At any rate, this principle of social policy was set down as a headline. I have noticed that, in another country, they are very anxious to have some principles like this accepted. This country has accepted these principles: there is no question about that. The Constitution says: "The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing ..." In other words, this objective should be kept in mind as being of primary importance. "...that the citizens (all of whom, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood) may through their occupations find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs." That is the basis of social policy and the aim which we have constantly kept in mind.
This problem has proved to be one of the most difficult problems which we have had to tackle. We had—and still have—many opportunities for useful employment for our people that the highly industrialised States have not. I do not think it is likely that we would reach such a highly industrialised position that we would not have those opportunities, as there are certain factors operating against that here. Otherwise, we would be faced with all the difficulties that other organised States are facing in regard to this unemployment question. We still have opportunities for further industrial development, and it is very important to employ people in the production of food and clothing, some of which we have been accustomed to get in from outside. If we have a surplus of these things, we can exchange them for other things what we need: otherwise, there would be no point in producing a surplus. Until the ordinary needs of our citizens are met, the obvious thing is to put people at employment to produce these particular requirements. This Government worked on that basis, starting with agriculture. That was at a time of agricultural depression all over the world—a thing which is often forgotten. A thing that is often forgotten is that just about the period that we came into office, and for a year or two afterwards—quite irrespective of certain controversial things that happened at that time, such as the various tariffs which were put on as a result of those happenings—there was agricultural depression all over the world, and that our country, being an agricultural country, was hit by that depression to a greater extent than other countries were hit by it. But we said, in effect: "Very well, then; if we have difficulty in getting foreign markets for our surplus products, why not create a home market for our own produce? Why bring in from other countries what we can produce for ourselves? So long as we have mills to grind the wheat, why not use them, and why not produce the wheat ourselves?" We decided that we would provide a home market for the produce of our own farms; and to the extent that that has been done—whether by giving a fixed price to the farmer for certain of the produce of his farm, or protecting him against foreign goods coming in here in competition with his produce, or giving him an opportunity of getting into tillage by preventing the importation of foreign bacon and so on, and a number of things of that sort—the income of the farmer in this country has been increased by several millions of pounds that would otherwise have gone out of the country. That policy gave the farmers an opportunity of doing useful work in providing for the immediate needs of the community, and also it was a protection for the farmer himself.
Now, the needs of the community that are most appreciated are the fundamental things, such as food, clothing, and housing, and things of that sort. Of course you may find people who will prefer to lie in bed in the morning and listen to the radio, if they have money enough to have a radio set, but if it were a question of getting food, or boots, or clothes, then I think these people would be up and doing because these are the fundamental things. Accordingly, the first and fundamental thing in our programme was to try to create a greater market for our farmers and agricultural workers here at home—to give them an opportunity of giving service and doing useful work for the community as a whole, and getting an adequate reward for themselves. We did that, and, as I have already said, it resulted in giving several millions of pounds to the people employed in agriculture in this country.
The next thing we set out to develop was one that had been completely undeveloped before and that was the field of industrial employment. Again, we started off with the fundamentals, such as clothing, boots and shoes, and so on, and as a result of that development of industrial activity in this country, some tens of thousands of workers were engaged in that particular way, but we have not come to the end of that yet. We could, and should, develop such fundamental industries so as to give the workers an opportunity of providing for themselves and also producing a surplus by which they could give a return which would enable the rest of the community to get other things from outside, and the more prosperous our agricultural industry is the more we can do that, and by doing that we can usefully employ a greater number of people in agriculture than at present. Two things are operating there—both in slightly different directions—because if you want efficiency, you will need a greater amount of technically qualified people, and that might tend toward less employment, but still I think it is not unfair to say that with a more scientific development of our agricultural production we can employ more people on the land than at present. It is quite possible also that if we could employ more people in that direction our problem of unemployment would be solved.
Now, another fundamental thing is the matter of shelter. Obviously, if you are trying to get employment for people, one of the fundamental things to be considered is the matter of housing. Are our people housed as they should be housed? We have undertaken a very large programme of housing, and you have only to go around the city here, or around the country, to see evidence of the results of that programme. That programme has only been made possible by the community giving considerable subsidies. Take the labour costs and the costs of materials of these houses, and the rents that had to be charged for these houses. Some of these rents are beyond what some of these people could ordinarily pay and, therefore, the community had to give subsidies to these people—and subsidies to a considerable extent—but the result of that has been the building of a very large number of houses. I do not want to complicate this matter by going into the figures, but, in fact, at one period the suggestion was made that, by the very speed of our programme, we were running up the cost: that we had not enough skill, and that, if we had not proceeded at that particular pace in our housing programme, the costs would not have gone up to such an extent. It was suggested that, as a result of the speed of our programme, the rents would be so high as to make the whole thing a very heavy burden. Well, then, if anybody starts to try to do useful work, I think it will be admitted that the best thing that could be done would be to give people an opportunity to produce food, clothing, and shelter for the citizens of the country—that these are the best things to which our activities should be directed.
