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Dáil Éireann - Volume 33 - 12 March, 1930

Public Business. - Central Fund Bill—Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Blythe): I move that the Central Fund Bill be now read a second time.

Mr. MacEntee: The motion of the Minister raises a very important question, because I take it that assent to the motion would be taken by the country to be an assent to the policy which has been expressed in the volume of estimates which we have just received. A study of these estimates, I am sure, would bring nothing but astonishment to the taxpayer. It is true that in his Budget speech last year the Minister indicated that so long as the present Government remained in office there was no great hope of any remission of taxation. Nevertheless, I am sure there were few people so pessimistic as to anticipate that so far from there being a reduction in the coming year there would be probably an actual increase. The total of the estimates indicate that an increase in taxation is almost certain. The amount covered by the estimates is £21,782,000. This time last year the amount covered by the estimates then presented was £21,141,430. So that the present estimate is £641,000 more than last year's, notwithstanding the fact that the Minister himself last year was of the opinion that [1676] there could “still be no question of the need to limit outlay as much as possible.” Possibly the Minister may argue that in comparing the figure of £21,782,000 with £21,141,000 I am not being fair to him, because by supplementary estimates the amount for last year was increased to £21,453,000. But I think he would be a very sanguine, not to say a very simple, man who would believe that the coming year, even with this inflated expenditure, will pass without producing at its tail the usual crop of supplementaries.

Last year the total amount required from the Central Fund in respect of non-voted services was £4,199,220. A further £100,000 was added in respect of old age pensions, making the total expenditure for the year £25,440,650. It is probable that the Central Fund this year will require at least £100,000 more than last year, and this means that the total bill to be faced by us in the year which will commence on 1st April—from the point of view of the taxpayer possibly a very appropriate day—will be £26,082,000, or £640,000 more than last year. It is true that some of these increases are represented by minor increases under certain heads of reproductive expenditure, and these we do not propose to criticise. But we do criticise the fact that there has been no corresponding retrenchment in those services which are either non-reproductive or entirely parasitical.

In this connection, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Deputy Heffernan), whom I see in the House, what has become of the Economy Committee which we understand was set up last year under his Chairmanship. And if there were any members of the Farmers' Party in the House upon this occasion when the taxpayers money, a large part of which is provided by the farmers, is being voted away, I would ask such members what efforts have they made to secure economies. I understand that that Party has had rather an unpleasant time recently at the hands of its supporters in the country. I believe that the excuse [1677] that its members offered for their present alignment in the Dáil was that through their efforts and the efforts of their Chairman, Deputy Heffernan, on the Economy Committee certain economies, with a consequent reduction in taxation, had been secured. Now we find Deputy Heffernan himself in the ranks of the spendthrifts, imposing a further expenditure of £48,000 upon every section of the community, but most of all, because they get the least return for it, upon the farmers for whom he claims to speak in the Dáil. We now see Deputy Heffernan in office. But we can remember Deputy Heffernan out of office, and we can recollect how, at great length, he pleaded in this House the ever-argued and always-lost cause of the taxpayer. If ever a man burned with a passionate zeal for economy it was Deputy Heffernan. Alas, Deputy Heffernan has become one of the tax spenders. It is sad and chastening to reflect how office may corrupt even the best of men. And what are we going to say about Deputy Heffernan's one-time Party? Has it also ceased its labours on behalf of the taxpayer? Has it forgotten about the farmers whose interests it was sent to this Dáil to safeguard and secure? After keeping company for well-nigh three years with prodigals has it become as spendthrift as they, or is it that, notwithstanding their proud boasts and professions throughout the country, the Farmers' Party is unable to exercise any control whatsoever over expenditure? Are we to assume that even with Deputy Heffernan at their head and representing them in their counsels of the Government, the Farmers' Party has been about as effective, as far as this question of economy and expenditure is concerned, as a group of hayseeds upon a telegraph pole? We shall leave the Farmers' Party to be further dealt with by the farmers of the country, hoping only that in this country justice will be ever tempered by mercy, and return to the Estimates.

As we have seen, the total Estimate for voted and non-voted expenditure [1678] last year was £25,440,000. The Minister, in order to secure a balance of a sort between income and expenditure, adjusted this by deducting, first of all, £1,080,000 in respect of what he called abnormal expenditure, and a further £435,000 as an allowance for over-estimation. These adjustments left the sum of £23,925,000 to be provided out of the proceeds of taxation or other normal revenue. It seems probable that the total tax and non-tax revenue for the current year will amount to about £24,350,000, so that the Budget as adjusted by the Minister will about balance.

What of next year, however? The probable burden which the country will have to face next year will be about £26,082,000. The Minister, I suppose, will propose to reduce that by deducting certain items of expenditure which he describes as abnormal, and, instead of providing for them out of taxation, will propose to defray them by borrowing. But in this connection the Minister himself is immediately faced with his own statement of last year, for when introducing his Budget he said:

We may reasonably hope that in the year 1930-31 the expenditure of this kind which has hitherto been classed as abnormal will include very little in addition to whatever sum may be required for the Local Loans Fund.

It is questionable whether it is justifiable even to classify the contributions to the Local Loans Fund as abnormal. At any rate, such contributions were formerly regarded as items which should be provided for out of normal revenue, and the Minister, in classifying them now as abnormal, is departing from precedent. But we will allow that to pass. We will assume, for the purpose of argument, that the Minister proposes to classify as abnormal not only the contributions to the Local Loans Fund, but the Vote in respect of Property Losses, and, perhaps, £100,000 on Vote 11 as well. These items will amount to about £902,000. Deducting them from the £26,082,000 [1679] we would have left £25,180,000, which, in accordance with the practice of the Minister, has to be reduced by deducting a further two and a half per cent. as an allowance for over-estimation, which leaves us with a sum of £24,550,000 to be provided for out of normal taxation or other revenue. We have seen that the probable total of tax and non-tax revenue for the current year will be about £24,350,000, but this includes an item of £200,000 repayment from the National City Bank which the Minister himself was at pains to point out last year will be a nonrecurring item, and, therefore, must be left altogether out of account when we are attempting to form any idea as to what the revenue will be during the coming year.

Upon this basis we are left with these two contrasting figures; a probable revenue of £24,150,000 upon the basis of the present taxation and a probable expenditure of £24,550,000, on the basis of the present estimates. There is, therefore, a difference of £400,000 to be reconciled and the question at once arises, how does the Minister propose to do that? If our present economic circumstances were normal, if this country, or this community, were a prosperous one, the answer would be immediately forthcoming, that the £400,000 would be provided by the natural and spontaneous expansion of the revenue from existing taxes. But, unfortunately, such expansion is not to be anticipated in our case as the following figures for the revenue for the past four years will show:— in 1925-6, the total revenue was £25,439,000; in 1926-7, it was £25,060,000; in 1927-8, it was £24,123,000; in 1928-9, it was £24,221,000, and I anticipate—and I do not think that the result will prove me far wrong—that for the present year the normal revenue will not exceed £24,150,000. It may have been noted that the revenue in 1928-9 was £100,000 more than in 1927-8. But in order to secure that result, the Minister in his Budget for 1928-9 had to impose a further farthing per lb. on sugar, which [1680] brought him in about £180,000. Even this return, it is worth noting, disappointed the Minister, for he had hoped to secure by that expedient over £200,000.

The arresting fact which emerges, however, from the revenue figures which I have just quoted is that, notwithstanding all the questionable expedients which the Minister adopted during the past three years, the revenue has been static; it has given absolutely no indication of spontaneous growth or expansion. In a well-balanced tax system, such natural, spontaneous growth would be the inevitable concomitant to increasing prosperity. It is absent, and since it has not manifested itself in this country during the past three or four years the assertion of the Minister and his colleagues of the Executive Council that this country has become increasingly prosperous under their regime is at once refuted. So far from our revenue indicating that, so far from there being any growth or expansion of revenue, the whole tendency of it has been to contract and decline, so that even to maintain it at its present level the Minister has been driven to the most desperate courses.

It is quite clear that if Deputies are to pass this Central Fund Bill and thereby to give their approval to the Estimates which the Minister has circulated and to the spending policy that he and the Executive Council have decided upon, they must be prepared to face and acquiesce in the imposition of further taxation. Can we face that increase of taxation? Notwithstanding the imposition of fresh taxation during the past three years, there has been the sugar tax, a tariff on woollens and other tariffs introduced by the Minister from time to time, every one of which ought to have brought fresh money into the Exchequer, so that the revenue should have shown in each of these three years a continuous increase—notwithstanding this fresh taxation, the revenue has remained static—a sure indication that we are overtaxed. If we pass the Bill that the Minister has submitted to us, we [1681] must be prepared for further fresh taxation during the coming year of about £400,000. Can we afford to impose that further burden upon productive industry in this country?

Last year, our total export trade amounted to £46,061,000. That represented the gross out-turn of this community, and all that out-turn had to be sold in a very competitive market. It is possible that during the coming year competition in that market will be further intensified, but there is an added factor to be taken into consideration, viz., that during the coming year that market will be a rapidly falling one and, therefore, one in which the producer's margin of profit will tend continuously to diminish. In these unfavourable conditions and in face of diminishing profits, what will happen if the Minister imposes further taxation upon the producers of this country? It will represent an increase in the cost of production for which the producer cannot seek to compensate himself by asking higher prices. He will be between two fires—I had almost said between two thieves—his competitors abroad and the Minister's tax-gatherers at home. What will happen? He will either give up the ghost and cease to produce, or he will endeavour to reduce the immediate, but not the ultimate, cost of production by decreasing wages, by declining to make proper provision for the maintenance and development of his plant and industry and by reducing his personal expenditure. By ceasing to produce he directly creates unemployment and becomes unemployed himself. By reducing wages, he reduces the purchasing power of his employees, and by failing to maintain and develop his own concern he creates unemployment in all the ancillary industries which depend upon his.

