To motion No. 4 on the Order Paper there is an amendment. The motion may be moved and seconded and then the amendment may be moved. Both will be discussed together, and a decision will first be taken on the amendment.
Committee on Finance. - Cause and Incidence of Unemployment—Motion.
Would it be permissible for me, on the conclusion of Deputy Norton's speech, formally to move the amendment and reserve my speech until later?
Mr. Morrissey
We cannot hear the Minister.
The Minister's proposal could only be given effect to in the case of a motion; his is an amendment.
Mr. Morrissey
No wonder the Minister spoke in low tones.
The Minister's suggestion would only apply in the case of the seconder of a motion.
I beg to move this motion, standing in the names of Deputy Keyes, Deputy Pattison and myself.
Being of opinion that the time is overdue for formulating proposals for the abolition of unemployment and for giving effect to the undertaking in the Constitution that all citizens may, through their occupations, find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs, Dáil Eireann requests the Government towards that end to appoint a representative committee to ascertain the cause and incidence of unemployment within industry and agriculture, its reactions on the physical well-being and morale of the people and to make recommendations within six months from the date of its appointment for the absorption in useful employment at adequate remuneration of all workers able to follow useful occupations.
I want to make it clear at the outset that while this motion deals with a matter which has been the subject of much political controversy, and has been selected for the application of various political and economic remedies, I move the motion in no partisan spirit. I move it solely with the desire to focus the attention of the House on the necessity for facing up to its responsibilities in regard to this grave problem of unemployment and its widespread repercussions on large numbers of our people. Anybody who takes the trouble to examine our unemployment problem to-day, or who is in touch with the large masses of unemployed people, can scarcely fail to appreciate the magnitude of that problem. Indeed, the more one studies it the more it becomes apparent that it is almost impossible to exaggerate its seriousness. When the Constitution was going through this House we had a grandiose declaration in Article 45 to the effect that it was one of the directive principles of the State's social policy to ensure that the citizens, all of whom men and women equally have a right to an adequate means of livelihood, may through their occupations find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs; so that in 1938, when the Constitution was being enacted by this House, it was then declared to be the constitutional objective of the Government and of the State to endeavour to ensure that all citizens would be given an opportunity of making provision for their needs by following their various occupations. But when we compare the grandiose declaration contained in that Constitution with the bitter truth that there are to-day 110,000 unemployed registered at the employment exchanges, that there are many thousands of persons only partially employed, and that approximately 100,000 people are dependent upon the miserable pittances which they receive in the form of home assistance, we get a truly ironic commentary on the seriousness of our intentions when we embodied Article 45 in the Constitution.
It is impossible, as I said, to exaggerate the magnitude of our unemployment problem to-day, or even to picture comprehensively the destitution which is being suffered by tens of thousands of our citizens who are condemned to involuntary idleness. We have that picture, in so far as we can measure it by figures, represented by 110,000 persons registered at the employment exchanges, but we can never really get a picture of the misery and suffering which large numbers of our people have to endure because they are compelled to live in almost constant idleness. It has always appeared to me to be a most criminal form of waste to have men and women idle at any time, but it is unjustifiable and indefensible waste to have 110,000 men and women idle in a country which is still inadequately developed, while there are abundant opportunities for work in industry and agriculture, and while the national estate as represented by public amenities falls far short of the standard in many other European countries. We must, of course, as a civilised community feed and clothe our unemployed people, since they are denied the opportunity to work, so that every unemployed man and woman who are denied the opportunity to work must get the food and clothing they require from the common pool of national productivity. If they contribute nothing to that pool then they must be sustained out of other people's contributions to the pool, and the economic effect of that, surely, is that not only are they reducing the quantity of available goods in the pool but they are reducing the standard of living for those whose earnings make that pool possible. Every unemployed man or woman, therefore, not only is compelled to tolerate a low standard of life for himself or herself, but by reason of the fact that they are kept in a condition of idleness they incidentally, under our social system, in effect drag down the standard of living even for those who are employed.
But unemployment has an even more serious effect than mere economic waste. Unemployment brings in its train poverty and destitution for those who are its victims. Accompanying unemployment in this and every other country is an appalling amount of malnutrition.The reports of county medical officers of health in this country disclose very serious malnutrition on the part of large sections of the community to-day. We fill our hospitals to-day very largely because of the fact that we keep our people idle, and we fill our county homes with people who have become the flotsam and jetsam of the strange system of society in which we live. But over and above all those considerations, over and above considerations of waste, poverty and malnutrition, we are setting up for ourselves here, by our refusal to face up to the gravity of that problem, an underdeveloped and physically weak nation as the price which we are apparently prepared to pay for our failure to deal with that problem. In so far as we are attempting to relieve the sufferings of our unemployed people, none will deny that the effort is indeed a puny one.
If we take the country in general as being represented by towns with a population of not more than 7,000, we find that the maximum rate of unemployment assistance benefit is 14/- per week. That is the pittance upon which, in 1940, an unemployed man with his wife and five children is expected to live. Fancy trying to provide the necessities of life, including rent and fuel and clothes and food, on an income of 14/- per week, having regard to the prices of commodities to-day. That family, in those circumstances is, therefore, compelled to try to eke out an existence on an income of 2/- per head per week. When that is analysed further, we find that it provides the family with the sum of three farthings on which to obtain a meal. That, therefore, represents our attempt to implement Article 45 of the Constitution. That represents our approach to an endeavour to implement that particular Article.
I say that the continuance of an unemployment problem on such a gigantic scale in this small and relatively undeveloped country is not merely a challenge to our statesmanship but a challenge to our present Parliamentary institutions. We had, of course, declarations by the Taoiseach that if the problem of unemployment could not be solved within the existing system he was prepared to go outside that system.Those are brave words which the Taoiseach permits himself on occasions, but unfortunately he fails sadly to implement them when the occasion on which they are delivered has passed. Occasionally, we get from the present Minister for Supplies declarations in somewhat similar terms, all indicating that although he may talk bravely he is prepared to act supinely. But whether we take the declarations of the Taoiseach or the declarations of the Minister for Supplies we get no indication whatever that the Government has any intention of departing from the present Micawber-like economic policy which has given us 110,000 unemployed, and is keeping them there—a figure which Governmental ineptitude will probably increase in the near future.
It is said rather tritely, but I think rather truthfully, that the remedy for unemployment is work, and here, I suppose, we ought to ask ourselves whether, in fact, there is any work for our people to do. One has only got to pose that question to be able to answer it by a long catalogue of very useful national works which could be undertaken, not merely for the enrichment of the community, not merely for the enrichment of the national estate, but for the creation of sources of work and sources of wealth which would go far towards raising the standard of life in this country. I should like to pass over such schemes of work as are at present offered by the Board of Works as a mere palliative for the endemic poverty which exists in many places throughout the country and to point instead to those larger schemes of work which are in the nature of capital works of a reproductive kind and upon which the expenditure of money would in the course of time yield a substantial national income.
The first of these items may well be said to be housing. Notwithstanding the magnificent effort of recent years to rid the country of the town slum and the rain-soaked mud cabin, there are still tens of thousands of houses needed so as properly to house our people, and the conditions under which many of our citizens are compelled to live to-day are a reproach to both our Constitution and our vaunted Christianity.In the realm of house building a vast amount of work still requires to be done, but although we have people living in slums and in rain-soaked mud cabins, although we have 10,500 building trade workers idle—and the number would be larger were it not for the fact that they are able to find employment in Britain which they cannot get here —we still have a situation whereby, so far as the building trade operatives are concerned, they cannot obtain work while those living in slums and rain-soaked cabins cannot get decent housing. Is there any reason why there should be so complete a divorce between the creative art of the building trade worker on the one hand and the social needs of the people on the other hand, or is it impossible for the State to apply its talents and its resources to harnessing the ability of one to the needs of the other and in that way tackle our housing problem with much more zeal even than that displayed in recent years?
We pass from that to the question of afforestation. The one striking fact in that sphere is that this is the most timber-denuded country in Europe, with a lesser percentage of its land under timber than any other country in Europe. If it pays other countries to plant timber, if it pays other countries to cultivate State forests, it surely ought to pay a country like this to do the same, but we appear to have inherited all our views on forestry from people who have no sympathy with the forestry policy in this country. Apparently we were content in the past to see this country used as a vast grass ranch for the purpose of producing bullocks and men and women for export. In the field of afforestation a vast amount of work requires to be done, and that work, if undertaken comprehensively and pushed with energy, would, it is estimated, provide regular employment for close on 40,000 people per year. For some reason that has never been obvious to me one Government after another treats the afforestation problem as if it were something to be brushed aside, and as if nobody had a right to expect more trees than grow at present to inhabit the earth of this country.
