I move:—
That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that, as a measure of social justice in the present difficult economic conditions, the basic wages of agricultural workers should be supplemented by a scheme of family allowances.
Family Allowances for Agricultural Workers—Motion.
Before the debate starts, may I ask if it is the intention of the Minister for Finance to be present?
I understand it is not. He will be engaged in the Dáil, I am informed. It appears also that the motion is not regarded as being a motion for the Department of Finance.
Surely it is a matter for the Minister for Finance?
The Minister says it is not.
How could it be done without him?
I would like to hear the Minister for Finance explain how people could get family allowances without the Minister for Finance.
In the circumstances representations were then made to the Minister for Agriculture.
He is engaged on an Estimate in the Dáil.
I would like to assure the House—and particularly the Labour Party, who look with suspicion on anything moved by a farmer's representative with regard to agricultural workers—that this proposal has nothing whatever to do with the lowering or raising of the basic wages of agricultural workers. I contend that, no matter how high you raise the wages of agricultural workers, even a good deal beyond its present level, the family allowance for the agricultural worker with young children would still be necessary. The wages paid to a man doing certain work, and which would be considered as a living wage for a single man, would be grossly inadequate for a married man with young children. If we consider that 34 per cent. of agricultural workers are boarded and lodged by the farmers, we must realise that the cost of living does not affect that principle to any great extent.
Family allowances were paid in Australia and New Zealand and in many European countries before the war. Many of us feel that it is a disgrace to our country, with all our boasted Christianity, that something has not been done to remedy this social injustice. Of course, it is the duty of the Government to devise the means by which family allowances can be paid. It can be done in many ways, without very great hardship or strain on the general taxpayer, and I am sure farmers would be willing to contribute to create a fund to pay such allowances to their agricultural workers with young children.
The simplest and quickest plan would be on the lines of the national health insurance scheme. The farmer or employer could pay 6d. per week for each agricultural worker he employs, and every worker could pay 6d. a week. For every 1/- subscribed in this way the Government would add another 6d. These contributions would create a fund of nearly £500,000 a year, which would give an allowance of 2/- or 2/6 a week for children under 15 years of an agricultural worker. I cannot say that these figures are absolutely correct, but I tested the plan as applied to my own workmen and found it satisfactory. I employ 18 permanent agricultural labourers, and only four of these are married, with ten children under 15 years of age. The contribution, I suggest, would give an allowance for each of these ten children of more than 2/6 per week per child. I took another survey within a one-mile radius of my own home. In that area there are 30 farmers employing 86 permanent agricultural labourers who have 58 children under 15, and the allowance in this case would work out at about 2/3 per week per child. There are two families in this area with seven to nine children under 15 years of age, and they would receive between 16/- and 20/- per week allowance. This survey revealed that it is only the big farmers who employ paid labour. All the 86 labourers employed in this area were distributed as follows: One farmer had 40 permanent labourers, one farmer 18, one farmer 8, two farmers 3, four farmers 2, six farmers 1, and 15, or 50 per cent. of the farmers in the area, employed no paid labour.
I strongly recommend that to the serious consideration of the Labour Party and others who believe that the dividing up of the land would create an E1 Dorado in this country for agricultural workers. In 1935, the blackest year of the economic war, there were 573,531 male workers employed on the land, and with all the division of land that has taken place since, and the intense tillage campaign, we had only 530.899 male workers on the land in 1939. Furthermore, the latest census returns show that the number of children under 15 decreased in the rural areas by 78,000 during the past 15 years, so that it is time some encouragement and hope should be given to workers with young families. This proposal is made mainly for the children of agricultural workers, but there is a bigger and more important problem, the preservation of the farming community, a subject which I am not going into now, although the Chair is very lenient in all discussions. All I will say on that subject is that there are less marriages and more old bachelors and old maids among the farming community than in any class, and it looks as if the best of the race is dying out owing to economic causes. If it takes three generations on the land to produce a good farmer, is it not a pity that something could not be done to preserve this class with its farming instincts and traditions?
I appeal to the Labour Party not to cloud the issue on this motion. If the proposal, as I suggest, could be put into operation on the lines of the National Health Insurance, something that is urgent could be done very quickly for the children of agricultural workers in rural areas. But, I am afraid that the Labour Party, like all politicians without consideration for the agricultural worker, will try to hold up the scheme unless it is applied immediately to town workers. I think that would be a mistake and I appeal to them to let it go for the agricultural workers and the farming representatives will create no opposition when they try to bring it into force for the towns as well.
I second the motion. I wish to point out that I am not in entire agreement with the wording of the motion: "As a measure of social justice." Social justice is defined by the Pope in his Encyclicals as a living wage. I would rather say that it should be in the interests of economic justice, and the case on economic grounds can be very well made for the farm labourer, while a case for social justice can be made in regard to town workers. In regard to town workers as well as country workers, let it be clearly understood that if the suggestion is put into practice, it will not deprive the head of the family of a living wage, but will rather encourage the growth of the rural population, encourage marriages, and encourage the growth of large families. Now, it is not a new problem. This matter of family allowances was originally a war problem. With the stress of war, and the increase in the prices of materials that were necessary for life, workers were from time to time entitled to bonuses on their wages, but, in some European countries, family allowances were given as a more equitable way of dealing with the problem. It was an emergency problem, growing as I said from the war, but, so successful did it prove in the countries which adopted it in war-time—France, Belgium and Holland— that it was preserved when the war had ceased. Germany also had a system of family allowances. In France it was adopted particularly for the encouragement of very large families. It was stated that the poverty line of lowly-paid workers was reached when the third or fourth member of the family brought an additional burden, and every child after that number made a further intrusion on the salary or wage earned by the head of the family.
There is no quarrel, I think, between trade unionism and this movement, as suggested by the previous speaker. In some European countries it was opposed by trade unionism in the earlier stages, but as a result of its successful working in those countries, trade unionists became most enthusiastic supporters of family allowances. It was not, as I say, opposed—it was rather ignored, it was not dealt with— the dread on the part of trade unionists being that it would be an excuse for lowering the wages of the head of the family, and that it would be an encouragement to employers to employ bachelors or single persons rather than others, because, in some countries, the family allowances were largely by arrangement with the employers. In fact, legislation was introduced in France to compel certain classes of employers to pay family allowances. It was dread, then, on the part of trade unionists which caused them to be against the proposal at first. I do not think that that dread exists in Ireland. So far as I know, it does not exist, but in this case I speak for a class of workers, the rural tenants and agricultural workers, who are for the most part an unorganised body and are not catered for by any of the unions. I fully recognise that there is danger in family allowances for an unorganised body such as these workers.
