I move the following motion which appears on the Order Paper in the names of Deputy Nally and myself:—
That the Dáil deplores the migration of the people from the land, and, being of opinion that one of the causes of this migration is the policy in operation over a number of years which finds expression in various statutes providing for differentiation in the treatment of similar classes of the population according as to whether they are resident in rural or non-rural areas, it hereby records its conviction that it is necessary, if the exodus from the land is to be slowed down, that every such statute, that so differentiates either directly or indirectly against the rural population, be amended at once.
I think that the first part of this motion, at least, will meet with unanimous approval in the House and in the country. Everybody deplores the migration of the people from the land. They also deplore the overcrowding of the cities, and the slum problems and unemployment created in the cities by this migration. Everybody, however, may not agree with what is suggested in the motion as the cause of that. Therefore I propose to give, in as brief a manner as possible, my reasons for coming to the conclusion that the cause is due to legislation passed by this House. This is not a Party motion in any sense. Deputy Nally and myself did not put it before our Party. We do not know what the attitude of the Party to it will be. We recognise that the motion, by its very nature, cuts more or less across all Parties. It is not a motion that any Party could very well take up, but we are of opinion that it would be much better if all Parties agreed to have a free vote on it. Every member of the House should be free to vote on it as he thinks fit. After all, the people in the country would like, once in a while on a motion of this kind, to have their will expressed through their elected representatives without any undue interference by the Party Whips. In saying that, I am not speaking against the Party system. I know the advantage of the Party system to the country, but at the same time a too rigid adherence to it is not a good thing, and hence people sometimes turn against Parliamentary representation altogether. It would be a good thing if, in a case like this, the members of all Parties were left free to vote as they think best.
It is in a non-Party spirit that we, in this motion, are trying to find out some of the difficulties under which this country is labouring. We are anxious that some good should come out of it. Everybody knows that there is something radically wrong in the economic structure of this State. We maintain that is a real obstacle to any economic progress or any social progress in this State. We hold that we cannot have the sort of country that we desire to have so long as there is differentiation, especially in favour of the people in the cities. We all know how the welkin would ring in any discussion if it was some question of a minority in some part of Europe that was suffering persecution. We are not making an appeal here on behalf of any persecuted minority. I am appealing on behalf of a persecuted majority, the great majority of the people of this country: on behalf of the flower of this State who are being driven from their homes by persecution, not by a foreign Government, but by their own Government of Dáil Eireann. I am not attributing the blame to one Party or to another, but I maintain that Dáil Eireann is persecuting the majority of this State. I say that if persecution equal to it was being carried out in any part of Europe, we would hear a great deal of criticism of it in this country.
Now, I think a matter of such great importance should receive the attention that it deserves from the members of this House. I know that statistics are very dry, and will give as little of them as I can help. I must, however, refer to the population of the four county boroughs. The figures that I propose to give are taken from the latest official publication. In 1926 the population of the four county boroughs was 583,790, and in 1936, 657,682, an increase in the ten years of 12½ per cent. If we include the few urban towns that have a population of over 7,000—they are really very few—the figures are: for 1926, 706, 564, and for 1936, 792, 303, an increase of 12 per cent., practically the same as the figures for the county boroughs taken alone.
With regard to the remainder of the country, that is, the rural districts, in 1926 there were 2,265,428 people there; in 1936 the population was 2,176,117. That is to say, while the four county boroughs increased in population by 12½ per cent. over the ten years, the population of the rest of the country decreased by 5¼ per cent. That is the most deplorable part of the change. In 1926 about 31 per cent. of the population lived in the cities and towns of over 7,000 population, and 69 per cent. lived in the rural districts; in 1936 the percentage had changed to 36.5 for the cities and towns of over 7,000 population, and 63.5 for the rural areas. Since 1936 that trend has gone on—as everybody is too well aware—if not at an increasing rate, certainly at the same rate; and we may take it now as a rough estimate—I do not pretend to be accurate—at the present time that, in 1940, 40 per cent. of the people are living in cities and towns of over 7,000 population and 60 per cent. in the rural areas. Taking the figures on the last ten or 14 years and estimating a continuation of that change, it is alarming to think of the position we will be in 14 or 20 years hence. If the population of the cities increased while that of the rural areas decreased, it would not matter so much if the people in the cities were self-supporting, if we had not such a growing list of unemployed, if we had not the slums, if we had not the lately-started industries that are a burden on the rest of the community. Unfortunately, all these things have to be considered.
