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Dáil Éireann - Volume 40 - 17 December, 1931

Adjournment Debate: Unemployment.

The President: I move that the House do now adjourn until 10th February, 1932.

Mr. de Valera: I think that before the House adjourns we ought to get from the Ministry some indication of their policy, if they have any, for dealing with the problem of unemployment. We had a debate on unemployment when the £250,000 relief grants was introduced recently. We, from our side, indicated what we thought was a line of policy which would provide a permanent solution for unemployment. When I say permanent I mean as far ahead as any of us have a duty to look. We are now going to adjourn for a [3025] couple of months and the unemployed throughout the country are entitled to be told whether they are to be neglected, as they have been in the past year, or whether the Executive is seriously engaged in trying to work out a solution which would give them some hopes for the future. The President, speaking down the country some time ago, was very anxious about immediate attention being given to social and economic matters and suggested to his audience that when a Fianna Fáil Government got into power they would not, on their part, be ready to tackle these problems. He said, I think, that these problems would have to lie in sleep for a considerable time. This problem, at any rate, has lain in sleep for ten years as far as this Government is concerned. The only thing that they have done to meet it has been to bring in a yearly sum of roughly £250,000 in a relief grant to be doled out in or about Christmas.

When speaking on the recent Vote, I tried to show the material losses the nation was suffering by having, as we have at the present time, probably between 60,000 and 80,000 unemployed who could be producing wealth and who instead of producing wealth now have to be maintained by other members of the community. This loss has been going on during these ten years. This unemployment has meant to us a loss here in the Twenty-Six Counties of a quarter of a million people, a quarter of a million people in the prime of life for the most part, people on whose education considerable sums of public money have been spent, people who are just ready to produce wealth, fitted to be good and effective citizens, and the moment they are brought to the point when they are fit, we hand over all that equipment and all that power of producing wealth to a foreign State. The loss, as I have said, has been going on. It has been going on in one form or another and accompanying the material loss has been all the human misery that these conditions meant for the individuals immediately affected and their friends. Surely if there is one problem more than another that should not be allowed to lie any longer in sleep it is that.

The Executive has been appealing to [3026] the people to re-elect them on their record. So far as unemployment and dealing with it are concerned, their record has been one of complete impotence and failure. We have at any rate indicated the lines on which we would go. They have not indicated how they would tackle it at all. We had one of the Ministers in the last debate standing up to talk. All he could give us was a long string of abusive epithets—“piffle,” “drivel,” “fatuous,” “ignorant.” Words of that kind are words of which three-fourths of his speech were made up. It was a speech made to the gallery, an abusive speech that did not contain a single germ of constructive thought in the whole lot of it. We pointed out that we want to know from Ministers opposite what is their alternative. We pointed out that we are importing into this country every year millions of pounds' worth of goods which could be produced here in this country by Irish labour. We pointed out, for instance, that in one set of articles alone—clothing, hosiery, boots and apparel generally—employment could be provided for as many as 25,000 people.

If you take up the whole of these items of unnecessary imports, you will find that in the production of them here at home, there would be employment for more people than are unemployed at the present time. We said that it is ridiculous giving wages to foreigners for producing these articles when we could organise ourselves to produce them and in the production of them could provide employment. We are told “Oh the Party on the other side offer nothing but high tariffs.” We are told by the Minister for Agriculture that high tariffs have brought the whole world to destruction and to a state of bankruptcy. What has brought it to a state of bankruptcy? That is just the question. It was not high tariffs brought England to a state of bankruptcy and I think she would be regarded as being in a state of bankruptcy, just as much as the United States of America at present, for instance. It is not tariffs operating in any country that has brought about bankruptcy and destruction. Under protection the United States was able [3027] to build itself up and increase its population and its wealth enormously over a period of years. Tariffs have done the same for other countries. It was all right for Britain to continue with a policy of Free Trade as long as she was ahead of other countries and got a bigger share of the world markets, but once these other countries came in and once these markets were denied her, either because she had to meet competitors in them or because those countries in which she had a market were able to produce the articles which they required themselves, Great Britain had to think about changing her policy.

The Minister states that high tariffs have brought the world as a whole into bankruptcy. Our particular business at the moment is to think of our little world here. That is our first care. By our attitude here we are not going to change the economic policy of the United States, of Britain, Germany, France or any of these countries. The part of the world in which we have an immediate interest and for which we are responsible at the moment is the Twenty-Six Counties. Our next responsibility over and above that, would be to the people of this island as a whole but the immediate part we can make a policy for and determine the lives of the people in is the Twenty-Six Counties. It is not the bankruptcy of the whole world that should concern us. It is the policy that has led to the bankruptcy of this State and the policy that has destroyed this nation. That is the policy of Free Trade forced on this country by Britain which has brought this country to the position in which we fied ourselves to-day. The bankruptcy of the Twenty-Six Counties, as far as finding employment for our people, is the particular thing in which we have to interest ourselves. We said that there is an obvious remedy for it. We say “Give to your own people the money you are sending out to pay wages to foreigners.” We say let our people manufacture these goods. Let the people in Britain and other places who manufacture their own goods look after their own particular problems. If each [3028] nation looks after its own affairs the world will look after itself pretty well. I say that the way world affairs are driving people is in the direction of each country producing what it can produce and exchanging its surplus for the things it cannot produce.

