When I moved to report progress last night, I was referring to the shibboleths which have served for policy in the years gone by, and to the many simple phrases which were offered to the electorate in the belief that adherence to the shibboleths therein enshrined would automatically bring the country to the stage in which all its economic problems would have been solved, and that we would be ushered into a period of embarrassing prosperity. Of course, to those who have lived to judge the efficacy of these shibboleths, and to those who have measured the national economic development against the background of those glib phrases, it is clear that these early pledges have proved to be false promises and to be unreliable guides to setting achievable targets in the matter of economic planning. The country was misled for many years into believing that there were easy passports to prosperity, that we could talk ourselves into wealth and that, with the aid of the printing press, we could provide happiness unsustained by work.
The dust has now settled on all these rather fevered policies and we are now developing a more developed political maturity and are prepared to realise, as the rest of the world has had to realise, that to live we must work and work hard with the limited resources at our disposal in a small country of such limited resources as this one. It may very well be that we may have to work more strenuously and purposefully here as a nation because we have not substantial assets at our disposal. We have none of the gigantic resources of timber and ores found in the Scandinavian countries, none of the ores and coal to be found in many parts of the Continent, none of the oil to be found in Africa and Asia, none of the wool and almost natural methods of breeding and rearing cattle to be found in New Zealand and Australia, and gold and silver are deposits with which we are not very well acquainted in this country.
Our technical skills are less advanced than in any other country in Europe. It is a regrettable thing that those of our people who find it necessary to emigrate to find employment leave this country and the only skills they have are good spines and tough muscles capped with Irish courage. It is with that small technical equipment that they go to find work in Britain and the United States and try to earn a livelihood amongst people who have received technical training on a well planned basis from the time they were capable of absorbing that training.
In this debate, two points of view have been expressed about the bill presented to the House for payment. There have been those who say it is necessary and those who say it is outrageously high and that it imposes heavy additional taxation or foretells the imposition of such taxation. There are those who take the view that in 1963 if you are to maintain modern standards of living and develop the national estate properly, you must necessarily incur this expenditure and provide the State and the community with the requisite resources. In our view, if we demand services for the improvement of the community, for the provision of better education, better social services, more houses, more schools, then it is an inevitable corollary of these demands that the services must be paid for.
If we want all these improvements, then inevitably taxation must be raised to meet the cost of these services. No country in the world has a passport to immunity from taxation if, at the same time, it gets new and substantially additional services. There is no way of avoiding additional taxation in such circumstances. So far as the bill presented to the House is concerned, the Labour Party are prepared, not merely in this Budget, but in any Budget, to vote approval for expenditure so long as that expenditure is directed towards raising the standards of living of the people and the strengthening of the national economy. I see no alternative to that as a policy and I think, therefore, that we display political irresponsibility if, on the one hand, we demand new and substantially improved services and, on the other, imagine that these services can be provided without additional taxation. It cannot be done in our own domestic budgets and it cannot be done in the national Budget. If we want to provide ourselves with better services and with amenities which are commonplace in other countries, then there is no alternative to raising the necessary taxation.
The Deputy who says he is in favour of developments over a wide area, while at the same time withholding his consent to the raising of the necessary taxation to provide them, is attempting to postulate something which makes no sense whatever in a national Parliament. If we look at the expenditure provided for here, we can see that substantial sums of money are being spent in fields of activity in which we would all desire to see more money spent, in the field of social welfare benefits for the poor and weak, in the provision of more education, more houses and schools, in aids to agriculture and in all these fields in which we still lag noticeably behind many other countries in western Europe. If we are to catch up in the struggle with these other countries and are not to be regarded as the poor relation who lives on an outpost in western Europe, then we will have to continue to spend, not merely at the current rate, but even at a higher rate, in order to provide these amenities and attributes of modern civilisation for our people.
