It is difficult to findany answer to his general vague aphorisms, but I would say that he has proved to be a very poor prophet many a time. We all remember the time when he said—it is not very long ago— that, after wheat and beet, please God peat will go up the spout. We remember the time when he was completely and absolutely opposed to all these three forms of economic production. We can remember when he was promising to drown the British in eggs, and we recall that in 1951 there was a reduction of poultry to the number of 2,300,000 head compared with 1950. We remember the time when he promised to smother the British in bacon, but by the middle of June, 1951, there were 89,000 less pigs than there were the year before. We remember when he promised to restore the pig population in 12 months if given the opportunity, and when he said that there would be no foreseeable increase in the price of maize when the £ was devalued. We also remember when he spoke of an adverse trade balance of £2,000,000 as if it was something that was going to bring economic disaster to the nation.
As I was saying, Deputy Dillon's exaggerations are so gross that it is very hard to deal with them in detail. I think the best thing to do is to get down to a proper discussion of the Budget and its economic consequences. I would like to repeat again what has been said here before that the main element of difficulty in the present Budget, as in the case of the last Budget, is that there were expenses which were known to the Coalition Government in May of 1951 and which were not provided for in that Budget. If the total amount of money which has to be provided in this Budget was £8,000,000 less, the amount that was not provided for in the Budget that was introduced in May, 1951, there would not be the same sense of burden in regard to tax levels. It is very important that everyone in the country should realise that the principal difficulty we are faced with, and the principal effects of the burden of taxation, were created not by us but by the last Government through their improvidence and through their excessive expenditure, and that ever since thenwe have been trying to make ends meet. We have been trying to ensure that we can meet current expenditure by current revenue, and at the same time carry on with the development of the country.
I charge the Coalition Government with having misused completely all the opportunities they had during the period of the post-war boom and during the boom period created by the scare of a fresh war with the consequent rise in prices. I charge them with not having taken advantage of that period to conserve our reserves by provident methods of finance so that we could have something in reserve when the boom period ended. They failed to take advantage of the fact that agricultural prices were rising while other prices remained stable.
They failed to take account of the fact that there was a period of universal and of very badly co-ordinated and unstrategical stockpiling all over the world. They were unable to exercise any discrimination in the choice of what should be stockpiled and of all the economic effects that must occur when stockpiling takes place. They took no advantage of the position they had at that time to insist on providence in finance. They took no account of the fact that agricultural prices were rising continuously during that whole period, and that there must come a time, sooner or later, when they would be stabilised. They never warned anyone in the community that the boom would not go on for ever, that there must be an end to it sometime. The boom would end either in war, or else for the time being men's eyes would turn away from war and consequently there would be an inevitable end to price rises.
The circumstances of the time were of course beyond our control. During that period they spent £22,000,000 in three years on Supplementary Estimates and only provided £3,000,000 for the whole of the £22,000,000 in their Budget. When Deputy Dillon spoke of the Supplementary Estimates for which we found ourselves responsible, the actual fact is that in the financialyear 1952-53 we budgeted for a higher proportion, in advance, of Supplementary Estimates than actually accrued, than they had done during their whole period in office. We were left with a tradition of overspending which it was absolutely impossible to overcome or deal with in one financial year.
It is extremely difficult for any Minister for Finance to manage a situation where a Government could actually spend on Supplementary Estimates the huge sum of £22,000,000 and only provide £3,000,000 for them, where a Government was always gambling on getting increased yields from taxes and on a boom—whose end could not be foreseen and which must end sometime.
The result of all that was that, during their period, the Coalition Government doubled the national debt. They borrowed £45,000,000 from the United States; they misspent it and they left us with an unbalanced Budget. They reduced the entire net external reserves of this country by 40 per cent. in two years, and were in sight of running us into debt with Great Britain.
I might add that there is no known economic theory in the world underlying the acts of the Coalition. They frequently pretend to be advanced economists. There are many economic theories. There are many ways of applying national policy to the economic life of the people. There is for example the general attitude towards economic life in England. The Socialists and the Conservatives in their general attitude have agreed on many points. As regards the Coalition Government their economic experts talked as though they were followers of Lord Keynes. I hope that the people of this country are beginning to realise that the Coalition operated Lord Keynes' theory of an expansionist economy in reverse. They did all the things he recommended to do in entirely different circumstances. They poured money into circulation when agricultural prices were rising. They poured borrowed money into circulation during a period when stockpiling was going on. They borrowed money as fast as they could and threw it into circulation, knowing that theywould have to pay it back. They did that at a time when they should have thought twice of conserving finances for the period when prices might not be so satisfactory. That policy, of course, was wholly political and designed to create popularity, and to maintain in office a group of men who had little interest in common save a dislike of the present Government.
