I am sorry; I did not hear it. I know that last year the reduction was explained by a reduction in prices to the farmers. It does seem strange to us on this side of the House that the producers of our main requirements, foodstuffs, should be asked to bear the heaviest part of the burden in relation to the Coalition retrenchment policy. It has been noticeable in some of the remarks we have heard here—some by way of interruption; others actually in speeches; and one made about an hour ago by a Deputy from County Galway—that this is a trend which we have observed for some time back, that is, the apparent inclination of all the Parties of the Coalition—at one time it used to be attributed to the Labour Party, but now apparently it is taken up by all Parties in the Coalition—to drive a wedge between town and country. God knows one partition of the country is enough without seeking to put town against country.
If an item such as a reduction of £716,000 on food subsidies is made possible by asking the food producers to bear this burden, I suppose members of the Coalition Parties feel themselves entitled to take it as a pointer that, in fact, this policy has received official recognition. There are many things for which we, on this side of the House, have blamed, and will continue to blame, the Coalition, but I think that if an appeal from this side of the House has any effect, if thought worthy of any consideration by the Coalition, this trend should be nipped before it develops into a campaign. Possibly, the result of a recent by-election may have provided a little bit of the urge to speak in this fashion, but I think we should appeal, and I do appeal, to the Coalition spokesmen not to give way to any such urge.
One of the most interesting statements I have heard since the debate on this Estimate began was, I should say, the analysis made by Deputy Lemass this morning of the question of prices. We have had nothing like it in this House, nor in the official publications. I take it the information he gave is available to anybody who is prepared, or who has the time, to give very close study to the official statistics. Everything he said, of course, has been taken from official publications and therefore its truth cannot be questioned. The significant thing is that retail prices have gone up by a percentage much greater than the increases in agricultural prices and greater than the increases in items of import which are taken into the computation of the cost-of-living figure.
In that connection, he remarked that the cost of agricultural produce had dropped by, I think, about 6 per cent. I want to connect that state of affairs in relation to the prices with the Minister's recent Order on hire purchase. In passing, it is worth noting that he recently found it was not as good an instrument as he had originally conceived it to be and he has amended his Order in one or two very important respects. We all remember before the last election that those who spoke for organised workers made it quite clear, inside this House and outside it, that they did not want any increase in wages, that increases in wages which were filched from them by subsequent increases in prices were of no value and that they were not so childish as to believe that an increase in the number of pound notes they received per week would meet their problems, if in fact the need for still more pound notes was created by further increases in prices, and they very wisely asserted that what they wanted was a Government that would, by its wise policy—which apparently, in their view, Fianna Fáil was incapable of framing—and by retrenchment of Government expenditure bring about a reduction in costs so as to produce a reduction in the cost of living.
For 12 months after the Coalition came into office, the organised workers waited for this new deliverance to take shape and effect, and then we saw that they decided that their hopes were in vain and they took the only course open to them, that of seeking compensation in increased wages for the rising costs. These increases in wages, in turn, accentuated the tendency for prices to rise and if, in these circumstances, people who required essential goods such as furnishings for houses decided that they would utilise to the full the benefits of hire purchase to get their requirements while prices were still not too high, who can blame them for it?
If a newly-married couple did not have the price of the minimum quantity of furniture for their house, and if they wanted to get £200 or £300 worth of furniture, and if, in view of existing circumstances, it was reasonable to assume that if they waited for another 12 months, that amount of furniture would have increased in price by 25 per cent., who can blame them for taking advantage of hire-purchase facilities to get their minimum requirements of what I understand are described as "consumption durables"? Now the Minister for Industry and Commerce has come along with his Hire Purchase Order to ensure that, to a very large extent, the benefits of this hire purchase will no longer be available to them.
Deputy Lemass showed quite clearly to-day that it was neither the cost of imported commodities, nor any increase to the main producers at home that produced the high cost of living, but in fact the incompetence of the Government who had promised so much to people and who led them to believe that they were being whipped unnecessarily by Fianna Fáil, and who told them that all they had to do was to cast their votes for the Coalition Parties and that they could very quickly and easily get rid of the Fianna Fáil hairshirt.