Similarly, in respect of mineral development our resources, so far as they exist in a merchantable way, have been neglected. Recent efforts, I know, have been made in certain directions by private individuals to exploit certain mineral deposits throughout the country, and when one enlists the assistance and sympathy of the Department of Industry and Commerce on that matter one is told that the matter is one for private enterprise in the first instance, and that the Minister will be interested in seeing how they get on. But everybody knows that, having regard to the somewhat chequered financial history of mineral development in this country, few private investors are likely to speculate their money in mineral development in this country because it involves at the outset quite considerable risks and the expenditure of quite a considerable sum of capital without any return. That work, in my view— and the facts prove it—can only be undertaken by the State, but it should be undertaken by the State unless we are to continue to allow our mineral resources to lie dormant without making any effort whatever to exploit these resources for the provision of wealth for the country and employment for its people.
Land drainage is, of course, another matter where a vast amount of work requires to be done. It is appallingly true that we pay very little real attention to land drainage or land reclamation in this country. We appear to accept the fact that there is a certain proportion of the land of this country which as been flooded for many years, and, because it has been flooded for many years, there is no reason why that condition of affairs should not continue.
If we take work under these four heads—housing, afforestation, mineral development and land drainage, I think it will have to be admitted that the expenditure of money by the State on schemes of work of the kinds indicated would in the course of time give a substantial return. There are other schemes of work which might be mentioned, but I want to distinguish between capital works which will return an income to the State and other schemes of work such as water and sewerage schemes, the provision of baths, the building of new roads, and the maintenance of cemeteries, which might well be done to enrich the national estate, but in respect of which there is no real return in the form of annual income such as is available in the case of capital works.
If we pass from the industrial position to the agricultural position the outstanding fact that strikes one on an examination of agricultural statistics relating to this country is that our agricultural productivity shows practically no increase over the past fifty years. It may be true, of course, that we are growing beet now that we did not grow fifty years ago, but we are doing it at the expense of other crops. It is true we are increasing the acreage under wheat, but we are doing that at the expense of other crops as well. But, taking agricultural productivity as a whole, an examination of official statistics will show that our agricultural productivity is really stagnant, that there is no evidence of growth or expansion and, apparently, no policy to encourage an expansion which has long taken place in other countries in Europe and throughout the world.
If one thing more than another strikes one in respect of agriculture, it is the fact that we are probably neglecting more than ever to nourish the land, neglecting to fertilise and manure the land, and to-day, in carrying out a policy of intensified tillage on the one hand, while neglecting the necessity for fertilising the land on the other hand, we are probably taking out of the land much more nourishment than we are putting back into it. There again a vigorous agricultural policy would intensify agricultural production and, by attention to such problems as the fertilising of land, we could in the course of time ensure even greater productivity from such of our land as is under cultivation.
The outstanding fact remains that out of approximately 12,000,000 acres of arable land we do not cultivate more than 3,000,000 acres. Nobody can, in the face of these facts, contend that there is any shortage of work to be done by the 110,000 unemployed people in this country and, if we have that large mass of unemployed people, on the one hand, with an abundance of work for them to do, on the other hand, what is the reason we cannot harness their energies to the tasks to be done, why can we not put them into employment, give them an opportunity of earning a decent livelihood, give them an opportunity of adding to the pool of national productivity and drawing from that pool against their own credits in it, instead of their being kept from the additions made to that pool by perhaps their more fortunate brethren?
The Taoiseach stated this evening, in the course of the debate on the Army Estimate, that you could get money for military and war purposes, but you could not get money for social services. Maybe it is harder to get money for social services; maybe the mentality of our people is such that they do not realise the necessity of organising the nation to eliminate the criminal waste which exists to-day; but, if hunger in this country were an infectious disease, if it did not merely confine its depredations to poor, unemployed people, if rich and wealthy people could be inoculated with it as an infectious disease, we would very quickly raise money for social services and for the provision of work, and we could raise it with the same ease as we can raise it to-day for the purchase of guns and ammunition. There has been no real public appreciation of the value of an organised, planned economic system in this country.
If there is a difficulty about raising money for the purpose of social schemes, then there is need for a complete reorganisation of our entire economy. There should not be any real difficulty in getting money. We used to think at one time—and so did other countries—that there was such a thing as a scarcity of money, as if money were a commodity that had to be mined, as if it were a commodity that you might be lucky to find or you might not be lucky to find. But most of the countries in Europe, certainly some of the biggest, have been able to discover that there is no such thing as a shortage of money, and all our difficulties in this country come back to the one basic fact, that, because of our adherence to our present financial methods, we have tens of thousands of people idle, tens of thousands of people available to do work, the work available to be done, yet no means of linking them together. I suggest that the Taoiseach, notwithstanding what I fear is a deep-rooted prejudice against interfering with our present financial methods——
I have no prejudice at all.
——should realise that there is a necessity for an examination of the problem by others than those who live on selling money.
Hear, hear! I agree.
I think that if the Taoiseach will just look around the world, in fact in company with the London Times, he might be able to discover that the money which up to the present has proved to be such an obstacle to the provision of employment for our people is not really as hard to get as the money-changers would have us believe.
That has not been our real difficulty up to the present.
Well, I do not know then what has delayed the implementation of the famous plan. But, of course, everybody knows that our financial methods are probably the most conservative in Europe, much more conservative than the financial methods of the neighbour that we copy, the neighbour at whose financial shrine we worship, because even that neighbour has been compelled long since to abandon her conceptions of orthodox finance as understood in the financial circles of that country. But we continue to follow those methods slavishly —the Taoiseach will not deny that.
When banks issue pound notes in this country they back the note issue with British securities, and British securities mean to-day as they always meant—but they mean it more so to-day—what Britain owes, not what Britain has. You could buy 3 per cent. British victory bonds, £100 worth of them, and put the £100 worth of British victory bonds or defence bonds or any other type of British Government bonds you like in against the issue of £100 worth of Irish bank notes. That is the guarantee, the anchorage, for our £100 note issue.
British securities mean, not what Britain has, but what Britain owes, maybe to Britons, but also maybe to anybody in any part of the world. These bonds at one time had a very considerable value. They may have that value even to-day, but what does it avail us? If, at the end of this war, Britain happens to lose, we may find our note issue backed by bonds which maybe as useless as the German mark and the Austrian crown were after the last war. But Britain now, though it was once the citadel of orthodox finance, does not believe in even backing her own notes with anybody else's securities. Britain is now diluting her note cover, and has been for a considerable period. Britain is to-day issuing credit upon credit, and the only backing the credits have is in the nature of bombing planes, guns and fighter planes.
If you take up even a respectable British daily paper you will find many financial editors, by the sheer logic of events, being compelled to admit that the system of backing note issue by the rarest commodity in the world, gold, probably has not as much to commend it as backing notes by the more creative security, labour. Recently the London Times wrote an article on the subject of how other European countries were dealing with the problem and, with the indulgence of the House, I will quote the article, because it is a most instructive one. The leading article in the London Times on the 12th October said:
"Many people have been puzzled to understand how the Nazi Government, succeeding to a bankrupt German treasury, have been able, without any noticeable damage to the internal value of the currency, to set to work millions of unemployed and to build up armaments and reserves of war material on a colossal scale, besides carrying out a grandiose programme of public works.
"The achievement has been so surprising that for a long time outside critics were inclined to regard it as a case of optical delusion, the result of conjuring tricks by Dr. Schacht which would fade away to give place to another collapse.... As time went on, and these expectations, like similar predictions in the case of Russia, obstinately refused to be realised, opinion began to swing to the opposite extreme. An uneasy suspicion became current that the Nazis had discovered ways of making something out of nothing and that the rest of the world would do well to imitate them.... It is of course absurd to belittle what has been done in Germany. There is nothing ‘fictitious'... about the enormous increase both in production and in productive capacity or, as we know to our cost, about German armaments and reserves of war supplies. In military matters up to some months ago the French General Staff enjoyed a prestige similar to that of our own authorities in finance and business. They, and the whole Allied cause along with them, have paid a cruel penalty for their failure to adjust their thinking to the changed conditions. A hide-bound persistence in methods and doctrines which were sound enough 50 years ago may easily prove as costly in the financial and economic field as in the field of actual war."