I do not complain therefore about the amount raised. Our main desire is to ensure that the money raised will not be used wastefully or extravagantly and that, in the main, the expenditure will be directed in a two-pronged attack: (1) to alleviate as far as possible the hardships imposed on the weakest and most helpless section of the community; and (2) to provide ourselves with resources of return which will enable us to continue to finance the services it is now so necessary to provide.
The modern State cannot adopt the attitude that was characteristic of the State at the beginning of this century. At that time the State looked on indifferently, apparently helplessly, whilst tens of thousands of people lived in appalling slums with squalor and poverty their everyday companions. The State in the early years of this century was not concerned to succour people by insurance or otherwise in the matter of such inevitable risks as sickness, unemployment, widowhood, old age, large families and intermittent employment.
Nor was the State concerned—this city was a living example of it—with the provision of decent houses and the eradication of slums. The provision of work by the State was previously unknown as a means of buttressing a fall in employment. The provision of industry by means of State grants and financial assistance was something which was relatively unknown until the last 25 or 30 years. The building or rebuilding of schools as we now know them was something on which the State spent an infinitesimal amount of its revenue. That policy was carried so far that we saw the miserable shacks that did service for national schools throughtout the country.
In agriculture, the State has found it necessary to intervene with its helping hand by means of grants, subsidies, restrictions on imports that involve very substantial grants to cover these aids, especially towards the reduction of rates and the subsidisation of produce which comes from the land. Expenditure by the State on all these activities was unknown 50 years ago, but more and more expenditure on these activities by the State has been necessary. One has only to survey the developments throughout the world to realise that the State to-day is intervening inevitably in many fields of national activity, and the financial resources of the citizens are being mobilised to help in the expansion of services which are considered to be of benefit to the national economy. In fact—and the demands in this House underline what I say—the State is expected to be the father of all such enterprises and to provide aid and assistance to all new social and industrial developments.
So long as that is the role in which the State is cast, then inevitably the necessary moneys must be found for the purpose of financing these activities. It is because the modern State must do these things here as they are done elsewhere that we support proposals which will lead to developments in different fields of national endeavour and expansion in any field which offers the prospect either of enriching the national estate or giving return to the nation either as a social dividend or a means of expanding the nation's wealth.
How the money should be raised to finance such services is of course a matter which can be discussed on the Budget. Our view is, however, that a Budget should be an instrument of economic policy and should be framed in order to give effect to a definite economic policy. We think, however, in framing Budgets the aim of the Government ought to be to avoid putting heavy taxes on backs which are incapable of supporting such burdens. Taxation ought to be equated to the backs of persons who are capable of carrying such burdens. It is unfair, and it would be particularly unfair if the Government were likely, as the Taoiseach foreshadowed, to embark on a policy of a purchase tax which hit with particular rigour large sections of the community, whose resources were so slender that they were unable to pay the purchase tax except at the price of buying less food or clothing or having less available for the small amenities which help to sweeten life for them.
If there is to be a purchase tax, it ought to be a tax very carefully vetted, and in any case it should be confined to luxury articles, because an indiscriminate purchase tax could represent a wage reduction policy as far as the masses of the workers are concerned. While we in these benches will support any policy calculated to raise the necessary funds to finance necessary activities, at the same time, we will feel perfectly free to oppose the raising of taxation if it has to be raised by putting unsupportable burdens on the backs of people incapable of bearing them.
While I think it is not unreasonable to be dissatisfied that many problems are still with us in one form or another and while it is not unreasonable to be impatient with the slowness of our progress in different fields, nevertheless if one stands and looks back over the activities of the State for the past 40 years, there are good grounds in other directions for being satisfied with the substantial progress made. What we ought to avoid is imagining we are the only country in the world that provides our people with some of the services provided here.