It is no counter to this argument to contend that some of the expenditure now contemplated is going to be productive. It cannot be immediately productive. It may not be productive until after a lapse of years. The benefit of it, though possibly certain, is shadowy or remote. [1682] But the burden of it is not only certain but substantial and immediate, and the first effect of the proposals now submitted will be to disorganise and dislocate all industry and to create unemployment. The prime fact that must be borne in mind in connection with this Bill is that if it goes through, one of its effects will be, during the coming year, to intensify unemployment in this country. I do not mean to say, as I said before, that some of the heads under which increased expenditure is going to take place will not be productive. They will be productive, but the cost of them ought to be met, not by imposing fresh taxation, but by retrenchments in regard to services which are non-productive and some of which are merely parasitical. If the Minister proposes to make further provision in regard to local loans, he ought to compensate the taxpayer for that provision by securing a corresponding economy, say, in the Gárda Síochána or in the Pensions or Superannuation Vote, or possibly under Vote No. 1 for the Governor-General and his establishment, or in Vote No. 3 for the Department of the President of the Executive Council. We do not desire that reproductive expenditure should be cut down, but we realise that the fruits of that expenditure may not become immediately manifest, whereas the disadvantages and burdens which it will impose upon the taxpayer will be immediately felt, and, therefore, we say that rather than impose fresh taxation the Minister ought to prune the expenditure, so far as he possibly can, of every Department, in order to secure that the increased reproductive expenditure will be met by corresponding economies. It is a strange fact that last year the Minister admitted that through the efforts of the Committee, presided over by Deputy Heffernan, he was able to secure economies amounting to £500,000. But the increased expenditure this year almost equals that sum, and the only conclusion I can come to is that after one spurt of zeal on the part of Deputy Heffernan and his Economy Committee, [1683] the Deputy and the Committee went to sleep and have remained moribund since. An analysis of the Minister's figures shows that if accepted by this House one of the inevitable effects will be to impose further burdens upon the producers of this country and to create further unemployment. We, on this side of the House, will not vote for any financial policy or endorse any expenditure that will have these inevitable effects, and, therefore, we are prepared to oppose the Bill on Second Reading.

Mr. M. O'Reilly: In speaking of this question of taxation one is always compelled to think of what governs, or rather, what should govern, taxation in general, namely, capacity to pay. Taking a glance roughly over the bill with which this country is faced, I believe that any ordinary individual would come to the conclusion that we are not able, under any circumstances whatever, to meet such a demand. As the question of de-rating is, I suppose, at present sub judice, it is not permissible to discuss it, and I do not intend to do so, but I intend to say this much, that if the terms of reference do not include, or allow the Committee to go into, the question of general taxation, I think it is a great chance missed, because we in this country, as well as in England, are labouring under a system of taxation that is largely the result of convenience. Owing to wars or special political situations, taxation was needed, and clever men put up schemes without much thought, which continue even to the present day without any further thought, and so far as I can see, this system of taxation is purely and simply a ready means for Governments to collect money, a convenient but not at all a cheap means. There is no consideration at all given to the question of production, and as it is out of production that all those taxes must arise it seems strange that no consideration whatever seems to be given to it. Certain heavy taxes that are imposed have [1684] no consideration whatever for the poor. They do not make so much difference to the rich.

Take, for example, the tobacco tax, in which the tobacco manufacturer is bound to spend a huge sum of money before he proceeds to manufacture anything. The tax in that instance is four times higher than the actual value of the article. That manufacturer invests a big sum of money in the raw material, perhaps years before he gets any return for his money, and naturally has to compel the consumer to pay interest on his investment. That consumer, unfortunately in the case of tobacco, is an individual who may be poor; it does not interfere so much with the wealthy individual, but it hits the poor man very hard. The manufacturer pays that back before he starts to produce anything. I believe that in that, as well as in other forms of taxation, an effort should be made to collect the taxes as near the point of consumption as possible. As these taxes, however, were the result of convenience, were imposed at abnormal periods, and levied without further consideration, I believe that the time has come when Governments should make an effort to consider the system, see where it is doing a serious injury and, as far as possible, alleviate the burdens with which producers are faced. I quite admit from the point of view of farmers that all farmers are not compelled to pay income tax except their income reaches a certain amount.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy is dealing rather with Budget points than with the Central Fund. He is dealing purely with taxation rather than with expenditure.

Mr. O'Reilly: And expenditure.

An Ceann Comhairle: I was giving the Deputy every latitude I could, but he kept on repeating about systems of taxation and I could not allow him to go further. We are concerned with questions of expenditure rather than with taxation on this Bill. The general question of expenditure in regard to taxation [1685] is of course relevant, but questions about particular taxes and methods of their collection are questions for the Budget Resolutions leading up to the Finance Bill rather than to the Central Fund Bill. The Deputy, I am sure, will appreciate that. I will let him make his point, but we cannot have it generally.

Mr. O'Reilly: I take it therefore that farmers who pay their taxes and who do not pay under the direct head, are taxed on what is known as poor law valuation. These men contribute taxes before production practically begins and therefore they are greatly interested both in the taxation and in the question of expenditure. If the expenditure did not exist, naturally they would not be faced with the imposition of taxation levied without any consideration of whether they are paying out of capital or income. As the expenditure however is actually there the money must be collected and it all comes back on them. The money that may be returned in certain classes of subsidies to them has been put up by them perhaps a year previously. That is a matter which I believe should come under the question of de-rating. It is a point that should be discussed at much greater length, but if this money is to be spent it certainly must be collected and the only means we have of having it collected here is out of production, and, as long as we insist that the system takes no consideration as to whether it comes out of production or out of capital, it is going to continue to be rather a deterrent to production than any form of encouragement.

Mr. Lemass: I do not think that a debate of a general nature such as this should be allowed to conclude without taking the opportunity of clearing up a number of points which were mentioned in recent debates but not adequately debated. I am very glad to see that Deputy Batt O'Connor is in the House at the moment, because he visited my constituency yesterday looking for rainbows. The rainbow he found [1686] was, according to himself, a magnificent specimen, a perfect arch with glowing colours and the keystone of the arch was the President of the Executive Council. The exact financial cost of this rainbow which we are wearing round our shoulders for a portion of the coming year has been estimated by the Minister for Finance at £7,744,365. I will be glad if Deputy Batt O'Connor who personally saw the rainbow will assure us that in his opinion it is worth all that sum. Personally I was not aware that there were any rainbows in my constituency. I have contested a number of elections there. I visited most parts of the constituency. I have spoken at a number of public meetings but I never saw anything even remotely resembling a rainbow. There is something suggestive of a promise of brighter times in the very mention of a rainbow.

When one sees a rainbow in the skies, one associates it with a promise that the disastrous deluge of Biblical history is not going to be repeated. There is, in any case, a general impression that circumstances are going to be better in the future than they were in the past but, as I have stated, no suggestion of that kind has made itself evident in the constituency which Deputy O'Connor honoured by visiting last night. In fact, there is a decided impression that things are getting worse. Deputy O'Connor confined his visit merely to addressing a meeting in a small hall in Dawson Street—presumably, a meeting composed of selected individuals admitted by ticket. No doubt, they were all prosperous.

Mr. O'Connor: Are we dealing with the Central Fund Bill or with the meeting?

Mr. Lemass: We are talking about the advisability of issuing £7,700,000 out of the Central Fund.

Mr. O'Connor: Stick to that, and do not mind rainbows.

Mr. Lemass: Surely Deputy O'Connor is not now asking us to ignore [1687] the magnificent rainbow he discovered last night? I have no doubt he was talking to prosperous individuals. Anyone who was not prosperous would not be admitted. In fact, the very idea of a mere unemployed person getting into a meeting of that kind is inconceivable. Does Deputy O'Connor realise that there are, in fact, a number of persons unemployed in the city who would be very glad to get a glimpse of even a segment of the rainbow? I wonder is Deputy O'Connor one of those who are under the impression that there is no unemployment? There are quite a number of people in the country, quite a number in the Dáil, who appear to be under the impression that unemployment does not exist. We have statistical tables produced here from time to time by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Finance, and the President of the Executive Council, the keystone of the rainbow arch, indicating that unemployment is diminishing at such a rapid rate that it is to be expected that in a very short time it will have ceased to exist if, in fact, it has not already disappeared.