Here is a declaration from a paper which always adopted an attitude of conservatism in financial matters, and always had a hide-bound conservative financial outlook, but the logic of events has apparently forced that paper, which was able to buy into its service the best orthodox financial minds in Britain, to realise that, in the changed circumstances, changed financial policies might be necessary. The Times is compelled to admit in the long run that the outlook on financial matters in Britain may be based on the same kind of unjustifiable enthusiasm as characterised the outlook of military folk throughout the world on the French General Staff. I think the Taoiseach will have to realise here, as other countries have had to realise in their own sphere, that in these days much can be said for an examination of a currency and credit policy, based upon labour content rather than upon anchorage to gold or anchorage to securities of doubtful value.
I think a committee of the kind which we have in mind is one which might very well examine that question, from the standpoint of utilising our financial and credit resources and our labour power for the purpose of transforming our present economic system. If other countries can, as I have said, anchor their note issue to armaments, to fighting and bombing planes, is there any reason why we ought not to anchor our financial methods and our credit system to the sound anchorage of reproductive work? The whole question of unemployment, whether in the field of industry or agriculture, is closely related to the problem of finance. It is because of that close relationship that I make these remarks on the subject of our present financial methods. I do suggest to the Government that there is necessity for a close and sympathetic examination of the whole question of our financial methods in relation to our economic necessities with a view to making our financial methods serve the best interests of the nation in the economic sphere.
I observe from the amendment submitted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he is apparently prepared to offer the House a commission to examine the whole question of unemployment.So far as the Minister has been induced to make even that move, it is all to the good, but I am rather suspicious about the kind of commission which the Minister has in mind. I do not want this commission to be another banking commission, or another transport commission which will sit for years. We may be told at the end of a prolonged period that it is not possible to issue the report until it has been considered by the Government and the various public departments affected. The problem of unemployment, and the evils which flow from it, will not brook that kind of delay. In our motion we sought the establishment of a representative committee to deal with an urgent problem in an urgent way, and we asked that the commission should be required to report within six months. I fear the commission which the Minister has in mind will be charged with no such urgent task, that it will do its work in the leisurely way in which Government commissions usually function, that it will present a report some years hence, and that we shall spend another prolonged period examining the report, while in the meantime the victims of unemployment will have to suffer their hardships as gaily as they can.
This whole problem of unemployment is an urgent question and a solution of it is imperative. It will not be dealt with effectively by a leisurely committee, meeting periodically and occupying years in an examination of a problem that will not permit of that long delay. If this problem is to be solved it must be tackled vigorously, it must be tackled comprehensively and it must be tackled by minds which are not anchored to the traditions of the past but rather have gained by experience from the mistakes of the past. If we attempt a speedy survey of the problem and the submission of proposals to deal with it, then I think we can save an ever-increasing number of people in this country from the destitution which is staring them in the face. We can offer them a hope of work, a hope of economic security. We can offer them an opportunity of providing for their needs such as is nominally guaranteed to them in the Constitution.
As I said at the outset, I move this motion not in any Party or partisan way. I am concerned only with an endeavour to find a solution of the problem in the speediest possible way. It is in that spirit I offer it to the House. I hope, when the Minister comes to tell us about the commission that he proposes to establish, that he will be able to say that the commission will be charged with the responsibility of applying itself vigorously and speedily to the problem of unemployment so that we can have the proposals of the commission within a reasonably short time, that just as the nation can unite in the face of external danger so also will it be able to unite in eliminating the misery and destitution which tens of thousands of our people endure, thus revealing a ray of hope which has been too long absent from the lives of many of them.
I formally second the motion.
I move the amendment to the motion:—
To delete all the words after the word "that" where it first appears and substitute therefor the following:—
A commission should be appointed to inquire into and report upon the extent, cause, incidence, general character and other aspects of unemployment, and to make proposals in relation thereto. Dáil Eireann requests the Government to appoint such a commission.
We have put down this amendment in exactly the same spirit as Deputy Norton has addressed himself to the motion here this evening, that is, with a desire to take this important matter of unemployment, as far as it can be done, out of the regions of partisanship and political exploitation. We have done that because we are satisfied that the more public attention is devoted to this problem, the more we can have an impartial investigation of it, the more it will be clear that it cannot be solved by any of the facile methods which are so often advocated from Party political platforms.
In speaking to my amendment and, naturally, to the resolution which is before the House, I am somewhat at a disadvantage; a disadvantage which has been created by the speech of Deputy Norton, because, whether for good or ill, in discussions here, or indeed in discussions upon any subject, I try, or without even trying, I involuntarily do stick as closely as possible to the ostensible object of the subject of the debate. The subject which was proposed for our consideration is set out here in the terms of the motion. Now it may have been that Deputy Norton's treatment of his resolution was somewhat altered by the fact that we have thought it advisable in the public interest to accept the principle of a commission of inquiry into the problem of unemployment.We, therefore, had perhaps a less closely knit argument in favour of the resolution than otherwise we should have had. The Deputy covered a wide field. Some of the statements which he made in the course of his speech rather exemplify the complexity of this particular problem and the variety of the methods which are proposed for its amelioration. Not all of these remedies are consistent with each other. Some of the suggested remedies, I think, would be more likely to intensify the problem and the evil than to ease it.
But there are some points in Deputy Norton's speech which I think should be challenged and can be disproved by actual facts. He has implied that there has been a neglect upon the part of the Administration to provide, where possible, employment for our people by the development of our natural resources. In that connection, he mentioned particularly the scope which this country afforded for afforestation. I think that a reference to the Estimates and Appropriation Accounts of this State over the past eight years—and I do not wish, by referring to that period, to decry at all what was done under the preceding Administration; I mention it because it is the period for which this Government had particular responsibility— and a reference to the money that has been spent and to the area that has been planted, if we consider them rationally and reasonably and coolly, will show that a very great advance has been made in the development of the forestry industry in this country.
Now I know there are people who would say: "Take all the mountain sides and plant them," and I know that there are others who would say: "Take all the land that appears to be waste and plant it, so that we shall have within a short period the country covered by trees. We have endeavoured to formulate a programme which will ultimately result, in as speedy a time as possible, in all the land in this country that is available for forestry being applied to that purpose.That has been our objective. In seeking to realise that objective, we have sought the most skilful advice available to us, not merely in this country but in Europe. When we were launching the forestry programme we searched the world to get the best available scientific and practical advice as to the lines upon which we ought to proceed. Those who were in charge of forestry knew that, if we could get a well-conceived plan backed by men of experience, by men who could not merely talk about forestry, who could not merely be eloquent about trees, but who had planted trees and had managed forests and whose efforts in other countries had been crowned with practical success, men in whom we could have confidence, money, at any rate, was not going to stand in the way of its development.
When both those of us who are laymen and know little about this matter, and those of us who have some knowledge of it, began to discuss it with people who had been chosen because of their expertness in regard to it, we found that we had to proceed upon an orderly basis, that progress at the beginning was bound to be slow, but that it would be ever accelerating. I say that the extent to which we have already put land in this country under timber is a practical demonstration of the fact that, if a solution for unemployment were to be found in the wider afforestation of the country, we, at any rate, were not prepared to baulk at that. But trees take time to mature and so does a forestry programme. Land is not easy to get in this country for forestry because men who have land and are making a living out of it, and whose opinion upon this matter is perhaps entitled to as much weight as the opinion of any publicist, consider that the land would be as productive to them and to the nation if it were utilised for the ordinary purposes of agriculture rather than for afforestation purposes. No matter where you go in this country you will find, in relation to that matter, an unwillingness to surrender soil. So that you had on the one hand the situation that our skilled advisers—and I think that their opinion counts in this matter for as much as the opinion of any other man —laid down an orderly programme which they said we could undertake, which they said we could carry out, and which they said would lead ultimately to success, and against that we had the necessity to convince our own people and to satisfy ourselves that land which was already being used for the purpose of maintaining this population in one way could be more usefully devoted to another purpose. I think, therefore, that neither Deputy Norton nor any other person who is concerned with unemployment in this country can justify the allegation that we have been slow or neglectful in endeavouring to find employment for our people in the afforestation of our country.
Again, the Deputy has suggested that there has been some remissness on our part in developing the minerals of this country. The mineral resources of the Twenty-Six Counties have been under continuous survey for many years past. In many cases, they have been intensively investigated within the past eight or ten years. They are by no means, in my view, as extensive as is popularly believed.They are not, by modern standards, rich. Over a prolonged period of time they could only have been developed by withdrawing from other productive uses capital which was much more profitably employed in providing work for our people. For many of these substances which we have there is no market available in this State. For many of the substances which we have we could not possibly have developed a means of utilising them in this country upon any economic basis, not even upon the basis of forced labour. This situation may change; with the inflation of costs elsewhere we may be able, if time permits, to develop some of these mineral resources, the products of some of which would have to be disposed of outside this State. Others of them we have long intended to develop for our own use. There were difficulties in the way. We found our existing legislation unsatisfactory. We were uncertain as to the extent of these resources, but in regard to some of them, particularly those which would make up for our fuel deficiencies, we hope to come to the Dáil in the near future and ask the Dáil to give us the financial authority necessary to exploit and to utilise these particular deposits.