We have to our credit a very good record in the field of housing. Much, as I said, has been done in the past 40 years in the fields of social welfare and industrial development, in the provision of new schools and in the establishment of State enterprises, which has given us such valuable public utilities as the ESB, the sugar company, the airlines, the shipping company, and activities of a useful character in the field of tourism, fishing and the financing of industries by means of a State financial house. All these represent developments on which we are entitled to congratulate ourselves but, whilst we should take pride in what has been achieved, it is nevertheless necessary, if we are to keep our place in the European comity of nations, that we should never rest so long as there are still so many problems with us and that we should continue by every means in our power to find solutions for these problems, believing that the solutions will provide better standards of living for our people.
Some of the speeches made in this debate, notably by Deputy O'Malley and Deputy Lenihan, both Parliamentary Secretaries, appear to indicate that they are perfectly satisfied with all the things that have been done, perfectly satisfied with all the things that are being done, perfectly satisfied that our people are as close to the highest standard of prosperity as they will ever get and, in fact, that we are well ahead of Europe. Deputy O'Malley talked about people with a 48-hour week. The Government put a Bill through, he said, for a 48-hour week. Practically nobody on the Continent of Europe works anything like a 48-hour week, not even in the war-devastated countries. The claim is made that the workers here get holidays with pay. They get holidays with pay all over Europe.
Many of the things which we are trying to provide for our people here are commonplace in other countries but the trouble is that, in our insularity, we imagine we do things which nobody else does. One has only to undertake a little research to find that, in fact, in many respects, particularly in the fields of both wages and social services, we are behind practically every one of the countries associated with the EEC and EFTA. So long as that is the position, we are not entitled to feel satisfied that we have reached journey's end. We are not moving as fast as other European countries. We have still many serious basic and fundamental problems to solve and, so long as they are there, it must be the task of Parliament to direct the Government's activities, whatever Government may be in office, in such manner that solutions will be found for these problems.
What are they? The question of unemployment has been discussed in this debate. What is the real position? It is true that in recent years there has been an increase in industrial employment. The aids to export, which are very substantial, probably unique in the whole of Europe in their extent, have acted as an incentive to exports, and I hope will continue to do so, so long as we are permitted to use these financial aids for the purpose of accelerating industrial development. Whether or not we can continue to use them if we become associated with EEC is, of course, another matter, and there might be another story to be told if we were prevented from using these financial aids as a means of developing industry.
Let us look now at the unemployment situation today. According to the Government's figures, there are 60,000 persons unemployed, and that despite the fact that there has been very substantial emigration every year for the past 40 years. The British figure announced recently indicates that five per cent of the population in London are Irish. What would we think if five per cent of Dublin's population were British? In London alone, five per cent of the population now is Irish. One has only to go to Birmingham, Coventry, Sheffield and Bristol to hear Irish accents in every street of those cities.
Notwithstanding the draw-off which emigration has provided, a draw away from the labour exchange, we still have over 60,000 unemployed. That would be bad, and indeed very serious if it were something that had been caused by a peculiar set of circumstances, which were not going to be long with us. But that is not the case; this problem of unemployment is a permanent problem. It continues with us. Far from providing more jobs in the country, we are providing fewer. In 1955, the total number in employment was 1,181,000. In 1961, the latest date for which we can get any figures, the number had fallen to 1,119,000. In other words, there was a fall of 62,000 in that period, comparing one Government figure with another Government figure, and all this notwithstanding the fact that we had in the meantime very substantial emigration.
I know there will be a disputation as to whether the number of emigrants is 40,000 a year, or 30,000 a year, or 25,000 a year. We need not get down to the precise figures based on our own reckonings and our own calculations. Let us look at the situation as revealed by the 1961 census. That shows that in a period of five years, from 1956 to 1961, 215,000 persons left this country. When one remembers that the total population of County Longford, County Westmeath, County Kildare and County Wicklow is 218,000, one gets a picture of what we have lost in emigration in the five years from 1956 to 1961. We have lost, in fact, the equivalent of the entire population of the Counties Longford, Westmeath, Kildare and Wicklow.