Unscrupulous employers might take advantage of the family allowances to keep the wages of the head of the family down. At this stage of history, where the farmer is in a position to pay, he must recognise that it is to his advantage to pay such a wage as will induce not only the head of the family to remain on the land and become attached to it but also to induce other members of the family to follow suit. The mother and the children would seem to be a sort of parasitic growth on the wage earner. The mother and the children have the building of the future of the nation in their hands and it is about time, as has been done in many continental countries and in the Dominions, to consider the mother as an active worker in the nation's economic life and the family as potential workers in the sphere to which they may be called.
Nobody who values the future of a nation can look with satisfaction and complacency on a condition in which the wife and children are regarded as parasites, dependent oftentimes upon the whims of the wage earner. Ninety per cent., or more, of wage earners keep good homes and devote their earnings entirely to the upkeep of their families, but we know that there are cases in which that is not so. We know also that the mother can almost always be depended upon to invest usefully the moneys which come into her hands. As a matter of fact, it is at present the common practice to hand over earnings to the mother. The same thing would happen if the moneys were paid directly to the mother on behalf of herself and her children. She is a hard worker. The children are spare parts of the nation's human machinery and the preservation, growth and well-being of these spare parts should be in the economic interest of employers and should make appeal to every businessman. The productivity, the greatness, the prestige and the welfare of a nation depend upon this, and we have given very little consideration to it up to the present.
We have established schools and done many things for them in the education sphere, but one thing we have forgotten is their physical condition. Reports of county medical officers of health point to a rather distressing condition of affairs in many parts of our country. It may be said that the present financial stringency would prevent any large-scale adoption of family allowances. In the case suggested by the motion, the scale would not be very large. The allowances would be confined to a comparatively small section of the community. If we were to take in the whole community, we should find that mothers, and children under 14, form more than half that community. I have seen it stated in Press reports that the Government had this matter under consideration for some years and that inquiries and investigations were being made. I cannot verify that. If it is so, I hope they have not allowed the matter to drop, but are pursuing those investigations. It may be said again that the time is not opportune for such a scheme. I think that the contrary is the case. The time is more than opportune. Family allowances grew up as a war measure and were continued after the war.
Although we are not actually involved in war, we are suffering the backwash of the war and perhaps our sufferings will be intensified as the war progresses and comes nearer to our shores. Increases of wages are being given to meet the higher cost of living. Accompanying these and side by side with them should march family allowances. I heard a distressing tale to-day about the number of cases of malnutrition amongst youths in the City of Cork. That equally applies to some of the richest parts of our country. The absence of milk and butter in some of the richest parts of Ireland is an extraordinary thing to happen in any country which claims to have a well-regulated economic life. Milk and butter are almost unknown to the children in some of the most fertile districts of Ireland. That is not as it should be.
The savings that would result from a well-planned system of family allowances would soon more than reimburse the money cost. That is very obvious because, instead of having growing up a puny and weakly race, we would have a strong and virile race and the savings in doctors' fees, hospital costs, home assistance and sickness benefit would soon more than compensate for any expenditure in this respect. Family allowances have not been dropped in New Zealand, Australia or any of the other countries where they have been tried. They have all adhered to them and they have all found them a benefit. The scheme is, of course, enthusiastically supported by the mothers. In drawing up the budget of wages of our people, it is hardly right that the bachelor, with no encumbrance, or the man with only two or three of a family should be on a par with persons with large families. I emphasise that a living wage should be given to the bachelor in the hope that he will abandon his bachelordom.
Including Senator Cummins.
The man with a family of from seven to ten should get consideration. There are many other points to which I should like to refer but Ministers do not appear to take a great deal of interest in the matter. We have none of them present to-day. Perhaps there are very good reasons for that. I need not go over the ways and means of raising money for this purpose. We have the machinery already, on lines indicated by another speaker. We have the machinery of home assistance and home help and it is a matter simply of drawing up the scale of allowances.
It may be regarded as a public health problem, and a very serious public health problem. The British Medical Association have investigated it. Treating it from the viewpoint of a public health problem, the case for family allowances is unanswerable. It is an insurance against emergency. That insurance is already in practice, even in our own country. For instance, we have family allowances for income-tax purposes for the better paid wage earners of the country. We have unemployment benefit—an insurance against emergency. In some countries—I do not know that we have it here—there are rent rebates as the family increases. That is another method of dealing with the family question. It is also dealt with in the case of soldiers' children. There is nothing new or revolutionary in the proposal. It lends itself very well to this form of insurance because the machinery is there and the cost of administering home help would be only a small fraction of the moneys involved. Where it has been in vogue an equalisation fund has been set up, that is, a fund to regulate the amount paid and to prevent any discrimination in regard to the employment of bachelors rather than married men, and this fund, together with the moneys paid in home assistance, amounts to only about 2 per cent. of the wages bill paid by employers, where employers and the State contribute. The highest it has been in any country was 3½ per cent. of the wages bill. I would appeal to the Government to consider the question, to make the necessary investigations and to bring a Bill before the Oireachtas for the purpose of putting a scheme of family allowances into force.
Put briefly, this motion is a request that we should adopt a policy of subsidising the production of healthy, happy, well-nourished children, and especially in the rural parts of this country. We have many policies already in force of subsidising various objects which commend themselves to our human sympathy or our economic instinct. We make public provision for the needs of old age pensioners, widows, orphans and, if they care to avail themselves of public institutions, of lunatics and imbeciles. A cynical observer from another planet, looking casually at our whole scheme of social services, might say: "Behold, here is a community which subsidises the production of imbeciles and lunatics but makes no systematic provision for the production of healthy, happy, well-nourished children."
I am not saying that we should cease these subsidies or these social services, the nature of which is that they are an effort on the part of the community as a whole to come to the rescue of those among us who have fallen by the wayside, because it is an elementary part of our national tradition and our Christian tradition that we should have sympathy with the unfortunates and those who have fallen on evil days, especially in cases where the fault is not theirs. These are the very type of people who, in the new order now being established in Europe, are automatically knocked on the head, but I hope the day is far distant' when we will consider it part of our duty to knock imbeciles and lunatics on the head rather than support them to the end of their days.
But I do say that we should supplement that policy by positively subsidising the production of healthy, happy, well-nourished children. That is necessary for a number of reasons. First of all, for this reason, already mentioned by Senator Counihan, that in the last ten or 15 years the number of children under 15 years of age in rural districts has diminished by some 70,000 souls. It is true that the number of children under 15 years of age in urban districts has increased by some 40,000, but I think the first fact is of far more significance and importance and far more ominous in its portent for the future than the second is significant and hopeful, for the real life of this nation has always had its roots in the countryside and if the human population in the countryside diminishes, decays, and disappears, that is the end of the Irish nation. This question might be looked at from many points of view. In the first place, there is the relationship between this motion and the ordinary wage system. From that point of view, I would say that one of the principal defects of the ordinary wage or salary system, if you like, is that there is no necessary relationship between the wage or the salary that people earn at different stages in their working life and their family circumstances at different stages in their human life. What is more, there can be, from the purely economic point of view, no systematic co-ordination between those two different things.
