A Chinn Comhairle, as I said, this whole debate is, in fact, an examination of our whole economic and financial position. The trouble is that the subject is so wide that stress is laid, now on one aspect, and now on another aspect, without any comprehensive view of the whole, and unless we do take a comprehensive view of the whole, we are bound to arrive at wrong conclusions. In speaking last night about external assets and their value, and the inferences that might be drawn from an apparent reduction in them; about the policy of trying to produce for the foreign market and policy of production at home for home consumption, I pointed out that as far as the Government were concerned, at any rate, we are unrepentant advocates of the pursuit of the policy we have been adopting and which was the old policy of Sinn Féin. We are trying to develop the resources of this country for the benefit of the people in this country: to employ the natural resources we have, and to employ, amongst these resources, the brains and brawn of our people to produce the material necessities of life and to provide for our people the amenities which are, as I said, necessary for decent living.
Now, there has been a good deal of sneers at "a plan," and people have been asking where is the plan. There has been pursued constantly a definite plan, and it is only in relation to that plan that you can estimate whether we are going on the right road or not. The plan has been this: We tried to catalogue the material necessities of our lives here. We took the fundamental necessities—of food, clothing, shelter, fuel both for domestic purposes and for power, and so on—and we saw, in the statistics of our imports, the import of large quantities of materials to meet these needs, materials that we believed we could produce here at home. We took the biggest items—I am talking in general now, because there have been exceptions to this general statement—we took the biggest items in our imports, and if possible the most unnatural items in them, and we set out definitely to cut these out. The biggest ones, and the most unnatural ones, were the ones which related to the most fundamental of our necessities. We started with food and said that, since we were an agricultural country it was ridiculous that we should not avail of the home market to the full for the produce of our farms, and that we should not be importing American bacon or a number of other things that we could produce here ourselves.
We set out, therefore, to produce these things and to limit the imports of things such as agricultural products which we could get here, such as bacon, and we said that that need not prevent us, in general, from taking any advantage we could of any external market which was open to us. You can see the result of that policy in what is happening in agriculture. We took one of the most fundamental necessaries, wheat. We said: "Though it is true that you can get wheat from the prairie lands of Canada, the United States and elsewhere, and dump it here at lower prices than our farmers can produce it, nevertheless it is good economy to produce as much of our own wheat as we can." If there is a crisis—a war, or anything else of that nature—we shall have, at least, a substantial element of our food here at home. To the extent that our farmers are producing wheat, and to the extent that we can give them an assured market here, we are giving them a thing which is safer than an external market, of which they may be deprived at any moment. We pursued that policy, and the result of pursuing it in respect of that single item has been to increase the area under wheat tenfold. There is still considerable room for improvement, and, in my opinion, we should move along the line we have been moving on in regard to the production of wheat. About three times the amount we are producing at present would be required to satisfy all our needs. We should not be content until we have got, at least, half-way, and when we have got half-way, I think the argument I am now using will still hold in respect of a considerable portion of the remainder. There is no doubt that we have a sufficiency of suitable wheat land for our purposes.
Then, there is the question of cereal foodstuffs for animals. We are in a certain difficulty there. The difficulty arises, perhaps, in more intensified form in that case than it does in regard to wheat and other things because, undoubtedly, we cannot produce these cereals at the price at which we can get them from outside. We must try to strike a balance. We cannot produce our wheat exactly at the price at which we can obtain it from outside. At certain stages, we may produce it just as cheaply as they do outside. I think that there was a period when we were able to produce it almost as cheaply as it could have been obtained from outside. If there is a war, we shall be able to produce it more cheaply than it can be purchased in the world market. However, I think it is true in general that we shall be able to purchase more cheaply outside than we can produce these foodstuffs and, if we are going to lose a certain amount in that way, will there, on balance, be a gain or a loss? Free traders will say that there is a loss, that we should concentrate on the particular products we can best produce, sell them in an external market and, with the produce of their sale, buy the things we need. That policy has been tried over a long period in Ireland and it was, obviously, a disastrous policy. The more there is increased production in other countries of agricultural produce for the English market, the worse it will be for our producers. The British market is really the principal market, if not the only market. The English might endeavour to protect their own industry and they might discriminate as regards supplies. They are as much at liberty to discriminate against Canada, Australia and these other countries as they are to discriminate against us. That will be the case no matter what position we may occupy in their regard politically. They are quite free to put up tariffs against us if they want to develop their own agriculture or to let in other countries. They can, in that way, make production here unprofitable unless we approximate somewhat to the prairie areas where they are able, with a very small population and by the use of mechanical methods, to produce food. That is the fundamental difference between free trade and the economy of self-sufficiency or protection.
