This is the time for the seasonal descent on the West again and maybe the Parliamentary Secretary is going to lead a couple of more Parliamentary Secretaries down there in order to do further surveys. So far as I remember, there were 13 reports on the congested districts, as between reports by the old Congested Districts Board, the Report of the Gaeltacht Commission and so on. In all, there were 13 reports, and Parliamentary Secretary Lynch had to go on another to get up to date. I should like to know what he has in his office, apart from furniture and possibly these 13 old reports. The first time he has any record of work done will he come and let us have a full-dress debate on his achievement?
Rural electrification is another matter that Deputy Briscoe talked about. Rural electrification started at a very late point in this country. At the time when the Siemens-Schuckert plan for the Shannon was first produced, they had a section dealing with rural electrification. That was back in 1927, and they said that this country was lagging far behind most other countries in regard to rural electrification and was terribly far behind in relation to certain countries they named. When the four European experts reported on the Siemens-Schuckert plan, they drew attention to this and said that there was no doubt that the rural community in this country had been deprived of something which other rural communities had had for very many years. They said that the immediate thing to do with regard to electrification was to get ahead with the easy market, the towns and small villages, and then to bring it to the other areas.
When did we move out? The vigorous Minister sat on that whole matter of rural electrification until there was really no power at the disposal of the Electricity Supply Board for the development of the rural areas. There was no development with regard to electricity here, except the one which was forced upon the Government by the Dublin Corporation. There was nothing doing in the way of electrical development until the war started, excepting only one scheme, the Dublin scheme at Poulaphouca, which was indulged in mainly as a reservoir scheme for the provision of extra domestic supplies of water for the Dublin community, and then that half-hearted effort for the development of electricity was considered at that point. By that time, of course, expenses had gone completely beyond all reckoning. Labour charges had gone up; machinery charges had advanced fundamentally; and machinery was almost impossible to get. In these circumstances, the alert Minister decided that this was the time to have a new electrical development. In the Estimate this year, one of the things boasted of is that the annuity payment for rural electrification has been brought back to the figure of £485,000 instead of the annuity figure of £50,000 at which we had it last year. That is one of the most amazing changes that I see through the Estimates, and I should like to get some explanation of it.
Let me explain what happened. Rural electrification was based on acceptance of the position that it cannot pay its way and the result was that a scheme was adopted of charging dwellers in rural Ireland nothing really for bringing electricity to them. Whatever the cost of generation and whatever the cost of distribution sets—the poles and wires—that was, so to speak, to be regarded as a sort of capital development, not to be charged against the rural consumer.
It means that of the entire expense of bringing electricity to country areas a subvention of 50 per cent. must be given in order to make it easy for rural dwellers to get electricity. That subvention is divided half and half between the Government and the Electricity Supply Board. The Electricity Supply Board's charges are under the control of a public accountant of great repute. His report comes to this Dáil year by year under circumstances where it is open to challenge. If there is anything agitating the public it can be raised here, and it is a matter of responsibility with the Minister to raise it beforehand with the public auditor. Year by year, since rural electrification started, they have the system that whatever money they advance, they receive it on a 50-year basis, because that is their idea, backed by the public auditor who is appointed to deal with their charges. Their idea is that when lines are put up they will exist for 50 years.
Half the subvention of the Electricity Supply Board is paid by annuity spread out over 50 years. When we considered this as a Government we could not see why the Electricity Supply Board could pay the moneys over 50 years, but the Government must charge the taxpayer the whole sum in one go, and we made it a 50-year payment. Now it is back again. The taxpayer each year is landed with the full expenditure, the £500,000 advance in this respect. The Government insists on the taxpayer doing that, but it allows the Electricity Supply Board to spread it out over 50 years. What reason lies behind this division of charge I do not know. The idea of spreading it out seems to me to be the proper one, because it is based on the life of the materials. The provisioning of rural electrification, poles, wires and impedimenta carrying electricity to the countryside, is not going to be repeated year by year. Let me put this fantastic proposition to the House: suppose that we could get rid of rural electrification in one year at a cost of £10,000,000 and the State subvention was going to be £5,000,000, on the present system they would want to pay that £5,000,000 through the taxpayers' pockets in one year. One has only to put it that way to see how fundamentally absurd this matter is.
