The Minister's speech on this Vote on Account was just a deliberate attempt to write down the achievements of his predecessor and of the Government which preceded him. His speech was made for purely Party purposes. It was designed to give the impression that the last Government had left the country in a bad way financially when, in fact, everybody knows that during the three and a half years of inter-Party Government it brought more peace and stability and a better standard of living to the people than had been experienced at any time in human memory.
What is the record of the inter-Party Government which the Minister tries to belittle? One would imagine from listening to the irresponsible and intemperate speeches of the Minister that the last Government were a Government of invaders and that they had made war on the Irish people. Let us get the facts. As I said, we gave the country peace, stability and a better standard of living than the country ever had before. One of the first acts of the inter-Party Government was to repeal the Fianna Fáil penal taxes which imposed a considerable hardship on the ordinary plain people. That was done at a cost to the last Government of £6,000,000 per annum. We geared up the housing programme to such an extent that, although we found the programme and the housing machine generally creaking and groaning, we nevertheless were able to adapt it in such a manner that during our three and a half years of office we built 24,000 houses and the machine was geared up to such a pitch that, provided this Government does not interfere with it, we can see the solution of the housing problem over very large areas of the country within the next two or three years.
We put 37,000 additional people into employment during those three and a half years and while we were in office unemployment reached an all time low record. Since we left office the unemployment figures have gone up by leaps and bounds. There are 12,000 more people registered as unemployed to-day compared with 12 months ago, notwithstanding the fact that we have taken 3,000 into the Army and notwithstanding the fact that emigration has increased by 65 per cent. in the five months of 1951 as compared with the corresponding five months of 1950.
We spent an additional £2,500,000 on old age pensions, on blind pensions and on increased widows' and orphans' pensions. In 1947 our health expenditure was £615,000. In 1951 £4,500,000 was provided for health services.
Our national income in 1947 was £318,000,000. In 1950 it had jumped to £363,000,000. Our exports in 1947 were £39,000,000. In 1950 they had jumped to £73,000,000.
Not only did we do these positive things, all indicating a movement towards expansion and a movement towards prosperity, but, in addition, we killed the wage-freezing mentality of the previous Government. As late as the 15th and 16th October, 1947, we had these utterances in the House. From the Taoiseach, we had this:—
"The Government regards this temporary limitation of wage increases as vitally necessary in present circumstances and if the trade unions cannot undertake such an agreement as I have outlined, then, the Government will produce proposals for legislation to the same effect."
Another threat of a wage-freeze policy, this time imposed by specific legislation. We had this utterance from the Minister for Industry and Commerce on 16th October, 1947:—
"I want, however, to make it clear that the Government regards it as an essential safeguard, in the interests of the general community at the present time, that some check upon the upward movement of wages should operate."
Having kept wages down from 1941 to 1946, they were proceeding in 1947 to threaten the workers with a new wage-freezing order by legislation. We killed that in 1948, with the result that in a very large measure, since then and mainly from 1948 to 1951, the workers were able to get, through their trade unions, compensation for the substantial rise in the cost of living which took place between 1941 and 1946. They were denied the opportunity of getting that adequate compensation by the wage-freezing policy of the previous Fianna Fáil Government. On top of all these things, we gave the country something which was more priceless in itself—internal peace. We got rid of the political prisoner; we got rid of the firing squads; and we got the gun out of Irish politics for the first time for many a long day.
Do we have to apologise for a programme and achievements of that kind? To whom have we to apologise? I certainly owe an apology to nobody and will give an apology to nobody for the excellent work of the inter-Party Government in three and a half trying years. The work of that Government stands there available for everybody to see, and anybody who sees it with eyes unblinded by political prejudice can have no hesitation in recognising that these three and a half years were probably the most fruitful three and a half years since 1922.
We had a speech from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who told us that we had imported, and were importing, more than we exported. That is true, and we are doing it probably at a greater rate since this Government came in than before, because at present we are importing substantially more than we are exporting. We knew we were doing that, but we felt it was inevitable in the circumstances of the time. We gave the people money to enable them to buy commodities. We gave them the money which enabled them to get the things they wanted. Is it a crime that the ordinary people should buy the things they wanted, or are the Irish people to be condemned for ever, under Fianna Fáil hairshirt economics, to a low and impoverished standard of living? Are they to be Lazarus for all time? Are they to be expected to live on a standard of life below that enjoyed by other civilised countries in Europe and throughout the world? Are we now to be told that the new brand of nationalism is not to buy, but to go without? In my view, those are the economics of a demented recluse, and no better.
I read in an American paper recently of some wretchedly-clad man who was taken into a hospital because he had collapsed in the street. There he was stripped of the filthy rags in which he was clad and they looked at his soreridden body to decide on what treatment he needed. They looked through his articles of clothing and among the wretched garments they found £3,000 in various currencies. He had certainly not dissipated his assets. His sterling assets were intact, but the poor wretch was full of sores, clothed in rags and living a most miserable existence. Is that life? Is that the pattern of life we want here—to tell our people to keep their money in their pockets, to live the lives of demented recluses, to save their sterling assets at all times and pass through life in these miserable tattered rags, enjoying none of the sweet things which are the rights of civilised communities everywhere?
