the two classes there is I think —it is merely an opinion—a class that may be supplied with houses under the Small Dwellings Act.
I entirely agree with the Deputy, and the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce before criticising the last Housing Act should have had a talk with Deputy Little, just as I had a talk with the speculative builders on the matter.
I am certain the Ministers knew all about what they were talking about. I certainly would like to see the records before I would accept anything that Deputy Mulcahy says about the matter.
I am accepting what you say. I hope the Minister for Finance is accepting it.
You are interpreting the report, which I certainly would like to read first.
I am taking your word now. I am in entire agreement with you.
I find it rather difficult to speak on this subject, more especially as I am supposed to ask the Government to solve a problem which I believe it is not in their power to do. I should like to join issue immediately with Deputy Briscoe when he says that it is the duty of a Government to find work for everybody. I am willing to make myself unpopular by taking the very opposite view to that held by Deputy Briscoe, because experience teaches me that the more a Government try to solve the problem of unemployment the more unemployment they create. In order to be fair to the Government, if I ask them to solve the unemployment problem, it would be only right and proper that all the resources of the country should be placed at their disposal. To carry the suggestion made by several Deputies to its logical conclusion would mean that the Government, to solve the question of unemployment, would necessarily have to take over Guinness's Brewery, Jacob's Factory, every business in the City of Dublin and in every town and village in the Free State, all the farms in the country, put them all together and establish a situation something akin to that existing at present in Soviet Russia. I wonder would Deputy Davin be in favour of that policy or would the working classes have the same conditions of labour under that régime which they now enjoy.
It is about time that we should come down to a little common sense in this country and recognise our limitations, as I have said before in this Dáil; recognise that this is a poor country, and that if we want to solve the unemployment problem somebody must make sacrifices. You cannot have the present state of affairs existing and hope to solve the problem at one and the same time. You cannot have what, in many cases, amounts to a war-time standard of living on a pre-war revenue. It is about time that we recognised that fact. Nothing touches the human sympathies as much as to meet a man who has been walking the streets idle for five or six months and to have to say that the provision of work for such a man is as far off to-day as ever it was. It is hard also to try to convince such people that we are doing our duty to them by coming to this Dáil and simply stating it is the work of a Government to deal with unemployment. I treated the late Government with sympathy on this matter and I am going to treat the present Government in the same way. I am not going to follow the example of many Deputies by referring to the promises made at the general election. That is ancient history; that will not solve the unemployment problem. I would be much happier if I do all I possibly can to assist the Government in the solution of this very vexed question. In all candour, I would say to the President, as regards the permanent solution of the question, that he should take his time and not be hustled in preparing his schemes, so as to ensure that when these schemes are put into operation they will be of a productive nature. That is, of course, as far as the permanent solution is concerned.
Coming to the motion before the House in the name of Deputy Morrissey, it asks the Government to do something for the immediate needs of the unemployed. I would ask the Government to do something in this matter; to make a grant that would provide immediate employment for those unemployed. I am not going to make a detailed statement as to the amount of unemployment prevailing in my constituency. It is sufficient to say that it is much on a par with that in every other constituency. If the President can do something in the near future to provide employment for those at present unemployed, he will be conferring a benefit on a very big section of the people. I repeat, however, as far as a permanent solution of this problem is concerned, it cannot be solved by any Government. It can only be solved by the co-operation of all classes, employers and employees. There is no use in making references of a nature which will tend to bring the name of any employer into disrespect. People should be careful about their references to those who are giving employment. I was brought up in a school that had as its headline, "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay and to show respect to those placed over us." That is the spirit I should like to see prevailing to-day. I think it was Deputy Anthony who stated that the solution of this question was not the work of any particular Party. I should say it is the work of all Parties, backed up by the whole of the people. If that can be brought about I have no doubt that in the near future the President will be in a position to say that he has to some extent carried out the promises made during the election. Again, I repeat that I would much prefer that the President should hasten slowly in the preparation of his schemes, so as to ensure that a fair return will be given for the money expended on them.
I am not going to attempt to minimise the grave economic conditions that exist, not only in this city, but throughout the country, and because I deplore these conditions I deplore this debate. There has been a tragic waste of parliamentary time. We have spent over six hours on the motion, which might have been disposed of on the night on which it was introduced. In fact for all practical purposes it was disposed of, for the Minister for Industry and Commerce accepted the principle in the motion on behalf of the Government.
Accepted the motion, not the principle.
Accepted the principle in the motion.