The boom is over now in Europe and here, and we are facing, as I have said, some difficulties that are universal, and some that have been forced on us by the last Government. Everywhere all over the world a buyer's market is beginning. Prices have risen to such a height that people all over the world have stopped buying freely. People all over the world are providing problems for their Governments in regard to such matters as revenue and problems of employment. The people are hesitant to buy in the belief that prices will fall.
Every Government is being faced with exactly the same kind of general difficulties with which we are faced— an enormous increase in costs, the necessity for imposing higher taxation, the necessity for reducing the adverse balance of payments. The O.E.E.C. has reports inches thick from every country in Europe, pointing out the fact that there was a false boom, that the boom had ended and that every country would have to look after its balance of payments, would have to try to do the impossible, maintaining a liberalisation of trade while at the same time restraining excessive imports. Every country in the world has been given exactly the same sort of advice as to its economy by that organisation as we have given the people of this country and the same conditions apply not only to countries devastated during the war but to countries which were neutral.
The difficulties we have to face in this country are exaggerated by the fact that many of the countries in Europe are still enjoying enormous dollar did from the United States Government. We face the position that we borrowed £45,000,000 and were compelled to spend it all in two years and then quite suddenly we found that thewhole of the aid had ended. Marshall Aid was a very heady tonic for the people. It was equivalent to the entire expenditure on food and drink for one complete year. It came quickly, it was spent quickly, because the bills that were left to us to pay demanded the expending of the balance. Now that it has ended it is naturally going to be more difficult for us to continue our national reconstruction campaign. We have to do without what amounted to £20,000,000 of borrowed money in each of two years, loaned to us from another country. It was, of course, misspent in every sense; and God forbid that we should ever borrow again from the Americans and spend money in the same way. If ever there should be a loan on any basis, I hope it will be spent prudently on projects from which there could be some return.
The Tánaiste, in the course of his address over the radio, said that he thought conditions were improving. I think that is our principal message to the people of this country on the occasion of this Budget, that there is some stabilisation of prices, but that prices are unlikely to be reduced to any large degree. There are so many price support mechanisms operating in various countries that at least this year we see no indication of a slump in prices. The stockpiles have been almost absorbed completely. There should be a period of stability, when we can look forward to greater employment and the continuance of the Government's reconstruction campaign.
A great deal of the employment given in 1950 in this country was of an entirely false and temporary character, and it is well to be frank about it and say that it was temporary. It was due to the fact that the stockpiling by the last Government operated in two ways. First of all, in the beginning the goods that were imported consisted both of raw materials and finished goods. The raw materials were made up in the factories and the factories produced great quantities and gave great employment. Then, suddenly, they found that at the same time the finished goods were being imported. There were huge volumes of finished goods and goods manufacturedhere, thrown on the market at the same time, with no thought or planning behind it. The natural result was that there was later a very considerable period of increased unemployment. Some of that mercifully is passing away. Many of the goods manufactured from raw materials imported at such high prices due to the post-war rearmament are most difficult to sell at the present time—articles made of steel, copper and bronze and articles made of high-priced metals. These naturally found a consumer resistance, because they were imported at a time when prices were sky-high.
The new prosperity that will come for this country will come through solid stable production; it will come through the efficient labour of our people; it will come from modern methods in industry and agriculture; it will come through a progress that is real, a genuine economic progress; it will come from an improvement in the character of production. It will not come through unbalanced Budgets; it will not come through borrowed money, poured among the population at the worst possible moment; it will not come through stockpiling during a period of war hysteria. It will come through the normal process of national reconstruction which has been going on for many years and which was fostered by the present Government during its first period of office; now that we are getting over our difficulties I hope that we shall go on with the same kind of reconstruction policy and look forward to the same kind of success.
I should advert on this occasion to the fact that it is obvious that the alliance, if such exists, between the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party has become uneasy and that is a significant fact that the country should realise. The Labour Party gained few votes and little kudos from their association with Fine Gael. They had the satisfaction of knowing that it was they alone who persuaded Fine Gael to carry on, in a faltering way, in an inefficient way, with some of the many plans that we left for the reconstruction of this country in 1947, when we were defeated. We need not go far toseek the reason for the fact that this alliance appears to have been more or less severed. Compelling Fine Gael to go Left is not a profitable business for the Labour Party. They will find that the solid programme of national reconstruction of Fianna Fáil will always pay them better, even though they may be disappopinted at times, even though they may think that, from the standpoint of the working man, there are temporary setbacks. They were naturally disappointed because no Social Welfare Bill emerged during their period of office.