I presume it is in order, on the Central Fund Bill, to refer to the economic conditions existing in the country. When the Vote on account, which preceded this Bill, was under discussion here, we debated the question of the economic penetration of our industrial system by foreign capital. As rainbow chasers are, perhaps, inclined to ignore, quite a number of businesses in this part of Ireland have been purchased recently by foreigners, and foreign interests are getting increasing control of our industrial system. I do not want to reopen the discussion on that issue. When we were discussing it, however, it seemed to me that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his zeal for rationalisation and efficiency, was inclined to ignore the fact that these developments, which he seemed to consider so desirable, have tended to increase the already very high number of unemployed. When one comes to discuss the question [1688] of unemployment, presumably one has got first to prove that unemployment exists. Seán MacEoin travelled 3,000 miles to tell the people of another country that unemployment in this country was not, as he put it, “particularly bothersome.” Of course, Deputy MacEoin, like Deputy O'Connor, gets his experience from attending these small meetings of select individuals, all prosperous, all, no doubt, in receipt of substantial incomes, substantial pensions, or reasonable remuneration of one kind or another. When Deputy MacEoin said that unemployment was not particularly bothersome, he meant that it did not bother him. Neither does it bother Deputy O'Connor, I am sure, nor any of Deputy O'Connor's colleagues in the Party opposite. Those of us who are excluded from the select circle of rainbow chasers come occasionally into touch with the unemployed, and we are inclined to consider the problem as a particularly bothering one. In fact, we are constantly bothered by it, if “bothered” is the proper word to use in that connection. In fact, we have been brought so closely into touch with it that we have been filled with a zeal to end the problem altogether if it can be ended.

I have said that unemployment exists. There are some 24,000 or 25,000 registered as unemployed at the employment exchanges. It can be taken for granted, therefore, that there are at least 25,000 out of work. I cannot imagine any individual going to an employment exchange and registering as unemployed if, in fact, he was not; so when the Minister for Industry and Commerce thought fit to endorse Deputy MacEoin's statements, that there were only 10,000 people unemployed in the Free State in January last, he must have been going on the assumption that the official figure which he gave me was either a miscalculation on the part of some official or else that there are a number of individuals who register as unemployed for the amusement of the thing, but who are not out of work at all. I am prepared to take the figures submitted by the Minister as official and [1689] accurate. There are at any rate, at the very minimum, about 25,000 people out of work, and 25,000 people without work is not a small number in a country the size of ours. It is, in fact, quite a large proportion—sufficiently large, at any rate, to justify this Dáil taking the question seriously into consideration when it is asked to pass a Bill to vote a sum of this size out of the Central Fund. The number of people insured under the Unemployment Insurance Acts is approximately about half the total number of persons gainfully occupied in the country according to the census of 1926. We can safely assume that the proportion of unemployment amongst persons employed in occupations insurable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts is the same as amongst persons normally employed in industries not within the scope of the Acts.

We are, therefore, safe in reckoning that the number of persons without work is about double the number of persons registered as unemployed, because only those who are employed in insurable occupations under the Unemployment Insurance Acts take the trouble to register at the employment exchanges. Even of these there are numbers who do not register. If we put the number of unemployed at 50,000 we will not be very far wrong. There may be rainbows in the South City of Dublin, and there may be a number of other interesting phenomena to be seen throughout the country by the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies, but if they will contemplate the 50,000 people who are at this moment without work and, consequently, without the means of providing the necessities of life for themselves and their families, they will be doing more useful work and be more useful as public representatives. They would, at least, attend in the Dáil and give their views when matters relating to the expenditure of public funds are under discussion.

Unemployment is not necessary. That is a statement that requires to be proved. There is a large number of people who are inclined to argue [1690] in this wise—that there are always unemployed, that it is a natural phenomena the result of the inevitable operation of economic laws. That is a very usual argument with these people. We have heard it in this House. The mentality that it is associated with is well represented in the Executive Council. The existence of unemployment and poverty at the same time, is, to anyone who has examined these questions, an obvious contradiction. By poverty, we mean that there are numbers of persons in the country who are unable to get all the goods they require to satisfy their material needs. By unemployment, we mean that there are people unable to get work at producing goods required to satisfy the needs of the people. I say, therefore, that the existence within the one community of the evil of unemployment and the evil of poverty is an anomaly and that it indicates that the economic organisation of that community is defective.

We had a good crop of potatoes last year. And because we had a good crop of potatoes last year, quite a number of farmers were brought into a position of financial difficulty. In the economic organisation that exists here and throughout the world, one of the greatest evils that can be experienced is that which is described as over-production. I wonder do Deputies ever take into account the fact that this over-production takes place at the same time that there are large numbers of human beings actually starving, certainly without possessing all the necessities of life? We read of Scottish fishing fleets sailing out into the North Sea and throwing loads of fish overboard because the putting of them on the market would so depress prices that the fishermen would be ruined. We read of Canadian farmers sometimes using wheat as the cheapest form of fuel. At present the Canadian Wheat Ring is fighting with its back to the wall to prevent wheat being exported from Canada in order to force an increase in wheat prices throughout the world. And all that is due to the fact that the wheat crop [1691] was particularly bountiful in 1928 and that the Canadians had a bumper crop of wheat. In these peculiar circumstances that Ministers are apparently prepared to recognise as normal the greatest disaster which can overtake human beings is to produce too much of what they need. A country in which over-production is a disaster and in which unemployment and poverty can exist side by side, has some serious defect in its economic organisation which must be eradicated if any social progress is to be made.

The problem of poverty is not one of production. We can produce in this country all that we require in the way of food, clothing and houses. We can produce a surplus, over and above what we require, to trade abroad in order to get the goods that we cannot produce here. If we have 50,000 unemployed workers who are only too anxious to be set to work producing the goods we require, but we are unable to put them to work, then it is obvious that we have not yet devised the industrial machinery that is best suited to the supplying of our needs. We have a system of distribution and a system of financing distribution that is defective. Every difficulty here, the difficulty of inadequate housing, the development of agriculture, and the revival of industry resolve themselves down in the last analysis into a question of the cost and price—the cost of production and the price of purchase. I do not say that the detecting of the defects in our economic organisation will be an easy matter, or that the solution will be easily found. I do say, however, that the situation is being made more difficult by maintaining the pretence that our present financial organisation is perfect.

Deputies will recollect that the Banking Commission which the Government established in 1925 submitted a report which could be boiled down into one statement: that the financial system of the Free State was the best possible under the existing circumstances. The Government apparently accepted [1692] that statement as being correct, and they have repeatedly indicated in this House their adherence to it. I say that the results of the operation of the financial system existing here has shown that system to be defective, and that we will not succeed in locating the defect if we repeatedly delude ourselves and the people into the belief that the defect does not exist. I believe that one of the Government's representatives upon that Banking Commission, while agreeing to the majority recommendations, suggested that the Commission should be re-established after a period of five years in order to re-examine the position. That five-year period must be very nearly at its end now, and I would be very glad if the Minister would tell us whether the Government has been giving the matter any consideration, or if they propose to re-constitute the Banking Commission or to set up a Committee to examine the question anew with particular reference to the relations existing between the banks and industries. I do not intend to go into the question at any great length now, but I do say that any attempt to find the solution of the problem of unemployment which ignores the question of finance is bound to fail. When I say that, I am referring to a permanent solution of the problem of unemployment. Even within the limits of the existing economic organisation, there is no reason whatever why there should be one unemployed person in the Saorstát at the present time.

[Professor Thrift took the Chair.]

There are ways by which unemployment, as now existing, can be abolished. I do not say that it can be abolished permanently without a complete overhaul of our economic organisation; but existing unemployment need not be if the Government is prepared to tackle the problem properly on either of two lines which can be indicated. The first line along which the Government should act should be to endeavour to provide work directly upon public utility schemes. In the depression which followed the stock exchange collapse [1693] in the United States some weeks ago the Government called a conference of leading industrialists to discuss the situation, and one of the ideas which received general acceptance by all parties in the United States was that in periods of depression the Government should put into operation large schemes of work of a public utility nature in order to relieve unemployment and to provide the purchasing power that would enable a revival of industry to take place. The general theory was that the Government should increase the number of such schemes in operation as depression deepened. In periods of prosperity these schemes would be suspended; in periods of great depression they would be in full operation. There are quite a number of directions in which the Government here could directly provide employment by undertaking schemes of work of a nature which will not be undertaken at all unless the Government offers special facilities. We have repeatedly indicated the nature of the schemes that I am referring to. There are a number of towns in the Free State which have not got either a proper sewerage scheme or a proper water supply. The difficulty in getting the local authorities to undertake the provision of these services is that the burden which will be placed on the ratepayers in consequence of the capital expenditure involved will be very heavy and will continue over a very long period. The area of charge is generally much too small. No doubt the Government are prepared to make loans and grants available in certain circumstances to enable such schemes to be undertaken. I suggest that if the methods which they have adopted heretofore have not resulted in the schemes being started, they should go much further and indicate their willingness to finance such schemes entirely out of the Central Fund or out of moneys specially borrowed for the purpose.