Reference was made to an industry which has come to West Galway. The Deputy who referred to it made the extraordinary statement that by this one industry alone—a cotton printing industry — the Minister had earned his passage to the U.S.A. I am sorry to have to destroy the Deputy's picture. I do not want in any way to lessen appreciation for Department of Industry and Commerce efforts for industrial revival, but, as a Galway Deputy, I must point out that this proposal had taken shape before the Tánaiste went to America, that in fact it was a proposal before the change of Government.
Here is a significant fact that is worth mentioning—and let me say that it does please us on this side of the House, particularly because the Act was the work of this side—the cotton printing industry in Galway could not have taken shape and was in fact not even contemplated, until the Undeveloped Areas Act became law. If we have now one of the few china factories in the country located in Galway, and if we are now to get this cotton printing industry, nobody with a sense of proportion could fail to give a fair share of credit to the man who conceived, drafted and piloted through the Dáil the Undeveloped Areas Act which induced industrial promoters such as those who have founded the china industry and who now propose to found this cotton industry to establish themselves in such areas. That measure was introduced by Deputy Lemass as Minister for Industry and Commerce. It enabled people to come into areas like Galway and to compete with concerns located in more favoured parts of the country. That is the fundamental principle underlying the Undeveloped Areas Act—that business people who know they would be up against competitive factors which would, in fact, prevent the successful operation of industries in those areas, should get help and assistance. That want was supplied by this Act.
I know that cold water will be thrown on anything one goes to do for the good of the community, because of the bitterness of party politics, no matter how good or excellent that thing is in itself. If it is so good on its merits that no fault can be found with it, one is told: "Why did you not do it 20 years ago; why did you not do it earlier?" Accordingly, when the Undeveloped Areas Act was being piloted through the Dáil for the purposes I have mentioned, criticism was levelled at Deputy Lemass and at the Fianna Fáil Party. We were asked: "Why did you not think of it long ago?"
The Party that introduced industrialisation generally by their system of tariffs, quotas and other methods of conserving the home market, could not be expected at that early stage to foresee that certain areas in this country were so handicapped as not to be in a position to benefit adequately from the general additions to industrial development which were brought in 20 years ago. If, after observing the trends, the then Minister set about to remedy and to fill up the gaps which the experience of ten or 15 years had shown him to have been created, I think he is to be praised rather than criticised for taking the steps to tighten up the code of the system which had been created generally for the benefit of industrial development on a national scale. It would be unfair and unreasonable for anybody to have expected the Minister for Industry and Commerce in those days, good and able as he was, to have undertaken a job of this kind during the war.
We all know the main problem before all of us during the war was to try to produce as much food as possible, to build up as good a defence as we could, so that our declaration of neutrality would not be a mere pious aspiration. That job was done well, and if we got out of the war much more easily than any other neutral country in Europe, it was very largely due to the direction which was then available for the efforts which the people as a whole were prepared to put into the job. When that danger passed, this other job of major importance was undertaken. Credit is due to the industrialists in the country who are interested in cotton manufacture generally for having come together and established this company for a further expansion of the cotton industry and for having decided to go to Galway with the aids provided by An Foras Tionscal.
I have not attempted on any occasion I spoke on this Estimate to do what my opposite number did to-day, to put any political label on the industrial efforts being made or on the success or failure of such efforts. I do not think it is good for these areas that any attempt should be made in this House to attach such political tags. I would remind the Deputy who spoke in this way that it is undesirable to mention specifically proposals which have not yet fructified. There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, and there has been a serious slip even in regard to this proposal since it was first mooted. Surely a proposal that has not yet fructified should be left out of discussion and not be mentioned specifically in this House for the purpose of handing to the Minister for Industry and Commerce some kudos which, I believe, he himself would not expect in the circumstances as he knows them. The U.S.A. had nothing whatever to do with this proposal and nobody knows that better than the Minister. For that reason I am quite satisfied he would not wish to be beslavered with undeserved praise.