I would like to recall what Deputy Norton said on the 13th July, 1950:—
"We have introduced into this House a Bill which will provide a scheme of social security based on the provisions of the White Paper. That will be done just as relentlessly and as remorselessly as the other things which we have done in the sphere of social security."
We had Deputy Larkin saying by the end of the Coalition régime—or rather a few months after it ended:—
"We know that Fine Gael utilised every opportunity that came, not only in the open light of the day but in the dark of night. Next time we may know better."
He was speaking of the efforts to frustrate Labour legislation. The Labour Party equally have been disappointed by the fact that their pricefreeze measure, instituted by them in the hope of keeping down the cost of living, was an utter failure and by the fact that the working people know very well that nearly half of the whole increase in the cost of living took place before the Budget of last year. It is well to remind the people that in August, 1950, an average group of commodities worth about £5, by August, 1951, was already worth £5 11s. owing to the Korean war and to the consequent increases in prices. We, of course, have been blamed for the whole increase in prices that has taken place, although the cost of living steadily mounted from the time that the Korean war commenced. I hope that the Labour Party at least have some consolation in knowing thatthe statement made by the Trade Union Congress economic expert in April, 1952, that we had forecast the trends of expenditure in the Budget then, was correct, that we did not provide for a £10,000,000 surplus. I hope the Labour Party feels slightly humiliated by the fact that they now realise that some £8,000,000 had been omitted from the 1951 Budget, that that had to be paid for somehow. We hear a great deal from the Opposition about suggestions that we want to cut consumption.
It should be made clear that our only object is to cut consumption for which we cannot afford to pay. There has been no reduction in the consumption of essential foodstuffs in this country since the Budget in which the subsidies were reduced. The consumption of bread was about the same in 1952 as in 1950; the consumption of butter was down by a very small fraction and the consumption of margarine up; the consumption of sugar went up by 16 per cent. in 1952 compared with 1950; and the consumption of tea remained the same, so that the suggestion that we are trying to prevent the people from consuming the necessaries of life is ridiculous and denied by the facts.
It is well for those who believe in a broad policy of social welfare development to realise that the Fine Gael Party are swinging to the right again in regard to their attitude on social services. We heard a statement from Deputy Costello the other day in the course of a recent debate in a university in which he said he did not believe in the welfare State, and he defined the welfare State as one in which there was a large measure of social services. It is a warning to all those who are interested in the security of those with modest incomes of what might happen if the Fine Gael Party were re-elected to office. My own belief is that they have an instinctive regard for right wing over-conservative policies still in their hearts and that they are merely condemned to modify their policy because of the necessity of coalescing with some Party or other.
We should make it perfectly clear that we believe in social services forworkers who have no property and who are unable to safeguard themselves against the hazards of life in the same way as those who own businesses. The workers are unable to save voluntarily sufficient sums to provide themselves with protection against the hazards of life; and it is essential and right in a Christian community to redistribute a portion of the national income every year for this purpose. Taxation should be raised in reasonable measure more from the better-off sections than from the less well-off in order to provide that redistribution.
It is well to remind the House of statements made at one time by Deputies in the Coalition Government in connection with this matter. Deputy Costello is reported, on 13th March, 1947, as saying:—
"Money is wanted for social services. This is the justification of all the extravagances inflicted upon the country. The existence of social services is an indication of ill health in the body politic. In any case, as has been said, they are nothing more than a row of medicine bottles."
The actual facts are that the countries that are best off in Western Europe are those with the most highly developed social services of every kind. Countries which have intelligent Governments, provident Governments, Governments that have well protected the economies of their countries, have developed social services with large benefits, and have been prepared to impose taxation when it is necessary in order to cover these services. The existence of social services has no longer any relation with poverty in any civilised country, and Deputy Costello's views of 1947 are completely out of date. They are part of an old conservative tradition which has long passed away, but which we see occasionally emerging, as, for example, in the case of Deputy McGilligan who, in Cork, once more seemed to throw doubt on the whole value and conception of social services in this country.