The matter of housing is one that I would like to refer to most particularly. The Government's reaction to the publication of the figures relating to housing ascertained by [1694] the Census of 1926 was to reduce the building subsidy. It was discovered that in the year 1926 some 55,000 houses were immediately required in the Free State, to secure that what the census authorities described as “overcrowded conditions” would be abolished. I say the Government's reaction to the publication of these figures was to reduce the housing subsidy. The Minister for Local Government appears to work on the theory that by reducing building subsidies he can reduce building costs. He has, in fact, stated here that the various reductions effected in the subsidy since 1923 have resulted in a substantial lowering of building costs, and he advanced that argument as proof of the effectiveness of the Government's contribution to the solution of the housing problem. That theory, of course, has been held elsewhere than in this country. The late Conservative Government in England also worked on the same idea. The new Labour Ministry in England, as one of their first acts on taking office, reversed the housing policy of their predecessors and cancelled the further reduction in the building subsidy which had been announced to take place in the autumn of last year. The Minister for Local Government supported his theory by quoting figures showing the reduction in building costs which took place in each year as the housing subsidy went down. The figures he produced seemed to support his case, but only because he had not taken all the factors into account. He should have taken into account not merely the actual average cost of building subsidised houses, but the number of such houses constructed, and he would then have found that as the subsidy went down so also did the number of houses erected by local authorities decrease. The number of houses built in 1928 was very substantially less than the number built in 1927. The reduction in the subsidy merely reduced the number of houses which local authorities were prepared to order, and consequently there was much greater competition amongst building contractors for orders and, [1695] consequently, a lowering of the average price. This country wants not merely cheaper houses, but it wants more houses. The policy designed to bring down prices is obviously useless if its effect is to decrease construction. The cost of building can be reduced, and it is undoubtedly desirable that the cost of building should be reduced, but certainly not by the method hitherto adopted by the Department of Local Government. There is a paper published in Dublin called “The Star.” I have no doubt some members of Cumann na nGaedheal read that paper religiously every week. It is described as the semi-official organ of Cumann na nGaedheal. It is therefore extremely likely that the particular quotation which I am going to read from a recent article published in that paper has already been studied by the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies who are now present.

Mr. Moore: You are assuming too much.

Mr. Davin: What about the Fianna Fáil Deputies?

Mr. Lemass: At any rate it will do no harm to remind them of it. The lines along which the solution of the housing problem is to be sought has been indicated in that journal. It has conferred one great benefit on the Cumann na nGaedheal Party by reproducing in a recent issue an article published in the “Manchester Guardian Weekly” relating to the method in which the housing shortage was tackled in the municipality of Vienna. As I have said, the publication of this article in the semi-official organ of Cumann na nGaedheal created the impression that the Government had at long last seen the error of its ways and was about to tackle this housing question on right lines. Obviously the purpose which the editor had in mind in inserting it was to conduct a sort of preliminary propaganda campaign amongst the sixty-four readers of the journal. I will read it:

How is it possible that the [1696] municipality can give these flats at such low rents? The Vienna Town Hall calculates the rents in such fashion that only the costs of maintenance, and not of amortisation, are included in the rents. Even so, the rents appear remarkably low, especially if we take into consideration that building costs have increased seventy per cent. over pre-war and that the interest rates on loans are enormous: the official discount rate of the Austrian National Bank is 8 per cent., so that no building loans can be had at less than 10½ per cent. But the municipality is building these houses not out of borrowed money, but out of taxes. This reduces the building costs. The real secret of the cheapness of construction is, however, the collective buying of building material and the direction of building operations through a central office.

A Five Years' Programme.

The director of the building department of the Vienna municipality gave me the following information concerning the low building costs:—

We buy wholesale. We ordered our brick supply for five years ahead, and for so huge an order, guaranteeing the brickworks ample occupation for years, we got greatly reduced prices. We order 35,000 windows and 25,000 doors at a time. Instead of consulting architects and incurring heavy fees we have twelve architects employed on salary, and similarly we have one engineer on salary for every three buildings. Consequently the average cost during the last four and a half years of a flat of about forty-seven square metres surface amounted to 11,500 Austrian schillings, or about £340.

I think if the Government here decided to tackle the housing problem on the same lines, by the establishment of a central authority and the combined purchasing of building [1697] materials, they will be also able so to reduce building costs in the Free State so that the construction of the 50,000 houses required in 1926 would be proceeded with at a much more rapid rate than heretofore. Official figures indicate that the construction of housing is not keeping up with the growth of the demand. We have already produced statistics here to show that the number of persons in single-roomed tenements in Dublin is increasing. We have produced statistics to show that the number of persons living in condemned dwellings in Dublin is increasing. There is great evidence of building activity upon the outskirts of the city, but, great as that activity is, houses are not being constructed at the rate which would enable the growth of the demand to be met, much less at the rate which would ensure that something would be written off the arrears inherited by this Government when established.

The system of giving small building grants to local authorities or private builders is not going to solve the housing question. It can only be solved by the establishment of a housing board, financed by and under the control of the Government, with power to enter into the building of houses either directly or by contract, and to purchase the materials required for the whole country through a central office and operating so as to secure the construction of the 55,000 houses now required within a maximum period of ten years. On the construction of these houses a very large number of the unemployed could be given work. On the preparation of the materials required for these houses another large number of the unemployed could be engaged. There are, in fact, no building materials required except timber which cannot be produced within the country.

We have a number of brick fields in different parts of the Free State which are either out of production entirely or are only working on an output very much below their total capacity. If there was a central housing authority which could attack the question of the provision of bricks from Irish yards in a direct [1698] manner, every one of these brick fields could be brought into production by being guaranteed a market for its output over the ten years during which the national housing programme would be in operation. The Minister for Industry and Commerce talked very big here last week about the benefits of rationalisation. Why will not the Government apply rationalisation to the building industry? It is required in that industry more than any other. If they will rationalise there they will be able to undertake this particular task with much more efficiency than they have shown in relation to it heretofore.

Take also the question of slates. I raised the question of the use of Irish slates on subsidised houses here by way of question last week. The Minister for Local Government replied that Irish slates could not be used because they cost more than the imported artificial slates. That answer was only partly true. The actual financial cost of roofing a house with imported artificial slates is undoubtedly less than the cost of roofing the same house with Irish slates will be. The fact must also be taken into consideration that the Irish slate carries with it a guarantee for one hundred years. If it wears out within one hundred years the manufacturers undertake to replace it free of cost. The imported artificial slate is guaranteed only for twenty years, and only guaranteed to be watertight for twelve months. When we are reckoning the cost of roofing a house, obviously the life of the roof is an important factor to be taken into account. Now, twenty years is not the normal life of a house, and if we build houses on which we put roofs that are only guaranteed to last, without necessarily being watertight, for twenty years, then we are doing something that, in my opinion, is obviously uneconomic, because there must be added to the construction costs of that house the cost of replacing the roof in twenty years' time. If, on the other hand, we build these houses now with Irish slates, we will not merely be providing a better article at a cheaper cost, but also will be [1699] giving work to Irishmen on the production of these slates here instead of giving work to Frenchmen or Belgians on the manufacture of these artificial slates abroad.

The Minister stated that there was a saving of £8 per house at Donnycarney by using artificial slates. The cost of Killaloe slates is 40/- per square of 100 square feet delivered at any railway station in Ireland On an average-sized house such as those being constructed at Donnycarney, the total cost of the slates would be about £12. About six squares of slates would be required. If the Minister is correct in telling the House that there is a saving of £8 per house by the use of artificial slates, then those slates are being secured at £4 per house on the Donnycarney scheme. I would be very glad to be informed that that is correct, because I find it very hard to believe it, and I am sure the Minister gave his answer upon incorrect information.

Mr. Connolly: On a point of order, I do not think the Minister made such a statement that they could not be used because of their cost.

Mr. Lemass: The Minister said they would not be used because of their cost. This is the statement “Owing, however, to the substantial difference in the cost of Irish slates and artificial slates, and to the necessity of providing houses at the lowest possible cost, local authorities have not found it practicable so far to utilise Irish slates to any considerable extent.”

Mr. Connolly: That is a little bit different from your statement.

Mr. Lemass: “The average extra cost for roofing in Irish slates was £8 per house.”

Mr. Connolly: That is what the local authorities say.

Mr. Lemass: Yes, the Dublin Borough Commissioners.

Mr. Connolly: It is not the Minister's statement.

[1700] Mr. Lemass: It is the official reply to the question “When tenders were being invited for the current housing scheme at Donnycarney the Dublin County Borough Commissioners asked contractors to quote alternatively for roofing in Irish slates. The average extra cost for roofing in Irish slates was £8 per house. The Commissioners decided to use artificial slates.”

Mr. Connolly: That is quite true. The Minister did not say they could not be used because of the cost.

Mr. Lemass: The Minister said they would not be used because of the cost. The point is, however, that it is bad economy to be using artificial slates of an inferior quality on these houses when employment can be given in Ireland by using the better quality Irish slate.

Mr. Connolly: I agree.

Mr. Lemass: We could produce cement in this country if there was a central housing board with authority to purchase all the cement required for housing here for ten years. According to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, there are three places here where profitable cement works could be started. We can produce paint.

Mr. Jordan: And rub it in.

Mr. Lemass: We can produce, I believe, glass. I do not know if the deposits of glass sand in places like Muckish Mountain, in Donegal, have ever been properly surveyed. I have heard it stated, however, by persons who can be regarded as authorities on that matter that the glass sand deposit at Muckish, in Donegal is capable of being economically worked if a market could be secured within the country. I think we can produce piping, earthenware and other requirements for house building. I think if we were put to it we would get every material required in the production of houses except timber. We would have to import timber. If there was, as I have suggested, a housing authority with full control over the construction [1701] of houses in the country, properly financed and empowered to enter into direct purchasing, we could develop the production of all these commodities within the country and give very considerable employment by doing so. On housing, on public utility schemes, and on similar undertakings the Government could directly provide employment for almost the entire number now seeking work. If they are not prepared to do that, however, they can provide employment for these people in another direction.

According to the official statistics published by the Department of Industry and Commerce, the number of persons employed in industries protected by tariffs has increased since these tariffs were first imposed by 13,000. That figure must be taken into consideration in relation to the decline in employment in industries which have not yet been tariffed. According to the figures published by the Department of Industry and Commerce, for example, during the year 1929, employment in the coachbuilding industry decreased by 47 per cent. The coachbuilding industry applied for a tariff in 1926. The Tariff Commission is still considering the application. The report has not yet been published. That fact becomes of special significance in view of the substantial decline in the employment given by that industry last year. There will probably be no industry left at all by the time the Tariff Commission's report is available.