A man's wage or his salary is governed by what his work is worth to his employer and to the community, or what he could command if he chose to change his position and seek better-paid work elsewhere. Those facts have nothing to do with whether he has one child, five children or ten children, and so there is no possible reconciliation between the working of the somewhat cast-iron wage system and the circumstances of the average human being as he works his way through the course of a normal human life. It is, I think, true and is true not only among the so-called working class and wage-earning class but also among the working class who call their wages salaries, that in many cases until about the age of 25 a person's salary or wage goes up fairly steeply and, after that age, very very gradually, if at all. In fact, it probably remains more or less uniform from the age of 25 until the end of his working life. While the worker is already drawing what will probably be his full annual income and before he has acquired a wife and various dependents of his own, it is true, I think, in most cases that a worker has more income than is enough for his own personal needs and, possibly, more even than is enough for the needs of that worker if he were married and had one child but, as time goes on, as he marries and as he acquires children, then there comes a time, in nearly every walk of life, except the most highly-paid ones, when his human needs bulge and become greater than his salary is likely to be.
So that, one might put it this way, before a worker has acquired a wife and family responsibilities, he has got the "bulge" on circumstances, but after he has acquired a wife and family responsibilities, especially if he has three or more children, then for the best part of his working life and all through his middle life, circumstances have got the "bulge" on that worker, if I may use that American slang term. It is only when, after much effort, sacrifices and privation, his youngest child has become, in turn, an earning element and able to contribute to the family budget that that worker, finally, and towards the end of his days, begins to experience financial ease again.
That is roughly the history of the typical working man in many ranks of society who does his elementary social duty of contributing to the production of the people on whom we must depend if the nation's life is to be continued. In other words, he helps to produce the next generation. In an ordinary business systematic provision is made for depreciation and maintenance of plant and equipment, and this cost is regarded as a cost which must be met by the business before it may set aside anything for net profit. Human society depends for its functioning on the existence and continuous replacement of the machinery of which that society is composed. The replacement of that human machinery involves an economic cost, but no systematic provision is made by the community to provide for the economic cost of producing a future generation. In fact, at any given moment, it is true to say, the whole burden of maintaining and replenishing the nation's future life is borne by some 25 per cent. of the existing working population. Roughly speaking, at any given moment, three-fourths of the people earning salaries are not, themselves, in a position of having and bringing up and rearing children.
The wage system, then, has no possible relationship to the human circumstances of the people who are its victims or its beneficiaries, according to the point of view. It reminds me of a fable of a giant called Procrustes who, according to the old legend, used to frequent the roads in ancient Greece. This giant had a bed, and it was of a certain size, and he had the pleasant habit when he met a wayfarer, of stretching him on the bed, and if the wayfarer were too short for the bed Procrustes hammered out his limbs until he became an exact fit. On the other hand, if he were too long he knocked off surplus limbs or the head until he became the exact fit.
The wage system in relation to family responsibilities at different times of life behaves exactly as Procrustes behaved with reference to his victims. At the earlier stages of the worker's life, when his income is greater than his family needs, it is comparatively easy to stretch one's tastes and desires to an income that is really superfluous, but it is a painful business when it comes to lopping off actual necessities, as has to occur in many cases in the course of family life when a family begins to grow numerous and the income is not sufficient.
That is the way in which the wage system works with reference to the human circumstances of the people who are its victims. If anyone wants to know the case for family allowances I should like to recommend Dr. Eleanor Rathbone's book, priced at 6d., The Case for Family Allowances. This English lady made the study and advocacy of this case her own, and anything I say from this on will owe a great deal to her inspiration and to the facts that she so admirably sets out. It appears from this book that even in Great Britain, which we are accustomed to regard as a very wealthy country, and even in times of peace, 25 per cent. of the children under 14 years of age were getting, in the inter-war period, a diet insufficient in every constituent of health (page 35 of her book), and she suggests that the only real remedy for that regrettable state of affairs was universal family allowances for everyone under 14 years. Further, on page 42 she points out— this is with reference to the contention that the wage should be based on the normal family, a man, his wife and three children—that the normal family is in fact an abstraction and exists only in about 5 per cent. of the total number of possible cases, and that a wage which is adequate for the normal family in that interpretation would be just right for 5 per cent., more than enough for about 90 per cent., and not by any means enough for the other 5 per cent. She refers to an investigation by a Mr. Rowntree of the circumstances of children in York. “The results of a recent survey of York by Mr. Rowntree indicate that a wage based on the needs of a family of three dependent children would result in only 5 per cent. receiving just what is necessary, while 91 per cent. would get more and 3.9 per cent. very much less than enough to cover their basic needs. But this last group would include at any one time 23 per cent. of children and a much larger percentage for part of their childhood.”
In Australia a commission investigated the problem of how to provide a wage system in which the typical family of a man, wife and three children would get enough for human requirements, and they came to the conclusion over 20 years ago that to make such provision in the case of every employed worker would absorb not only the existing amount that was being paid to labour, but also more than the amounts that went to the profit-receiving interests associated with industry. Further, it was pointed out on page 81 of Dr. Rathbone's book that a wage system which was based on paying enough for a man, his wife and three children in the case of every single worker employed, would actually make provision, in the case of Australia, for 2,100,000 phantom children and 450,000 phantom wives, while still leaving a surplus of children in the larger families quite inadequately provided for. In other words, a wage system "boosted up" to correspond to that abstract type of normal family, would have the effect of providing for millions of phantom people and still fail to provide for thousands of real people who would remain in want. Further, if it were applied in the circumstances of Australia at the time it would so increase costs in all industries that it would ruin all export trades and so inflate internal prices that the basic wage fixed would have to be continually revised to correspond to rising internal prices, and there would be the interminable vicious circle of wages and prices chasing each other upwards.
Another argument in favour of supplementing the wage system by frankly admitting an obligation on the part of the community to pay family allowances is this. As many people know, in the case of low wage paid employment, unskilled labour of various kinds, it frequently happens that a man who is unemployed is able, if he has three or four children, to command a greater rate of unemployment assistance than a single man would get as wage, because unemployment assistance does contain the principle of family allowances. It does supplement what a man receives by an additional allowance for each of his dependent children. Consequently, it follows that the lower paid unskilled workers find themselves in a serious temptation to remain unemployed and to command the greater remuneration to which the fact of being a father of a large family entitles one from the unemployment fund, rather than go back to low wage paid labour. On the other hand, if that low wage, however low, were supplemented by a system of family allowances, there would be in every case an incentive to go on working rather than to go on the "dole", and the nation as a whole, as well as the self-respect of the individual worker concerned, would profit. In other words a system of family allowances would prevent that demoralising overlap that now exists between low wages of certain types of labour and the unemployment assistance rates of the same class of labour where the recipients have numerous dependents.