We know that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot have the advantage of imported cheap food if we want to develop our industries and protect our own agriculture. Which is it to be? I know that economists have been divided on these things. If the world were one unit, if there were free passage not only of goods and capital, but of persons between all nations, then, in all probability, the free trade policy, as a world policy, would be the best policy. But that is not the world in which we are living. For that reason, whether wise or unwise, we are convinced that the policy of protecting our industries, in order to produce for ourselves the things we require, is good national policy. We have fought elections on that basis, and we have been returned. We are as convinced of that to-day—at least, I am and I think the other members of the Government—as we were at any time. I am not for a moment trying to pretend that, if we adopt a policy of that kind, we can give the farmer his bread at as low a price as if we were to import the flour from outside, but the community as a whole, which is our interest and not one section, is benefiting by the general plan we have pursued. When we talk about foodstuffs, we must not lose sight of the critical aspect. It is true that bread, clothes and boots must be regarded as items in the farmer's cost of production. To the extent that we protect our industries, it is quite true—I have to admit this—that we shall, in all probability, have some increase in price until we are able to produce as efficiently here as they produce elsewhere. I believe that we ought to set out to produce as efficiently here as they can produce elsewhere—with one limitation, that whereas we have only 3,000,000 of a population, other countries have a population of 30,000,000 or 80,000,000. That is the only limit there should be to our efficiency as compared with the efficiency of people outside. I am willing to admit to the farmer that his costs of production go up in regard to the things he has to buy. We try to give him a balance and, if he is dissatisfied, we have to say: "Though you are a most important section of the community, you are not the community as a whole, and you are going to benefit by the existence, side by side with you, of an industrial community." I am trying to argue these things as objectively as I can, without making Party capital out of them. I am endeavouring to argue them as if I were examining them quietly in my own room. The question becomes one of balance.
A critical point arises when the commodities are not food, clothes or boots, but the raw materials of the things which the farmer is producing and selling. Take, for example, the question of cereals—whether we should import maize or not. You have a really difficult question there, and one of your difficulties arises from the fact that our country—small as it is, relatively— is not uniform, that there are certain areas suitable for the production of cereals and certain areas that are not suitable. We have to consider the economic needs of the places that are not suitable. The ideal thing would be for our farmers, as far as possible, to produce the raw materials for themselves and not buy them from outside. But that question at the moment is a serious one. We recognised always that it was an important and serious question. It is engaging the attention of the Minister for Agriculture at the moment. There is a Bill to enable him to suspend the present arrangement. I will be greatly dissatisfied personally if it is not possible to find some method by which we will not have to import for the raw material things which we can substitute at home. I would regard it as a great loss. I recognise the vital part that animal food stuffs play in our economy, in view of the fact that agriculture is our principal industry. We are trying to produce food at home. I have mentioned wheat. Take sugar: sugar is a food necessity. Deputy Dillon will say you cannot produce it at the cost at which you could get it formerly from outside countries. I agree that you probably cannot get it at the cost at which it was being dumped formerly, at any rate when they were trying to get rid of agricultural produce at any time. I say that the growing of beet and the manufacture of it in our factories into sugar is a useful thing from the point of view of general economy. It gives work to the farmer; it gives him alternative crops. It is much better in any case not to have all our eggs in one basket. The farmer is getting fixed prices that he knows in advance, practically with certainty, except in so far as weather conditions may upset things completely. All agriculture is subject to vicissitudes arising from the weather, and I think much of the talk that we hear about the state of agriculture is mainly due to the bad harvest last year which was owing to weather conditions. You see what we are doing in regard to food. We are trying to produce the raw material from the land, whether it be wheat or sugar beet. We have been pursuing that policy definitely. We are trying to manufacture our requirements here at home. Our flour mills, before we came into office, were only half employed, and some of them were closed down. We were producing only about 50 per cent. of our requirements. Now, we are producing the whole of our requirements, and if we had the raw material in wheat, as far as that principal food is concerned, we could say that we do not care, in that regard, as far as war is concerned; we are not going to be short.
The same applies to sugar. We are in a position that if there were some crisis we need not go short. In regard to sugar there are two elements to be considered, the price which the farmer gets and the price which the consumer has to pay. It is a balance between those two. The farmer very naturally wants to get the most he can for his labour. The Government, looking after the interests of the community as a whole, has to ask what is the price which the community ought to give the farmer for the service which he is rendering the community in producing that food. There will always be a certain amount of conflict between the two, but they will settle themselves, on the one hand, by the desire of the community to get its sugar and, on the other, by the desire of the farmer to grow a profitable crop. If there was an attempt on the part of one section to profiteer at the expense of the other, then the Government would have to seek a remedy, and the remedy it would seek in a case like that would be to say to the farmer: "Very well; you have been given an opportunity of producing at a reasonable price. You want to exceed that price. We will open the door and allow sugar to be imported." That is the only weapon that the Government ultimately has at its disposal in order to prevent one section of the community from getting undue profit and undue reward for its service at the expense of the rest. I say that generally we could do that and that we are in a position to exercise control generally if we wanted to do so. I have shown that we are pursuing a definite plan in trying to get our food produced at home.