I imagine that those people in the Labour Party who hoped there might be some permanent increase in employment under the Coalition Government,that the increase in employment would be of a permanent character and would not be due, as I have said, to stock-piling, to inflationary policies, to unbalanced Budgets, are now disappointed by the result of all that happened. I myself am perfectly prepared to face the challenge that there is an increase in the number of unemployed compared with 1951. I have indicated the reasons for it—the fact that there has been a slump all over the world and a recession in trade. I am prepared to face the challenge because I know that, during the period of the Coalition, in reality, they did not succeed in providing permanent employment.
The average unemployment, in 1948, the average number of persons unemployed, was 61,000. That figure fell in 1950, their last full year of office, to 53,000 and during that period nearly 100,000 emigrated and over 50,000 persons left the land. It is a ridiculous assertion to make that they were in sight of solving either the emigration or the unemployment problem. If we have learned anything from the change of Government that took place three years ago, it is that we all of us, on both sides, ought to be extremely restrained in any statements we make in regard to our ability to end emigration speedily, or even to give any large measure of employment in a particular year or for a particular short period of time.
The present Government did succeed in reducing emigration for a considerable period before the war. Emigration rose again during the war and was again later reduced. I do not pretend that we will be able to cure that problem in a short time. I believe we are making steady progress towards giving greater employment, towards ensuring permanent employment. In this connection I should mention the fact that, in spite of all our difficulty, and although the number of unemployed has increased in connection with certain industries, the Social Welfare Act came into operation and enabled a large number of persons in rural districts to register for unemployment insurance during the winter.
Before there was any change in the scope of social welfare legislation, we now know that, in 1952, there were approximately 25,000 persons more employed than in 1950. That calculation, as everyone in the House knows, is made by working out the number of national health insurance contributions and providing an average figure for the year. I shall be able to give in more detail the reasons for the increase in employment later.
I suppose some members of the Parties supporting Fine Gael were under the illusion that the Coalition Government, if they could do nothing else, could carry out national reconstruction schemes at a greater pace than we ever did. I hope they are disappointed and that they will alter their opinions in regard to the present Government when they realise how completely we have outstripped the Coalition record in relation to virtually every single project for national reconstruction, most of which were projected by us or in operation in 1947 and many of which were mishandled by the previous Government.
I should mention, in connection with the general question of giving employment, that we note that once again Deputy Dillon appears to be slipping from Fine Gael who showed themselves to be, shall we say, rather fainthearted converts to the Fianna Fáil tariff policy. The Deputy appears to be slipping again to a position of lofty independence of his Party whom we taught, in 16 long years, to believe in tariffs. His ferocious attack on the whole world of Irish industrialists during the course of his recent speech leaves that in no doubt, and I hope that any person in this country who is interested in the welfare of workers in towns and cities will ask himself the question whether it is safe to support a Party one of whose principal supporters condemns so utterly and completely the whole of the new industrial world of this country. I wonder whether, for example, Deputy Norton would like to have been in the House and to have heard Deputy Dillon talk about tariffs, knowing the employment given through the aid of considerable protection in his ownconstituency in towns such as Naas, Newbridge and Kildare. I wonder whether he still has the same faith as he once had in Deputy Dillon's omniscience, in his supposedly divine instincts in regard to politics, which have been so frequently shattered through the fact that he is never able to record that his prophecies came true and the fact that his policy changes with every wind.
I think it is important to record the actual progress made by the Government in regard to agriculture and industry and the many other schemes for which we have always been responsible. In connection with agriculture it is well to remind the House that in the last year of their office every branch of agriculture was in a state of decline save the cattle industry. Pigs were declining in numbers, poultry were declining and tillage had gone down by 53,000 acres. It is well to remind the House that Deputy Dillon boasted that he spent $5,000,000 on wheat in one afternoon as a method of getting rid of Marshall Aid and that nevertheless he was forced, late in April, 1951 to advocate tillage and to put at the head of the list of advertisements that appeared in the newspapers the hated wheat.
The only thing he did so far as agriculture was concerned was to run us into debt with America to the tune of £27,000,000 for wheat that we could grow here and could grow without difficulty. At the end of his term of office agricultural production was still below the 1938 level and was, in fact, no higher than it was during our administration in 1945, after years of war when there was almost a complete absence of fertilisers and machinery.
To record some of the progress that we made: We considered it right to give milk producers two increases in price. We have at last got a substantial increase of beet sugar produce, the price having been increased by 10/- a ton: We have given increases of 15/- a barrel in the price of wheat since June, 1951. Deputy Dillon talked about the difficulties facing the pig industry at the present time. In actual fact the pig population has been growing ever since we came into officebecause of an agreement made whereby the proportion of pork exports to bacon exports was altered in our favour and as a result a very profitable trade has grown up.