In general the argument is all in favour of applying a system of family allowances to every family, without distinction of class or economic circumstances, in the State, but in particular, I put this motion down originally with reference to agricultural labourers because I thought that the experiment could very well begin in their case, and also because I was not anxious at that time to suggest any policy which would be directly or seriously burdensome on the national treasury. There was also the consideration that the agricultural labouring classes were sufficiently numerous, and a sufficiently important body of men to make it worth while to give them the "boost", so to speak, that they would get by being the first to profit by a system of this kind.
When I first thought of this, it was with reference to the question of raising agricultural wages. I knew that agricultural wages were due for some increase, and I thought it desirable that that increase should come about in the way that would do the greatest possible human service to the class of people to whom agricultural workers belong, their families as well as themselves. I did not think that the best way in which that increase ought to come about was by giving a flat-rate increase of 2/- or 3/- all round. There are about 130,000 workers working for wages on the land and about 35,000 of them are married—a very small proportion. But there is nothing unusual about that in rural Ireland. I do not know how many children agricultural workers actually have, but according to official statistics there is an average of 1.5 children to every family in the country. That is to say, to every married parent, widow or widower, there is an average of 1.5 dependent children under 16 years of age. Taking that average then, for the 35,000 married agricultural workers, there are some 50,000 or 55,000 children of agricultural workers. Originally, I was going to suggest that employers generally ought to pay an additional 2/6 per week, not to, but in respect of, everyone of their 130,000 workers; that that 2/6 per head per week ought to go into a common fund, and that out of that common fund should be paid an allowance of 5/- a week in respect of every child of every agricultural worker in the country—preferably paid to the mother on behalf of the family.
Now, I think if you will look into the figures you will find that an additional payment of 2/6 per worker per week would give enough money to provide 55,000 children with 5/- per week per child. That would make a terrific difference in the financial circumstances of the homes of those few thousand agricultural workers who have five, six, seven or more dependent children. The other agricultural workers might have been asked to co-operate in that solution of the problem as a gracious gesture of solidarity. However, they got instead a flat increase of 3/- per week. I am not saying that they did not deserve it.
From a strictly economic point of view, there were very definite reasons why agricultural wages should go up, but that does leave the problem of what to do now so far as family allowances are concerned. My suggestion now is that employers, having already had to contribute an extra 3/- per head per week in increased wages, could not well be asked to pay more than an extra 1/- per week towards family allowances; that the workers should sacrifice 1/- of the 3/- they got recently, as a contribution to the family allowances fund, and that the State should pay up the other 6d. In that way the fund would be built up by a contribution of 1/- per week per head from the employers, 1/- per head per week from the workers, and 6d. per head per week from the State. The total money thus provided would be enough to provide 5/- per week for the children of those agricultural labourers having children, while the additional burden on the National Exchequer would be, I imagine, not more than a matter of some £200,000.
I talked this scheme over with various farmers of my acquaintance, especially large farmers who happened to be particularly interested, because they felt the hardship of having to pay all their men more or less the same wage, not being able to take adequate account of the family circumstances of these workers who obviously should get far more than the current wage. I might say they gave the scheme a very enthusiastic support. As far as I know, the larger farmers would welcome the supplementing of agricultural wages by means of some system of family allowances like this. But the case for family allowances is not confined to circumstances of agricultural labourers. I am not sure that we should not, even now, in spite of the national emergency or, rather, because of the national emergency, face up to the problems of making provision for all dependent children as an elementary and essential part of our national social economy.
The cost of family allowances on the 5/- a week basis in England has been estimated at about £100,000,000, or a figure in that region. In our own case, I understand the cost of providing 5/- a week for all dependent children under 14 or 16 would come to somewhere around £6,000,000 or £8,000,000. The figures are well known to the Minister and his officials and I believe some inquiry has been made recently into the whole matter, so it is possible to arrive at accuracy on this point. At any rate, it is a figure of the order of £6,000,000 or £8,000,0000, and there are various set-offs. Already we pension widows and orphans—very inadequately, indeed—and if every child under 16 were entitled to a pension, as a matter of elementary civic right, you could eliminate at one fell swoop, so to speak, all these other arrangements under which orphans and so on are entitled to pensions.
The question arises: where would the money come from? Certainly not from borrowing, either from private lenders or the banking system, for this is not the kind of object for which borrowing would be justified. Certainly not through taxing commodities which are downright necessaries of life, and I hope also not from any form of taxation which would impair private credit, or make more difficult the transition to the new economy rendered necessary by the present national emergency, or impair productive effort once that new economy has been accomplished successfully. I think taxation should, for purposes such as this, be aimed at superfluous consumption. I do not say luxury consumption, as, in times of national emergency like this, lots of things which are not luxuries in the ordinary way become superfluous and, therefore, suitable objects of taxation.
In framing our taxation system so as to get the £4,000,000, £6,000,000 or £8,000,000 we need for family allowances we might consider at the same time the desirability of "whitening the black market". The fact that people smuggled white flour into Éire and sold it at £1 per stone is very deplorable and we rightly abhor such profiteers who are using the situation to line their own pockets. That to me, as a student of finance, has a most tremendous significance, and I personally—if I had anything to say in the matter— would proceed to mill, under strict excise control, about 10 per cent. of our total wheat production—in other words, about 40,000 tons of wheat—into white flour and extract from it an excise duty of £100 a ton and allow it to be sold—rationed, of course—at about £160 a ton, which is about £1 per stone, to people who are foolish enough to pay that price for white flour. If you collect the excise duty of £100 per ton from 40,000 tons of white flour, it would amount to about £4,000,000 for the public treasury, and you might as well have that money for the public treasury as let the racketeers around the country make it for their own private treasuries. I would make use of it to lessen the hardship suffered especially by children who are members of large families.
There are other things like tobacco, and even beer and spirits, which, though very desirable in themselves, are not really elementary necessaries in a time of national crisis. If the Minister had nerve enough to put an additional tax of 8/- a lb. on tobacco, he would, according to my calculation, raise an additional income of £4,000,000. Incidentally, by raising the cost of cigarettes and tobacco, he would bring back the demand into relationship with the supply in such a way that people could freely buy cigarettes and there would no longer be this "under-the-counter" business, which is profoundly demoralising for both shopkeeper and customer.