If we have not come to the Dáil before this, it is because these are matters that require a good deal of careful investigation before we can commit ourselves to a particular line of development. Last night I was responsible for asking the Dáil to make it clear beyond doubt that the Electricity Supply Board had power to erect a peat fuel generating station at Portarlington. In the Second Reading upon the particular Bill concerned with that matter I set out the full position in regard to the development of the Clonsast Bog. What was the principal criticism that I had to face in that debate? It was this: That a certain experiment in the utilisation of peat had been undertaken—it had been undertaken, so far as we could ensure it, under competent auspices by firms of international reputation, by people who were supposed to be experts in the particular process which was adopted—and that, unfortunately, the experiment did not turn out successfully—that it did not justify itself, I was going to say—but, if only to prove that the method was wrong, that it was merely a will-o'-the-wisp like so many other suggestions thrown out from time to time for the development of our natural resources, that it was going to lead us astray and was a waste of national energy and national resources, I think we were justified in undertaking that experiment. If it had been a success, a great many of our problems would have been solved. At any rate, it was undertaken and a large amount of public money was lost. What was the result? When I came here again with another proposal, to try to develop the peat resources of the country, which would give a great deal more employment than the afforestation of the land or the development of most of our minerals, the big criticism which I had to meet, the argument which was launched against us, was the fact that one experiment had gone wrong and that money had been lost.
I am only adducing that to show that before the Government can make itself responsible for any large-scale project, no matter how attractive it might appear from the point of view of employment, and from the point of view of self-sufficiency, it should very carefully consider whether the proposal is a practical one or not. Therefore, I do not make an apology for the fact that in relation to the development of some of our fuel resources, we have had to give a great deal of consideration as to how we would proceed and whether we would proceed at all or not. The ordinary investigations which take place, the pioneer work which has to be gone through quietly, take a great deal of time, and even then it is sometimes difficult, as a result of the reports which one receives, to make up one's mind whether we should go ahead with a project or not. Again, bearing in mind the scantiness of our mineral resources and the legislative obstacles in our way; bearing in mind the fact that we have already had many surveys of this country, no one can say, that if the problem of providing employment could be solved by the development of our mineral resources, we have been reluctant or even negligent in exploring that possibility.
Again, Deputy Norton suggested what I do not think is a fact. He said that in his view there had been no increase in agricultural productivity for a considerable number of years. If he means that the extent to which land is under cultivation in this country is, perhaps, not very greatly in excess of what it was some years ago, he might be right, but that simply ignores the fact that heavier crops have been taken off the land, and that agriculture has become more technically efficient, and does not require a larger area to produce more. But let us assume that Deputy Norton's contention is right. I think it was not sufficient to state that contention. In a debate of this sort, where we are supposed to be dealing with employment in a practical way, and where undoubtedly he is concerned with the problem, he might have stated in broad lines what remedy he would propose for the situation. For a considerable number of years we have been dependent upon others to consume the greater part of our agricultural products. If they are unwilling or unable to buy our agricultural produce, can the Deputy suggest why we should increase agricultural production if, in fact, we cannot find a market for it? Can he suggest how we can get a wider market for this expanding agricultural production which he thinks the Government has somehow failed to secure? If we are selling in an external market we have to sell there in competition with others. If we are going to get increased production here, quite obviously it must be production which is going to be profitable to the producers.
What about the unemployed?
That is like the idea of feeding the camel on his own hump.
That is your whole outlook.
I have not forgotten that the Deputy was talking about what is in the pool. Let us assume that we are proceeding upon this basis, that if a man is going to produce, so far as is known at the moment, the sole incentive he has is that he knows whatever he produces he will be able to dispose of it at a price which he regards as being satisfactory. There might be some other way to make the productive mechanism work—I do not know of it. If the Deputy knows it I suggest he ought to have told the House, and allowed those who might be a little sceptical to brood upon it. Self-sufficiency never meant that we should consume here all we produce. What we mean is that we should produce enough for ourselves and export the surplus, because it is quite clear, judged by any ordinary European standard, that with our population and our country we could produce very much more food than we would be able to consume ourselves. Getting back to the point which I was putting to Deputy Norton, that if our producers are to expand their production they must be satisfied that they are going to be able to produce profitably——
What about the vaunted value of the home market? I think it is still a good market.
I think it is still a very good market, but I want to know how the Deputy would propose to stimulate that market. I gathered that the Deputy has some proposal for that, and that, as he said, it was that we should give to the people who are not producing and to all others who are denied, perhaps, the opportunity of productive employment, a share in the pool. Very well, there are, according to the Deputy, 107,000 people on the unemployment register. The figure is a slight understatement; there, are 109,000. However, of those 109,000, 42,000 are people who have come on the unemployment register since the 31st October—people who live in country districts, many of them land holders. I suppose, if there were that strong urge to produce, which Deputy Norton suggests there would be in this country if we could only properly stimulate it, they would begin by producing enough food for themselves, and they were encouraged to produce sufficient for their own maintenance, at any rate.
They are further put in a position to consume the products of other people's activity by securing unemployment assistance; but the fact that they do get unemployment assistance upon its present scale, or upon any other scale which would satisfy the demands of the Deputy, does not mean that there would be, on the whole, an increase in the general volume of consumption. There may be a fairer distribution of consumption as between all the elements of the population but, if you take away from one end of the scale to give to people at the other end, you are certainly not going to allow the purchasing power at the top end of the scale to remain undiminished.All these simple remedies that the Deputy has suggested—and which he thinks can readily be applied, if only there were in power in this State a Government prepared to accept them at his value of their efficacy— are not a solution for this problem.
Then, the Deputy has suggested that one of the reasons for the gravity of this problem is the fact that our currency notes are backed by British bonds, and our adherence to present financial methods. I do not know that the fact that other States in Europe have not adhered to our financial methods has been productive of any very great good for humanity in general. I suppose it is inadvisable to particularise, but there are States in Europe—or perhaps it would be more correct to say, there were States in Europe— whose leading and most influential politicians had exactly the same outlook upon this problem as Deputy Norton has, and who had exactly the same solution for it. That did not save them, either from the evils of unemployment or from the worse evils which have befallen them.
It used to be the common cant: "the bank of this country, the bank of that country, the makers of credit are controlling the State; if only we could get somebody to stand up to its evil agencies, there would be an end to unemployment in our particular country, and there would be prosperity and happiness for us all." It was tried in some countries, and the ultimate result was to bankrupt the treasury and overthrow the nation and the State. I am not saying that there is any virtue in this or that particular financial system; I am saying that there is a great deal of virtue, in these matters, in being prudent. We do not need to be very great economists, nor even to be expert bankers, to realise that if your productive processes depend for their financing upon the fact that people make savings, that men are prepared to deny themselves a temporary pleasure in order to have some security and some assurance for the future. The moment you begin to embark upon courses which, to their minds, endanger those savings, the whole basis of your productive structure begins to fall away.
We have seen in other countries lavish expenditure, unjustifiable expenditure, optimistic expenditure upon this and that sort of undertaking, and all the time we have seen the standard of value in those countries gradually decline in terms of real value, until ultimately everything that the worker had saved, everything that he had got together by self denial and self discipline disappeared, and with it disappeared the character of the people.
We may have the same here yet.
I do not think so, not if we remember that there is no facile solution for this problem and that it is not going to be solved by the printing of more paper, but by the provision, if we can get it, of more productive work.
Hear, hear. Now you are talking.
Again, on this aspect of the present situation, the Deputy suggested that some part of our ills arose from the fact that—to use his own expression, without adopting it as my own or accepting for a moment that it describes the true situation— our currency notes were backed by British bonds; and then he suggested what would happen if Britain were defeated and these notes were valueless.So far as our currency notes are concerned, and so far as the internal resources of our people are concerned, nothing would happen. At the moment a great deal might happen if, by reason of that collapse, we were to lose one of the principal sources of our income in the form of a good customer on the other side of the water, but if to-morrow the securities in the Legal Tender Note Fund were to be written down as worthless, the only thing would be a loss of a few million pounds to the Currency Commission. The general economic structure would not be changed one iota, provided that our industry and British industry still remained in production.
Where are the frozen credits?