Let us consider clothing. A large quantity of clothing was being imported which we felt could be produced at home. If you look at the reduction in imports of wearing apparel and the increase in our industrial production you will see at once that we have made very rapid progress along that line. I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking some time ago, indicated that there was some £20,000,000 worth of imports which he felt could be substituted by home-made goods. Our progress along that line can be shown by the fact that there are 900 workshops and factories employing some tens of thousands of people producing goods which were formerly coming in from outside. I think last night I gave the figure as 800. It is really 900. It was an older figure I gave last night. Some people will say that these are foolish, mushroom industries. They are not mushroom industries. Do not tell me that the production of boots and of clothing are mushroom industries. There is always a demand here for these things. We cannot produce some of them at the rate at which they could be produced in Japan or at the price at which they could be obtained if we opened the ports and let in Japanese goods or goods from other countries. If we let goods in from other countries, undoubtedly our own industries would become mushroom industries, but there is no reason whatever for thinking that industries established for the purpose of meeting fundamental needs are mushroom industries.
We were told that the promoters of these industries are making undue profits, that the Government is not exercising proper care. The very people who are talking about undue profits talk about the agreement which we made and say that is going to cause our industries to close down. We made an agreement to take in on certain conditions industrial goods that we require, in return for the export to Britain of our agricultural produce. But we safeguarded our industries. We made it clear that a Prices Commission of Irishmen would look into the matter, would consider the relative costings here and abroad, and would fix the tariffs at such a level as would allow our home industries, having regard to our circumstances, our smaller numbers, and so on, to be carried on at a reasonable profit. We knew in accepting that that we were only accepting a certain check on profits, so that they would be examined. When we originally accepted the general plan of protection, we knew that when industries were established it would be necessary to have some machinery for examining prices and seeing that undue profits were not made under the shelter which we were providing. People have been talking about tariffs. We do not regard tariffs as of any value except as a shelter to enable our industries to carry on behind them and be saved from the attack of unfair competition from outside. We do not recognise any other particular virtue in tariffs. They do help the Minister for Finance, indirectly, to help the Exchequer, but that is not our purpose in it. That is not the aim of our tariffs, and the lower these tariffs are the better, we know, for the community. When I say the lower they are I mean whilst they are effective, because there is no point in putting up a wall if the wall is not high enough to afford the protection required. There is a difference of view as to what exactly is the height that is necessary in order to afford adequate protection.
As long as we have an individualistic economy, as long as we recognise the rights of private property, we must give the individual incentive to produce. The individual's incentive to produce is reasonable profit or return for what he is doing. It should be reasonable, and the business of the Government, in the matter of safeguarding the general welfare, is to see in so far as it can that that particular incentive is not contrary to the general welfare or to the common good.
We have got to watch over it from that point of view, but our views about private property are the views which are expressed in our Constitution. We acknowledge and recognise the right of private property, but we also recognise the right of the Government, as the guardian of the common good, to regulate the use that is to be made of that private property so that it will be in the general interest.
Now, I have referred to food and clothing. You have to look at the results, and you can see the progress that has been made in accordance with that plan. I repeat there is a plan, and that it has been pursued. The next thing of fundamental importance is that our people should be properly housed. We came in here and saw a terrible situation facing the people. In this city we saw one quarter of the people, roughly, housed with only one room as a home. That was a disgraceful condition from the human point of view, and from the economic point of view a completely unsatisfactory situation. We set out to try to remedy it. The result of our work in trying to remedy the situation about housing through the country as a whole has been that in our time some 100,000 houses have been either reconstructed or erected. You have only to go for a short motor drive through the country to see the results of that policy. We have not finished the job by any means. It is a fundamental job which we set ourselves to accomplish, and we are, by hook or by crook, going to see it pursued and finished, if possible. There is a rate of progress beyond which you cannot go. We have here our cement factories to produce the material required both for housing and for road construction.
Unfortunately, we have not one fundamental material, namely, timber. In the pursuit of our general economic ideal, it is our purpose to try to produce timber, to see that those generations which come after us—because unfortunately, timber cannot be produced overnight—will, at any rate, have that fundamental material here at home: that they will have their own home-grown timber. We have people who think that there is some special virtue in that particular line of afforestation. There is not, except in producing what we require—a fundamental raw material. Look at the progress that has been made. We have now gone up to the point at which about 8,000 acres are being planted every year. It is estimated that the planting of about 20,000 acres would meet our needs. We expect in a very short time to get up to 10,000 acres. There is a lot of fallacy talked about this whole question of afforestation.