Again, if it is true—and I believe it is—that fantastic prices are being paid for black market tea, 16/- per lb. and so on, then there is a strong case for putting a pretty stiff excise duty on whatever tea we do manage to import, and letting it be sold freely within the ration limits. At all events, that would capture for the public revenue some of the scarcity value of tea, which the racketeer now gathers for himself. A tax of 2/- a lb. on 5,000,000 lbs.— assuming that to represent our annual consumption—would add to the public revenue some £500,000 and take nothing extra from the people who at present are prepared to pay a price for it which is actually more than they would be paying if they paid this extra 2/- a lb. tax.
These are suggestions as to where the money is to come from. I daresay they will reach the Minister in his own good time, even though he personally is conspicuous by his absence at the moment. The main thing is that we should agree that the principle is sound, that the policy of family allowances is right, that those who bring up healthy, well-nourished children are rendering a social service to the nation, and that it is only just and proper that the nation should bear some part of the economic cost of that social service. If we agree to that, and if we consider that the nation has any future at all, we must accept the principle that family allowances are a desirable institution.
With pleasure I support this motion, and I hope this House will pass it unanimously. After all, I take it that it is one of the most important motions discussed in this House. I am disappointed that the Minister is not here, but I suppose that he has to attend to something he considers more pressing. I feel that no more pressing question has ever been discussed. Whatever wages a man receives in a job—whether you take the single man, the man who has a father and mother to support, or the man who has a wife and one child—he gets what is termed a living wage. Do we not all know that ten people cannot live on what it would take to maintain three people? If the Government would rise to the occasion and bring forward a scheme of family allowances, it would be a great achievement.
Since the Government came into office, they have promoted many schemes to benefit workers, some of them new schemes and others improvements on existing ones, but I cannot understand why this matter of family allowances has been overlooked. Take the case of the farm labourer with three or four children. What is the attitude of the family when another member arrives? Is it not a fact that an event which should bring joy to the parents and to the home usually deprives other children of the nourishment to which they are entitled? Have the parents not to consider what they can deprive themselves and their family of in order to rear the new member? In these circumstances, is it any wonder that the rural population is decreasing, seeing that they have not sufficient to live on? I feel that for every child above two in any family there should be some allowance given where the income of the family is not sufficient. Where a family is already on the verge of starvation, is not the extra child going to bring them much nearer to want? That is where the nation should help to support the family in a proper manner.
I feel very keenly on this matter, although I do not quite agree with Senator Counihan's point that there should be any additional burdens put on farmers or farm labourers. It is a national duty to support the children, and some of the farmers, although their condition has improved quite recently, would not be in a position to undertake the responsibility of contributing to such a scheme. I am not an advocate of the "black market", but I agree more or less with Senator Johnston's suggestion that people who are extracting high profits from the present situation should be the first on whom this burden should be placed. Looking into this question, however, I do not feel that the scheme would be so expensive as Senator Johnston seems to suggest. People who are unemployed—of course, a farm labourer is not working all the time—get some sort of allowance. I feel that there would be a saving there, and that the amount that would have to be paid out would not be so high as it is at present.
In my opinion this House should pass the motion unanimously. If it does, it will have done something of which it can always be proud. We hear that year after year the population of the rural areas is declining, and the sooner the Government takes notice of that position the better. The fact that there is a commission considering it gives some ground for hope that action will be taken soon. Otherwise, there is not much prospect of the farm labourers being in a position to get married, even with the recent increase they secured in their miserable wages. As a matter of fact, the highest wage of 33/- a week would not maintain two people in decency, not to mention a family of seven. I wonder if members of this House recall a tragedy that occurred a couple of months ago when two children were smothered. It was stated at the inquest that one of the children was in a bed in which five people slept, and in the other case there were seven people in the one bed. The explanation given was that these people could not provide other beds. Is it not an awful state of affairs in a Christian country that the lives of two children should be lost in that way? I suppose it is because they were poor children that there was no public outcry. I hope it will be impossible for such a tragedy to happen again. It would be a great relief to parents to know that, as the family increases, children would be entitled to some allowance until they reached the age of 14 years.
I urge that all workers should be included in the scheme, that is, all workers in receipt of wages under a certain amount. The troubles of the family in the rural areas apply equally to families in towns and cities. This is a big national question, and I hope that the Government will succeed in finding the money for doing it, no matter where it comes from. Expenditure of money on such a scheme would be wise and would enable the present generation to rear children under healthy conditions, as well as stopping the decline of our population.
As I am sure that everyone agrees with the principle of this motion, I think it well to stress the fact that it would be wise to begin with agricultural labourers.
In this country as in other countries, there is a flight from the land. Men are unwilling to work on the land, and will put up with almost any conditions, and subject themselves to any hardship in order to get employment in any urban district in preference to land work. If this motion did nothing else but check that tendency, it would be a very desirable result indeed. The importance of endeavouring to keep our people on the land could not be over-stated. If our rural population declines then, inevitably, the nation goes down. I think that the Government would be well-advised to adopt the terms of this motion and to make some effort to put it into effect. The question of finance is certainly a very important one, and a very difficult one to handle. Senator Johnston put forward certain novel and ingenious suggestions. Undoubtedly, it would be a good idea, if the money now being made by private profiteers could be diverted to the National Exchequer— it would be a consummation very much to be desired. I do not know if the putting of an extra heavy tax on tea would be welcome. Tea is an important item in the budgets of the poorer people. The well-to-do people have discovered ways and means of finding substitute beverages, but it is extremely difficult for poorer people to do that. Perhaps this appeal coming from one who does not belong to the Benedict class may have some effect. Married labourers require more consideration than the unmarried labourers, and the one snag I see in the scheme is that if it were adopted there would be an incentive to employ unmarried men in preference to married men. As the suggestion made by the proposer of the motion, that a certain sum should be paid by the labourer, another by the employer, and another by the State, would in no way meet the cost involved we must only make an appeal to the Government to find some way of bridging the gap. At the moment, taxation in this country is very high and inevitably must be higher, but even so, as some speakers have said, it would be a good investment for the State to bring the scheme into operation.
When this House was considering a motion recently advocating the raising of agricultural wages and the betterment of the conditions of agricultural workers, two facts seemed to me to emerge from the discussion. One was that the wages paid to agricultural workers were not sufficient to support a family. I think that was generally agreed. At the same time it was proved, I think, that agriculture as it is organised and circumstanced at present could not bear any additional cost.
How are these two apparently irreconcilable positions to be reconciled? That seems to be an insoluble problem and yet the future of this country largely depends on finding a solution of it. It is because it seems to me that a solution would be found on the lines suggested by this motion that I am in favour of it. At first sight, it might seem that it would not be desirable to single out one class for consideration in the way of family allowances. But that has been done already. We have had milk and butter and bread allowances for certain people in the cities and towns, which allowances were not extended to the country. It would, therefore, effect a balance if certain things were done for the country which would not be done for the towns. The agricultural worker, as was pointed out in a very powerful speech by Senator Hayes, is not only badly circumstanced economically but he is deprived of a great many advantages which his fellow workers in the towns have, in the way of educational facilities for his children and opportunities for their advancement. For all these reasons, there is a good case to be made for singling out the agricultural workers for our first experiment in family allowances.