Accepted the motion, not the principle.
Accepted the motion if you like. But the unfortunate thing about it is that, as repeated interventions in the debate have shown, the Deputy who has accepted the nominal responsibility for the motion does not know what it is about.
"Sez you!"
After that acceptance, there was not anything useful that could be said. This motion since the first night has been utilised by Deputy Morrissey and by the Opposition merely for obstruction purposes.
That statement is untrue.
During the debate on the Oath Bill, which we are anxious to get out of the way in order that we may tackle the economic problem, because the removal of the Oath is the first step towards the economic regeneration of this country, various points of view were submitted. The Oath Bill is designed to lay the foundation of peace and stability upon which alone a lasting industrial development and general prosperity can be based. We were told at every stage of that Bill to stop talking and get down to the consideration of the economic measures that are necessary to deal with the present unemployment. We have, as I have said, wasted six and a half hours on this motion, wasted it largely because Deputy Morrissey, champing like an angry pachyderm, wished to utilise it in order to hold up the business of the Government. This debate has been a useless debate, a frivolous waste of valuable time. Not one useful idea has emerged.
Why continue to waste time?
Because I want to deal with Deputy Morrissey.
That will be a further waste of time.
Possibly—I used a simile already which may not now be inapplicable—nothing will get under the Deputy's skin.
Except a white elephant.
The Deputy is elephantine, and some people in Tipperary will tell me he is white.
Not one of them told me that. I got back in spite of the Minister's blackguardism.
Not one useful idea has emerged; not one thing to help the Government more quickly to get rid of this evil. We heard a good deal about the plight of the unemployed. Every humbug in this House can wax eloquent on that theme——
Hear, hear!
A three-handed robot came into me one day to open an interview with the statement that there were no politics behind his motive in coming to me. He left me with the statement that when matters appeared in the Press he had got nothing to do with them——
Who was he?
He then went to the Press——
Name, please.
He went to the Press and filled columns of the Press with hypocritical concern for the plight of the unemployed.
Name please.
I am not naming any person.
Be a man and give the name.
I told that gentleman if he had used his influence with the body on whose behalf he ostensibly came to see me and raised the necessary funds by way of a rate the Government would not be wanting in the discharge of its duty to the unemployed. But the body over which this gentleman presides met and struck a rate, and so far as I know made no provision in that rate for schemes to relieve unemployment. Again, for over almost an hour in this House, Deputy Anthony dribbled out solemn hypocrisies while attacking the Government for adopting and pressing vigorously one policy that offers a chance of reviving industry and providing employment—namely, the policy of shutting out useless and unnecessary imports. I say that this debate has been a crime against the unemployed. It has taken up the time of the Government unnecessarily while many important legislative measures await their consideration. The President in his speech on Friday last told the House how serious the financial position was. He told the House and the country of the heavy deficit that has been left to us by the last Government. And I say this, that every single asset that might be realised to meet just such an emergency as we are facing now, every asset which might be realised to provide either that work or that maintenance for which Deputy Morrissey is clamouring, has long ago been squandered by the Government which used to sit on these benches.
I would like to hear the Minister on maintenance.
The figures that the President put before this House showed the position. Is there outside this Party any one in this State who would be prepared to accept that heavy responsibility, or under present circumstances to attempt to do or to do so much for the unemployed as we are prepared to do? We have been told by Deputy O'Connor that we have not a mandate to remove the Oath. I am asking the Deputy now to tell us why he said that——
I did not say that. What I said was that if there was any mandate more than another received by the Government it was that they should relieve unemployment.
Deputy O'Connor admits that we have a mandate to remove the Oath. His vote was a denial of that.
I have not used the words the Minister says I used. I quoted Deputy T.J. Murphy about the relief of unemployment.
Let us get back to the question before the House. We are not on the Oath Removal Bill now.
Hear, hear. Get on with the work.
It is a long time since Deputy Morrissey did any work.
I did a lot more work than the Minister did and can do it now, what the Minister cannot.
The Minister unfortunately had to work all his life.
The Deputy can blackleg.
Deputy Smith knows a great deal about blacklegging! Does he know the meaning of the word he is using?
Will Deputy O'Connor tell me whether we have a mandate to adopt the principle set forth in this motion?
You have.
I am asking Deputy O'Connor. His vote and his acceptance of this principle is, with all due respect to Deputy Morrissey, very much more important to the House than Deputy Morrissey's.
Why?