As far as we are concerned with regard to our policy, tariffs are only a means to an end. We are concerned only with our own industries. We want to see a condition in which it will be possible for people who have got capital to put it into industry, knowing that when they have bought machinery and established an enterprise all their money is not going to be lost owing to competition with countries who have had a long start of us. We cannot start industries without that and the best relief that can be given to agriculture at the present time is to lighten the burden upon agriculture by getting other shoulders to bear it. The only shoulders that can bear the cost of government and the community costs here are the producers of the country. You have got to increase the producers. When we talk about increasing production I want to make it clear that we are not against increasing agricultural production by any means but what we point to is that the result of efforts in that connection is not going to be immediate or as effective as would be the result if the line of action we indicated would be followed because we have got to complete for our agricultural produce in a market where you have New Zealanders and people from Australia, Argentina and Canada all competing against us. There are certain factors which are in our favour I admit in competing with them. Make the most of them. No matter how far we develop ourselves here we are likely, over any time we can ordinarily look forward to, on account of the productivity of our soil and its suitability for agriculture to have, over and above the agricultural products required for our own people, an exportable surplus.

Let us, having full knowledge of that fact, remember that when we are exchanging goods for the things which we cannot produce that it is on those lines we are likely to proceed. We are not going to grow wheat as was suggested [3029] by the Minister for Agriculture with the idea of using wheat as our exportable surplus. We are not going to go into world competition with Canada as the Minister for Education suggested. I wish the Minister for Education would spend a little more time on educational matters. We would like to have heard a little bit more from him on them. When he talks about this he misrepresents our position. We have never suggested that we ought to go out and complete with Canada in wheat as an exportable surplus. What we have said is there is a certain quantity of wheat required for the food of our people. We are sending out so many millions of pounds for the raw material and so many millions of pounds for flour. Keep the flour manufacture at any rate at home and keep for the Irish farmer the money that is being spent in buying wheat from outside. We do admit that we are likely to have an exportable surplus of agricultural produce. Make the most of that. Let the surplus consist of that. See that we can compete on the best terms with traders in the market and do everything in your power to make your goods marketable and organise so that you will get as large a part of the market as possible. We say that all you can hope from that in the competition you have before you is not very great.

I was speaking to a man the other day. He was talking about Empire Free Trade and he was saying “I admit you may possibly get, under those conditions, an advantage in the British market.” I asked him in what particular articles did he hope for it. He mentioned butter. I pointed out to him that there was an increasing quantity of butter coming from Australia and New Zealand and that the price we got for our butter was uniformly less. He questioned it. I went to the trouble last night of taking out figures from the Butter Tariff Report. As they are in the Report it is not necessary to read them to the House, but if any member of the Dáil cares to take up that report and study the imports there and the average prices he will find that year after year our prices on the British market are [3030] below the average. That is one of the particular products upon the organisation of which the Ministry have prided themselves and asked to be returned. In spite of this lauded organisation of theirs, in spite of the efforts they have made to try and get Irish butter in the British market in a fair position, because I think that it is admitted by fair judges that there is no butter superior to Irish butter, at the time when it is in large quantities in the British market yet these reports show that you get uniformly less on the average, not merely than Danish butter and New Zealand butter, but less on the average than the price that is paid for butter generally, including butter from Russia and so on. Is it along these lines we are to look for hope? Is our only hope to be that we are to go on along the policy that reduced this country to its present condition and owing to which our population has faded away?

When the Minister quoted high tariffs as having brought the world to bankruptcy is it not absolutely certain, is not everyone on the opposite benches certain, that it was the policy of free trade which was forced on this country by Britain that brought our country to its present condition? What we have to concentrate on at the present time are the conditions in our own country, what brought these conditions about, and how we are to get into the position which we desire. The fruit of the policy is there. It is clear that we have not been able to maintain in this comparatively rich country our population.

The Minister for Agriculture tells us that this policy is a policy of taking in each other's washing. To my mind the policy of free trade is much more a policy of taking in each other's washing than the policy we stand for. We do not stand for taking in each other's washing. We would have in this country the natural division of labour as there would be elsewhere. I do not want a bootmaker to be a farmer. There will be a certain section making boots, a certain section making apparel. If there is washing to be done let it be done at home so long as there are Irish people who have no other means of living prepared to do it. There [3031] is very much more of taking in each other's washing in the policy of free trade than there is in the policy we advocate, but if there is any washing to be taken in, and if there is washing to be done in this country, and if there are Irish people willing to do it and to be paid for it, let it be given to them rather than to strangers.

If we examine this question every one admits that the whole economic situation to-day everywhere is difficult, but what does this difficulty indicate? —that the systems, whether they be free trade or protection as far as international trade is concerned, have largely broken down, and it is because they have broken down that I want to see us concentrate on that thing which has not broken down and that is the power of this country to maintain its population. The fundamental things towards which we should aim is to provide food, clothing, shelter, power and certain services for our own people. Can we provide here in this country the material needs of our people? Is there anybody listening to me who doubts for a moment that we in this country if we happen to be cut off from the rest of the world could not feed ourselves, clothe ourselves or shelter ourselves and provide the necessary power for our industry, and that we would be able to do that with sufficient hands for others to provide the necessary services?

If we were a barren country, if we had any difficulty about providing the fundamental necessaries of life here, then I would be seriously concerned as to whether a policy such as we are advocating would be the right policy or would be successful. We are in this sound, solid position that if we make up our minds that every Irish man and Irish woman have a right to exist, a right to get here by their labour in this country the necessary food, clothing and shelter to be able to arrive at a decent comfortable existence—if we take that as a fundamental principle and act upon it then we can certainly say, examining the problem it would lead to, that it could be solved. There is no one here who would deny if this community were thrown upon [3032] itself and if it were accepted as a principle that every one in this country was entitled to get food, clothing and shelter then we could organise ourselves so as to provide food without a doubt. As to the extra amount of food which we could supply we would be able to get some price for it as it is the best perhaps of all the others. We would be able to get some market for it. We might have to sell it at a sacrifice perhaps, but we could do it, and with the surplus food we would be able to buy from abroad the things we could not possibly produce or the things it might be well to leave to others to produce.