The Deputy quite forgets that, so far as the currency issue is concerned, the only thing that is done by the device of having our currency backed by legal tender is to ensure that, when an Irish farmer sells to an English buyer, both buyer and seller are talking in terms of the same real value. Each knows what is in the other's mind, and there is no doubt about the terms of the contract.
The Dane can manage to do the same on a different basis.
I should like the Deputy, in that connection, just to read some of the studies which have been made of Denmark over the past eight or nine years, and I think that, when he has read them, he will decide that he would not change the position of the Irish farmer for the position of the Dane.
And vice versa with the Dane.
As I say, that is beside the issue. I am sorry, Sir, if I have had to digress a bit, but it seems to me, though I would not say that Deputy Norton's speech was not germane to the motion, it did not adhere as strictly to the terms of the motion as I should have liked. I had intended, if he had made a different sort of speech, to point out that this unemployment problem is not capable of a facile solution. I do not think it is in the power of any body of men, no matter how expeditiously, how enthusiastically and zealously they tackled the problem, to produce a solution for it in six months, and certainly not a solution upon the lines suggested in the motion. If this evil could be cured by a number of human beings taking counsel together for six months I do not think the problem would exist in the world to-day. But it cannot be solved thus, because the causes of unemployment are, as must be well known to any person who has practical experience of the way the world works, diverse, and, as I have said, are very complex. You have seasonal employment, you have unemployment which arises out of a shortage of materials, you have unemployment which arises out of accidents, out of vicissitudes, and out of the ordinary necessities, sometimes out of accountancy.You have unemployment which arises in those classes which normally meet the casual demands of industry: those who are employed as dockers, and of others who are employed in transport undertakings. Over and above all these you have fluctuations in employment which arise from fluctuations in demand and from a change in the public taste. Take one instance. You have unemployment in the linen trade because people are turning more and more to articles made of what is known as artificial silk fibre for the purposes of adornment. You have unemployment growing even within the ranks of one particular industry.You have unemployment increasing, perhaps, in tobacco factories which cater for the pipe smoker, and employment increasing in the other end of the scale, in factories which cater for the cigarette smoker. You have unemployment even in various types of amusement.You have employment in the variety theatre going down and in the cinema going up. This all shows that this is not a simple thing that can be solved in the way that is suggested here—at least I do not think it can—and certainly not solved after six months' consideration so as to provide "for the absorption in useful employment at adequate remuneration of all workers able to follow useful occupations".
I am not going, in that connection, to do more than mention this fact, that the motion assumes that every person who is on the unemployment register is in need of work. It certainly assumes that all of them want work and that all of them are able to work. It does assume that, and I suppose its sponsors would say this: that the commission would be bound to recommend, say, useful employment for persons who were in any way physically deformed or physically deficient. That would not be an easy job. It would be very difficult to find out what would be the standard of adequate remuneration in that case. Would you pay a person, say, of sub-normal intelligence the same remuneration as you would pay to a person of the most acute intelligence?
It would be, accordingly, quite impossible, I think, for the Government to accept this motion. I have mentioned the terms of it for this reason: that if the Dáil were to accept it, and if the Government acquiesced in that acceptance, the Government would be bound by the precise terms of the motion.It was because it could not accept the motion in its present form that this amendment was put down with the idea—which apparently was also in the minds of Deputy Norton and of his colleagues—that we should get a representative and authoritative inquiry undertaken by a body in whom there would be general public confidence, a body which, if we can get it, would lift this question out of the arena of political controversy. It may not be possible so to lift it. When we get the report there may be differences of opinion about the merits of the report and of the recommendations which may be made in it. But, if this commission is set up and if I have any responsibility for it, it will be set up with the bona fide idea of having this matter authoritatively investigated, of setting before the public, the House and the Legislature all the facts that can be ascertained, and of getting, as well as that, the recommendations which a body of responsible, authoritative people feel they can make upon the facts, as they have been disclosed to them, and the facts as they have been able to ascertain them as a result of that investigation. I am not going to bind myself to any time or to bind them to work within any time limit. I think we can get men who will approach this task with devotion, who will not allow time to be frittered away in useless discussions, but who will endeavour to get at the root of the matter so far as it is possible for human minds to do that, and come to the Dáil, to the Oireachtas and to the country with well-considered proposals which we, in turn, should examine, and if, in the common wisdom of us all, we find them to be feasible would adopt and give effect to.
Having had occasion on the previous motion to take the Minister to task for his approach to that motion, I should like now to compliment him on his attitude to this motion. I do not say that I find myself in agreement with everything the Minister has said, but he did approach it, and the problem contained in it and in the resolution, in a serious and constructive way. I find myself in rather a difficulty regarding both the motion and the amendment. First of all, I have to ask myself why the Government, having regard to world conditions since the outbreak of the war and what they are likely to be until the war is ended and even for a considerable time after, should choose this particular time to set up a commission to enquire into this whole question of unemployment and its solution. I agree absolutely with one thing the Minister said. This, he said, is not a simple thing. Some of us have always said that we have never blinked the fact that it was one of the most difficult problems that could face any Government, one that was almost impossible of solution, and certainly very difficult even to relieve. But we have made progress, if only to the extent that the Minister and his colleagues now realise that it is not a simple one.
Let me, however, get back to my difficulty regarding the usefulness of a commission or a committee being set up at the moment, whether its report be received in six months, 12 months or in two years. Up to the date of the outbreak of the war our unemployment problem was largely, if not altogether, a domestic one, to the extent that its solution, or relief, was largely in our own hands, and would be affected only to a certain extent, perhaps to a small extent, by outside influences. The position to-day is completely and absolutely different. It is no longer completely within our own control and, as the war goes on, it will be still less within our power to control it. We have to face this fact, that we are thinking of setting up a commission to inquire into a problem, and into every aspect of that problem, which is changing not only from week to week but from day to day, and to inquire into a problem which, unless we are amazingly fortunate, is going to be added to and increased for every day that the war lasts. Do we not know, for instance, that there are men to-day in this country in comparatively good employment, working under good conditions and, in many industries, in large numbers, who, by the course of events completely outside our control, may be all thrown out of employment next week, next month or in three months' time? Is it not quite on the cards, being determined not by us but by the course of the war, that instead of having 100,000 unemployed, we may have 200,000 unemployed before this time 12 months?
I think I can say that I am probably as anxious to have this matter properly and carefully inquired into and reported upon as anybody else, but I do want seriously to ask the House whether we are doing anything useful in setting up a commission or a committee at this particular moment to inquire into this problem, or whether it would be possible for any such committee or commission, no matter how well intentioned, no matter with what devotion it may approach its task, within six or 12 months to produce a report that will be of any use? Let us assume that it would be possible for a commission or committee to do what the motion asks, to examine this problem in all its bearings and to present a report to the Government within six months. Within one week of the report being presented, world events may take such a course as to make the report almost valueless and change altogether the circumstances and conditions obtaining at the time when the report was drafted and when the evidence upon which it was based was collected.
I seem to be trying to throw cold water on both the motion and the amendment, but if I am, it is not merely for the sake of doing so, but because I realise, as I have always realised, that this is a great problem and a very difficult problem, and because I do not want us here deliberately to fool ourselves into believing that we are doing something practical towards solving or relieving this unemployment problem by setting up a commission in present circumstances. I must confess that I am always very suspicious of commissions. I think that in this House we have some reason for being suspicious because the practice—I do not say that my suspicions are well founded in this case— has been that problems, as soon as they become difficult and troublesome, are referred to a commission. It is a very effective way of gagging the House and preventing any further references, motions or speeches in relation to the problem. We know that problems—I will not say as important as this, but problems of a very grave nature, affecting a great part, if not all, of the country—were referred to commissions two, three, four and five years ago, and that we have never heard of them since.
What I am afraid of, frankly, is that facing the problem as we have to face it as it exists to-day—and with respect to Deputy Norton, I want to say that if the Minister is 100 per cent. genuine, as I believe he is, in this amendment, there is very little practical difference between it and the motion—we have, some of us, become rather tired of continually talking about this problem, year in and year out, and rather tired of reading at this period every year that the registered unemployment number 100,000, 102,000 104,000 or 106,000. We have almost allowed ourselves to become accustomed to it and to look upon that figure as a figure that should be there, as a sort of normal figure, and are inclined to pat ourselves on the back if the figure this week is 106,000 compared with 108,000 or 104,000 for the corresponding week last year.