I will explain why. Does Deputy O'Connor say we have a mandate to accept the principle contained in this motion, to adopt that principle and to give effect to it, that is, provide employment or maintenance forthwith for the unemployed? Deputy O'Connor was very vocal a moment ago about mandates. He is now holding a gloomy silence.
I do not like to interrupt the Minister.
If the Deputy is prepared to say "Yes," I am prepared to give way to him.
I am asked by the Minister a question about mandates. I got up to speak and I quoted a statement made by a Labour Deputy, Deputy T. J. Murphy, who said that if there was one mandate more than another got by the President at the General Election, it was a mandate for the relief of unemployment. That is what I said.
It is a pity that the Deputy betrays his early straightforwardness. There was a time when if Deputy O'Connor were asked a straight question like that, he would have given a straight answer. But that was before he saved the country in 1922.
He served his time under the President. He was seven years under the President.
I think that Deputy MacEoin, like the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce, is living in the last decade. He served under Deputy Cosgrave, who is no longer President. It was under him that Deputy Batt O'Connor served during the last ten years.
We accepted President de Valera as leader of the Irish race at home and abroad along with the present Minister for Industry and Commerce.
But when Deputy MacEoin Accepted President de Valera as the leader of the Irish race at home and abroad was prior to the 6th December, 1921. Prior to that, Deputy Batt O'Connor would have given a straight answer to a straight question.
I have given it now.
Immediate needs.
I am asked whether we have or have not a mandate.
You have.
We have. We gave pledges in regard to the Oath and we gave pledges in regard to unemployment and the unemployed. We were sincere in those pledges because we are as concerned as Deputy Morrissey, or as any other individual in the country, with the suffering poor of the country.
I never questioned that.
What is more, we are going to honour those pledges.
I hope so.
No secret bargain that any member of the late Government put his hand to, like the agreement of 1923, kept secret since, on the admission of the late Minister for Finance, its publication to the country would be politically inadvisable——
Come down and do not be a poseur as usual. Get back to the motion.
Keep quiet and behave yourself.
No secret bargain is going to bind our hands or keep us from doing our duty for the unemployed. Whatever measures are introduced in this House, whether they be within the existing system or without the existing system, if they are necessary in order to enable us to fulfil our mandate and keep our pledges, there will be no veto on our legislation such as was conceded by the late Government in regard to the lands of this country—conceded by the late Government to Great Britain in relation to the lands of this country. I repeat that we are going to fulfil our pledges because we are the free, unfettered servants of the Irish people. None of our people is going to starve because of secret commitments entered into with Great Britain.
This debate, as I have said, has been a waste of time because Deputy Morrissey and others who took part in it addressed themselves solely to the Government. Deputy Coburn states that this problem cannot be solved by the Government. The Government are going to try, but the co-operation which would be very valuable, the co-operation which I regard as being almost essential to the adoption of that principle, must be afforded, must be offered, by the Opposition. Why did not Deputy Morrissey turn his heavy eloquence upon Deputy Cosgrave?
I have been doing it for ten years when the Minister was not here.
Why not turn it on Deputy Good?
I did.
[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]
Why not turn it on Deputy Dockrell or on Deputy Brodrick?
I was doing that when the Minister was not in the House.
They are the men who control the money-bags. Until the moment we arrived in this House and occupied these benches, Deputy Morrissey's labour has been futile and the only thing that is annoying him is that there is going to be, so far as we can do it within our resources, a practical acceptance of the principles laid down in the Deputy's motion.
Good old qualification !
Deputy Morrissey will have an opportunity of replying later, and I think the Minister ought to be allowed to make his speech without interruption.
I am sorry, sir.
Why did not Deputy Morrissey address his remonstrances, his admonitions, his arguments, to Deputy Cosgrave? After the Government had accepted the principle of the motion, surely the only people who remained to be convinced in this House were the people who sit on the Opposition Benches and the people who sit on the Independent Benches. Why did not Deputy Morrissey address himself to them? After all, they are an important factor in the situation, particularly where money is to be provided for employment. They are the people who control the money-bags. If Deputy Morrissey can prevail upon these gentlemen to accept his motion, then the rest will be very easy. The Government will have no difficulty whatsoever in giving effect to the motion.