During last year we imported £9,500,000 worth of goods which the Government is of opinion could be manufactured in the country, and which they attempted to secure would be manufactured in the country by making them subject to tariffs. In addition to that £9,500,000 worth of goods, there came in £7,500,000 worth of goods not tariffed, but which are, at the present time, being produced within the country, such things as slates, flour, bread, buns, packing cases and articles of that nature. Altogether, there are seventeen million pounds worth of goods coming in annually [1702] which can be produced within the country. The census of production showed that the total value of the transportable goods produced in the Free State in 1926 was £20,000,000, and engaged in the production of that £20,000,000 worth of goods there were 65,000 workers. Working on that proportion, we could provide employment for substantially more than the 50,000 workers now seeking work merely by confining the home market in these goods, tariffed or capable of being tariffed, to Irish industrialists. If we could secure that all our requirements on tariffed goods and all our requirements in such goods as flour, bread, and buns which are obviously capable of being manufactured here was supplied from within the country, the unemployment now existing would be abolished. There is, as I have said, no reason whatever that there should be one man without work in the Free State area to-day.

In relation to these tariffed goods, there are some points that I would like to have cleared up. In a discussion during last year, for example, the Minister for Industry and Commerce informed us that it was useless to consider increasing the duty on imported boots because, owing to the scarcity of skilled workers, the industry was incapable of immediate expansion. I accepted his word for that, although I noticed when I asked him if it was a fact that there were no skilled workers unemployed in the Free State he did not reply. Some time ago I was in Cork, and I was informed by a proprietor of a boot factory there that for three months last year his factory had to be closed down because of their inability to find a market for the stock they had produced. They were suffering from this evil of overproduction to which I referred earlier. That fact did not seem to indicate that the development of the boot industry here could not be further fostered by an increase in the existing duty, which is obviously too low.

There is an impression that these tariffs have increased the cost of [1703] living. That impression has been created by the Minister for Agriculture more than any other individual. If, however, he will discontinue making general statements and seek to prove his case by the production of statistics, he will find, when he goes looking for the statistics, that the very reverse has been the case. The cost of living has fallen in the Free State since 1925 proportionately more than in Great Britain or in the United States. The actual cost of the imported goods has also fallen. That is particularly noticeable in the case of boots. If the Minister will take the average price of British boots exported to the world and compare it with the average price of British boots exported to the Free State since 1924, he will find that the average price of British boots here has been reduced by more than the fifteen per cent. duty imposed. The British manufacturers have been cutting their prices to meet the tariff. That is noticeable in relation to the majority of tariffed articles.

We discussed the question of agriculture here at great length last year. There is not unemployment, but under-employment in the agricultural industry. Production per head of the workers in agriculture here is much lower than in any other country with which comparison is possible. The Fianna Fáil representatives on the Economic Committee and in the Dáil have advocated the adoption of a scheme for the provision of a guaranteed price and a guaranteed market for wheat as one of the methods by which a way could be found out of agricultural depression. The scheme was described by the Minister for Agriculture as economically unsound. The leader of the Farmers' Party was quite eloquent in denouncing it. Other Deputies also thought fit to regard it as a matter for levity. Deputy Good, who voted against it, will be interested to learn that his spiritual affinity in Great Britain, the Leader of the Conservative Party has just discovered the great benefits which might be conferred upon [1704] Great Britain by the adoption there of the Fianna Fáil scheme. He has been advocating a guaranteed price and a guaranteed market for British wheat. He took the Report of the minority on the Economic Committee, struck out the words “Free State” wherever it occurred and inserted the words “Great Britain” and presented it to his Party as a magnificent new idea, by which British agriculture could be put on its feet again.

Not merely has the Conservative Party seen the benefits of that scheme, but the Labour Party also embodied in its programme schemes for the encouragement of wheat growing almost identical with the Fianna Fáil proposals which were turned down here. Of course, that fact, I know, would not convince Deputies opposite that the scheme was right. The mere fact that British parties have endorsed it would, in fact, with such ultra-patriots as they are, be a condemnation of it, so that we can leave Great Britain out of account. The scheme is also in process of being adopted in Germany; it is in operation in Poland, Norway and a number of other countries in Europe. If the Economic Committee conferred no benefit on the Free State, it has at least conferred substantial benefit on mankind. The proposals put forward by the Fianna Fáil representatives were rejected here, but accepted by thinking men throughout Europe. There are one or two other matters which I should like the Minister to refer to when replying. I should like to take advantage of the general discussion now taking place to deal with them, as I may not get another opportunity. This Bill gives the Minister power to borrow. Within the last few days statements have appeared in the Press to the effect that a £5,000,000 national loan will be issued at home in the autumn of this year. The statement appeared in a number of papers simultaneously, and was obviously inspired. I think it is very undesirable that statements of official policy on important matters of that nature should be made to [1705] Press correspondents before being made to the Dáil. Obviously the Minister had only to wait a couple of days to have a suitable opportunity on the Second Reading of this Bill for announcing the Government's intention with respect to the proposed loan. The Minister should state definitely what the intentions of the Government are in that respect. Is it proposed to issue the loan this year? Is it proposed to issue it at home, or does he intend to seek any part of it abroad?

There is one other matter, which has no connection with anything I have said heretofore, but which might be considered relevant nevertheless, and that is statements which have been made by persons applying to retire under Article X. of the Treaty and recently published in the Press. Some of these persons gave as their reason for retiring speeches made by the Minister for Agriculture, and I do not blame them. Others gave as their reason for retiring the fact that Deputy Moore was elected to the Dáil in 1927. Quite a number gave as their reasons their belief that a Fianna Fáil Government, which they considered inevitable, would abolish Civil Service pensions. As far as I am aware, it is not, and never has been, the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party to abolish Civil Service pensions. Those, therefore, who have applied to retire on that ground can remove their doubts and withdraw their applications forthwith.

These are all the matters I wish to deal with, but I shall be glad if we can get from the Government not merely a number of debating points in relation to this question of unemployment, but some indication that they have given and are giving the matter their serious consideration. In the past, when this matter has been raised, they have limited themselves to the production of figures to show that unemployment is not as serious as some person or persons have said it is. When the matter was raised before the Christmas recess and when the Government were urged to make relief works available [1706] in Dublin over the Christmas period, the Minister for Local Government read out a statement showing that the number of unemployed was less than it was twelve months previously. That statement may have been considered satisfactory by the Minister, but it was of very little benefit to the actual persons who were without work and who were hoping to get employment of some kind that would make their Christmas somewhat brighter than it turned out to be. There is, I notice in the speeches of Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies throughout the country a tendency to criticise Fianna Fáil on the ground that it is not always talking about the splendid condition of affairs that exists in the country. If we say that the weather here is not as good as it might be, we are supposed to be running down the country and are told that it may possibly do damage to the tourist traffic. If we say that unemployment exists, we are doing damage in some other direction. Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies appear to think that the only way by which the evils which affect the people can be removed is by pretending that they do not exist and by stating that fact on every occasion an opportunity offers. We believe that the proper way to deal with a situation of this kind is to face up to actualities. If there is unemployment, that evil must be abolished. If it can be abolished, then we will not discover a method of doing so by pretending that everything in the garden is lovely, or that rainbows are to be found by Deputy Batt O'Connor every time he visits my constituency. These rainbows may be there; sober persons may be able to see them; but whether that is so or not, the fact remains that unemployment is also there, and that only the Government can, in present circumstances, do anything to make that unemployment less serious than it is.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Heffernan): I want to deal, in a very few words, with some of the questions raised by Deputy [1707] MacEntee. I do not intend to follow him into an analysis of the general financial situation, because I think it was premature, and must naturally be premature, on the Estimates, as it is not possible at this stage to judge what the exact financial position is, or what the actual recurrent expenditure is until we have the Budget statement of the Minister for Finance. I want to deal with a few points made by Deputy MacEntee with regard to the work of the Economy Committee, and other aspects pertaining to that. Perhaps it is due from me, in appreciation of the work done by other members of the Committee, to mention some of the work done by the Economy Committee since its establishment. It held something like 64 meetings. During the course of these meetings it has examined something like two-thirds of the Votes in the Estimates, and it has examined them in thorough detail. The other members of the Economy Committee are all heads of important Departments of State, and they have given their time, at great inconvenience to themselves, in the work of analysing and examining the expenditure under the various Votes. I think it is only right that appreciation should be expressed of the time they have given to that work. I have long recognised that the useful work of the Economy Committee will not, necessarily, be the report which will be issued; the real use of the Economy Committee, in my opinion, is the information which is obtained as examination goes on. We have the statement of the Minister for Finance that suggestions which came from the Economy Committee enabled him to make actual tangible economies in his Estimates and in the Budget. Now the difference between the demand for economy by the Farmers' Party, which resulted eventually in the establishment of this Committee, and the demand for economy from Deputy MacEntee and the members of his Party, is that the demand for economy by the Farmers' Party was an actual demand, and an expectation and hope of real economy, whereas the demand for economy by [1708] the Fianna Fáil Party is nothing more than political propaganda.