Passing from that, however, we went on to what might be regarded as our less fundamental needs, but still useful work. A good deal of employment is given in the mere division of land. Now, it was a part of our programme to put as many families as possible in economic security on the land. Our belief was, and remains, that the family which has an economic holding, on which by their efforts they are able to support themselves, are the most independent people upon the earth. The person on the land who can, by his labour on that land, his own property, provide for his family, is king in his castle. No more useful work, it seems to me, could be done for the community than to put as many families as possible in that position. We set out to do that.
At times, the rate of division was such that it was suggested that the quality of the work would suffer. We had to get a national balance. We want to do good work, but we do not want to spend a lifetime doing it. To be really good, any work must be done within a reasonable time and there are imperfections in every sort of work which undoubtedly could be got rid of by spending a long time over it. I, for one, do not believe in this perfection which is to be got by spending a whole lifetime at it. There is a period of existence for the human being which is rather short, and if you want to do something which is valuable you must do it within that time. If you can work for ages to come, you can afford to spend a long time in perfecting a piece of work, but a work which is intended for the use of a living generation, for people living at the particular moment, must be done with reasonable speed to be of any value to them, and consequently we had in some cases to sacrifice what might be regarded as perfection in order to get the work done. We had to say: "We want a reasonable speed. Mistakes will be made when that reasonable speed is sought, but we shall simply have to accept that it is inevitable that certain mistakes will occur, while, of course, doing our best to avoid them."
We set out to divide the land both because of the fundamental idea and because there was a considerable amount of useful employment given in the distribution of land. My view is that in regard to housing and the development of industry, our plans should now be made for continuing that development after the war, trying to speed it up as quickly as possible and making the plans, so that when the crisis is over and anything like conditions which will enable them to be put into operation have come, it will be done, and that the plans for doing it will be there. It generally happens that when you decide on something, like the drainage schemes spoken of a few minutes ago, a certain amount of time must be taken, if you want to do your work with reasonable efficiency, to find out what is the problem and what are the facts in connection with it. Data, in respect of levels and other engineering matters, cannot be dealt with overnight. You must have a certain amount of time, if you are not to make a regular mess of what you want to do, for examining the facts, getting data and making plans, before you can put the plans into operation.
We have a sub-committee of the Cabinet dealing with this question of the post-war situation and the plans for it, and one of the things we have been examining is in what time, with our present aims, can we hope to finish the division of the land which is available for division, with the general idea of relieving congestion where congestion has to be relieved and of putting as many families as is reasonably possible in economic security on the land? That has been actively examined, and I want to say here that nothing has been more disappointing to me than to find how slowly these things are being done and how slowly they will have to be done in order to get anything like reasonable efficiency, because, unfortunately, there are such matters as inspections, and all sorts of questions that cannot be solved in a day which come up for solution and take time.
No person in the Dáil is more impatient at the time which some of these matters take than I. There was a period during which there was a very much greater distribution of land than has been the case recently. Since the war situation began, a number of new problems, which needed some of the experienced staff, arose, and we had to take the experienced staff off some of this work. We have had to take from the Land Commission inspectors to look after the tillage question for us and so on, and all this meant that to a certain extent the land division Department has been considerably upset by the fact that we had no other people whom we could put in charge of the important work of seeing that the necessary food for the community is produced. But we are trying to get back as quickly as we can for the Department of Lands its old organisation, or as much of it as possible, so that as much of the work as can be done will be done, so that after the war that division of land will continue and so that employment will be given —and there is a considerable amount of employment so given—in preparing estates for division. The work done in that way is useful work for the community. It is work of a type for which the community can afford to pay because it is going to give an ultimate return.
Forestry has been frequently referred to here, and I am sure that nobody in the House has spoken about forestry as often as I did before we came into office. I pointed out very definitely at that time, some ten or 12 years ago, that, taking the fundamental things we needed, food, clothing and shelter, timber was essential if we were to be able to carry on our ordinary building work and so on, in an emergency such as that which has come upon us. I can honestly say here that I have been pressing every Minister in the Department of Lands since we came into office to try to get more and more land planted. I have been disappointed that we have not already reached the 10,000 acres a year objective, and I have been pressing for that.