Is it suggested that our workers have been buying too much, eating too much, consuming too much? If they are not doing it—and nobody has had the guts yet to say it is they who are doing it—who is buying the too much and who is consuming the too much? It certainly is not the ordinary worker because the high prices of commodities permit him to buy the barest essentials. Is it the small farmer on the western or southern seaboard who is consuming too much? Is it he who is causing the disequilibrium in the balance of payments? Go into his kitchen; look into his wardrobe and see whether it is he, or a hierarchy of new rich in the City of Dublin who are doing the spending.
We are now being treated to lectures by the Minister for Finance and other Government apologists because our people are spending too much, but nobody will have the courage to tell us who is spending the too much. Will any of the Fianna Fáil Deputies go back to their constituents and tell them that they are spending too much, that they are eating too much and buying too much, and that they must cut down their expenditure? Is that the best policy that can be offered to the masses of our people to-day? Our people bought goods simply because they wanted these goods, and, if our people had been paid in goods during the war for the commodities which they sent to Britain during that war, these goods would have been bought in the war time period, but they could not be bought then. Britain would not give us the goods then and they had to be bought after the war, when they were available. I see nothing wrong in our people to-day using the stored-up credits created by that export during the war to buy, after the war, the commodities they were unable to buy because of the pattern of economic life in Britain during the war.
Our exports to Britain during the war were substantially greater than her exports to this country. What happened? Britain gave us in return only a proportion of the goods which we sent to her. For the rest she chalked up credits to our account in the Bank of England in London.
These credits were increased artificially during the war because, instead of giving us goods in return, Britain, not having the goods to export in the volume we needed them, gave us only a tithe of the goods we needed and chalked up credits for the value of the remainder. We have been using those credits since the war to buy the goods which we could not get during the war.
I want to know what is economically wrong with utilising the credits which we were compelled to take during the war to buy after the war the things we could not get while the war was being waged. Nobody on the Government Benches has attempted to answer that question. Even the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said the other day that what we had been spending, at all events, was only the extra credits created during war time. But we still have got—and this has to be remembered—the value of our pre-war foreign investments. These are still there. Whatever solidity the nation had while being buttressed by these foreign credits up to 1938 and 1939, that stability and solidity is still there, because at least the equivalent to these foreign reserves is still being held in London—held in London in a situation in which they are being constantly depreciated as a result of the over-all policy of the British Government.
Bear in mind the quotations from the present Minister for Industry and Commerce and the present Minister for Finance in 1931, that the curse of this country was in leaving our money in Britain; was in putting our depositors' money into Britain; and one would expect that these two Ministers to-day would be chanting alleluias at the sight of our foreign investments dwindling because of the ruinous policy of investing them in Britain which was the root, according to them, of all our evil.
We have had comparisons by the Minister for Finance with the position of this country and that of Britain. I know of no more absurd comparison than that. Britain has come through the most devastating war in all her history. In order to wage that war— which she did with a tenacity that has drawn admiration from all over the world—she liquidated every penny she had in foreign investments and as a result of starting the war, waging the war and holding on through the war, and fighting even the peace—which was much more difficult, perhaps, even than the war — she has now reached the position in which she has no foreign investments whatever and she does not export sufficient goods to pay for the commodities, particularly foodstuffs, which she must necessarily import. All her foreign investments have gone up in flames or down in battleships. That is the position of Britain to-day.
That is not the position of this country. He is a simpleton who attempts to make a real comparison between the financial position of Britain to-day and the position of this country. Britain to-day is simply drenched with debts—debts to her own citizens, debts in the foreign markets, debts which she can never repay, in the view of some of her more eminent statesmen. Is that our position? Does anyone suggest that that is our position? We know ours is a unique position, a position in which we should take pride and which calls for congratulation, that we have the lowest national debt in Europe and we probably have the lowest national debt of any white race in the world. In so far as our external assets are concerned, outside the United States we have invested per capita more money than any other country in the world to-day; so that the nation which, according to the Minister for Finance, is heading towards bankruptcy and has now reached the “verge of desperation”, is the nation, his own nation, which has the lowest national debt in the world and apart from the United States the greatest per capita investment in foreign reserves.
Bearing these two facts in mind, is it not clearly taking leave of one's senses to attempt to suggest that our position to-day is that of a bankrupt country or that we are in the same parallel as Britain from the point of view of our economic and our fiscal difficulties? The strange part of the whole business, however, is that while we have the lowest national debt in the world and while outside the United States we are the greatest creditor nation in the world, we also enjoy the unique distinction—perhaps because of the two circumstances I have mentioned—of being the only white nation in the world which is losing its white population to-day. Someone may well ask the question whether the explanation of the losses of our white population is not connected with the excessive prudence which we have displayed under the other two heads.
