I wish to make a plea to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to which, I hope, he will accede. Nobody, I think, on either this side of the House or on the Government side can look with complacency or satisfaction on the present state of industry and commerce in this country. It is rather a sad commentary on almost 30 years of home Government that we find that we are actually poorer in the most valuable of all materials—that is, the human person, the number of human beings—than we were on the day we took over the Twenty-Six Counties from the foreigner. That, to my mind, is due to the fact that we have not made the strides that we should have made in the sphere of industry. When we read of the industrial and trade development of this country during the period of Grattan's Parliament and consider the immense expansion that took place then, it must make all thinking Irishmen feel uneasy to find themselves in the position in which we are in at the present time. The whole matter needs very careful investigation to see what just has been holding up development and what should be done to promote development now.
There is no doubt that, since the passing of the Act of Union, this country has been like a one-armed man, and a one-armed person is a very handicapped person in the struggle for existence, particularly when that one arm can be paralysed any day at all at the will of another person. That is exactly the position in which we are in. We must have a better balancing arm than we have to our agricultural arm. I know that there are very great difficulties to be overcome. I know perfectly well that a good deal of the period in which we have had control of our own affairs has been a disturbed period. Certainly we could not expect to make a great deal of progress during the years of the world war, but surely for the last two or three years, when things became rather normal and when raw materials were becoming available, the opportunity has been there to do something much beyond what had been done up to that time. Then we had the great advantage that we never enjoyed before— Marshall Aid. I think that Marshall Aid has been largely misapplied in its use.
My plea to the Minister is that for the development of his own Department and for the expansion of industry in this country, he should insist on getting a very large portion of that Marshall Aid. I do not think that he should allow an erratic Minister to collar practically the whole thing and to misapply it in the development of land that is very costly to develop and which, when brought into production, will have to be maintained in production at a very heavy cost. When the means to do that are not there, that land will be liable to relapse into decay and into disuse whereas, on the other hand, if the same sum of money were applied to the purchase of first-rate machinery for the promotion of the industrial arm, we would benefit even the farmers very much more than they are being benefited by the present use of Marshall Aid because we would create a home market and a purchasing power that would leave the farmers able to carry out such reclamation and to bring into fertility such land as would be necessary.
When I hear a Deputy like Deputy Beegan giving his views on this matter I listen with very great respect indeed. I must say that it is very disheartening to find our people still fleeing from the countryside, to find that our schools in the rural areas are becoming smaller and the attendance lowering steadily and to find that congregations are becoming smaller. In the towns, the position is not a whole lot better because we see people in the towns disposing of their property — whether voluntarily or through necessity I do not know. We see people who are not Irish and who have no traditions behind them acquiring this property, even in the towns. It is not a source of satisfaction, and I think it should not be a source of satisfaction to any thinking Irishman, to see that vacuum which is created both by the flight from the land and the weakening of the native position in the town, filled by a large influx of people such as we see coming into the country at present.
I feel that the time may be pretty near at hand when those who pay the piper will call the tune, when those people will exert an influence, a power, especially employing power, and a power of patronage, altogether beyond their numerical strength. I do not think it is good.
Here we have for the first time an opportunity of financing industrial development. That opportunity of financing industry in such a way that control will not be handed over to foreigners is being lost. I know that we have safeguarded the bulk of our capital to some extent, but control has been given over to a great extent to foreigners. I do not think that the original idea is working out on the basis on which it was intended to work. Very often the people who enter the industrial sphere here have much bigger interests abroad and there is a tendency to subordinate their interests here to the bigger interests they have elsewhere. I would like to see 100 per cent. Irish control of our industries. I know that that is not possible and I am not objecting to the introduction of foreign capital for development purposes here, but I think we should take every opportunity of encouraging our own people to fully finance industrial undertakings in so far as they can do it. It may, not have been possible to do that in the past. The present Government has a better chance of doing it now if it applies the funds to which I have referred to that purpose.
Some of us have rather a defeatist attitude towards industrial expansion. Some of us think the country is too poor and too small to hope for anything in the nature of large-scale industrial expansion. Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland are smaller countries than ours; they are infinitely less fertile. Yet, they have achieved an amazing industrial development. They are able to carry comparatively heavy populations. I know that it is not fair to make a comparison between this country and Holland or Belgium. Belgium has very valuable possessions out-side; so has Holland. But what about Switzerland? I think something has been lacking in our policy up to this. I can guess at a few of the causes for that.
I think the whole problem should be examined with a view to formulating some long-term policy. That is why I make the plea that a better use should be made of Marshal Aid while it is available. I do not know if we have pursued the right lines in the past. We can never hope to rival the products of Britain in the matter of mass production. We have not got the population, the influence abroad or the means of pushing our goods which would make it possible for us to compete satisfactorily in the world markets. I think Switzerland provides us with a very good example which we might usefully follow. The Swiss insist on the high-grade article and the precision instrument. They have a high reputation for the excellence of their workmanship. It is difficult for a nation to push its industrial products without a mercantile fleet, an army or an navy, without foreign possessions and foreign spheres of influence. But there is one thing which will always win a market; that is the sheer excellence of the product itself. I would advise the Minister to establish a very high standard and then to protect industry as much as possible under that standard. That is the only chance for a small country like ours. If you do not do that, you may put on tariffs and create monopolies, but, in the long run, it is the people who will have to pay the piper.
The cost of living has been referred to. Every housewife knows that housekeeping costs have gone up. Some Deputies enumerated various, household requirements that have gone up in price. I would like to refer to the present high costs of boot and shoe repairs. These are a be heavy burden on any family exchequer particularly where there are young children. Even for ordinary repairs at the present time one pays almost as much as would have purchased a pair of boots or shoes pre-war. I ask the Minister to look into that matter.
Several Deputies referred to the high electricity charges cast upon people outside the city boundary. There is a real hardship in that respect in the Ballyfermot area. I appeal to the Minister to exert whatever influence he can to insist on some amelioration of the position there. The present charges cast a heavy burden on the people living in this particular district. I hope the Minister will bear in mind the various points to which I have referred.