At the present time the leaving to others to produce thirty million pounds a year is a matter which I say has not been defended by any member of the Ministry. As I say, it really should be for the Ministry to tell us what they propose to do about it. Every single step, every single line of policy that we have indicated to take the country out of its present position has been met by the Ministry who have a majority at the moment by a flat refusal. When we propose that the money spent on wheat be available here for farmers we are met with a refusal on that. We know we cannot go in that direction. When we say that there are boots, shoes and clothing which should give employment to 25,000 people, when we say that these should be produced here and that you ought to see that they are produced here, and that you ought to give the necessary security to capital so that it will be put into enterprises in this country we are told: “No, these high tariffs do nothing but bankrupt the world.” That is not good enough coming from the Executive Council. We expect to do something more definite, concrete and constructive. This energetic and constructive Government we have ought to be able to do something more than tell us: “No, tariffs did nothing good for the world. They brought other countries to bankruptcy and they are no solution here.” Let them give us their alternatives then. We can prove that the manufacture of articles of clothing in this country will give employment to 25,000 people. Let them [3033] show us the way to give employment to as many. When we say there is employment for from 60,000 to 80,000 people and that other services would go hand-in-hand in which you would have indirect employment for thousands more it is not sufficient for you to say: “We do not believe you.”

If they do not believe us they ought, at least, to believe that the problem is there and that the problem has to be solved. They ought to tell us what they propose to do about it. We tell the House definitely what we propose to do about it. Looking at that problem calmly and seeing what are the facts in the case we say that we have made a case that is almost demonstrable. Anybody who wants to keep an open mind at all on the question will, I think, be convinced. We say that the only people who deliberately do not want to see it are those who close their minds against it and refuse to see it. They are the people who cannot see it.

I repeat again at any rate the fact that we have had emigration on an untold scale and yet we have unemployment side by side with emigration. Emigration is now stopped, and as a result we will, therefore, have a bigger problem of unemployment to deal with in the future. I have indicated what our attitude is to the problem and what our solution of the problem is. That is a solution which we believe is there if we only adopt it. We want to have an answer now from the Ministry—not merely that they will, at the end of the debate, answer in a couple of words. We would like to hear now what is their considered policy with regard to the permanent solution of unemployment. We do not want a policy that is merely a dole which will relieve people for two or three weeks.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Blythe): The Government does not regard that £250,000 as having any relation to their unemployment policy. That amount is simply voted for the temporary relief of distress during the worst period of the year. We do not propose some simple remedy, something which can be stated in a phrase as a remedy for unemployment in the way in which the Deputies on the other side of the House [3034] suggest a remedy. We have given a good deal more consideration to the whole question than the Deputies on the other side. We have been able to realise that this problem of unemployment is not a problem that can be solved by any of those methods that can be set out in a phrase. It is a problem which is troubling people in every country in the world. It is a problem from which no country is free. Some countries seem to be faced with the problem of unemployment to a very large degree and some countries have it in a less acute form. There are countries in which the actual number of unemployed is low and kept low because enormous numbers of the pupulation are working for sweated wages or they are working under conditions which leave large numbers of them scarcely better of than the unemployed here—perhaps morally a little better of because they are occupied all the time, but they live under conditions of depression as great as our unemployed are living under. It is not a problem that can be solved in a simple way. If it were a problem of that kind somebody else, some other country, would have found the remedy and applied it and it would not be left for Deputies on the opposite side to solve.

It is clear that high tariffs cannot solve it. There are many countries with high tariffs who find that this problem is a very acute one. I would not say that it is true that it was free trade that brought about the conditions that exist in this country. No doubt free trade was an element in the fact that we found ourselves at the end of the British occupation with very little in the way of industry. If there had been a tariff wall round this island, or round part of it, there would undoubtedly have been some industries. But there was part of the island in which there were industries, though free trade had prevailed there. In so far as our unemployment is concerned, there are in addition to free trade many other things that are responsible. There are many other things responsible for the comparative lack of manufacturing industry here, as compared with the Northern part of the country. Land tenure, though [3035] it did not directly affect industries, had an effect on the general social conditions; absentee landlordism, and the enormous and constant drain that landlordism involved, and many other similar factors, were perhaps more responsible for the condition of the country than free trade.

Deputy de Valera said that if we were cut off from the world that we could feed, clothe and house the people here. I have no doubt that we could feed, clothe and house the people according to a certain standard. I have no doubt that human life could be maintained here at that standard if communication with every other part of the world were cut off. We cannot cut off communication with all other parts of the world. I am perfectly satisfied that if we tried to live here under that standard and in that way, if we were to cut off communication with other parts of the world every effort and attempt would be made by great masses of our people to get out of the country. We would have an urge for emigration such as we never had before. Everybody knows that one of the causes of emigration, in addition to the big causes of actual need and want, and almost as important, is the desire for wider spheres and for greater opportunities abroad. Everybody knows that amongst the emigrants who went were large numbers of people who could have a reasonable living here but who went elsewhere because they thought much greater chances were to be obtained and there was the new experience to be got. I have no doubt that if the Deputy's dream, if it is a dream, were realised and if we were able to cut off communication with other countries, that we would have such an exodus from this country as was never before experienced. I do not suppose that the Deputy suggests that we should cut ourselves off from other countries; that we should do without all the things we have been accustomed to and that the people of other countries have been accustomed to; that we should only consume our own products. I do not think the Deputy would suggest that there should be no longer any tea [3036] or coffee consumed in this country.