We have had talk in this debate about a crisis. We have always had a crisis. There has never been a day in the history of the Irish race that there has not been a crisis. Has there not been a banking crisis? Amongst a large mass of the people there has been a recurrent crisis of unemployment, a crisis of emigration, of low wages, a crisis of living in slums, of enduring want and poverty in the land which, if properly organised, is capable of giving to our people a decent standard of living. Some of these problems to-day are not as acute as they were. Some of them have been put at arms' length but there are some which could easily return speedily unless we recognise our obligations to plan in an intelligent way to counteract the possibility of their return.
In this debate we had an admission from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs as to what the Governments needed to do, that we should keep our heads and that there should be a calm survey of the whole situation. I congratulate him on his conversion to that point of view since he spoke hysterically on the report of the Central Bank here a few months ago. He now realises that hysteria pays no dividends, that these wailing speeches which he has been delivering in his constituency had only one effect, to make those who had money cautious about spending it, to make those who intended to undertake development cagey about embarking on such plans. At the same time, while these hysterical speeches were being made, the employment exchanges were bulging with human cargo and emigrants were leaving the country at a greater rate than ever before. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs realises that these speeches do not pay dividends, that the "verge of desperation" speeches in the Gresham Hotel by the Minister for Finance are not the remedies which the nation needs, that instead the nation needs to "keep its head" and that there should be "a calm survey of the problem before us".
We have had problems and probably always will have problems. The government of this country has been in our hands for the past 30 years and intelligent people may well wonder whether we have utilised the powers given to us in such a manner as to plan our national development on proper lines. I do not deny for a moment that a good deal of good work has been done by all Governments over the past 30 years; but, having said that, one has only to stand and take stock of the nation's position to-day in order to realise that a vast amount of work yet remains to be done if we are ever to put this country in the forefront of the most progressive nations in Europe. This disequilibrium in the balance of payments may well come as a blessing in disguise if it enables us to approach our problems realistically, free from hysteria, free from showman tactics and concerned only with the problem of how best we can utilise our national resources to give purpose and direction to the national endeavour to give our people a decent standard of living.
If we look at the economic position in the nation to-day, we can see that the national wealth is hardly yet tapped. We have too few industries after 30 years of self-government and even the industries which we have are concentrated in a relatively small number of centres. There are vast areas of the country that have no industries whatever and in that respect we are probably unique among the countries of Europe. The standard of production here is far too low, dangerously low. Our marriage rate is one of the lowest in Europe. No matter what may be done in one, two or three years in respect to agriculture, the basic fact remains—and it is a challenge to our agricultural competence—that agriculture, as regards the volume of production, has not made the progress that it should. To-day the volume of production is approximately the same as it was 50 years ago. While other countries have been able to step up to a remarkable degree their volume of agricultural production, the basic fact remains, as far as we are concerned, that the volume of our agricultural production has remained almost static over a period of 50 years. We still need better social services; we still need better medical services. The cultural life of the nation is as stagnant as ever it has been. Migration to-day is taking an appalling toll of the manhood and womanhood of this country. Migration is a haemorrhage within the nation itself. We are pouring out for export to other countries the best of our manhood and womanhood because we cannot provide them with decent employment in their own land.
So far as the Labour Party is concerned it believes, not in a policy of restriction, not in a policy of curtailment, not in the policy of austerity which is apparently championed by the Minister for Finance. No good can come to a people by telling them to consume less or to buy less. That policy will only create unemployment and distress. You cannot bring prosperity to the nation by counselling our people to consume as little as possible and to hoard as much as possible. That is the advice which has continuously been tendered to the nation of late by some of those ill-equipped to advise.
If we are to deal with the problems confronting us, if we are to find a solution for these problems which will maintain and, if possible, raise our existing standards of living, we can do so by a concentration on the two avenues of development which are open to us. One is the agricultural avenue, the other the industrial avenue. In both these spheres there is scope for an enormous expansion, expansion which would give us wealth, which would give us the goods which we at present import, which would give employment not only to adult men and women but as well to growing boys and girls who see nothing before them but a choice of emigration to the great American Continent or emigration to Britain, to take advantage of the artificially created conditions which provide regular employment in that country at present. I believe that if we can concentrate the resources of the nation, the powers which this Parliament has, the powers which the Government have and the reservoir of goodwill which exists in this country to-day, on industrial and agricultural expansion, we can in the course of time build up both an agricultural and industrial economy here, which would curb many of the tendencies which are manifest at present and which would give the country reasonable insulation against the risks which, circumstanced as the nation is to-day, are ever-recurring risks, and must continue to be ever-recurring risks, in the relatively undeveloped state of our industries and the stagnant position of agriculture.