If this were a country bulging with citizens and the problem was one of overcrowding, such as the overcrowding that exists in some parts of Italy, one might understand this emigration; but when one thinks of the small population we have and when one remembers that it is the most virile of our manhood and the most fertile of our womanhood who are leaving, those who create population and thus create wealth, the whole picture is one that must cause grave concern to anybody interested in seeing the problem resolved in a manner which will keep our people at home.
One could certainly never imagine that, control of our own affairs having passed into our hands over 40 years ago, we would still see large numbers of our people emigrating. Nobody imagined that over the intervening period, over 1,000,000 would have left the country, as has happened, as emigrants. There is the problem. We have now reached the stage at which, while emigration may have fallen, it is far too big a problem to be allowed to drift or have applied to it such timid measures as are being applied today. Nobody can deny its seriousness and if a solution can be found or a policy adopted which gives hope of arresting this mass haemorrhage of human beings, I am sure there will be goodwill on all sides of the House in dealing with the problem.
There has been reference to agriculture in this debate and it has been the subject, particularly in recent months, of much public discussion. It is not unreasonable to ask some members of the Government to say what is the agricultural policy of the Government. If an overseas visitor came to me asking me to explain Government agricultural policy, I would have to tell him that I do not know, that it seems to be a deep secret in the breast of the Government. What is the agricultural policy? Can we get a half hour's exposition of it? Where do the Government think they are going in the agricultural sector? I know, and I suppose every member of the House knows, that we have reached the stage when the position of the agricultural worker is worse than it ever was from his standard of living point of view. His money wages may be more than 20 or 25 years ago but when you see how he lives in his own home, you find that today he is the lowest paid worker in the land.
I see nothing on the horizon calculated, if we drift as at present, to give him a better standard of living than he has to-day. He has to contend with such problems as intermittent employment. At the end of the week, he gets the few pounds in wages with which he has to pay rent, keep his wife and children and himself in clothes, buy groceries, school books and meet the thousand and one demands that arise in every home. The life of the agricultural worker in this country is relatively little removed from serfdom. If he were chattelled property of a farmer, he probably would be better fed than by being a so-called independent worker. At least he would be well kept in the same way as the farmer would keep his animals because they serve him and are valuable to him but because he is not even a chattel and has to eke out an existence in any way he can, when and wherever he can get work, he is always on wages inadequate to sustain him in decency or in modest frugality.
What is to be the outcome for the agricultural worker? Why should he stay in the country? Is there any law of the land or of nature which requires a person to stay in this part of the world, living the only life he has in all this misery or poverty, if he can find elsewhere, either in our own cities or abroad, a better living? We have no right to think that he will answer the frothy pleas to agricultural workers to stay here, to sweat and toil here, if we do nothing to raise his standard of living. The plight of the agricultural worker here is worse now than in any other country in Europe and the wages standard is lower. One has only to compare wage standards here with standards in the Six Counties or Britain to see the disparity. What is this country offering agricultural workers? What can such a worker offer himself, his wife and children? Are the children to go through life in the same unending bleakness that has characterised the lives of their father and mother? Are they expected to become another generation that will bear all this hardship with nothing being done for them? Are we merely to sympathise and say: "It is a pity things are like that; we wish them to be otherwise."
Something must be done to lift the standard of the agricultural worker because with the introduction of machinery, on the one hand, and the poverty-stricken existence he is compelled to endure on the land, on the other, agriculture is fast losing the numbers that have been employed in it in the past. A Parliamentary Question asked by Deputy Tully as reported at column 669 of the Official Report of 6th March last seems to have passed unnoticed by the Press but if there were any alertness, one would imagine it would have been highlighted.
Deputy Tully asked for details of the change in agricultural employment between 1961 and 1962. The answer is staggering. It shows that the number of persons employed in agriculture has changed to such an extent that 18,800 persons left agriculture between one year and the other. Of these, 13,500 were members of families; 3,300 were males permanently employed in agriculture; 2,000 were temporary employees and the gross total is 18,000 who left agriculture between 1961 and 1962. Surely somebody must be concerned with that?