If Deputy MacEntee will go back to the debates which took place on the Estimates in past years, before the Fianna Fáil Party appeared in this House, he will find that the Farmers' Party made every effort to face up to the realities of the situation as it existed, made every effort to show where economics could be effected, made every effort to analyse the Votes and to stand up to their analyses and to argue for them in this House. I think it can be claimed that certain of the economies that resulted since that period were economies indicated and pointed out by the Farmers' Party in this Dáil. I might also point out that Deputy MacEntee speaks as if no economies had been effected at all but it will be found that since the period when the Farmers' Party first demanded economy the reduction in expenditure has been very considerable. I have not the actual figures before me but it will be found that very considerable reduction has taken place since then amounting to several millions, and that despite the fact that automatic increases in expenditure are taking place from year to year and that various Bills are introduced that have the effect of increasing the expenditure of the State.

Now Fianna Fáil gives lip service to economy. I have not yet seen Fianna Fáil oppose any Bill introduced into the Dáil on the ground that it was imposing an unnecessary charge upon the taxpayer. I have seen them support Bills in this House and go into the Lobby and support them there, which had the effect of increasing very definitely expenditure and the consequent demand that must be laid upon the taxpayer. I have seen Fianna Fáil support a Housing Bill for the Gaeltacht which has resulted in a definite increase in expenditure. I have seen Fianna Fáil Deputies get up and demand increased expenditure by the Land Commission in the acquisition and division of estates, which always results in increased expenditure. Fianna Fáil wants to have it both [1709] ways; they demand a reduction in taxation and at the same time continue to demand increased expenditure. Their demands for reduction in taxation are purely political propaganda. They pick out such things as the Gárda Síochána, but I doubt very much if it was seriously suggested that the Garda should be reduced that we would have the support of the Fianna Fáil in matters of that kind.

I might point out that the conditions that make necessary the retention of the Garda and the expenditure on the Garda at the present time are largely due to the situation that has been created in the country by Fianna Fáil itself. The conditions of insecurity and instability and uncertainty which exist and make people afraid and very genuinely afraid to ask for the Gárda to be reduced are due to a large extent to the actions of the Fianna Fáil Party itself.

Mr. Corry: Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell the House why 360 acres and a mansion was given by the State down in his constituency, as was pointed out by Deputy Hassett, to a local District Justice.

Mr. Heffernan: The Deputy will want to wait for the Land Commission Vote for that.

Mr. Corry: This was down in the Parliamentary Secretary's own constituency, and he ought to know all about it.

Mr. Heffernan: Deputy MacEntee, in his zeal for reduction in expenditure, naturally selected the Department for which I am personally responsible, and he suggested that economies had not been effected in the Post Office and in the Wireless Broadcasting Service. The Deputy might have made some little attempt to ascertain the actual fact in regard to expenditure in both these Departments. If he had he would surely have had to give credit for the reductions we have brought about in expenditure.

If the Deputy had examined the matter he would have ascertained from the Commercial Accounts of [1710] the Post Office that the deficit on the Post Office Vote in 1922-23 was something about £1,100,000, and if he saw the Commercial Accounts for the year 1928-29 he would have seen that the deficit at that period was something around £200,000. There was, therefore, a reduction in the deficit which amounted to a saving, of about £900,000. That has taken place in the Post Office Department since the year 1922-23. Fianna Fáil Deputies might occasionally give credit for achievement, and they might have given credit for a considerable reduction in the Post Office Department, a reduction that was obtained without curtailing services to any considerable extent. The greater portion of that reduction has been brought about by actual economy rather than by the curtailment of services.

Deputy MacEntee talks about wireless broadcasting and says that there is an increase in the Vote for that. He suggested that the service would be of the least possible advantage to the people I represent, the farmers of the country, but on that point he might have gone to some little trouble to ascertain the facts; and, if he did so, he would have found out that there is going to be no increase in taxation because of the expenditure in regard to the erection of a high-power broadcasting station. He would have found out that it is estimated that the station will be self-supporting and that the revenue accruing from broadcasting will pay the charges resulting from the establishment of that station. Deputy MacEntee, who, I believe, is an engineer and should, therefore, know something about the technical side of broadcasting, should have known that one of the main justifications for establishing the station was to enable the people, whom I claim to represent, namely, the farmers and others living in rural areas, to have an opportunity of getting wireless broadcast reception at a reasonably cheap cost.

Mr. Carney: On crystal sets.

Mr. Heffernan: The main purpose [1711] in providing wireless facilities is for the benefit of the people who, according to Deputy MacEntee, get the least possible benefit from them. His statement was a complete distortion and inversion of the situation, and I do not believe that he went to the slightest trouble to ascertain the facts in connection with it. Productivity of taxation is hardly a point to be dealt with in connection with expenditure of this kind, but it is very easy for Deputy MacEntee to talk about productivity of taxation and to point out that the amount resulting from taxation is not increasing from the existing rate of taxation. Again, Deputy MacEntee and his Party cannot get away from the fact that the productivity of this country, the productivity of the agricultural community in particular, has been set back for a generation by the conditions of instability and uncertainty that prevailed because of the action of the Fianna Fáil Party, and the Party of which they are the natural successors, when they brought about the situation which existed in 1922-3.

Mr. Corry: When you brought in your eighteen pounders.

Mr. Heffernan: The productivity of the agricultural population was undoubtedly set back for a considerable period, and the deficit which resulted from the situation at that period has not been and, in my opinion will not be, made good for a considerable time. I have no intention of following Deputy Lemass into his analysis of the general economic situation beyond saying that Deputy Lemass is constantly propounding economic theories which mean, in effect, the building of a wall around the country, the theory of living within ourselves and producing practically everything that we consume. Surely Deputy Lemass and other Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who propound such theories must be aware that nations live, like individuals, by producing and trading and, instead of it being a disadvantage to produce and trade, the ideal condition [1712] for a country which wants to prosper is to produce things which it is best fitted to produce and to buy from other countries the things which those countries are best fitted to produce, even if these products are in some cases agricultural products. It is not a sound theory, or one that can be held to be sound economically, that a country, which is an agricultural country, is fitted to produce every form of agricultural product which can be produced by humanity. There are things which our climatic and natural situation fit us to produce. Let us concentrate on those and produce them as the best of their kind. Let us use the modern system of transport which civilisation has placed at our disposal, and let us sell those things which we are best fitted to produce and buy back articles which we are less fitted to produce, even if those articles consist of agricultural products.

Mr. Carney: I have listened to many speeches on this subject in this House, but I have never listened to anything, since I came into it, more futile, if I am in order in saying so, than the speech to which I have just listened. In his own particular sphere Deputy Heffernan talks about certain things with which he is supposed to be intimately concerned, such, for instance, as the broadcasting station. I will, however, leave that for another time. So far as I can see from the discussions that have gone on in regard to this particular subject, it is, if I may say so, a kind of free-for-all discussion and any Deputy within certain limits may talk about almost anything.

I do not propose to go outside any bounds that may be granted by the House in this particular debate, but there are certain things that could and should be dealt with now. Deputy Heffernan talked about this country, its trade and products, and told us what we should produce, what we should not produce, and also what we could and what we could not produce. We have a certain amount of licence, and, if I can use that licence, I would point out [1713] to Deputy Heffernan, who apparently is not aware of the fact, that at one time this country—I mean Ireland of 32 Counties—had as big a population as England, and imported very little except luxuries.

We had an export trade with England and the Continent. We had an import trade, principally in luxuries, from the Continent and England, but unfortunately our export trade was interfered with because we could not help it. Once upon a time we had a trade, and our merchants were recognised in the marts of Belgium, France and Germany. There came a time when the linens of Ulster, and the cloths of the rest of Ireland made from linen and cotton, were banned by the English Government. They could not be exported to the Continent except through an English port. Thereby the trade of Ireland both in linens and woollens was killed in the seventeenth century. We had a trade, once upon a time, in iron products; it was killed too. On the other hand, while our trade was being killed England was building up an export trade with countries she had conquered—the Dominions of India, Egypt, America, the Southern Pacific Islands, etc

Mr. Good: Does this arise on this Bill?

Mr. Carney: Yes, it does; anything arises.

Acting-Chairman: I would like the Deputy to make the connection, because it is not obvious.

Mr. Carney: I will make the connection. It was a simple thing for England to say she would have free trade because she had free tobacco from Virginia.

Acting-Chairman: That is just the point. We must not allow this to become a debate on tariffs. It is a debate on expenditure.

Mr. Carney: If you will pardon me, as far as I can see, anybody who has spoken in the debate has spoken generally.

Mr. Good: I do not think anybody got back to the seventeenth century, with all respect.

[1714] Mr. Carney: I will not dwell on these things for very long. Anybody who preceded me spoke generally. They had spoken on tariffs generally. I am only pointing out how my predecessor in this debate has been wrong. Our principal trade is concerned with England. Deputy Heffernan has stated, and so have a number of other Deputies, that England wanted free trade and we want tariffs. She wanted free trade because she had free imports of the raw materials from America, from her free ports in China, in India, in Egypt, in Africa. She had tobacco, she had cotton, she had copra. If I said that she produced dope in India for export to China I would be right, too. She had every raw material from which she could produce the finished article in England. She produced the finished article and dumped it into the country which produced the raw material. We produce hides in this country, and Deputy Heffernan wants to continue to produce hides in future so that a man in Wolverhampton may produce boots from these hides and sell them at an exorbitant price to the poor unfortunate farmer here. The men in Wolverhampton get a good week's wages for an eight-hour day week, and they can afford to laugh at the poor unfortunate farm labourer in Ireland, who works from dawn until dewy eve. It takes the unfortunate farm labourer a long time to earn the price of a pair of boots.