But there, again, one has to be fairly reasonable. I think that sometimes to be a little unreasonable is no harm because, if you are too reasonable, people will think that matters are all right. When there is urgent work of value to be done one can be unreasonable, and I hope that I will not be misunderstood in my use of the word. In other words, you have to be impatient about things, because the answer is put up: "We have this, that and the other difficulty to face", to which we must answer: "Difficulties are there to be overcome. You must try to get a solution for them. There is no use in saying: ‘we cannot do it because of so and so.' Go and get a remedy for it when the remedy is possible", but there is a limit to the extent to which one can be unreasonable in that way. If, for instance, after the war I have to have a programme of afforestation and I ask what is the limit to which it can reach, I may be told: "We have not enough trees in the nurseries of the types we want to plant." Some of them had to be got from outside for some reason or other in the past. That is no reason why we should comment on the wisdom or unwisdom of not having the necessary plants and seeds at this stage. But if the case is put up that that is what we have to do, it will be necessary to say: "If that is the situation, we want it to be changed with all possible speed." You cannot do any more. You cannot create the plants and the seeds simply by a wish. All you have to do is to ensure that every possible effort is being made. All I know is that I have tried to see that everything that could possibly be done to increase the amount of land that was to be laid out in forestry since we came into office was being done. I do not want to say that I am satisfied with the programme that has been put up to us as possible. If I can get the 10,000 acres, instead of the figure given, the moment we can get going on it, then I will do it and the Government and the Ministers will do it. I do not think there is anybody in the House can get more done in that matter. The advisability of doing it is accepted.
As to the extent to which we should have land under forests, the question is what we would require for all our needs. Various estimates have been made. The question is how much per year should be planted so that, when it comes in, it will be likely to meet the national needs in timber. A total of 10,000 acres has been put up a number of times as being about the amount of yearly planting which, when it came in rotation, would meet our needs. If I was fairly certain of that estimate, I would say: "Very well, go and do 12,000." If I thought 10,000 was sufficient, I would say go and do 12,000, because in 20 or 30 years' time it is better to be on the right side than on the wrong side. In regard to afforestation, as has been pointed out by one of the Ministers here a number of times, there is considerable difficulty in getting land. I do not think that that is a difficulty which should be allowed permanently to stand in the way. I think we have to educate public opinion to the extent to which we should say to people who have sheep pastures or something of that sort which have been useful to them in the past, that the community's needs will have to override their private needs. If I were doing it and I came to such a place I would say: "You have been getting a living out of grazing the land. We are sorry, but we want that land. It is land that from the point of view of the community it is better to put in forestry. We will give you a farm or we will give you employment in some of the places where afforestation is taking place." There was at the beginning a considerable amount of objection to it because some of these people had been grazing the land and their people before them had lived in this way and they did not want to be deprived of that method of existence. But now they see that there is employment being given in connection with afforestation and they are gradually coming over to the view that, taking all in all, their livelihood will not be diminished.
Land reclamation has been mentioned. The Minister for Agriculture has been trying to get farmers to reclaim their own land or portions of it. Help is being given from the State to enable that to be done. But as to land reclamation on the larger scale, there is the big question as to whether you are not putting more in the way of work into reclaiming land than the land will ever be worth. Compared with the price at which you can buy land, you may be paying very much more for every acre of land you reclaim than for a good acre of land. From a community point of view, the increasing of valuable land is an addition to the wealth, so to speak, of the community. There, again, you have the old question as to whether there is an addition in fact, or whether you are not diminishing the wealth by turning the efforts, that might otherwise be employed more usefully, to this work. Then you would not do it, of course. But I am assuming that there is no other way in which you can more usefully put the people to work than in reclaiming land. It is useful work. But its economic reaction is another question. However, that has been actively under consideration.
Fundamental in that is the question of drainage. Everybody knows there is a considerable amount of land in this country which is flooded periodically. I have been down the country recently and on a few trips I have seen a considerable amount of land under water. Nobody can see that and be satisfied as long as a remedy is possible. As the last speaker wisely said, there is no use in trying to do that in a haphazard way, because you may do more harm than good if you do not do it properly. The whole thing has been carefully examined to get the planning of the measure expedited. We went outside the ordinary routine and got the heads of the Bill drafted by the Chairman of the Commission. Quite a number of Departments were involved and, when these were examined, there were a number of matters which had to be adjusted. Unfortunately, it has taken a very long time to adjust all these problems which arise for adjustment in connection with a matter like drainage. But we have accepted in principle the commission's report that this should be undertaken. We have decided, in general, upon the areas where a beginning is to be made. I have given orders that, even while we are waiting for the necessary legislation, the engineering and other plans should be gone ahead with so that there will be no delay about them. Therefore, so far as the suggestion of trying to find useful work on drainage is concerned, that has been undertaken and is being done.
Now let me take the other suggestions which have been made. I am taking the ones which occurred to me as they have been mentioned. If we take any of these we will find the same thing, because all these suggestions have been exactly the suggestions that were made by the Government and which are being followed up, just as our industrial policy has been followed up. One of the early things we did after we came into office was to get a report—I have got a large volume—from the various Departments, of the useful schemes which had been suggested and which were put aside for one reason or another. We got these to see if there was anything in addition to the general schemes that we had suggested to the people in our programme before we were elected. We went through them to find what was the labour content of the various schemes, what was the respective value of them, and anything that was of value has been followed up. But, when all these things are done, there is still unemployment.