These are minor points raised by Deputy Briscoe in a parade of nationality. Although he touched on some important matters those are not the important things in a discussion on Industry and Commerce. The main thing is that the present Minister went before the people during the last couple of days talking first of all about the great loan which was going to be raised and secondly giving his views on the drapery trade. He has also —I hope that Deputies on the Fianna Fáil side take note—spoken on prices in a way which has brought a tribute in a well-phrased editorial in one of the daily papers. He has, I understand, thrown the towel into the ring regarding prices. Not only are they not going to come down but they are going up—that is apart from the prices which the Government have made go up by withdrawing the subsidies. Other prices are going up. We had a headline in the Saturday Irish Press of May 26th, 1951: “ `Coalition Aim— Hide Price Failure', says Seán Lemass”. It must be that which inspired Deputy Lynch, as Deputy Norton pointed out, to have his photograph on an address in which he promised the reduction of prices as well as the maintenance of subsidies. He should bring in some newspaper clippings as part of the furnishing of his £3,000 office in order to study them in whatever leisure he may have from the development of the West.
"Coalition Aim — Hide Prices Failure." Now we are told that apart from what the Government are going to do by withdrawing the subsidies, prices are going up. Deputy Briscoe thinks not, but the Minister tells us that it is time for the people to buy more goods in drapery shops. He thinks that there is a business recession—most people are sure of it—and that the falling off in sales was serious, and because it coincided with the accumulation of exceptionally large stocks it resulted in a sharp reduction in employment in Irish manufacturing concerns. He comes, however, to the buoyant conclusion that there is no reason for the public to hold off buying in shops with the idea that clothing goods are becoming cheaper. Having regard to future prospects, he urged the public to buy now and said that they would be likely to benefit by so doing.
He says that the shops are languishing, that manufacturers cannot get retailers and wholesalers to buy their goods and that therefore they are languishing, too. All are languishing because the customers are not in the shops. According to the Minister, people are holding off because they think that clothing will become cheaper. The Minister may know that while that is one reason the people are not in the shops it is not the whole reason or the greater part of it.
We are to have a substantial loan. A "substantial" loan is the word. We were told in the Budget that the reasons for the Budget hardships were two: we must stop buying abroad; this terrible growth in the gap in the balance of payments must be stopped. Secondly, personal incomes had advanced beyond the increase in the cost of living. That, transferred into ordinary terms which the man in the street would understand, is: "You are all living too well; you have too much money to spend and you are all spending too freely." And the screw was put on. "Food has to be bought so we will make food dearer and the less money people will have to buy drapery goods.""There is too much spending on tobacco and drink but they are going to be consumed," that was the thought. "Put more taxes on those, and the less money people will have to spend on drapery goods."
That policy, of course, had the inevitable conclusion that whatever business recession there was would be deepened and lengthened. Now the Minister tells us that there is going to be no slump in prices. Having taken so much from you in taxation, he proposes to ask you for some of your savings: "We, nevertheless, want you —where you are going to find the money is none of our business—to throw money into the drapery business and buy more goods". To do those three things would be equivalent to getting a solution for the problem of perpetual motion: reduce the people's spending power; look on some part of that reduced spending power as savings and get them to give it to the State as a loan and nevertheless get great business activity. If you can do that, you have certainly done something which borders on the miraculous.
Of course this is the result of policy. There must be a depression. There must be unemployment. There must be bankruptcy. Those are ways in which you purge out an inflated economy. These things are being done; they are in process of being done. Why should Deputies look sheepish in this House when unemployment is talked about? I know that unemployment was up by 13,000 and has now been reduced. By the ordinary statistical calculation which is made at this time of the year, it is not as bad, but is only 9,000 up. Let us get out, however, of the special order period and the figure will go back to 13,000 with a few extra thousands to it. There is extra unemployment, therefore, and there is a very big upsurge in emigration. There is underemployment which has not yet been marked. There are people running to the unemployment exchanges getting themselves registered as unemployed. There are people hanging on in firms which are not really making their wages, but which are keeping on their employees as far as they can in the hope that the slump will come to an end. People are not resorting to the shops. There is a depression all round and that cannot be denied. Yet the Minister talks of soaking up purchasing power out of the hands of the people. He says that people are really spending too freely on things which they should not spend money on. He says that they should give the State a substantial loan out of the accumulated savings the people have, although they have the same pay packet and must pay more for food, drink and tobacco. Then, when their purchasing power is reduced, on the one hand immediately and on the other hand potentially, when this appeal comes in the autumn, he asks them to swarm into the shops to buy.
For a year we have been told that the fault of the people is that they are buying too much, living too well, have too much spending power and are spending it, but now there is a move on. When you have a depression the mood has changed; there are exhortations to the people and they are told: "Do not think that there is going to be a fall in prices. Prices are stabilised, if not going up. You might as well buy now when the buying is relatively good. You might as well buy now because probably there will be worse taxation next year as we have only reduced the main part of the subsidies this year and we will take them all off next year."