Deputy Heffernan wants us to continue in the same old strain producing raw material to send to England to employ, on an average, I would say, 250,000 men producing the finished article for the people of the Free State. For example, supposing, as we have had for some years, an adverse trade balance of £17,000,000 or £18,000,000, and that we spent £27,000,000, £28,000,000, or £30,000,000 in England buying English products, would the Parliamentary Secretary tell me, are we better off because we spent £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 more by buying products from England than England spends in buying products [1715] from us? England has a population of, perhaps, 50,000,000. We have a population in the Free State of less than 3,500,000.

Acting-Chairman: What about the Bill?

Mr. Heffernan: Might I be allowed to correct the Deputy? The Deputy has stated that I said that we should produce and export raw materials. I said nothing of the kind. I stated that we should produce, use and export those articles which we are best fitted to produce. That does not necessarily mean raw materials.

Mr. Moore: Bullocks.

Mr. Heffernan: Is Guinness's stout a raw material? Are our high class tweeds a raw material? I did not state, and the Deputy has misrepresented me in saying that I did state, that we ought to produce only raw materials.

Mr. Carney: I always understood the Parliamentary Secretary to say that our only hope of salvation lay in producing bacon, eggs, butter, cattle and sheep for the English market.

Mr. Heffernan: I never said anything of the kind.

Mr. Carney: Very good. If the Parliamentary Secretary believes that the Free State should produce everything that it is possible to produce in the Free State, to manufacture articles for the consumption of the people in the Free State, that these people should be fed by the products of the Free State, and that any surplus of agricultural products should be exported, then I would agree with the Parliamentary Secretary but not until then. The Parliamentary Secretary never said anything like that. If the Parliamentary Secretary holds that the Provisional Government should, to the best of their ability, use these moneys which they are asking for to make the Free State self-supporting as far as it is possible for it to [1716] be self-supporting, and that they should produce as far as possible everything that is needed in the Free State and, as far as agricultural products are concerned export any surplus they may have, I will agree with him but not until then. Up to the present the Provisional Government has not done it, and all the moneys that they have asked for in the present session are not going to be expended in that way.

Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll: What does the Deputy mean by Provisional Government? He has used the expression at least three times, and I would like him to explain exactly what he means by Provisional Government.

Acting-Chairman: I thought it was a slip on the Deputy's part.

Mr. Carney: I will substitute something else. I will say the Executive Council of the Irish Free State.

Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll: That is better.

Mr. Carney: Not much. Until such time as they are prepared to give us an assurance that they are going to use any moneys allocated to them by this Dáil for the purposes I have enumerated, I certainly would not be prepared to agree to a vote in toto in this respect. I would not be prepared to agree with Deputy Heffernan. Until the Executive Government—what do you call it?

Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll: Government, without any adjective or without any provision attached.

Mr. Carney: Until the Government of the Free State are prepared to carry out these things that I believe in, I certainly would not agree to vote them the amount of money they desire.

Mr. Davin: The members of this Party welcome the statement made by Deputy Lemass this evening—I presume for the first time—when he said that he and his Party were prepared to join with the Labour Party in putting a certain housing policy [1717] into operation. The housing policy that the Deputy propounded here this evening was the very policy put before this House about five years ago by Deputy Johnson on behalf of the members sitting on these benches. However, we are glad the Fianna Fáil Party have now decided to join with the Labour Party in trying to carry that policy into operation. Though we may differ on other matters, if both of us continue to pursue that policy, we are satisfied that we will eventually drive the present Government out of office if they fail to adopt it, and put another Government into office that will adopt that policy throughout the whole State.

We intend to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill because we differ in the most definite way with the present Government on their whole financial policy, their housing policy and several other matters which we have opposed them on from time to time. I was pleased and surprised to hear Deputy Heffernan telling the House about the great work which the Economy Committee had carried out. As far as I can see there has been no result from that Committee, though there have been 64 meetings held. When I read the announcement by the Government of their intention to appoint Deputy Heffernan as Chairman of the Committee I said it was one of the finest things they had ever done, remembering, as many of us here can, the brilliant speeches made by the Deputy when he was a member of the defunct Farmers' Party and when he advocated the policy of economy in this House. We can now look back on the amount of work he has done, or rather failed to do, as Chairman of the Economy Committee. The body that calls itself an Economy Committee held 64 meetings but did no practical work. I remember Deputy Heffernan protesting in his usual eloquent way about the policy of the Government in paying war bonuses to Civil Servants. He was appointed Chairman of a Committee, was surrounded by some of the ablest men in the Civil Service, and had ample power to do what he thought was [1718] best in the interests of the people that he represents. He comes here to-day and stands for the payment of bonuses to the Civil Servants, and he thereby admits his failure to wipe out that particular bonus which he so strongly objected to as a member of the Farmers' Party. That is the best proof that Deputy Heffernan can give to the people he claims to represent of his incompetence to do the things he professed his inclination to do. He was in a position to put economies into operation but he did not do it.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell: He has learned something since.

Mr. Davin: I agree that he has learned since. I understand that Deputy Heffernan intended to do away with certain rural postal deliveries. It is to the credit of his master Minister, assisted by his colleagues, that Deputy Heffernan was prevented from depriving the farmers of the postal services to which they are rightly entitled. Deputy Heffernan did not quote one particular estimate where an effective economy had been carried out, not even in the Department over which he has the honour to preside. Looking over the estimates, I observe there is an increase in almost every one of the non-productive services. I hope I am not misrepresenting Deputy Heffernan, but I think he protested against the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party, and presumably the members of the Labour Party who join with them, in demanding an increase in the estimates making provision for social services such as local loans, and particularly an increase in the item which makes provision for the improvement of estates when acquired by the Land Commission.

Surely Deputy Heffernan would not go to his constituents in Tipperary, people amongst whom the lands are being divided much against his wishes, and say that the Government are wrong in providing free grants for the erection of boundaries between holdings or building houses where houses are essential and are [1719] urgently needed. I would indeed, be surprised to find that Deputy Heffernan would do so, and I am certain that if he had the hardihood to tell his constituents that the Government are wrong in that particular matter, they would tell the Deputy in turn that he himself was wrong. The members of this Party hope to have another and an early opportunity of dealing with the so-called policy of the Government on the housing question. For that reason I do not intend to go into the matter any further here. We propose to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill because we are definitely opposed to the policy of the Government and to the manner and method in which they propose to spend the money which they are now asking the House to vote. During a discussion the other day the Minister for Local Government and Public Health was invited to indicate to the House the Government policy in regard to the roads and to justify the existing policy of continuing to increase the amounts which are to be raised from the rates from year to year for road maintenance, at the same time as the revenue to the Road Fund has increased from year to year. I hope that the Minister for Finance, seeing that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, who is primarily responsible for that matter, has refused to indicate the present policy of the Government, will give the House some indication of the Government's policy on roads, and I hope he will give it at the end of this debate.

Mr. Kennedy: Deputy Heffernan indicated to us in his speech the great economies that have been carried out in the Post Office in the past seven or eight years. In the absence of the Parliamentary Secretary for Posts and Telegraphs I would draw the attention of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to the economies that can still be carried out, and in this respect I wish to state that if economies have already been carried out that the Post Office service must have been [1720] very bad seven years ago when we find it to-day in one aspect, namely, the telephone service, so bad as it is.

Repeatedly I have asked the question here in the House about the system of connecting rural areas with the telephone service and I have been met by the usual stereotyped reply I have got the usual official reply. The result is that this telephone service in the rural areas is not availed of to the extent that it should. Consequently the service is not as remunerative as it should be. If the service were as remunerative as it should be, the loss on the Post Office would not be so high. I will take a typical example. As a result of the manner in which Westmeath has been linked up with the telephone service I will cite this case. Delvin is situated in the County Westmeath. It does its business with Mullingar, the county town, but we find that its telephone service is linked up with Athboy and Trim. To get a call from Delvin to Mullingar the call has to go through Athboy and Trim, up to Dublin and then back to Mullingar. The usual time it takes for a call to be put through is approximately an hour. I know of one case where persons after waiting a quarter of an hour for a call drove down to Collinstown, five miles away, got their call put through, drove back to Delvin, and cancelled their call at Delvin. The same applies to Clonmellon and other areas. Last year I asked on the Vote for Posts and Telegraphs that that matter should be looked into and a better telephone system evolved across the Midlands that would bring a bigger return as regards the number of calls, that would be of more benefit to the community, and would pull down the loss in the working of the Post Office Vote. That is one of the reasons that I speak on this Vote—to again draw the attention of the Ministry to the inefficient service in the rural area. In this particular debate the Parliamentary Secretary for Posts and Telegraphs said that one of the causes of the dear services of the Gárda Síochána was the lack of security in the country—that that necessitates a large force, and that [1721] that lack of security was brought about by the Fianna Fáil Party. Any security in the country at present is due to the Fianna Fáil Party. Any security that the institutions of this State have are due to the presence in this House of the Fianna Fáil Party. Nobody knows that better than Deputy Heffernan, and his statement is simply the eyewash that we get on political platforms.