Senator Goulding made the important point that, if we are to continue to exist as a nation, we must do something to check the flight from the land. This is one way of checking that flight. Most of the speakers on this motion have adverted to that fact. It has also been pointed out, with justice, that no more important work is done for the State than is done by the woman who bears and rears healthy children. The wife of the agricultural worker who trains up her children to be future agricultural workers is doing for the State a service which it is incumbent on the State to recognise. The State should help her, too, by making her burden easier. Up to this, she has had an impossible burden. The conditions under which she rears her family, as was pointed out by Senator O'Dwyer, are appalling. It is a disgrace that a woman should have to rear her children in the conditions that are all too common in this country.
On the general subject of family allowances, I think that we, in this country, should have a special interest in them because such provision is implicit in our Constitution. When the Constitution was going through the other House, some of my sisters, feminist in outlook, were afraid that the position of women would be adversely affected by Article 41. I did not share their fears. I thought that the Constitution was going to help women to do their work for the State. I think that that was in the mind of the farmers of the Constitution but, so far, they have made no movement to implement the promises in Article 41. For this reason, I think that family allowances, which have been given in most other countries, are long overdue here. There is a long list in the April number of the Irish Rosary of the countries where State schemes of family allowances were in operation before the war. These countries include Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Chile and Japan, as well as New Zealand and Australia. When we all start from scratch after the war, the countries which will have the best future will be those with the most virile population. If we have our agricultural wage earners in such a position that they cannot rear or feed or educate their families, we shall start with a tremendous handicap. The best things we have are the quality of our population and the education which we give our children. Those are the greatest riches we can have. For that reason, I am strongly in favour of family allowances, and I am strongly in favour of this motion.
I find myself in great difficulty with regard to this motion inasmuch as I am not quite clear whether I am for it or against it. I am, as a measure of social justice, for the principle that family allowances should be paid, but I am in favour of paying family allowances not to the family of agricultural workers only, but to all families in the State where the family wage is below the level which will enable the family to live up to a decent standard of comfort. I am against the proposition that, because of the present difficult economic conditions, the basic wages of agricultural workers should be supplemented in this way. I am against any plan in any State at any time, except under very exceptional circumstances which I cannot anticipate at the moment, which makes it imperative on the State to permit the continuance of conditions in any industry in which the workers cannot get sufficient by selling their labour to enable them to live to a decent standard. I do not mind whether the man in question works in a factory or a farm or anywhere else.
It should be possible to sell commodities on the market at such a figure as would enable the men who gave their services in their production to enjoy a decent standard of life. The other proposition is not one for which I, as a farmer, would stand, and is not one which we should attempt to defend.
I am all for creating conditions in agriculture whereby farmers will be able to pay their workers as much as they are paid in any other industry. I do not think that we shall ever have a self-respecting agricultural industry until we bring it up to that status. I would not stand for supplementing agricultural wages in this way because of the present difficult economic conditions, but I would stand for the payment of family allowances as a measure of social justice because I believe that children are essential to the life of any progressive nation or State. The greater the number of children, the more powerful and virile the State will grow. We have all these fine doctrines enunciated in our Constitution, but we have not implemented any of them. It is time we set about doing so if we really meant what we said when we inserted these clauses in the Constitution. In the book referred to by Senator Johnston, Mr. Rowntree discovered that about 43/3 or 43/6 was the minimum figure on which a husband, wife and five children could be maintained. That is a number of years ago. The cost of living in all these countries has risen considerably since then. I am not quite clear that Senator Mrs. Concannon's argument, that this motion would be one way of stopping the flight from the land, would be justified by experience—if we simply pinned our faith to a scheme of family allowances favourable to families of agricultural workers. We want to do much more than that. Anybody who lives in the country knows that it is not the agricultural workers, but the sons and daughters of the smaller farmers and of some of the bigger farmers, who are not getting married. They are the people who ought to be getting married and raising new families. They are not doing it. There is not a mile of the country-side where you cannot count in fives, tens and twenties, the homes of people who, as far as one can judge, are the last of stock that has been there for 150 years or more.
I do not think we would be going any distance at all towards stemming the flight from the land by this scheme of family allowances. I feel the rot is far deeper, that there is something more fundamental than the fact that the agricultural workers are not getting married because the standard of living is too low. The only way to stop people flying from any conditions is to improve the conditions. People do not fly from comfort, nice incomes and a fair measure of enjoyment and ease. They are inclined to congregate and assemble around places where such conditions exist. I do not think people have such a distaste for work in rural Ireland. It is true that some members of a family will stay on the land and work on it until all hours of the night, while other members cannot be got to do anything on it, but the real truth is that people are flying from the land because the standard of living is too low and the standard of income is too low. You are not going to stop that flight except by raising the level of the incomes of all the people in rural districts. I have often heard it argued by all sorts of people that it would be much better that those on the dole should be paid a certain amount by way of dole and that they should make up the balance by working for the farmer. I think that would be a better plan than this. It seems to me that, if you want to tackle the rural problem, you must do more than merely point out the methods by which a scheme for family allowances for agricultural workers can be made possible. I think that would be only scratching the surface, leaving the great problem unsolved.
I am not enthusiastic about the motion in its particular form. I said at the beginning that, as a measure of social justice, we ought to harness our brains and energies to the task of providing a scheme of family allowances for all families whose minimum income falls below a certain level, whether they live in the city, the town or the country. It seems to me that before you can do that, you have to measure and exploit the possibility of putting a great many more people into employment than are at present employed. If you were to attempt such a scheme you would be paralysed by the magnitude of the problem. There are so many thousands of families in the State whose incomes are below a reasonable level that it would appal those who have reasonable incomes to be faced with the task of raising their incomes to a level that would represent a bare existence. What we have to do is to organise a scheme of life under which many of our unemployed people will be put to work. I am not at all satisfied that we have attempted to measure that problem or that there are anything like as many people employed here as there might be, if we were not so fearful of shadows. If we were able to put more people into employment, the number of people whose incomes would be below the minimum level, for whom a scheme of family allowances was requisite as a measure of social justice, would be very much smaller than it is to-day and the scheme would not then frighten a Minister for Finance, however sensitive. That is the kind of mood I find myself in in considering this motion.
I think we ought not to haggle at all about the general principle underlying a scheme of family allowances. I think it is a Christian idea. I am convinced, and have been convinced for a very long time, that we are less than Christian when we see all around us crowds of families and little children who are not properly clad and not more than half fed. They are to be found in the country, in our towns and especially in our cities. That is not a scheme of life which we can accept as the best product of Irish genius, patriotism and constructive effort. It seems to me, therefore, that this motion is only scratching the surface, and only one corner of the surface.