All agricultural exports have improved. Agricultural exports in 1952 were 20 per cent. in value over those in 1950. Production did not increase very much. We still have that problem to face but there was a small, measurable increase in the actual quantities of produce which came off the land in 1952. There has been great progress in regard to the fresh and frozen beef trade of this country, in which exports went up by 71 per cent. compared with 1951. In general, there was an air of prosperity in regard to the agricultural industry last year.
We have always regarded the application of limestone as one of the most important factors in agricultural production. It was during the office of this Government that eight new limestone production plants have gone into operation, making the total number in the country 26, and it was during the period of office of this Government that the production of ground limestone increased from 75,000 tons to 500,000 tons.
Deputy Dillon was talking about the parish plan for giving instruction to the agricultural community. The number of instructors increased from 88 to 107 during the period of office of the present Government.
I mention those things to show that everything is being done by the present Government to foster agricultural production. The scope and variety of loans have improved. Credit has been made available to farmers for wheat seed and fertilisers.
When we come to talk about the famous land rehabilitation project that was the king-pin of Deputy Dillon's agricultural policy, not only are we altering the scheme to provide benefits which will be to the advantage of the average farmer in this country, but the work done on the scheme in its present form, modified by the present Minister to ensure better results, has enormously expanded, expanded to the point that in connection with the scheme whereby farmers do their ownwork, in 1950-1951 there were 20,000 acres of land reclamation completed and by 1952-1953 the figure has increased to 75,000 acres. The same sort of progress is being shown in connection with the scheme under which the work is done for the farmer by contractors.
When we come to industry we see the same sort of progress. We have to record the implementation of 140 projects for new industries or extension of industries. We have to record that we and not the last Government succeeded in providing for the extension of the cement factories, factories which are of the kind that should appeal even to the stony-hearted Deputy Dillon who so much detests tariffs, factories that produce articles largely made from raw materials available here. If the decision had been made as to how that extension should take place there would have been more employment and I believe there would have developed a very creditable export trade in cement.
It was not the Coalition Government that expanded the beet sugar industry and arranged for an increase in the productive capacity of all the four factories; it was the present Government. We believe that beet sugar is not only a good industry in itself but that it improves the land and gives employment and ensures good scientific methods of cultivation.
It was the present Government who made the final decision about the future of the tourist industry. The Christenberry Report on the tourist industry lay, apparently untouched by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, for months and months. It was the present Government, who believe the tourist industry is second in importance in this country only to agriculture, which is our main industry, who reformed the Tourist Board, provided large sums of money in order to advertise this country as a tourist centre and finally made available guarantees for loans in respect of the improvement of hotel accomodation up to the limit of £3,000,000. The last Government had three years to do all that, but their Government was composed of some people who did not even believein the tourist industry, who did not think it was good for this country. We are very well aware of the fact that if the tourists leave £25,000,000 a year, it is an industry that cannot be ignored, that we could not continue to provide a mere £40,000 for the Tourist Board, that such an industry needs sums of money running into hundreds of thousands of pounds if the work is to be well done.
Then I come to the question of electrical development. Having, as usual, to dispose of the difficulty which I always find with the members of the Fine Gael Party who point to the Shannon scheme, I might mention the fact that during the period of the Coalition Government they never made a single proposition for any kind of power station using native fuel and that since then there are water-power stations going up in three areas, peat fuel stations in three other areas, and four hand-won turf stations, and that a station is to be erected using Arigna coal.
To give the House another illustration to prove that we know how to advance the development of this country, I would remind the House of the fact that Irish Shipping, Limited, were compelled to do something for themselves in the way of purchasing ships as they could not get any positive reply from the former Minister for Industry and Commerce as to what development they should undertake, and Deputy McGilligan subsequently reproved them sharply for making a decision without consulting the Government. It was left to us to increase the number of ships and provide for the expansion of Irish Shipping, Limited. Although the Harbour Development Act was passed in 1947, no real work was done in sanctioning schemes until we came into office. Now there are no less than 17 schemes in operation involving a total expenditure this year of £500,000.
I do not think I need say very much about the dreadful nonsense talked in connection with C.I.E., the condemnation of diesel electric traction by the former Minister for Industry and Commerce. The present board of C.I.E. has been unchanged, and the members are the same as they were in the timeof the Coalition Government. They have had to admit that the use of diesel trains was the only possible way of maintaining reasonable employment on the system and removing the enormous costs against the system by the use of steam.