Mr. de Valera: I have not suggested it.

Mr. Blythe: The Deputy is not going to suggest that motor cars are to be put out of the country and that all imports of petrol and paraffin oil are to cease and that we are to go back to the rush candle lights. He is not going to suggest that. If he did he would soon see how the people would respond to it. Without going to these great lengths with these suggestions it has to be borne in mind that while tariffs give advantage, that while industries can be built up behind tariffs—and we have shown our belief in that by the imposition of tariffs when we have found that the case justified them—I want to point out that a small country has much less to get out of tariffs than a big country. America can build up its tariffs and perhaps suffer none of the disadvantages of tariffs. She has big resources and reserves, so large an area and so numerous a population that nearly every one of her industries can be carried on on an economic basis. Wherever mass production is suitable mass production can be carried out for the American markets. Consequently a country like America can have all the advantages and practically none of the disadvantages of tariffs. If you take the smaller countries you find as you go down the list that the disadvantages from tariffs increase. As far as this country is concerned the area is so small and she has so small a market amongst her own people that we get in a very marked degree the disadvantages of tariffs. If we are to have wholesale high tariffs here, not to talk of cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world, we will experience many of the disadvantages of being cut off from the rest of the world. A great number of articles would have to go up so much in price that it would be impossible to use them just as the cutting off of paraffin oil would drive the people in the country back to the use of the old rush-lights. In the same way the high tariffs would put up the price and the people could never afford to purchase these articles.

[3037] If we set up some sort of Bolshevic régime here we might change the whole structure of our industry and economy in a year or two but we could not, no matter what machinery we had for doing it, change the character of our general economy without great suffering and great loss. We have here very large numbers of farmers carrying on on a basis which depends to a very large extent on the export market. Nothing that we can do will enable these farmers to carry on without that export market. If we put up the cost of living on them then we are going to make it impossible for a large number of them to exist on agriculture.

I have heard Deputies on the other side talking about derelict farms. If we adopted the Deputy's policy of high tariffs then we will have more derelict farms. There is no doubt about it, because the people who work those farms depend to a very large extent for their revenue upon the export market, and they would get nothing more for their produce while everything they would have to buy would be dearer. The result would be that great numbers of them would find it impossible to eke out a living on the farms, on which they are managing to carry on at present. If we were to adopt the Deputy's policy of high tariffs, and if we were to put 80,000 people into new industries, it is as certain as anything can be that we would put as many people out of agricultural employment. At the time that we were putting these people into employment we would be making it impossible for at least as many people to earn any living out of the land.

To me the Deputy's speech seemed to be very like the speech that one hears at a meeting of a students' debating society. It does not come down to the actual facts as they exist. The Deputy says that we should be able to provide employment, that we should be able to do this, that and the other thing. But the position is that we have an existing economy. We have people who are able to make a living because they have export markets. They can get enough money to meet their expenses, but if we put up the price of necessities, but do not put up the price of the things they have to [3038] sell, the result, will be that these people will be made bankrupt or else their standard of living must be lowered. Therefore, the general condition will be worse than the condition which proceeded it.

The Deputy said that the record of the Government had been one of complete impotence and failure with regard to unemployment. The facts deny that. You cannot, in a time of general depression, in a time when in most countries things have been getting worse to an alarming extent, simply point to the problem here and say that the fact that there is some unemployment here proves that the Government has failed. You would get a better picture if you compared the state of things here with the state of things elsewhere. If our policy had not been a good policy, as it is, instead of having the painful problem of relieving a comparatively small number of unemployed we would have here now a catastrophic problem. Our policy has had this effect: that we have suffered only to a minor extent from the depression which has been devastating other countries. If we had adopted any of these quack remedies, any of these drastic, ill-digested policies, recommended to us, we could easily have conditions worse. I am satisfied that the conditions here cannot be remedied in that way, irrespective of world conditions. If there is depression we are bound to be affected by it, unless we take the drastic step of going back to the Stone Age standard of living. If we allow our people the ordinary commodities in use in similar countries throughout the world, and carry on the trade necessary to do that, we are going, no matter what we do, to be affected by the conditions elsewhere. We cannot cure the conditions here in this area, because they are affected by conditions elsewhere. We can alleviate suffering. Our primary responsibility is here.

I do not know whether the Deputy said that we should turn our backs on other conditions. Even if we could do so I do not think that is the right attitude. Anyway there is no good in saying: “I am not my brother's keeper.” We are, in fact, tied up with the rest of the world. If we cannot [3039] contribute in a general way we should contribute in some way. I am satisfied that one of the things which we can do is to bring about with our influence, in a small way, some reduction of the disastrous tariffs that are prevalent throughout the world to-day. It is absolutely antiquated to talk about producing things here no matter what the cost of production may be. God gave the whole world to man and it is for us, so far as we can, to bring things from places in which they can be most conveniently produced to places where they cannot be so conveniently produced in order to have the best general standard of living for the people. That requires a very substantial exchange of commodities and, within limits, will do great things, particularly for a country which has been left behind in the industrial race, where the manufacturers would be starting afresh and would be under many disadvantages. We have made use of tariffs in that way and we are prepared to make further use of them. We are satisfied that no tariff should be imposed without examination and without endeavouring to ascertain whether tariffs will do more harm than good. Just as it is possible for a tariff to do good it is equally possible, particularly in a small country like this, for a tariff to do harm. Our policy is to have these things examined as quickly as they can be examined, having regard to all the difficulties.