While it might appear to be favourable to the farmers, I see all the difficulties entailed in asking a Minister for Finance to operate a scheme that is partial to a certain number of citizens, leaving out other people who are equally necessitous. If burdens have to be borne, they ought to be borne on an equitable basis by all members of the community in proportion to their capacity to bear, whether they are burdens of taxation or of having to do without and to go short. I am not at all satisfied that we are making any effort to face up to the real problems that confront the State, problems which must be solved before we lay even the basis of a Christian, progressive, social order here. I am prepared to support the motion in a general way because it is making a demand for a scheme of family allowances, but I think the motion is too narrow. I think it would be quite impossible for a Minister for Finance to operate it because it would be partial. As a farmer, I think it would be a wrong thing to put the agricultural industry in a position in this country where it must be the industry of paupers, where the farmers' labourers have to be paid by the State because the farmers are not able to get as much out of the land as would pay the workers a decent wage. We would never keep workers under such conditions in our industry. We must face the possibilities and discover how our industry can be made more profitable so that the people employed in it will earn enough to give them a decent standard of life. I do not want to be a member of a pauper industry. I speak for people that I know have a great deal of pride and are anxious to pay the men who work for them. They work in the fields with them day after day and they do not grudge them what they earn or what they eat. These men must get a price for what they sell that will enable them equitably to requite the labour of their servants that has enabled them to produce the goods. While I say that, in general, I give support to the motion, I think all sorts of considerations are raised by the motion, that cannot be easily solved or lightly dismissed.
I am sorry that I did not speak before Senator Baxter, because I am—to use his words—"shocked and paralysed" by the speech he made. I have heard many conglomerations of contradictions from Senator Baxter, and I have listened to long speeches from him, wondering what he had been speaking about. On this occasion, I heard the most extraordinary statement I have yet heard, and as the Senator sat down I was wondering what he wanted. I am wholeheartedly in favour of partial treatment in this matter of family allowances, as definitely mentioned in the motion. Speakers in favour of the motion have rambled widely from it. I noticed that Senator Johnston, Senator Tunney and Senator Baxter took the same line, discussing the implications of it as far as it relates to family allowances for all citizens of the State. I am in favour of it on a narrow basis, for the simple reason that I want to see the initiation of a back-to-the-land movement, and this would be a first and important step in that direction. The agricultural labourer, living on the land with a wife and family, is a far better technician, a far better tradesman, than many tradesmen in the cities who are paid high trade union rates of wages, and for that reason any increase of wages or allowances that can be given should be given him.
I do not wish to plead specially for the unmarried man, but for the married man who is established on the land and working with a farmer, who can use the plough, milk the cows, and do the hundred and one duties that work on the land involves. He is far more highly skilled than many town tradesmen who are paid high wages. I am in favour of any benefits that can be afforded that type of man for the reason that we have been speaking about so long, the flight from the land, and the facilities afforded to leave the land and go to live in urban and city areas. Senator Johnston said that we had not provided subsidies to ensure the health of children. I think he is very forgetful of the legislation that has been passed dealing with the health and welfare of all children in the State. As Senator Mrs. Concannon pointed out, greater facilities have been provided for children in the cities than for those in the rural areas. The recent grants in kind that are available for poorer people in the cities do not apply to the rural populations and, therefore, there is preferential treatment.
In this case we want partial treatment to be afforded to the agricultural workers as distinct from the people living in the cities. Senator Johnston did mention one very important point that was brought forcibly to my notice some years ago, that the agricultural labourer with his cottage and acre of land and family of, say, four or five children, received unemployment benefits, and worked his acre of land. He said there was no incentive to that man to seek employment at a slightly increased wage, while he could work his land to his satisfaction and for the benefit of his family, while getting the unemployment allowance. The fact of affording an agricultural labourer a family allowance while working would give him a far better incentive to go and work with a farmer than to be idle, apart from working his own acre, and receiving unemployment benefit. I am not clear how the motion would affect a man who is, or has been, working with a farmer, and who has become unemployed through no fault of his own. Would unemployment benefit or allowance continue as well as a family allowance? I do not think that could work. I think the motion would really apply to an agricultural worker, with a family, while he was working. He would revert to the unemployment allowance when he would become idle.
Some Senators referred to differential treatment. It would be differential treatment for an agricultural worker as distinct from a worker in the city, but in other kinds of employment family allowances have been allowed. They are allowed to persons who pay income-tax. The man with a family receives preferential treatment. In the Civil Service special provision is made for a married man with a family. These are points which I wish to stress in favour of my argument that this motion should apply to agricultural workers only. It would be the first step, and an important step, towards the amelioration of conditions in the rural areas.
Senator Johnston gave some figures concerning the number of agricultural workers. He gave one figure of 130,000. I do not know whether that includes female workers as well as male workers. Probably it includes both sexes. If that is the case, the figures that he quoted afterwards would be relatively smaller—35,000 families.
My recollection is that there are not more than 1,000 or 2,000 female agricultural workers in the country altogether. I mean, technically, working for wages.
That seems to be an amazingly small figure, whatever statistics may reveal. I am not going to touch on the question as to how the money could be raised. I am in favour of the principle of the motion, because it is a wise step to hold the people on the land. If possible, we should reverse engines now and have an exodus from the cities rather than from country districts to the cities.
I think that this is an important step in that direction, and that family allowances for agricultural workers would be a great help towards making the countryside happy and in establishing an increased number of homes in the rural districts. I think it was Senator Johnston who said that the money required could be raised if employers paid 1/- per head per week, the employees 1/- and the State 6d. In my opinion, that basis of contribution is all wrong, because the State does not pay enough. I think the State should contribute at least an amount equal to that contributed by the other parties, as it has equal responsibility for helping to maintain and keep the people on the land. If any alterations were to be made in the suggested contributions, I think that the 6d. should be paid by the agricultural worker. There may be some objections to the scheme on the grounds that the employer, the farmer, would be unable to pay a contribution of 1/- a week. Senator Baxter just now referred to the farmers as paupers. I object to that term. I objected here before to the farmers being called paupers. It is not proper or justifiable to say that the agricultural industry is pauperised. It is not pauperised.
You are not a good judge of suitable language. We know the language you use yourself sometimes.
It is not justifiable to refer to the agricultural community as being pauperised. However, I shall not dilate on this matter to the extent that Senator Baxter did. I wish to conclude by saying that I am in favour of this motion in the restricted sense in which it appears on the Order Paper.
