In the case of university education, and making allowance for the supplementary, State grants this year will amount to £333,000, while the provision for aviation and meteorological services is nearly £1,500,000. We are providing one-third of a million as a State grant for higher education. I wonder does that show any real appreciation of the benefit to the country that may accrue from these two services. I take aviation because I have been told, over and over again, that we do not expect any real return from the money that we are spending on that service: that it is a matter of prestige. Apparently, we do not consider prestige as attaching to the moneys that we spend on university colleges.
When the extra grant was given to the universities and colleges last year, I referred to a statement which had been drawn up by a committee of statutory officers in connection with the college about which I have some information—University College, Dublin. There are certain things that emerged from that committee's report that I would like to get set down again even after the new grants have been given. The average salary of a full-time professor in University College, Dublin, has a present-day purchasing power of about £600. Between the full-time professors and full-time lecturers there is a staff of 73 to be catered for. About 24 of them are on salaries of a present-day purchasing level of £600. Three of them have a little bit more and five a little more than that, but a considerable number more are under that level, and that after the increases had been made to their old-time emoluments.
In this report that I have mentioned, attention is drawn to the pension situation with regard to the staff of University College. I am referring now to University College, Dublin, and I am speaking on its behalf because I have some information about it, but I am certain that the evil conditions there are reproduced in the other colleges. I have not the same intimate association with the other colleges. It is pointed out in this report that the pension system there has never been adequate.
If a person is appointed a professor at the ordinary age and serves the maximum period of time he can only hope to retire on a pension of £200 a year which to-day has a purchasing power of £100 or £2 a week. Even if the pound were to recover its old-time value the pension would be £4 a week. That is what the State thinks fit to do. The State does not, of course, provide all the income of University College, Dublin. Roughly, one half of its finances comes from students' fees. Therefore the position is that a person who has filled a full-time post to which he was appointed at a relatively early age, may hope to get a pension of £200 a year on retirement. The professors retire between 65 and 70 years of age. I think 65 is called the retiring age, but it is possible to remain on for another five years.
In any event, that is the situation even with the extra grants that were given last year. The average salary of a professor in University College, Dublin, has a present-day purchasing power of £600 a year, and when he retires he will have a pension with a present-day purchasing power of £100 a year. I consider that nothing short of a scandal. I think that this small group have suffered more in the depreciation of money that has taken place in the last seven or eight years than possibly any other class in the community. This country used to pride itself on its attitude towards scholars. I suppose that the full-time professorial staff in our university colleges can claim that they stand in the main as the representatives of the scholarly element in the country, and that is the emolument that we think State benevolence should run to.
In addition, this report has a statement with regard to the buildings. It is hard to speak in a calm way on the situation with respect to accommodation in University College, Dublin. I expressed it here before. There are 3,000 students there. If they have an hour between lectures they generally spend the time sitting on the pipes. They do not sit on the pipes to get any heat because there has been no heat there for some years. They do so because the pipes are the only things they have to sit on.
The conditions with regard to the classrooms, the library and the other places where they forgather is something beyond description. It has always been held that the great advantage of a university education is not attendance at lectures or the information that may be derived from attending them but rather that a university provides for a meeting of people with different points of view. That is a time in their life when youth is rather surging forward and when they are expected to have good viewpoints and a good liberal outlook and, being a picked group, as they are, to have something of value that they can communicate one to another. The idea of the clash of mind upon mind is supposed to be one of the chief advantages of a residential university, but it has gone very much into the background in the case of University College, Dublin. If it is only a question of the physical accommodation, the lack of a room, of a place where students can congregate and exchange their ideas, reacts very adversely on the proper value of university training.
The committee of statutory officers to which I have referred already, called attention to that. They go into very great detail on the condition of life in University College, Dublin. The place has been dogged by fate. The original contract that was given could not be carried out because of the outbreak of the 1914-18 war, as the contractor went bankrupt. The whole conditions had to be changed, but in view of the rising costs, even the extra moneys proved to be insufficient to complete the building.
At a later time, the old building then known as the College of Science was handed over in order to ease the pressure on the Earlsfort Terrace building, by enabling certain classes to be taken there; but the college has grown since those days of 1926 and, with a 3,000 strength at the moment, the conditions under which the students have to comport themselves are something beyond description. The committee went into all that and put up reasoned estimates. They can be challenged with being extravagant in current outlay or with suggesting something that the country cannot afford, but at any rate they have presented them in great detail, so that the details can be examined and if there is anything in the way of extravagance it can be pared down.
I want to refer to one point, on account of a phrase the Minister used, when I spoke on this in regard to the Supplementary Estimates. I was making a comparison with the situation in England and was told that the full Book of Estimates would show that we would have nothing to fear in comparison with what is being done in England. All I know is that, at the bottom of page 13 in this officers' report, they say:—
"We may glance, finally, at the conditions under which the British universities, with whose standards we must compete, are to recommence their work. The official Parliamentary and Scientific Committee has recommended that the direct annual Treasury grants of £2,500,000 to the universities shall be increased to £7,000,000 and that a capital sum of £10,000,000 be provided in the first five years after the war, to enlarge and equip the universities."
That was the report signed on the 28th of January, 1946. Those in England interested in this matter have been fortunate, in that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a university man and has a very definite appreciation of university training. A quotation from the London Times of 11th March, 1947, states as follows:—
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Dalton, states in a written reply that he has considered a report from the University Grants Committee on the financial needs of the universities for the five years 1947-52. As the needs of the universities will be on a rising scale, he proposes that Parliament should be asked to provide recurrent grants, £9,000,000 for the academic year 1947-48, rising to £9,970,000 for 1948-49 and rising to almost £12,000,000 in 1952."
Where the statutory officers' report says that the Treasury Grants in England are to rise from £2,500,000 to £7,000,000, that phrase must now be replaced by a reference to £12,000,000. According to Mr. Dalton, as quoted in the London Times:—
"In addition to that, there is a Building Site Acquisition Grant and the University Grants Committee estimate that the universities' programme of development will necessitate during the quinquennium nonrecurrent grants amounting to £50,000,000, of which £40,000,000 is for new buildings and £10,000,000 is for acquiring sites, existing buildings and new equipment."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer accepted that estimate of the need and will do his best to meet it. He has promised the University Grants Committee generally whatever money is required for university education, as he realises its utility as one of the great weapons they have in order to put Britain in the forefront in the world.
I want to have that compared with what is done here. It is somewhat of a scandal that the whole University Vote here, including the Supplementary Estimates, amounts to £333,000. That is one-third of a million pounds, whereas Vote 56, which I brought in by way of contrast, Aviation and Meteorological Services, amounts to £1,456,000 this year. That is nearly £1,500,000 for aviation, compared with one-third of a million for university education.