I need not rehearse the long catalogue of things that we have done or have tried to do. In regard to a great many of them we got no help. I am satisfied that a great many of these things have been successful and that the problem we have here is a problem about conditions outside our control. The difficulties we are experiencing will not be remedied in this way, that there is no use for the bull in the china shop policy. There is no use shouting, “Surely to goodness we ought to be able to do this, that and the other.” The sound policy for any Government or any Party is to examine the problem as closely as they can to see whether or not it is likely to achieve anything. I am satisfied that a high tariff policy, whatever it [3040] may do for industries, will lead to industries being started that should never have been started; it will lead to capital being misapplied; it will lead to continual inefficiency and to the bankruptcy of a great number of our agriculturists.

Mr. Hogan (Clare): The Minister for Finance talked a good deal, but told us nothing. He did not tell us one thing about what the Government proposed to do to relieve unemployment. In the end he told us that the policy of the Government was to examine these things to see how far they could be effective towards relieving unemployment. At an earlier stage he said that the policy adumbrated by Deputy de Valera was a phrase-making policy. Some of us have been thinking that the present Government is purely a phrase-making Government. In this matter of unemployment it has not at least given us a phrase to try to solve unemployment. It has been examining the problems for nine years. What has it done to relieve the situation? To-day when the House is about to adjourn and possibly to dissolve, we have nothing told us by the Minister for Finance for the people—some of whom are at present starving—except that the Government is going to examine the position in order to see what is going to be done. That statement of the Minister is surely an admission of bankruptcy on the part of the present Executive Council. No statement has ever been made from the Government Benches so indicative of bankruptcy towards the relief of unemployment. They have not, in the first instance, endeavoured to make themselves acquainted with the extent to which unemployment prevails.

The Minister for Finance told us that relatively we were not as badly off as other countries and had not as many unemployed. One of his colleagues, Deputy Byrne, told us a few days ago that unemployment was not as bad now as it was some years ago. When one examines the figures given by the unemployment exchanges one is convinced that the figures the Government is depending on do not give a clear index of the extent to which unemployment prevails, so that in [3041] order to face the problem they have not the necessary facts in their minds. These places give a list which only includes the number of people entitled to unemployment benefit, but not the number actually in need of assistance. The people who go and register themselves are entitled to unemployment benefit and when it is exhausted they cease to queue up at the exchanges because there is no advantage in doing so. The Government then comes to the conclusion that these people are employed. Therefore, the number on the register is not the number unemployed. I suggest to the Government that before they can consider the position they should make themselves acquainted with the actual number of people unemployed in the Saorstát. One would imagine that in introducing legislation the Government would have before them the position of the unemployed. When introducing fresh legislation one would think that they would take cognisance of the position of the unemployed. Let us take the Housing Bill that was introduced by the Minister for Local Government the other day and see what it does towards giving employment. The financial clauses make it almost impossible for public bodies to indulge in any extensive building schemes.

General Mulcahy: To indulge!

Mr. Hogan: Local government is, of course, at the present time administered by an experimental scientist, who probably knows something about graphs, figures and statistics dealing with the administration of local government, but when it comes down to general details for putting into operation the necessary schemes that will give some relief to the unemployed he has no conception whatever of the task that is before him.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Even a superficial examination of the financial clauses of the Housing Bill will show that local authorities cannot embark on housing schemes which would bring any relief to the houseless in any area, because the rents that would have to be charged will make it [3042] impossible for people who want houses to take them. Consequently public bodies will not embark on any very large schemes, and employment that might be provided by the building of houses will not be made available.

We suggest that a national housing scheme ought to be considered by the Government. There are 40,000 or 50,000 houses needed in the Saorstát at present, the building of which would give continuous employment to the workers for a considerable period. We suggested that the Government should have set up a Department to deal with that question to see how far the provision of houses would go towards relieving unemployment. During the passage of the Housing Bill it was stressed that the use of Irish materials in the erection of houses should be made obligatory. We find no such support is going to be given to Irish manufacturers by the present Government. That one phase of its administration and legislation shows that the Government has no cognisance of the extent of unemployment and has no idea how to meet it. Of course the Minister stated that the £250,000 is only given for the relief of distress during a particular period of the year. I wonder how much worse it is to be hungry at Christmas than in May; how much worse it is to be hungry in winter than during the autumn? When discussing this matter let us not forget that.

Candidly, I feel ashamed about this, and I do not wish to broadcast it or to make any capital against the present administration out of it. While we are discussing this question there are men, women and children hungry in this State. There are men willing and anxious to work, but they cannot find it. While we are discussing this miserable dole of £250,000, which will give a week's work to these people, there are people hungry and the only policy that the Minister for Finance has is that the Government are going to consider the question. After nine years' consideration as to what should be done about unemployment the Government is still considering the matter. In a speech delivered by the [3043] Minister for Local Government it was stated that £60,000 of this relief grant was to be given to local authorities for the relief of distress. That is an indication of what the grant towards the local authorities is to be, and as to how it is to be administered in seeking adequate information in an endeavour to solve unemployment.