I have already referred to the matter of the standstill Order, and in this context I want to refer to it again. There are these terrible contrasts. I will only refer to them with regard to industrial wages. I ask people to get the chart and look at it and remember that that big balloon in the centre represents the gap torn out of the people's lives here between 1939 and 1945. Industrial wages were raised by small subventions here and there by only 25 points over the 100 in 1939 while the cost of living was soaring to 80 points over.
So far as this chart goes it establishes that in 1948 the gap was closed inasmuch as industrial earnings then had surpassed the increased cost of living. I stress industrial earnings as in that calculation one must have regard to the fact that people secured more money by overtime wages or, when the working week was reduced from 44 to, say, 40 hours, the extra hours were paid on overtime rates. These items must be taken into any calculation based upon earnings as opposed to wage rates. In any event, the earnings crossed the line and the gap was closed at last in 1948. Now an attempt is being made to widen that gap once more because that is what the reduction in the subsidies means.
In 1939 we had the standstill Order. In 1947 we had the threat of a new standstill Order and the legislation ready for it. Then there was a realisation apparently in Fianna Fáil circles that that particular cock would not fight any longer. There had to be an indirect approach to the question of wages. There are two ways in which wages can be controlled. One is by direct control, a standstill Order which prevents any increase except in exceptional circumstances. The other is the indirect approach which is: let the pay packet be the same as before but increase the cost of the things people must buy or are going to buy. That is the same as if you secured a reduction in wages.
That chart shows industrial earnings. I asked in my time that the Civil Service associations should produce a similar chart in which they could show that the Civil Service suffered by the standstill Order. I asked them to have it produced so as to show what was torn from the lives of the people who are servants of the State. We would have to get similar charts for the Guards, the Army and the teachers. Similar charts can be made, but not with the same accuracy, with regard to pensioners of the State because they also suffered from what is shown there.
Then, in opposition to that, we got the figures I have already given to this House in regard to which, apparently, there was no standstill. There were reasons for these I am sure. But there is certainly something to be thrown into the balance and weighed against the depression shown by the chart. Schedule D showed that the profits from businesses and professions went up from a pre-war figure of £30,500,000 to a figure in 1948-49 of £64,500,000. There may be an explanation for that. I am not saying that that by any means reflects the personal profits because there had to be very heavy expenses thought of when replacements of machinery, plant and buildings came along. Therefore, extra profits had to be made to pile up the reserves for these things. But, when there is such a tremendous gap as that between £30,500,000 and £64,500,000 there is something to be considered by the people who are so keen on keeping their minds attached to that chart, and thinking of again producing that situation, but by indirect means this time.
In that connection, might I ask why 1939 is regarded as such a sacrosanct year? That chart shows not merely that people were not allowed to remain at the 1939 position which they had achieved with regard to the standard of living, but it shows the deficiencies, what was taken from them when judged by that 1939 standard. Is it thought proper that from 1939 to to-day there should not be any improvement in the conditions in which working people live? Have we not made any advance as a nation? Has the national income not gone up? Have workers not added to the productivity of the country? Apart from machinery, which I know is one of the points brought in in connection with this argument about productivity, are the workers not producing more? Are they not, as a unit, giving greater production than before? I understand they are. Why tie people to the 1939 level? That, of course, is the Budget philosophy, that personal incomes have increased more than the increase in the cost of living—a cost of living based upon 1939. There is no allowance made for any improvement when one speaks in these terms.
Of course, it is rather futile to be talking about improvement when the Government appear to say: "What you had in 1939 was good enough. You are getting a little bit better now because the gross income is bigger than the increase in the cost of living. Therefore we are going to put you back to the 1939 level." That is a wrong policy and a policy which will completely fail. It has to be put into the balance against the improvement shown in the personal incomes and the profits derived from businesses and the professions.
I also ask the Minister to reveal to the House when speaking again, if he wants to take up Deputy Briscoe's point, what was it that caused the piece of legislation called the Emergency Powers (Unlawful Profits) Bill, 1945. What were the conditions which got that piece of legislation the length of being put in White Paper form ready for introduction into the Clerk of the Dáil office? It struck me at the time when I read the Minister's memo. about the proposed legislation that he indicated an intention only to deal with gross profiteering and where the sums made through profiteering were substantial. I presume the Minister, with the other powers he had, would not bother with such a heavy piece of legislation to deal with a few cases of gross profiteering, and that, therefore, the gross profiteering must have been substantial. I take it that there must have been widespread profiteering of a gross type when the Minister thought of bringing in such a piece of legislation and of justifying it to the House.