Deputy O'Sullivan did intervene in the debate. I am not sure whether his speech was directed to Deputy Morrissey or to the House. In a fit of righteous anger and indignation, Deputy O'Sullivan made the strangest statement I have ever heard. The President made the statement that if he could not fulfil his pledges to the suffering people of this country within this system, if he could not provide them either with employment or food, then he would have to seek a solution outside the system. Deputy O'Sullivan said that was preaching a class war. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, harbouring the harbourless— that, according to Deputy O'Sullivan, is preaching a class war. We are going to ransom the people from the captivity of hunger, but that, according to Deputy O'Sullivan, is preaching a class war. In fact, when the Sermon was preached on the Mount it was not preached there by the Saviour of mankind, but, according to Deputy O'Sullivan, by somebody who was preaching a class war.
Deputy Coburn followed on the same lines. He joined issue with Deputy Briscoe when he said it was the duty of the Government to find work for everybody. "Feed the hungry"—that was the admonition addressed to the individual, but very much more addressed to the community, and, in particular, addressed to Governments, and, because we accept that principle of feeding the hungry, not feeding them in idleness, but providing them with a chance to earn their bread, in accordance with the Divine decree, by the sweat of their brow, that, according to Deputy O'Sullivan, is preaching a class war. I am glad, at any rate, to be one of those who will preach that war, and, so far as I and those associated with this Party are concerned, we will preach it until unemployment, hunger and want are banished from the territory over which we have control.
The President said that, too, and I accepted it.
Although we are waging a war against hunger, we are not closing our eyes to the practical necessities of the situation. In order to give effect to that policy, money must be provided. If Deputy Morrissey secures acceptance by the Opposition, to whom he has not put one single question during this debate——
Why should I?
——and who has haggled and cross-examined as if he were a little, six-and-eightpenny, pettifogging attorney trying to earn his fee in a dishonest case——
That is second-hand.
He has not put a single question to the people whose co-operation is essential in order to give effect to the principle contained in this motion.
Is the Government accepting responsibility?
Yes.
Then it is the Government I should address.
We are accepting responsibility and we are asking you to address at least some of your questions to the Deputies on the Opposition side. If Deputy Morrissey secures acceptance by the Opposition of this principle, then, as I have told him, the way is going to be easy. Deputy Morrissey has his chance, when he comes to close this debate, to make the Opposition declare themselves in this matter. The Opposition are his friends. Whatever anyone else may think, they think that Deputy Morrissey is a mighty fine fellow. He says that he has had the cause of the unemployed at heart. He has had it, he said, at heart since 1924. Let him test the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and the Independents who occupy the same benches with him, and who profess a high regard for him, to see what their friendship is worth to the cause that he says he has at heart. See if it will carry them into the Division Lobby in support of this motion. The Government has been frank and open in its declaration. Let the Deputy see that the Opposition is just as frank. The Opposition, by their votes on Wednesday last, indicated that they regard Deputy Morrissey's motion as one of primary importance. Even though that may not have been their opinion before they came into this House, even though some of the responsible members of it may have been of a different opinion, they seem to have changed their minds after Deputy Morrissey's speech. No doubt, the moving rhetoric of the Deputy had something to do with Deputy Cosgrave's rapid change of heart on Wednesday afternoon. The Deputy who is now absent became a friend of humanity and was willing, in Deputy Morrissey's hour of need, to sharpen the Deputy's knife for him. This motion by Deputy Morrissey means increased taxation, but that fact is not going to deter us from giving effect to it. Let us see if Deputy Cosgrave's sense of humanity will carry him to the stage of loosening his purse strings, and the purse strings of his friends. I hope Deputy Morrissey is going to challenge a division on this motion.
Certainly.
Do you accept it?
That is the point. Is the Deputy going to challenge a division on the motion?
Certainly.
Whether the Government accepts it or not?
I do not want to go against the Government.
I am asking Deputy Morrissey, whether the Government accepts the motion or not, is he going to challenge a division?
I will tell you when I am replying.
Is he going to withdraw the motion after acceptance of the principle by the Government? Is he going to withdraw it in order to allow his friends, but not the friends of the unemployed, to get out of the hole?
You must accept, not the principle but the motion.
If Deputy Morrissey withdraws this motion, not the most guileless man in Tipperary—and there must be about 8,000 of them there— will ever believe in Deputy Morrissey's honesty again.
The Minister is not on the stage of the Gaiety now.
Deputy Morrissey has a magnificent chance of showing himself in this debate the real friend of the unemployed. If his motion is pressed, and if the Opposition accept it, then the way lies open to the Government to bring in a Budget that will do everything Deputy Morrissey's heart yearns for.
Wonderful.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned until 9 p.m. on Wednesday, 11th May.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 11.