The Minister dealt very briefly towards the end of his speech with various forms of unemployment, temporary and permanent, and how they arise. That, I say with respect, is very largely what would be known as normal unemployment and displacement.What we are dealing with, and what is our big trouble, is the abnormal unemployment that undoubtedly exists. I frankly confess that I am not in a position to put before the House at this moment, nor am I going to say that I should be able to do it in a month's time, a better way than is suggested on the paper, but I am pointing out to the House the danger of allowing ourselves to be blinded by the idea that "unemployment is all right now as we have referred it to a commission".That would be dangerous enough in normal times, but in a time like this, it is still more dangerous. So far as it is humanly possible to foresee the course of world events— and, God knows, nobody can see them very far ahead—there is no question whatever that every day this war lasts, it is having its effects on the economic life of this as of every other country in the world, and as it goes on, I am afraid it is going to have greater and more progressively bad results for us and is going to affect, in a very distinct and evident way, our whole economy, employment and so on. That is the position as I see it and I doubt if any commission or committee, set up in these circumstances and working with the best will in the world, is going to produce data upon which the Government will be able to act in the conditions which may obtain in six, 12 or 18 months' time.
I intend to support the motion. As I see it, the fundamental difference between it and the amendment is that whereas the motion fixes a definite time limit within which the Government must provide some form of solution of this problem, the amendment shelves the entire question by turning it over to a commission. I do not think the Government can have any great faith in the provision by a commission of a solution of this problem, when we realise that a commission set up a short time ago to deal with agriculture, the main industry of the country, has been discontinued by, I suppose, its own decision or the decision of the Government. It has certainly been suspended for the duration of the emergency and, therefore, it seems to me that a commission such as this cannot do any better than the Commission on Agriculture, because I believe that the Commission on Agriculture would, in the ordinary course of events, have to deal with the same problems as those with which this commission is intended to deal.
In the motion before the House it is intended to fix a definite time-limit and that time-limit would be, at least, a source of worry to our Government and cause them to devote more attention to this problem during the six months allowed. The Minister, I agree, approached this problem in a serious manner and made a fairly plausible case for the amendment, up to a certain point. In so far as he dealt with afforestation, I should be inclined to agree with him because I come from a county in which afforestation has been tried out and I know the difficulties with which a Government department has to contend. I know that this problem is not a simple one, that the acquisition of land is not a simple process and that it is not at all certain that the type of land which would be devoted to afforestation would give a bigger return under timber than it would by grazing, as at present.
Regarding mineral development, I am sure there are also grave difficulties.I do not think, however, that all the difficulties in regard to peat-development have been properly faced up to by the present Government. I know that, so far as peat-development by the ordinary small holders in my constituency is concerned, the problem has not been faced up to by the Government.I know that a number of unemployed men who undertook the winning and drying of peat have found, after months of this work, that their produce is unsaleable. That position should not have been allowed to arise. When unemployed men go to work on their own initiative and provide fuel, which is a very useful commodity, for the community in general, if there is not other means of disposing of such produce, the State should come in and assure them a market. If they did that, I am sure peat-development by the small holders and by the unemployed generally would be intensified in the coming years.
When the Minister reached the question of food production, I think he was not on as sound a footing as he was in regard to the other suggested developments. He said there was no market for increased food supplies but it should be apparent to him at once that if all the unemployed were in full employment, there would be an increased market within this country for an increased food supply. He does not seem to realise how important that market might be. Because he did not face up to that, I believe there was a weakness in his argument. Land is, and will always remain, the biggest source of employment in this country.
When we realise the number of agricultural holdings we have, when we realise the number of people who have managed to live, in some way, on small holdings, and when we realise how little employment there is on other holdings—employment which could be increased if some profitable means of marketing the produce were provided —then we must realise that there is an opportunity of solving the unemployment problem, to a great extent, through the increased development of the agricultural industry. If, for example, on 100,000 agricultural holdings, one additional man were employed, you would have the unemployment problem practically solved. Because of that fact, it ought to be apparent to the Government that agriculture offers the main solution of the unemployment problem.
We are taxing the agricultural population and the community in general to maintain not only the 100,000 people who are at present unemployed but also to provide other forms of relief, such as home assistance, free medical attendance and the other aids required by impoverished people. If these people were in a position of independence, as they would be if they had permanent employment, then the agricultural industry would be relieved of a heavy load. Therefore, I say that it is in directing the unemployed members of our community into productive work on the land that the solution of this problem will be found. One step in the direction of solving the problem would be to ensure that no unemployed man, either in town or country, would be without an allotment for the coming year. That would help in some measure to increase production. I know that an attempt has been made this year to assist agriculture and to relieve unemployment in a small way by providing grants for land improvement. The unfortunate thing is that the ordinary man whose land requires improvement in this manner has not the necessary capital to avail of such grants. For that reason, I believe that this scheme of land improvement should be assisted by loans to cover the half-cost of the scheme which the farmer is expected to bear. I agree with this motion inasmuch as it would make the problem of unemployment more urgent to the Government and would compel them, if passed, to concentrate all the brains and all the intelligence which they can mobilise upon the solution of that problem.
Deputy Morrissey has wondered whether the present time is a good time for setting up a commission of this sort. Naturally, that occurred to us too. There is no doubt that there are features about the present unemployment which may not be lasting, but on the other hand there are certain features of our whole unemployment problem which will, I fear, remain, and which will need a solution, and it is very much better that those aspects should be considered now so that measures might be taken as speedily as possible both to relieve the situation in the present circumstances and also to meet those very difficult days, which will be just as difficult from that point of view, when this war is over. On the whole then we think it is advisable, if an investigation of this sort is to be made, that it should be made as quickly as possible. Now, I must confess at the start that I have very grave doubts that any investigation which is likely to be made is going to provide us with a solution. What it will provide, I hope, is an authoritative account to which we can point as having been given by a party or by a body which will have examined the question scientifically with no other aim but to present the facts truly, and if possible to indicate remedies.
No matter how we may appear to differ by our arguments and discussions here, there is a great deal of common ground in this House with regard to the whole question of unemployment. We differ as to the practicability of certain remedies that are suggested, but fundamentally there is very little difference between us on the nature of unemployment and our duty in as far as possible to find a remedy. Deputy Norton spoke somewhat slightingly, unnecessarily so, it seemed to me, of the Article of the Constitution which deals with this particular matter. I think it is a very good thing for all Parties here and for the country as a whole to know that there are certain principles which have been accepted as guiding principles for our efforts in this direction. There is no question, there can be no question here, that our aim, the aim of State policy in economic matters, must be the welfare of the whole community. There is no question of difference between us, if we accept the general principles of the Constitution, that the aim should be so to provide, so to order things in so far as we can order them, that the individual may, through his occupation, that is through the services which he is prepared to render to the community as a whole, find the means of livelihood the means of meeting his domestic needs. That is taken as fundamental and in any differences here we are not questioning that. What we do question from time to time is whether or not a particular proposal will help more to put us into that position. We differ from time to time with regard to those proposals and as to their results.
Money has been mentioned here. We have put our position in regard to credit beyond even the possibility of dispute in our acceptance of the guiding principles of the Constitution by saying that in all matters which appertain to the control of credit the dominating matter must be the welfare of the community as a whole. I think that instead of talking slightingly of those principles we ought from time to time to appeal to them, and if they are appealed to at all, or mentioned at all by way of criticism, they ought to be mentioned by way of criticism of a particular administration that has failed in some particular way in regard to trying to give effect to those principles.Now, I have no doubt Deputy Norton would say that that is precisely the way in which he wanted to refer to this, and to state that we, who accepted those principles in the Constitution, are failing to live up to them. Well, if we have failed to live up to them it is due to the fact that we have not been able to get to the point at which those aims are secured. It has not been through complacency on our part, or neglect of those principles. Personally, I hold those principles as strongly now as I did when I was introducing the draft Constitution here in the Dáil, and I believe, notwithstanding the differences of opinion, that we all hold those principles. If it can be shown that in any particular way we could have taken action to make those principles good, and have not done it, then we are blameworthy, and we have to face any blame that attaches to us on that account, but I certainly am not conscious that the Government has failed to strive to get a solution of this.
Deputy Morrissey, I must admit, touched it only very slightly, but there were times at which we could expect that we would be reminded of our attitude towards unemployment before we came into office. I did say and believe that because we had relatively undeveloped industries in this country we had a solution for unemployment which was not available to countries that had all their industries advanced to producing more than they required themselves. I remember a time when there was some figure like 80,000, and I was able to show by calculation from the figures which we had in regard to the manufacture of boots, woollens, and industries of various kinds, that if we could exclude any foreign competition, certainly during the period when the industries were being built up, we could put roughly that number of people into employment in those industries. We proceeded along that line, and the fact is that there are in those industries, in the industries that have been established, very roughly the number that was mentioned at that particular time. If we try to examine this whole question, examine it carefully, calmly and dispassionately, without any effort to make capital for a particular view, but just examine it from the point of view of getting at the truth and getting at the best possible remedy, we will very soon convince ourselves that, with the resources which we have and making the fullest possible use of those resources, there will still be left a considerable quantity of things which we must import from outside if we are going to have here a standard of living comparable to that in adjacent countries.