I should like to quote now some statistics to show the trend of employment and unemployment. This is also an official publication giving the trend of employment and unemployment for the years 1937 and 1938. It is a pity, of course, that we have not got them over a longer period, but we may take the period given as fairly typical of any other period—say, 1938-39 or 1939-40. These are for 1937-38, and the trend is briefly this: on the last Monday of November, 1937, the number of people on the live register for the four county boroughs was 24,920; in November, 1938, the number was 29,441 for the same four county boroughs—an increase of 18.1 per cent. For the remainder of the country, the number on the live register had decreased within the same 12 months from 69,494 to 63,792—a decrease of 8.4 per cent.
Is it not remarkable to see people moving away from that part of the country where there was least unemployment to where unemployment is increasing at a rapid rate? That is a most unhealthy condition to exist in any country—moving away from places where there might be no unemployment, where there is plenty of work to be done, where the land is overflowing with water, whin and briar, into the cities where the unemployment list is increasing, where the slum trouble, despite all that has been done for a number of years to relieve it by building—is growing worse from day to day and creating new problems for everybody who has the interest of the cities and of the country at heart. Is it not evident that there is something very wrong, that there is something behind this that is inducing the people to leave the land and come to the cities? Mind you, it is not for the grand, glaring lights, or the pictures, or anything of the sort.
The people are not fools: they are coming from the country to the cities to take advantage of the higher standard of living provided by Act of Parliament for the people in the cities. They are entitled to do it, and this Dáil has no moral right to pass legislation to prevent their coming into the cities. I do know, however, that there are organisations in the cities designed for no other purpose than to keep people from coming in from the country. I say that this country is one country—Dublin and the rest of the country—and unless people wish to have another partition, or a new Pale, the people have the right to move to any part of their own country. You cannot continue to keep this country partitioned as it is, in the way some of the organisations in the city are trying to keep it partitioned. That cannot be done except by cutting it off altogether, which would mean that the source from which the taxation comes would be cut off also. That would not do, that would not suit the city.
Something must be done, and I suggest that the thing to do is to make equal laws for equal people and let everybody find his or her proper place in the economic structure in the city or in the country. There is no other way. I know it is difficult for the Minister or anybody else with responsibility to face up to this, but it must be faced up to sooner or later, or the country is going to decay. There is hardly any responsible Minister or responsible Deputy in this House who does not know that this thing is wrong and that it cannot continue. We cannot have two standards of living in one small State for people of similar classes, on the sole test of whether they belong to the cities or to the rural parts of the country. We are building an economic Tower of Pisa, something that cannot stand. In the history of the world there never was a leaning tower built by the art of man: the leaning Tower of Pisa got a tilt after it was built. It got a tilt by Nature: I suppose Nature just wanted to show that she could deviate from her own laws and yet defy human architects to follow her example.
At any rate, I cannot think of anything else to which I might compare the economic structure which we are building here because we are building it with a lean, one side high and the other low, and the trend is such that more and more is going to the high side from the lower side. The question is: how long will it stand? We know but one thing: sooner or later a fall is due and the longer it stands the greater will be the fall. The remedy is to get to work at once, to recognise the position, to get the foundation laid correctly, and to build soundly in this State. I will come to the particular statutes that are the offending statutes, in my opinion. There is quite a number of them, and they are divided into four categories. In the first category are the statutes that provide benefits; in the second are those that fix scales of prices—those that fix the prices for different classes of commodities; in the third are those dealing with the incidence of taxation, and in the fourth are those which show a general lack of sympathy with people in rural districts. It is easy to find scores of businesses where this is noticeable. I will deal first with those providing benefits, although I do not think they are the most important. Take, for instance, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act. Part III of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act deals with the payment of non-contributory pensions to widows and orphans.