I attribute that to two factors. One is the introduction of machinery and the second is the low standard of living which is associated with employment on the land. Unless we can provide our agricultural workers with a better standard of living than they are getting today this drift from the land will continue and will cause problems in towns and cities. When a person leaves the land to take his chances in the towns and cities he causes housing problems, employment problems, traffic problems and the various other problems associated with areas in which people live in a large aggregate of that kind, where their number is unplanned, as migration is always unplanned.
Is there anything in the Government's agricultural policy which tends to stop this migration from the land? We talk about 5,000, or 6,000 or even 10,000 people getting employment in industry but we have got to remember all the time that these other people in agriculture are human beings as well and they are leaving employment on the land because, in the main, of the two factors to which I have already adverted. Can anybody see anything that is likely to change this tendency? Quite frankly, I cannot see it. If there is any policy it ought not be kept a secret. The farmers ought to know it; the agricultural workers ought to know it and everybody concerned with the well-being of the nation ought know it. Nobody has been able to say what the agricultural policy is, at least I have not heard it. If the policy is that of multiplying our cattle population then it offers no solution whatever, even for the problems of the agricultural workers or the problems of the small farmers.
No increase in cattle prices in Britain, even if the cattle could be got, or no increase in cattle prices in West Germany, even if our cattle were wanted there, would be of the slightest use to the farmer with 10, 20, 30 or 40 acres of land. Increased prices for cattle would play an imperceptible part in his livelihood and his domestic organisation. What then is the problem?
How long are we going to carry on this business of subsidising our butter exports? Remember that in each of the two years past we spent £3¼ million and £3 million on the subsidisation of butter so that the total for the two years was £6¼ million. Milk has now become the enemy of the Irish Exchequer. That is the situation we have reached but nobody has any suggestion to make on this matter. When are we going to stop paying £3 million a year to other people for eating our butter while our own people continue to pay high prices? I am not blaming the Government for this. This is happening while you are here and while we are here and quite clearly from the national viewpoint we ought to apply our energies in trying to find a solution to this problem.
I am not so sure that some of the money spent on subsidising butter exports might not have been better employed trying to find overseas markets, particularly in the emergent countries of Africa and Asia for dried milk which might well help to take up the substantial surplus of milk on the market today. Many of the countries in Asia and Africa just do not know what clean milk is. In many of these countries there are entire districts where children never saw their first birthday because of malnutrition. There are other areas where the second baby kills the first because there is no food for the first when the second is born. Is there any possibility that we could find a market for dried milk in some of these developing countries where the provision of a decent supply of milk is a necessity for the maintenance of the population and the maintenance of a standard of health which will avoid for them gross waste of money in the provision of medicine, hospitals and cemeteries?
I doubt if we are getting good value for the £3 million odd we spend on subsidising butter. I realise, of course, that if you are to maintain a dairy business, you must have calves and if you are to maintain a cattle population, you must have calves and milk and you must have markets for them. If you cannot consume the milk here, you must find markets for it. One is entitled to ask if in our circumstances we can continue to afford to spend £3 million subsidising butter exports? We are entitled to ask whether there is not some other way in which we can get better value for that money than we are getting. It is a problem for us all and the solution has to come from ourselves.
Quite frankly, the most hopeful developments that I see in the agricultural field are the proposals which have emanated from the Irish Sugar Company in regard to their scheme for growing and processing vegetables of all kinds, and later on, perhaps, meats of all kinds. This offers the best solution I can see for the problem of the small farmer because it is by growing something which needs careful personal attention, on an extensive scale, and which is eventually properly processed and competently marketed, that we can get a return for the farmer, particularly the small farmer, which he would not get by growing a crop of oats or wheat, if "crop" is the proper word to use when associated with some of these small farmers throughout the country.