I believe that the more we try to develop our own resources and use all the available man power and all the available capital to do it the more are we likely to lighten our unemployment problem. That is disputed, but we, at any rate, have proceeded along that line. But even straining that policy to a point at which it becomes almost patent that we are not going to improve the general standard, that is pushing that policy to an extreme—and we never intended that it should be pushed to an extreme—you find that there is still a considerable quantity of goods which we must get from outside. Of course, if we get them from outside, if we neglect for the moment the credits which we have got—and they are considerable, I admit—and if in the long run we want not to diminish our general wealth but to increase it, we must be able to export sufficient to purchase these commodities. Now, what are we to export? The moment we study that question we naturally think of the industry which we have used for our exports in the past. There is no doubt that we can produce from our land a great deal more than is necessary to feed our whole community, including the unemployed, and that really it is our principal industry, the one which by nature is most fitted to be used to get the surplus for export which is necessary. The Minister for Industry and Commerce spoke a short time ago. Deputy Norton said it revealed his whole mind. If he meant by that that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is no believer in an attempt to produce here everything that it is reasonably possible to produce, I think he is wronging him. What was clearly intended by him was to state that if we have not everything— and we have not—we must purchase those goods outside. There are certain things for which we could get substitutes, but it would be extremely difficult to get our people to take those substitutes.
The Minister's point was, what was the use of producing more if you had to sell it in a foreign market at world prices. My point was, why not sell to our own unemployed.
I did not say: what was the use of producing more.
Is it not obvious, if we want to feed our unemployed, to feed all our people, employed and unemployed, and seeing that we can do that from the produce of our land, that ought to be the first purpose of our land—to produce food? But if it is also to be the means by which we are to purchase from outside the things that we want it is obvious that we ought to try to increase that unless, as it has frequently happened, the conditions are such that even when you increase production, on account of the limited demand there may be in the market, you do not get more for your produce. But, ordinarily, we ought to try to develop our agriculture and to get the greatest possible amount from the land and, of course, if we are able to improve methods of production we will be able, so to speak, to lessen costs. In any case, if we are going to get things from outside—and I think everybody will admit that an astonishingly large proportion of things has to be got from outside if our present tastes continue and if we want to have here the same standards as they have in other countries—we will have to produce other things for export. Unfortunately, we have not petrol here, and it is difficult to get substitutes for it. If we want to get the petrol which will enable us to have the conveniences that the motor-car affords, if we want to have tea, we will have to produce other things to export so as to buy these. That is so simple that everybody agrees with it. There is no need to make this as an argument; it is only just to point out its importance in the whole thing. We have, therefore, to ask ourselves the question, what are we going to produce from? Clearly from the land. Can we get into motor-car production? If we do, we will have to remember, to start with, that we have a limited market here at home and that we would have to work much harder and be more efficient than they are in other countries, where they have an immediate market in their own country which they can protect and look after. They have the basal big market of their own, and in the case of the export market they can sell relatively much cheaper than we could with a small home market. Although I think it would be a great mistake for us to lose sight of the possibilities of other industrial products being exported—I think in fact we have to try to do it—if we are going to be successful we must remember that we would have to put a great deal of labour into it; we would have to try to organise ourselves to be more efficient than they are elsewhere. That is not going to be an easy task.
With regard to what the Deputy said that there are obvious ways in which we can employ our idle people in capital reproductive works, I have been, I admit, searching for these. If we could find them they, in addition to the ordinary industries producing the consumable commodities from day to day, would be invaluable, but I am afraid when you search you will discover you are not going to find very much. Some have been indicated by the Deputy. There is the old question of afforestation. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has already dealt with that and pointed out that we did not approach that problem from any conservative point of view. We tried to get the best expert advice we could, and I can say to the House that I have pushed successive Ministers to the point at which they practically went beyond anything that their Departments were prepared to agree to in order to push that programme. The latest I have heard from it is that in their opinion a programme of 10,000 acres a year is as much as can be handled economically and in the general interests. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has pointed out the difficulty that there is in securing land. Suppose we say that the agricultural land we have in the country ought to be put out of production of, say, cattle and any other agricultural commodities which we are exporting at present and they say to us: "But for that you have a very good external market; it is not going to be profitable to put the rest of the land under trees", you see what a social revolution would be required to do that unless you were to get each particular farmer to take a portion of his own farm and to plant it with trees. But no farmer is likely to do that because, unfortunately, the return from the planting of trees does not come for a generation.
We have to live, at least the individual has to live, very much in the present, and it is only the State as a whole that can look after long-term periods such as are required for afforestation. The State is trying, by pushing along the programme I have indicated, to provide for our future needs in regard to timber. It is estimated that the 10,000 acres, when they come in rotation, will supply our requirements.There is no use in having feast and famine. What you want is to have a continual rotation and a continual supply and to secure that a 10,000 acre programme is likely to be sufficient. If we can get the land, and get it planted and do things in a rational way and expand our programme where possible, we are quite willing to do it.
The next thing that was mentioned, I think, was housing. In regard to housing, we certainly cannot be accused of not trying to push the building of houses. You have only to look around or drive in any direction through the country and you will see the results of the work that has been done in regard to housing in the last ten, 15 or 20 years. Whether we talk of the previous Government or ours—I think the figures will show that in our time there has been a considerable increase in the number of houses built— there has been in the minds of those in authority a desire to find satisfactory housing accommodation for our people. I admit that we are far short of what might be considered a satisfactory solution, but there again you come up against the question of what will it amount to, how much you can afford to do, how much is it economical to do? We were building at one time at such a rate that it became questionable whether we were not actually making the production of houses much dearer for the community than it ought to be. I think it will be found in that connection that there is a certain optimum which depends on a number of conditions so far as our country is concerned.
There was at one time a general feeling that to push the building of houses much more rapidly than we were doing would mean sending up the cost and, therefore, we would be getting very much less value than we were getting for the community at the time. But houses have to be built by skilled people, and you cannot turn the whole community into a skilled occupation overnight. I believe that if there was, on the part of all sections of the community, a realisation of the fact that we could develop very much more than we are doing and that there would be no shortage over a long period of years, we would be able to get a better understanding on the part, for instance, of those engaged in the house-building industry, a better understanding of the conditions that are likely to obtain in the future, and a recognition that the sort of fear that this was a flash in the pan, as it were, and would be all over in a year or two, is not well founded. Of course, whilst building houses we have to remember that people have to be fed and clothed and they must get that material from somewhere out of the pool. Somebody in the pool is giving it and, if we are going to keep to our principles of private property and individual rights, then these people ought to get some return.
That brings me immediately to the question of money. If I have made any blunder, it is in regarding money as of very little fundamental importance in relation to economic matters. I probably would be classed by some of the moderns in economics as one of the older school who thought directly in terms of one set of goods and services in relation to another set. There are others who are thinking really of money as fundamental and vital. To me money, in so far as it is of practical value, is simply a means of exchange. There was a certain basis on which we had a standard of value in the old days. There had to be some standard of value and you had an exchange in terms of cows or something else. Money is useful inasmuch as it gives us a standard of value, and when you are exchanging one thing for another you give the value in terms of the common standard.In that way it is valuable to us. It is also useful inasmuch as if I send goods to a person I get a cheque or notes in exchange. Whatever you get you can consider it as a commodity. At the time I get it and when I have it in my hand, although intrinsically it is only a piece of paper, yet inasmuch as it enables me to exchange it for something else I think of it as a common commodity which I use as a means of exchange.
I know that if we are going to build houses the people who build them will have to get some equivalent for their labour; they will have to get something which will enable them to buy clothes and food. The clothes and food come from somewhere else and the people who send us those things are entitled to get back the equivalent of them in some other form. Money does serve that purpose and you cannot very well dispense with it. If we are building houses that means that the builders and contractors and others have to get an equivalent for their efforts and labour. That is a credit on somebody and somebody has to pay it back at some time. The local community had to do it in our case and the stage was reached at which the local community found they were pledging themselves at a far greater rate than they could afford and there was a limit to the amount that could be taken out of the pool. There was a limit to the extent to which we could go on with work of that kind because there was not an immediate return or the prospect of a return within a short time from the individuals who enjoyed the amenities of the houses. In other words, the scheme was not able to give back immediately the amount put into it.