I have indicated here again and again that throughout the country there were Gárda Síochána barracks which were not needed. When the Ministry of Justice decided to close a number of those barracks last year the daily Press talked about the people in the areas being perturbed and that they were sending petitions to the Ministry and that there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because of the closing of these barracks. Nobody can tell me that a stream of mourners came in from Brittas, in the County Dublin, when the barrack was closed there, and nobody can say that there were howlings and screamings in the Crazy Corner when the barracks were closed there, because there were none to howl or scream in it. If the Ministry decided to close the barracks in Coole, Westmeath, and administered the Gárda Síochána services from Castlepollard there would be no weeping or wailing or gnashing of teeth. Deputy Heffernan's statement that the high expenditure on the Gárda Síochana is necessary is wrong. Economies can be carried out in that service which would pull down this Vote considerably. We should approach every State service in this particular light. If a business community is carrying on a business they generally employ a staff at an economic rate. They see that they carry on their business with no undue overhead charges, and the State has got to ask itself is the work of the State being administered without too great overhead charges. Certainly, as far as we can observe, that is the case.

Deputy Heffernan, in reply to our charges, spoke about the Land Commission. We find a very big Vote [1722] for the Land Commission here. We have got to ask ourselves is that money being wisely spent, is it being spent economically, and is it being well spent. Has any Deputy in this House ever thought for a moment of the cost of the Land Commission since its institution in the 'eighties? Has any Deputy ever calculated the millions of money expended on that body? Has any Deputy ever worked out what amount per acre the Land Commission has cost the Irish nation? If any Deputy cares to go into these figures he will find that he can easily come to one conclusion, and that is, that it is the most inefficient service in the State. It has as yet only done one-third of its work. A business man in Dublin, who has made a very fine success of his business, speaking to me about the Land Commission recently, said: “How can you have any result from that place—look at its inspectors and its head officials going to their work at 10.30 in the morning?” From my own experience, I have seen those officials take one and a half to two hours for their lunch. I have found that is the case when I wanted to see them.

Certainly the whole place over there is permeated with an atmosphere of do-nothing, and if you are throwing away a sum of three quarters of a million on that institution it is up to you to ask: are you getting results for the money. I certainly contend that you are not. You have only to look at the process of vesting of estates under the 1923 Act to know that. At the way they are going the crack of doom will come before the last estate is vested. There will be some one on the last day starting out on a 68 years' land purchase. Deputy Heffernan stated that nations, like individuals, have to live by trading and producing. He emphasised trading. I remember the war years. In the midlands you had a type of farmer who went in, bought store cattle, fattened, and sold them. He did not bother about young stock, pigs or dairying. He just fattened cattle. He had all his eggs in the one basket. He went out and bought [1723] from the small farmers the very potatoes which he ate. He tilled nothing but his garden and when deflation came after the war all his farms went to the wall. They were sold out. He went into the bankruptcy court. Deputy Heffernan says nations live like individuals. He should specify the kind of individual. Does he want this nation to live like the type of farmer I refer to with all his eggs in the one basket or does he want the nation to live like the farmer who brings up a small stock, who goes in for tillage, fowl and pigs and who has a multitude of activities about his farm? I think the difference between the viewpoint put from these benches and that of the Farmers' Party benches is the viewpoint of the rancher and the viewpoint of the small farmer.

He also spoke about the demand for economy by the Farmers' Party. I think Deputy Davin has dealt fairly adequately with that. He said our demands for economy were just political propaganda. As far as we are concerned we cannot see any justification for tacking on say £227 to the salary of a man with £1,000 already under the heading of cost-of-living bonus.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

Surely we are content that a man with £1,000 is adequately paid already. When we make a case that a man with £50 or £150 needs a cost of living bonus Deputy Heffernan is one of those who, when he would come to a case for economy would hit the man with a salary of from £50 to £150, as he did when he advocated the abolition of the part-time rural postman, and he would leave a man with £1,000 plus £227 alone. That is the kind of economy the Farmers' Party always stood for, the kind you get from the graziers' representatives on a county council when they cut a road workers' wages by 2/- a week and give an increase of £100, £200 or £300 to the secretary of a county council. Deputy Lemass made a statement that poverty and [1724] unemployment existing in the same State were a contradiction and somebody on the Government benches said, “bunk.” Now I challenge anybody on the Government benches to prove that statement as bunk. Here you have in the Free State— in Ireland if you like but I am not calling the Free State Ireland— enough raw material which when manufactured would take the people who are in poverty out of poverty and consequently abolish poverty, and you have 50,000 people ready and willing to manufacture these potential supplies, to manufacture that raw material into the necessary housing, food and clothing, and whilst you have the willing workers and the raw material poverty and unemployment are a contradiction in the one area. It is up to those on the Cumann na nGaedheal benches, it is up to the Deputy who said “bunk” to prove that Deputy Lemass's statement that poverty and unemployment in the State are a contradiction is bunk.

Mr. Moore: As this debate has turned largely on unemployment I think the Minister for Finance should give us some statement as to the present state of the Road Fund and the amount which would be available from that source for the benefit of roads during the year. It appears from the reply to a question asked during the first week of the present session that at the end of last year there was only £10,000 to the credit of the Fund. On the same date the liabilities on foot of grants amounted to £501,000. That is practically half a million, and at the same time there was £640,000 due to be repaid to the Central Fund under the Road Fund Advances Act 1926. As far as I can read these figures it would seem that none of the present year's income will be available for expenditure on roads, that all the cost of upkeep and such capital expenditure as may be approved of— the reconstruction and widening of roads, the rebuilding of bridges and so on, will have to be met out of local funds. At least that is what it would seem from the reply to my [1725] question but as we have never up to the present had any description from a Minister as to how the Road Fund is administered it is perhaps wrong.

I have been making inquiries from various Deputies, and I find that there is the opinion generally that if there be any money for expenditure for grants to local authorities at present it must be a very small amount. I would personally be greatly obliged to the Minister for Finance if he would state the exact position. Certainly from the figures that were shown there it looks as if the task of maintaining the roads at their present standard is going to be a very difficult one on the present basis of taxation, more especially if the present policy of utilising freely two rival systems of transport is to continue.

There was another question which I thought I would raise on this Vote, in connection with the forthcoming loan. It appears to very many people that the present system by which the Agricultural Credit Corporation appeals for money separately on the guarantee of the Minister for Finance is not economical from the point of view of the State, that all the expenditure in advertising and all the energy and expense towards making an issue of the Agricultural Credit Corporation successful is rather unnecessary, that since the Minister has agreed to take responsibility for the issues of the Corporation, by guaranteeing both principal and interest, he might go the whole way and raise the money that is needed to finance the Agricultural Credit Corporation through the national loan. I believe it is admitted that up to the present the issues of the Agricultural Credit Corporation have not been strikingly successful, and it would seem strange if that policy were to be continued if the efforts have been as unsuccessful as one hears they have been.

There were a few remarks made by Deputy Heffernan that I, too, would like to deal with. He told us that all our talk about economy was merely political propaganda, that the Farmers' Party made an effort to [1726] face up to realities some years ago. It is notable that he was speaking entirely in the past tense. “They made an effort,” but he did not say why they have given up the effort to face realities. He did not explain why the first opposition to Deputy Thrift's Bill to reduce the allowances to Senators came from a former leader of the Farmers' Party, who told us that this reform would have to be postponed until some indefinite date, until something or other was done that is, obviously, going to take a very long time to do. Deputy Heffernan is evidently satisfied that there is no longer any necessity for facing up to realities, but he takes satisfaction in the fact that the Farmers' Party made an effort to face up to realities when they were an Opposition Party. Further, he made the terribly serious accusation that Bills increasing expenditure are supported by Fianna Fáil. He mentioned as one of these things the Gaeltacht Housing Bill. We are very glad to plead guilty to things of that sort. It is one of the reasons why we desire economy so much. One of the reasons why we object so strongly to the expenditure on the many futile things that money is voted for is in order that there may be more money available for things like Gaeltacht housing.

With regard generally to the question of voting for Bills which increase expenditure, whenever the expenditure promises to be productive, whenever there is a promise that by expending £5, £6 will be got back, we are ready to vote for it. That is very different, indeed, from supporting a Bill which is at present before us for an expenditure of a very vast sum, a great deal of which is certainly not productive, and a great deal of which, in our opinion, is certainly not necessary. No one, I think, who realises the full facts of the situation in the Saorstát at present can agree that such a Bill as is before us to-day is justified. I believe it has been stated officially by the De-rating Commission that the agricultural production of the country at present is something like £57,000,000 a year, and we know from the returns, [1727] following the census of production, that industrial production is something like £31,000,000 a year. That is, the total income of the country from production, agricultural and industrial, is £88,000,000. In face of that it would be very difficult for the Minister to convince us that estimates which have latterly appeared are justified or that they can be met in such circumstances. We certainly are satisfied that the Bill must be greatly reduced. We are satisfied that such extravagance is causing not merely discontent but absolute hardship upon the country, and that the need for economy is immediate and urgent. When one reads in the papers to-day such an account as was given in the courts yesterday of how people who are dependent upon poor relief have to eke out an existence on 7/6 a week, I believe, for two people in one case, and 12/- a week for four people in another case, and when one knows from his personal experience that these things are frequent in every town and village in the country, it is obvious that the expenditure at the top of this State is inhuman. It is obvious, too, that some effort will have to be made by the Government to see that those who are at present dependent upon home help can get a reasonable allowance. In the hands of the local authorities that cannot be done, I think, in present circumstances. It is evident, so far as most of the local authorities are concerned, that their expenditure in this way is as much as they can face relative to the means of those who are contributing to rates, and some time or other I think the central Government will hav