As I said, there are many people who supported the Coalition who were bitterly disappointed with the fact that one of the prophecies they made that we would not be able to carry on capital development has proved untrue. It is just as well to remind the House of what we did in general in regard to these schemes. We completed 13,000 houses in 1952 compared with 12,000 in 1950. We spent some £800,000 more on the construction of new hospitals in the last financial year than was spent in the previous financial year. We extended the construction of schools. The number of new schools in progress in January, 1953, was 107 as compared with 66 in January, 1951. We enabled an enormous expansion to take place in the manufacture of machine-won turf so that production in tons went up from 214,000 in 1950 to 600,000 in 1952. In connection with rural electrification, about which the Coalition tried to take some credit to themselves, all the plans were made and the wires were going up towards the end of 1947. The number of consumers connected went up from some 14,000 in 1949-50 to 80,000 in 1952-53.
Then in regard to forestry, let us remember that Deputy MacBride said he would plant 1,000,000 acres if he had the chance, and Deputy Blowick stated that in less than no time he could plant 25,000 acres a year although he was unable to find the reserve of plantable areas for that purpose. We succeeded in extending forestry so that in 1952 there were 15,000 acres planted in comparison with 7,400 in 1950. I have already given figures in connection with our work in making the land improvement scheme operate properly. We extended arterial drainage. There are more people employed on arterial drainage this year than in 1950 or 1951. We have made a grant for roads in tourist districts and have enabled a much larger sum to be afforded for road development in general.
I wanted to give these facts because we have proved to be a Government that is alive to the needs of this country. We have disproved all the doleful prophecies in regard to the abandonment of capital schemes and that we intended to adopt some fantastically conservative policy which would involve the disemployment of thousands of people who had been employed by the Coalition Government in what I might call the half-hearted operation of the schemes left by us to them in 1947.
I do not think I need say very much more except once again to repeat that we are now entering on a year of a kind which has not been seen in this country for a very long time. Prices have been increasing, slowly or rapidly, for nearly 17 years and the price rise has nearly come to an end, in respect of most commodities. That will make a very big difference to the people of the country. It means that the policy of the Government will have to be elastic, that we will have to allow for changes that might take place in our foreign trade. It means that it will be no longer possible to make an automatic profit on anything, even agricultural produce, for the next few months, simply because of the fact that the price has risen in the meantime. It compels upon us the need for greater production per acre and greater production per man.
One of the reasons why the people of the country showed most marked discontent with the present Government in connection with the last by-election is the fact that it is very hard to make people realise that prices all over the world had gone sky-high, that they have suddenly become stable and that everyone is hesitating to buy. We are faced with a completely new situation all over the world, a situation which, of course, may be upset at any time should there be another war scare or another devaluation of the £ or any other change in the world, which we cannot foresee and for which we have no responsibility.
We believe that, having got over our budgetary difficulties and having decided to make economies in expenditure which have not been made formany a long year, we shall be able to advance ahead. I should stress the fact that the decision of the Government to maintain the Supplementary Estimates as far as possible in the region of £750,000 in a year is a complete innovation and a sign that we really mean to control expenditure in a way that was never envisaged by the last Government.
I would repeat again that they indulged in Supplementary Estimates to the tune of £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 per year. They budgeted for practically no anticipated increases. They budgeted for a very small proportion, indeed, of the very large amounts that they were forced to spend. In addition to making economies, totalling £3,500,000, in our present expenditure, the fact that we will not spend an average of £8,000,000 a year, so to speak, is very remarkable. That is something that will call for great restraint and it will not be popular in certain quarters.
There is one thing that people invariably forget when they talk about high taxes and that is the fact that if expenditure comes down somebody gets hurt, in the same way as people get hurt when taxes go up. The restraint we will show should set an example to the rest of the community in relation to the new economic situation of price stabilisation. The way may not be easy but it is nevertheless the best way in which we can overcome the difficulties we inherited from the Coalition Government.
I would like to remind the Opposition that in the 1951 Budget there was an expenditure of £8,000,000 for which no provision had been made. If we had not had to impose taxation to bring in that £8,000,000 the burden would have been far lighter. Our task would have been much easier if the Government had shown some prudence and some providence during the year 1950 and the first half of the year 1951. It is a fact that the difference between the £15,000,000 we had to raise and the £7,000,000 we might have raised had there not been that improvidence, is literally the difference between what seemed, at least at the time, to becrushing taxation and the taxation that was inevitably demanded by increasing costs and increasing social services.