I am anxious that Deputies on the Labour Benches should see that in dealing with this question we have no prejudice with regard to money. We are not thinking simply of those who manage money and deal with money. We are not in any way affected by ideas of their interest. We have no interest but the common good but we realise that what has to be given has to come somewhere out of the pool of production, or out of our past savings, and that there is no place else from which it can be obtained. No matter what you say about public credit, you have ultimately to maintain those people who are at work. It is said that there is a great deal of waste in people being idle. Admitted—a tremendous waste, if you mean by "waste" that we would be much better off if we could put them to productive work; but that is the rub, to find work in which they will put into the pool more than they take out of it. The difficulty is to find exactly the direction in which you will put them to work so that you can get more from the results of their labour than they have consumed in doing the work.
There is another point, that in order to put people to work you have to supply them with materials and if the result of the work is not equivalent to the value of the materials which have been used up—either in the way of instruments or raw material—and the money that has been expended on their maintenance, the question arises whether it is not better for the community just to maintain these people than to put them to work if the results of that work mean that the community is not as a whole enriched. Again, you will find on examination that there are a number of works in respect to which you cannot say that the community is being enriched. Take for instance land reclamation. One of the difficulties about land reclamation is that in our conditions and circumstances it is extremely difficult to prove that the money that is spent—and when I say money I am thinking of the material wealth that is used in the doing of this work—will come back to the community in some form of equivalent value. If not, then what you are doing is really wasting material wealth.
Does that apply to producing coal where it is to be got?
No. I know there are people who would say that if you can get coal from abroad at a cheaper rate than you can produce it at home, and if you can pay for this coal with exports of agricultural produce, it is much better to produce agricultural produce and buy coal from abroad rather than to put people to produce coal at home. There is a difference of view between myself and others who have expressed these ideas from time to time in the House. On general principles, I would rather produce coal at home, even though it could not be proved directly and immediately that it was going to be produced more cheaply than we could buy it abroad, because I believe it would be of more lasting advantage to the country and would give us greater security and independence in times of crisis.
Remember this whole question of free trade and self-development is not a new subject. It is a subject that has been thrashed out in various countries for generations. There are people who hold certain strong views on this matter. They may differ from me but if I had to make a choice I would go further even than the Minister for Industry and Commerce in these matters. Personally I believe you will not get any solution of this problem based on the recommendations of a commission. I do not think a commission will solve it. I believe that a certain amount of risk has to be taken, that what you want is to decide upon policy and to pursue that policy day in, day out. If there are going to be any results from that policy, they will then show themselves but that you can prove absolutely at the start that a particular line is going to be successful, I think is unlikely. In regard to coal, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is pushing ahead as far as he can I have been speaking to him about it and he is pushing ahead with all possible speed to try to develop coal resources where they exist at all or where they hold any chance of being reasonably successful.
Where is he pushing ahead?
I know he mentioned them to me at the time. There are some deposits which we intended to exploit and they were found to be far less satisfactory than we thought they would be.
I know a place where he is not pushing ahead.
Where?
Killeshin.
I do not know about that.
He knows about it.
I know that in the case of particular deposits that have been brought to his notice, he is pushing ahead as hard as he can. There are, of course, certain difficulties and if we were more ruthless in dealing with them we might get results more quickly. Again in that matter I agree with those who say that we are getting to a certain point where some people might think that we are too prudent. I think there will be mistakes, and in some cases we may be disappointed with the final results, but if we are going to face this problem we must be prepared for occasional mistakes. We are pushing ahead as rapidly as we can. Somebody spoke about the amount of tillage. Certainly we have been doing everything we can to increase tillage in the country. We have done it by giving a guaranteed price in the case of certain vital products.If it is said that the amount of tillage has not increased or that it has been increased on one side at the expense of another, I would say that what we have done is that we have increased the production of what is immediately consumable by our people as against those crops which were not immediately consumable by the people and which were exported by way of being fed to cattle which were afterwards shipped abroad. We are using our land to produce food which is directly consumable by the people. I believe the Deputy has about 20 minutes left to conclude the debate.
If it is intended to conclude this motion to-night, there are 20 minutes now left.
It is not for me to decide. We started the debate about ten minutes to eight. That means that at 10.30 there will be still 20 minutes to go. I understand the Taoiseach wants to conclude and that Deputy Cosgrave also wants to speak. In that case I do not think I would have much opportunity of speaking to-night and there will be only 20 minutes available on the next day.
If the House regards this as unopposed business, the debate could be continued up to 11 p.m. and concluded at that hour.
There is a question on the adjournment to-night.
That might be waived. It is a matter for the House.
The trouble of course is that this is a subject which is so wide and which has so many aspects that one could keep talking on it for a very long time. I shall stop now if it is the desire of the House.
There is only half an hour left for Deputy Norton and myself.
I shall stop any time the Chair wishes.
It is not a matter for the Chair. There are 30 minutes left for two speakers.
I shall take less than ten minutes to conclude. What I have been trying to point out is that there are few directions in which you can say that you can employ people usefully in the sense of getting reproductive work done, meaning by that that you are going to put more into the pool than you are taking out of it. It is suggested that there are amenities of various kinds. There again if we want to have amenities of various types, we must pay for them in other ways.
There is a limit as the Deputy will know. It is the same, after all, for the community as it is for the family. There are certain distances beyond which we cannot go in providing special amenities. The fundamental necessities have to be got first and you cannot encroach upon the pool too much, otherwise the necessities have to be sacrificed for the amenities. There again the pressure upon the community as a whole, the amount taken out of the pool as a whole, is so great that I doubt very much if we can at the present moment with our organisation—certainly it would want to be far better than it is at present— give ourselves what I might call the luxury of these amenities.
When it is suggested that other countries have solved that problem, I doubt it very much. It seems to me that if we want to solve that problem we would want to rid ourselves of a lot of things which we are not prepared to sacrifice. If we were, for instance, to ask the labouring community to do the things they are asked to do elsewhere in order to provide work, I wonder if they would not be the very first to object. It is not so easy if a person becomes unemployed in a particular place to take him and his family somewhere else and find employment for them which they can actually do. If a carpenter is unemployed here and if you are building houses somewhere else you might say that he ought to go to that place. It is not so easy to do that overnight.
They are going to Great Britain at present.
Is not that the grievance?
It is our grievance.
Is it the Taoiseach's intention to talk this out to-night?
No. I thought I was given ten minutes more.
Mr. Morrissey
We have to adjourn at 10.30 p.m.
I thought I was given ten minutes more. I am ready to sit down at any time.
It is agreed that ten minutes more be accorded to the Taoiseach, and that in 20 minutes the next day the debate be concluded.
Mr. Morrissey
There was no order made and in the absence of an order the House will automatically adjourn at 10.30 p.m.
Yes. It was agreed that the Taoiseach might continue to 10.30 p.m.
Mr. Morrissey
It was decided?
There was no demur to that suggestion.
Mr. Morrissey
I did not hear that.
What I am trying to get Deputies, particularly the Deputies of the Labour Party, to realise at the start is that there are not these easy ways which they suggest of finding employment for the unemployed. Reference has been made to people going to Great Britain—that is the grievance.
Whose grievance?
The grievance of the people. It is to remedy that that you want them to be employed here. I will admit that it would be less of a grievance if they had to go to Cork. The fact is that it is extremely difficult to take families and send them from one place to another. These are the things which you will have to have if you want to have the complete and absolute remedies that are said to be found elsewhere. You will have to say to the people: "Here is work for you; you will have to do it at certain wages." If you are prepared to take this complete power, then it is possible you will get one type of solution for it; but you are going to get it at the sacrifice of other things. What we are trying to do is this, to get a solution of the problem which will leave us with a number of the things that we are particularly anxious we should continue to have. But we will not do it without considerable sacrifice.
So far as we are concerned we are quite prepared to say, keeping the individual rights there, that the welfare of the whole community has to be the determining purpose of our schemes, and we are prepared to abide by the principles indicated in the Constitution both in regard to the control of credit and in regard to the right of the individual through his occupation to try to get a means of livelihood, in so far as by any human effort, without doing injustice, we are able to do it. I do not believe for one moment that this commission which you are asking to have set up and which we are prepared to set up is going to find a solution. It may indicate certain things, but it will be found that most of these things have been taken cognisance of already and that Governmental action to put them into effect would be taken if there were not very serious obstacles in the way. What I do hope the commission will do is that it will give to everybody for examination an authoritative investigation of the problem and a non-partisan statement of it. If there are different views, we may have different reports, but at any rate it cannot be said that this Party or that Party, for one reason or another, have failed to state the problem as it is and to put forward these recommendations, if those recommendations promise anything like a satisfactory solution.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned until 11th December.