The major portion of the grant is to go to the Land Commission. Whilst I do not find fault to any great extent with administration by the Land Commission, whilst I do not say that the Land Commission is not doing its best in a rather difficult situation, with the works that it has to carry out, I say this, that no one knows the country's needs and the ramifications of poverty as well as the local county councillors whose door-knockers are worn by people coming to their houses to do a thousand and one things, to secure home assistance and things of that kind. If the Government want to do the greatest amount of good with this £250,000 they should increase the amount given to local authorities. Local authorities know more about the distress that prevails, and have their fingers more closely on the pulse of the country than any Land Commission inspectors that are sent out. As to the extent of unemployment, we can only argue from the particular to the general. The County Council of Clare, forced by circumstances of the time, unanimously decided to give £1,000 towards the relief of distress in the county. The members of the council know the extent of the burden on the rates and how difficult it is to bear that burden. That Council is composed mainly of members of the farming community who are not anxious to put an extra burden on the ratepayers if they did not see that there was need for it. Of the £1,000, £500 went to one town. What do we find in Ennis? There are 237 people unemployed. Only one person out of each house can get employment under the grant, and with these people unemployment is a normal condition. Well over 200 people are unemployed and are seeking work, but they can only get one week's work and will have to console themselves with [3044] the promise that the Minister for Finance is going to consider how far unemployment can be relieved.

We suggested that local authorities might introduce various schemes, and that the major portion of this grant ought to be given to them in connection with sewerage and water schemes and such things. Yet we find from the statement of the Minister for Local Government that only £60,000 is to be given to local authorities. That shows that the Ministry are not well informed as to the extent of unemployment and the best means of distributing the £250,000 which the Minister for Finance told us was only a bit of relief in the worst season of the year. I suppose there is this in the matter of administering it. I read the speech of one Deputy who said that this matter would be administered by a certain secretary, and that he possibly would have a big say as to where it should go. I saw in my own county where a supporter of the Government stated that one of the reasons why they were asked to join the Government Party was because their grievances would get better attention if they belonged to the Government Party.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: Hear, hear.

Mr. Hogan: Deputy O'Sullivan says “Hear, hear.” If one has a grievance in the matter of unemployment or any other matter that a Government could remedy, a Government ought to remedy it irrespective of whether the citizen concerned belonged to any Party or not. Of course, Deputy O'Sullivan's philosophy is that you must belong to the Government Party before your grievance can be remedied.

Mr. O'Sullivan: Not at all.

Mr. Hogan: Possibly one of the greatest grievances any one can have is to be a member of the Government Party. I suggest that the £250,000 is not going to meet the distress, and that giving the major portion of it to the Land Commission is a wrong and false position to take up in endeavouring to relieve unemployment. The only policy that the Government have adumbrated after nine years considering [3045] the unemployment problem is that they are going to consider it for a further period and see what they can do.

Mr. Anthony: I feel in approaching this question of unemployment that sympathy with the unemployed is not the monopoly of any Party. I feel that there is agreement amongst all Parties that the evil should be tackled with a view to its amelioration, if not its abolition. As a representative of Cork Borough, which relatively has the largest number of unemployed in the Free State, I am brought almost daily into contact, and it is a most depressing experience, with numbers of able-bodied men willing to work who cannot find it. At the same time, I am sensible of the fact that there is worldwide economic depression which has had its reactions and repercussions here. There is no use in making Party capital out of the poverty of the unemployed. Every man in this House is in full sympathy with the unemployed. Whilst I hold that the Government might have done a lot more to relieve unemployment, I feel that if they were not sorely handicapped by the keeping apart of serious-minded people, who might make some contribution, at any rate, towards solving this terrible and tragic problem, we might be somewhat better off. If we had less talk about 1922 in this House and less references at the cross-roads and elsewhere to these matters, and if we bent our backs in an endeavour to solve this problem, while we could never hope to solve the whole of the problem, we might alleviate it or ameliorate it to some considerable extent. If there is any sincerity behind all the fine phrases that we hear uttered here from time to time, an opportunity will present itself in the very near future. I suggest that all of us who will have to face the electors in a very short time should, instead of directing our attention to such things as the tragic occurrences of the civil war, go to the country on our economic policy and on that alone.

I have heard it suggested in the House that tariffs are going to settle everything for us. Tariffs have not settled unemployment in America. Tariffs have not settled the unemployment [3046] problem in any part of the world. As I said often in this House, I do not care whether it is Deputy de Valera or the President is in power. To me it is of more concern to see 100 persons put to work and wages distributed to the families of 100 hungry persons. That is of far more concern to me than the question of the oath or the question of your flag. I regret to find at this hour of the day, when all this mouthing and fine phrasing is going on about the unemployed, that we still have recriminations at our public boards, and even in this national Assembly. I fell that in this Christian and Catholic country we might have a national examination of conscience to see how far we can relieve this problem. Let us cut adrift from all this partisanship and this jockeying for position at the general election. Let us direct our best efforts to an attempt to solve this problem. Above all things, let us not forget that we cannot, in present circumstances, even under the most roseate view of the circumstances, ever solve this problem in its entirety. Even at the height of the American boom there was unemployment in America. There was unemployment here to an extent, of course not to the extent that the evil exists at present. I suggest very seriously that we should cut out all this cackle we have listened to so frequently at the cross-roads and side streets and in the Dáil and make an honest endeavour to settle the question.

I do not believe in blaming the Government for everything. It is rather unfortunate that we grow up under a tradition, which will take not care to adopt the role of blaming the Government for everything. I do not care to adopt the role of blaming the Government unless I feel that they are entirely or partly responsible for any of the social evils I see around me. We grew up in that tradition. It was engendered and fostered when the British were in occupation here. Now, if we have a Government in power, it is the people of the Saorstát who put them there. It will be my job at the next election to get them out and put a Labour Government in, even though I am divorced from the Labour Party. It is just, as the lawyers say, a mensa [3047] et toro. I have suggested that the solution of this problem to a very large extent lies in our hands. I have also suggested that no country in the world, with tariffs or without tariffs, has yet solved this problem in its entirety. Let us acknowledge these three or four naked truths first, and then proceed to discuss and devise means whereby we may ameliorate or partially solve this unfortunate problem.