At the outset, I want to say how strongly I dissent from a certain presupposition that I so often hear expressed in this House. I instance the statements of Senator Mrs. Concannon and Senator Baxter this evening. There is nothing to me more loathsome than to hear it so constantly assumed that we should do something or other to induce men to produce families in the country because it will enhance the State or add to the power of the State. That seems to me a complete distortion and reversion of values. The value of the State consists only in so far as it serves the human person. In certain totalitarian States they take the most elaborate steps to enhance the fecundity of the people and to encourage the growth of the population because the people there are regarded as mere chattels of the State. That is a point of view which is innate in many of the speeches here to-day—the whole assumption that there must be this enormous aggrandisement of the State itself and that everything must derive from it.
The last Senator who spoke objected to any reference to a pauperisation of the people and then went on to suggest that the State should contribute more towards the fund which Senator Johnston suggests should be created for this purpose. That is pauperisation. Why should the State contribute? The implication of that suggestion is that production from the land is not able to provide a Christian standard—to drag in a word that is very often used in this House—a standard which it is agreed everybody should have. There is some arbitrary fixed point decided by sentimentalists which is regarded as a Christian standard, and it is assumed that if certain lines of labour do not provide that standard, there is something wrong. Implicit in what the last Senator said is that, according to social justice, there is a minimum which the agricultural worker should receive, that that minimum is something which we, as Christians, think the human person requires, and as the farmer is unable to provide that standard for his workers you must get the money from somewhere, and the all-powerful State is invited by the Senator to give an increased contribution. Yet the Senator denounced the use of the word "pauperisation." But if the fruits of our labour are not such as to enable ourselves and our children to live in Christian comfort, we must become paupers and we must live on the charity of that abstraction which we call the State. I object to this lack of clarity in speaking.
The motion itself begins:—
"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion"——
The word "opinion" means that it is doubtful. The resolution then goes on to say that—
"as a measure of social justice in the present difficult economic conditions, the basic wages of agricultural workers should be supplemented by a scheme of family allowances."
When I was in charge of a Department of State, time and again I gave orders that nobody sending me a report was to use the passive voice. When, for instance, I got a report commencing with the statement "it was said" I always wanted to know by whom it was said. Here we have a suggestion that the basic wages of agricultural workers should be supplemented, but there is no mention of who is going to supplement them.
I mentioned it.
It is not mentioned in the motion. I entirely approve of the suggestion that agricultural workers should get the highest possible rate of wages and that we should aim at a condition in which the labour of the land should provide out of its own fruits the standards which the workers require. When, however, you drag in the State you are pauperising agriculture, and implicit in that is the assumption that the totality of land and the totality of the fruits of the land are not going to be sufficient to provide a living for those people. Personally I do not think that is so. I would rather support this motion for the reason that there is no reference at all to the State. What I would like to say is that it is agreed that the farmers and the labourers should contribute towards this fund. That would require that the farmers must make a certain profit. I like that word "profit". Many people talk about producing for consumption without reference to profit, but I think that the farmers should have sufficient profits to enable them to provide themselves and their workers with a reasonable standard of living. I should like that to be the basic consideration because agriculture is the main industry in this country. Once you have that established, then the workers in general, people engaged in other employment and buying the farmers' produce must pay a price for it that will enable the farmer to do what is proposed here.
I should like that to be the norm and the basis by which everything would be regulated. We could then say that a farm labourer working x hours a day for so many days a week would get a certain wage, while the men working behind the counter or working in a factory, would have their work assessed in relation to the value of the work of the man on the land. What we are doing here, however, is suggesting that although we have all got to live on what the country produces, and although everybody seems to agree that the farmers have practically all the means of production in their hands, they are not able to support the labourers who are engaged in that production unless their efforts are supplemented from some other source. There is no other source except in what is produced in the country. We get to the position in which everybody works and the Government takes the maximum from them and then distributes it. The whole mind of the Dáil and Seanad, and practically of the whole modern world, is that people and their labour will count very little more than tools in the hands of the all-powerful State, which will hand out the doles, and not only agriculture but every other productive employment is going to be pauperised—a word most properly used by Senator Baxter.
On this question of food allowances, there is always a possibility, taking it all round, that you are going to say: "If you employ a married man, he must receive more than an unmarried man"—I know that Senator Counihan has anticipated all this—and in that way you make it desirable for employers to employ only unmarried people. Normally, I would say that, while it is right that a married man with a family should receive more on account of his commitments, yet inasmuch as the married man has taken on responsibility, as a decision of his own will, the provision for that family is eminently forced upon himself. In the case of family allowances, if it were like trade union or city employment, a married man should really be expected to work longer and produce more than the unmarried man. We had this arbitrary business about the 48 or the 44-hour week. An unmarried man requires a certain amount, which it is his duty to himself to produce, in order to provide his own living. A married man has a wife, and possibly some children, to support, and there is a greater duty on him to work more. I do not see how that could apply in agriculture, where there is no time limit and men are working more or less for the hours that nature permits.
I think it would be a good idea to try this, although I will not commit myself to the opinion that the State should come into it. This motion really says nothing, as it does not propose that anything should be done. We are a legislative body, and our business is the enacting of laws. The motion merely says:
"That the basic wage of agricultural workers should be supplemented by a scheme of family allowances."
I quite agree to that, but that does not mean I agree that the State should provide any of the money. In a way, I do not want the State to do it. I want the country to be forced to the fact that its one great industry is agriculture. The agriculturists are being robbed. That was quite obvious when we had the tariff ramp, and when we had protection under it so that some people could collect tariff taxes instead of the Government—taxation which put up prices to the farmers. No Government can really give protection in the same manner as the consumer can to the more easily rationalisable industries.
I would like to see this experiment tried in regard to agriculture. I do not think it is as simple as Senator Counihan and those associated with him think. If we are assuming that family allowances are to be provided, it should be out of agriculture itself, and not out of the purse of that hideous abstract monster we call the State. You would then have farmer-employer and farm labourer-employee working in co-operation, and after a time one would be able to say what roughly was required to be produced out of a given amount of labour, and that could then be expressed in terms of cash. One would be able to say what was the reasonable wage for the unmarried men, and what the product of one year's labour on a certain amount of land should be. Then one might be able to force the non-agricultural people in this country to put up such a price for agricultural production as would enable the scheme to be carried out.
That might easily require the elimination of a great number of middlemen, and those who serve over the counters may have to work longer and harder or accept lower wages. It might easily mean that those particularly favoured people—not so evident now as a couple of years ago—operating tariff industries would find that the money they took from the public had not the same value now, as the price of potatoes, bacon and beef would be higher. I would support this, although I do not mean to commit myself to anything. I am merely saying that, as far as the wage-earners on the land are concerned, those who are married should have their basic wage supported from a source not revealed, by a sort of family allowance. In doing so, I wish to insist that we must live on what this country produces, and that will be seen more clearly on the next motion on the Order Paper.
Business suspended at 6.10 p.m. and resumed at 7.20 p.m.