I see in the sugar company's development a greater ray of hope for the small farmer than in any other item of agricultural activity. Mark you, the field may not be left to us too long. Other countries may think of doing the same as we are doing, but we have the advantage of a suitable climate; we are in the field and we have certain other production advantages as well. It may very well be that we can get off to a good start and because of the efficiency of our processing be able to hold our position in the European and world market. It seems to me that only from that point is there any glimmer of hope that there is likely to be an improvement in the position of the small farmer and, consequently, in the possibility that the agricultural worker will in some way be beneficially affected by an improvement in the lot of the farmer who is engaged in this kind of cultivation of fruit and vegetables.
I should like to ask the Minister a few questions about our position vis-á-vis the breakdown in the negotiations on Britain's application for admission to the European Economic Community. It is quite clear now that there has been a complete break there. A number of people have said publicly that as far as the British application is concerned, it must be regarded as dead for quite a long time to come. If that is so, then what is our position? Are we just to mark time with the British and wait until a suitable opportunity arises for Britain to re-submit her application and then revive our application as well?
Is that the policy in respect of our membership of EEC and is that our line for the future? Efforts are now being made to revivify the EFTA organisation but, as has been rightly said, EFTA has no attractions for us. In the first place, the EFTA organisation is confined to the objective of developing a free trade policy in regard to industrial products. It is in no way concerned with a free trade policy in respect of agriculture, and as our object in getting into EEC was based on a belief—I think, a mistaken belief in many respects—that what we would lose on industry, we would gain on agriculture, clearly EFTA has nothing whatever to offer us in this connection, although at the same time any effort to revitalise EFTA may show itself in the form of EFTA itself, as a group, seeking to make an agreement with the EEC countries and thus there might be some organic connection between the two of an advantageous character.
It is too early yet to say whether that is a right assumption or whether, if the attempt were made, the objective could be achieved by EFTA. So now we are in the situation where EFTA is of no advantage to us whatever and the EEC situation is that, as the British application has been rejected, we are sitting outside with the British waiting to see if the British application will be revived or whether the British will seek to have it revived and, if so, how long will it take the British to have it revived.
A statement was made a few days ago by a prominent member of the British Labour Party, whose voice has been associated with the making of policy within that Party, to the effect that if the British Labour Party win the next general election, it will be four years before they apply for membership of the EEC. Supposing that happens, supposing they win the next election—and I was reading an interesting dissertation in the Irish Press recently on the result of a Gallup poll on the next election in Britain which seems to accept that there is no question that the Labour Party will win the next election. If it does, and this forecast of the speaker I mentioned represents British Labour Party policy, then it could mean that the new British Government might not make any application for admission to EEC for a period of four years.
What are we to do during the four years? The Government have embarked on a policy which in certain circumstances might be right, but in the circumstances in which we live, having regard to the people with whom we have to negotiate, we might have to change our policy very frequently in an issue of this kind. The Taoiseach has said the Government are working on the assumption that we are moving into a time of freer trade, with, ultimately, free trade. Having earlier said we would be in EEC by 1st January, 1964, the Taoiseach has now said: "In any case, the likelihood is we will be in there sometime. What we propose to do in these circumstances is to scale down the tariffs so that when we are admitted, all that painful exercise of cutting tariffs will be over and we can walk in with our heads up and tell our colleagues in EEC that we have now done all the exercises and complied with all the demands necessary for admission."
I suggest that in view of the statement attributed to the member of the British Labour Party, we have to ask ourselves now is it wise to continue this policy of tariff reduction here if the only thing we are doing thereby is making it easier for all the countries of EEC, and indeed every other country in the world, to export goods here under conditions which will be easier, as we scale down tariffs, than they are today. Is it a good policy to keep scaling down tariffs, which we undertook to do, even if we got the compensatory advantages of EEC membership, when in fact we are getting no compensations? All we are doing is pulling down tariff barriers and allowing the British, the Europeans and everybody else throughout the world to jump the tariff barriers and compete here against Irish manufacturers. It is all right to go around letting tariff barriers down if you do that as a member of a group or if ultimately certain advantages will flow to you. It is all right to do it in such circumstances, but if we are to reduce tariffs for the benefit of the world and then if we cannot get into EEC, where we are told there will be some advantages for us, I begin to question the wisdom of a policy of continuing to reduce tariffs unless we can see and feel some tangible results from the other side.