Certain methods have been indicated as to how this problem might be partially solved. The representatives of Cork County Council who are members of this House will agree with me when I say that the County Council and the Cork Corporation might be allocated sufficient money, at any rate, partly to relieve the distress at present prevailing in the City and County of Cork. Public bodies certainly are in closer contact with these matters than the Executive Council could expect to be. I hope I will not be misunderstood. I do not want to accuse the Government of any partiality. It is my experience in Cork that no man has been refused work because of his politics or his Party affiliation. I should like to contradict that statement if it has been made. I suggest that we might have, on the eve of the general election, a “cease fire” order in two camps—in the Fianna Fáil camp and the Cumann na nGaedheal camp. Let us have a “cease fire,” and if we are going to the electors, which I dare say we will in the course of the next few weeks— nobody knows that, I suppose, except the President, and he is usually a very close-minded gentleman in that respect —then we will go to the country, not on the question of what we did in 1916, not on the question of who burden the Four Courts, not on the Constitution Amendment Bill, but on the policy of what we propose to do for the unemployed and how it is proposed to do it. In suggesting that, let me say also that I hope that no wild-cat schemes will be promulgated, that we will not have persons suggesting that this country can do any more than countries far richer can do. I hope that these words of mine will be borne in mind.

[3048] Mr. O'Kelly: Deputy Anthony said he hoped that in any discussions that took place in connection with the general election, not so far off, there would be no speeches made to the people which would induce them to believe that this small country can do what far richer countries cannot do. There is one thing that this small country, or rather this part of this small country, can do and which we want it to do, and that is to give employment to those who are willing to work, who are unemployed, and many of whom, as Deputy Hogan said, are hungry to-day. Deputy Hogan can speak for his own county, Clare. He is, I am sure, in touch with many people of all classes, and particularly the poor and the working classes, and I believe him when he says that he knows there are many people hungry to-day in his area. I can say the same for the area I represent. In the City of Dublin there are thousands of people who would not have a meal to-day were it not for the home relief they get and were it not for the generous help of all classes of people in Dublin. There are hundreds upon hundreds of families in that condition. I would not say that the Free State Government are wholly responsible for that. There will probably be people hungry, as Deputy Anthony said, no matter what Government is in power. That will probably be as long as conditions are what they are. As long as human nature is what it is, there will be people poor. The poor we shall always have with us. But there is unnecessary unemployment and there is hunger and starvation in the Twenty-Six County area that need not exist if we had a Government that took a proper, serious view of the present conditions.

Many years ago those of us who were brought up in the Sinn Fein movement were told that if we had a Government elected here by the free will of our own people, controlling Irish destinies, the people elected would, as they could if they were the proper type, make this country a prosperous, peaceful and happy country. It has not, for one reason or other in the last ten years, been very peaceful. We are not satisfied, despite the conditions that have existed, that proper efforts have been [3049] made by those in control to make it prosperous. The President will remember, I am sure, what I remember, and what the Vice-President ought to remember, that the old Sinn Fein gospel was to get control of Ireland's destinies, to make it an industrial country, to develop industries here, to give employment to the people, to grow our own food, make our own clothes and boots, and to do the things as Deputy de Valera suggested we could do in the country, to stop the importation of those goods that can be manufactured here, as long as there are people here willing and able to make them, with a Government in charge that would encourage industry by every means that a native Parliament could put it in their power to do. That was the old gospel. I was not surprised—I have been used to it—but I certainly find it difficult to understand how the Vice-President of the Free State, who has been Minister for ten years, could tear up, as it were, all the teachings of Griffith, if we do not even go back any further. He now tears up all the things he was taught and read as a young man and that he himself endeavoured to teach for a good many years. He tears them all up now and throws them aside, and adopts the British Empire gospel of Free Trade as a suitable gospel for the Free State. That is what has happened.

We all know the old doctrine of Dean Swift who recommended that this country should burn everything English except her coal. That gospel was not new to Ireland even in Swift's time. It was preached before his time and after. The ablest exponent in our day of the economic principle involved in that statement was Griffith. It might be said that this Free State, such as it is, is due economically as well as politically to the teachings of Griffith.

I have here a booklet lent me by one of my colieagues from which I propose to read some extracts from the writings of Griffith in order to remind the President and the Vice-President of his teaching. There is no use reminding the Minister for Agriculture [3050] of them for he never read them because he was not at any time a disciple of Griffith's until Griffith became a power.

General Mulcahy: What did Griffith say was our national need and economic salvation?

Mr. O'Kelly: I shall tell you if you have a little patience. There are four extracts that I want to read. Here is the first:—

During the few years of Grattan's Parliament Brooke's cotton factory in Prosperous, Co. Kildare, employed no less than 7,000 hands. Irish coal was mined with energy, Dublin alone taking 10,000 tons from Kilkenny, and out of an import duty levied on English coal, the present Parliament Street in Dublin was built. Foster's famous corn laws, under which duties were imposed on the entry of foreign corn and bounties were granted to farmers on the export of Irish corn, while prices in Ireland were regulated to prevent any profiteering at the expense of the Irish people, turned the country in half a dozen years into one of the greatest corn producing and exporting countries in Europe.

That was written on 29/9/1917.

Mr. Gorey: What was Canada's output of corn at that time?