I see no co-operation between EEC and this country in sight. I see no evidence of it, and what I am asking the Government to say therefore, in the absence of that co-operation and in view of the possibility that the British application may not be cleared up for years—in fact, it may never be cleared up since there are powers in Britain now developing a conflict with the cold concept of EEC—is what are we to do in the meantime. Being kept out of EEC while at the same time dropping our tariff defences to facilitate other exporting countries may well mean for us getting the worst of both worlds and that is something we ought to have a look at before we continue to commit ourselves to a policy of letting down our tariff defences without compensation from those who will benefit by reason of the fact that we let down these tariff defences for Irish industry.
Even as it is, I still think the situation vis-á-vis our application to join the EEC is in a very cloudy position. We do not know at all whether Gerneral de Gaulle takes the same view of our application as he does of the British application. We do not know whether he is any more favourable to us than he is to the British. Some influential people have been saying that the General regards us as an associate of Britain, as being likely to be a friend of Britain in the EEC and looks askance at our being admitted because he regards it as a strengthening of the British influence within the EEC.
Even if the British get over the hurdle and are admitted, are we clear we can get over the hurdle? Will we find that, even if Britain gets over the hurdle, we shall be told we are an undeveloped country and cannot get in and that the most we can get is association on whatever terms it is possible to get that association? Many people think that while Greece did fairly well in getting association with the EEC, there will be no more Greek agreements and that it is quite unlikely that anybody else will get the same terms as the Greeks got on that occasion.
The whole situation is so cloudy and so muddy that the Government ought to do some rethinking. I do not blame the Government for a change of policy. The situation is so fluid and the necessity for safeguarding our interests so paramount that one is justified in moving in any direction thought suitable. Even frequent changes of policy might be necessary and could be understood in a constantly changing situation in which we are up against forces which are Goliaths compared with our economic position.
On the general question of the Estimate, our vote is not a vote against this Vote on Account. We believe this money is necessary if taxation is to be raised to provide civilised living conditions for our people. We believe it is useless and ineffective and infantile to talk about new services, on the one hand, and to refuse to provide the money, on the other. These are two utterly incompatible contentions which can never be reconciled.
We want to provide our people with a decent standard of living. In order to raise the present standard of living we must mobilise the resources of the nation. A Budget and a Vote on Account are all necessary cogs in that machine. My complaint against the Government—indeed it is one which a healthy Government would have themselves—is that they are not doing enough; that what they are doing is being done too slowly and too late. In the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and in the light of the problems confronting us there must be more drive, more vigour and the adoption of new methods if we are ever, in our lifetime, to find a solution to or, indeed, a substantial mitigation of the most rigorous problems confronting us today.
If the Government are willing to embark upon a policy of that kind, I think there will be support and goodwill for any such policy. Our danger today is that we may drift into a position of economic isolation in which we may lose even the traditional British market if by any chance Britain gets into the EEC and we are kept out because we are underdeveloped.
If these circumstances should develop, a serious situation would confront the country. It is because the need is urgent and that time is against us that I urge the Government, by every means in their power, to evolve policies calculated to relieve, if not completely to eradicate, some of the rigorous evils which confront us today. If they do that, the Government will have the goodwill of many sections of this House. If they fail to do so, then we shall continue to encounter unemployment—tens of thousands at the labour exchange—and emigration each year by the hundreds of thousands. We shall continue to give our farmers and their workers a low standard of living and, generally, we shall blunt the enthusiasm for a vigorous policy of development. That enthusiasm can be got today if the Government will only give a lead in the right direction.