Mr. O'Kelly: Here is another extract:—

It is part of the policy of the national council to bring about that unity of material interests which produces national strength, to convince the manufacturer that every improvement in agriculture will increase his home market, and the agriculturalist that every extension of the manufacturing industry will promote his welfare, to convince both that there can be no permanent prosperity for Ireland unless the nation as a whole is prosperous. We must offer our producers protection where protection is necessary. And let it be clearly understood what protection is. Protection does not mean the exclusion of foreign competition. [3051] It means rendering the native manufacturer equal to meeting foreign competition. It does not mean that we shall pay a higher profit to any Irish manufacturer, but that we must not stand by and see him crushed by mere weight of foreign capital. If an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as an Englishman or other foreigner, only because his foreign competitor has larger resources at his disposal, then it is the first duty of the Irish nation to accord protection to that Irish manufacturer.

And here is another one:—

We have not only ceased to feed ourselves but we are becoming unable to feed our cattle. The destiny of Ireland was marked out for her by the English free traders. She was to become the fruitful mother of flocks and herds, the cattle ranch of England. We have the flocks and herds and we are importing the food with which to feed them.

I do not know the date of this next quotation. It is not marked:—

A London daily newspaper commenting on Sinn Fein writes:—“Are they (Irish) prepared to run the risk of a hostile British tariff against Irish goods?” As to Ireland being prepared to run the risk of a hostile British tariff against Irish goods, Ireland smiles broadly at the idea. It happens that Ireland imports more goods from England than any other country in the world imports from England with the exception of the United States. The loss of the Irish market which would follow her hostile tariff would be a greater economic blow to England than the loss of the combined markets of Russia, Italy, Spain, Austro-Hungary, Japan, Belgium and Portugal, which, all taken together, do not buy as much goods from England as Ireland does. Ireland is England's richest market.

That is not as true to-day as it was at the time it was written, but it is essentially true that the Free State is [3052] one of the richest markets that England has. I shall finish these extracts with another quotation:—

A hundred years ago we fed ourselves on our own wheat and exported thousands of tons to feed the people in other countries. Now we import 344 days' supply of wheat to feed ourselves. In the whole country we only raise enough wheat each year to provide us with twenty-one days' supply. It is by buying Irish manufactures and by manufacturing those goods for which there is a domestic market that the population can be retained and this country can be prevented from degenerating into a cross between a grazing ranch and a workhouse.

As I have said, these things are not new; these extracts are not new to the President or the Vice-President or some others on the Government Front Bench. But it is necessary, I think, and it is useful, judging from the speech we heard to-day from the Vice-President and judging from the policy of the Government since they came into control, that the country should be reminded what were the underlying principles of those, including some of the gentlemen on the Government Benches here, who were active in the Sinn Fein movement itself. They believed in these things and preached them and helped to preach them ten years ago.

What has happened since to change so completely their point of view economically is something they have not explained, something that I cannot understand, but the fact is that they have not made so far as I can see, any sincere effort, to put that policy, so well described by Griffith, into operation. The Minister for Finance did say that they were not against tariffs. We know they have been forced, probably by criticism from this side of the House, to adopt some tariffs, but the method by which they adopt tariffs I think should be more aptly described as a Tariff Defeat Commission than as a Commission to promote the industrial welfare of this country by the imposition of protection by means of tariffs or otherwise. The sum and substance of the speech of [3053] the Minister for Finance is that there is to be no hope whatever for the unemployed, that the 80,000 unemployed, or whatever the figure is, so many of whom are in my constituency, who are begging for work, are to be told that there is no hope. They cannot emigrate, they cannot get sufficient even of home help to keep themselves and their families in food without talking of clothing or shelter, so the prospect before them is a very bad one. They are faced with starvation and an early death. That is the sentence which the speech of the Minister for Finance imposes upon them. He talks of the difficulties of a small country imposing tariffs.

We are a small country from every point of view, small in population, small in area, smaller still as a result of the mismanagement of the gentlemen opposite in having six counties lopped off. Small as the Free State is, it buys from England more than £29,000,000 worth of goods every year. From January to September of this year £29,056,000 worth of goods were bought by the Free State from England. India, with a population of several hundred millions, buys £25,000,000 worth of goods from England. France, with a population of well over 40,000,000, buys £24,000,000 worth. Germany, with a population I think bigger than France, buys £23,500,000 worth. The United States buys £18,000,000 worth from England. It is remarkable that, while the Twenty-Six Counties called the Irish Free State buy £29,000,000 worth, England buys from us £26,000,000 worth. But while England buys from us £26,000,000 worth she buys £35,000,000 worth from Denmark, also a small country, and Denmark buys from Great Britain £6,500,000 worth. Judging by these figures it is not absolutely necessary we should buy everything that England cares to send us here and buy at the price which England can dictate. We could carry out the policy of providing for our people, first of all, all the necessaries of life that we can make with advantage and give employment to the people. If we rely on these figures, on what we see happening under our eyes every day in the year, in so far as the relations between [3054] Great Britain and Denmark are concerned, there is no reason on earth why not alone Great Britain should continue to buy £26,000,000 worth from us, but while, if we improve, as we can improve, the quality of our goods, we should not extend that market and sell as much as Denmark, £35,000,000 worth or a great deal more, on the English market.

Bearing in mind what I have said about Griffith's policy, and the fact that Ministers opposite or certain gentlemen amongst them were advocates of that policy of a self-supporting Ireland, bearing in mind that that was the policy of Republicans, that they have had ten years to put that policy in operation if they wished to do so, if they wished to show that they had faith in the policy which they preached for so long, they could have improved conditions in Ireland. They could have increased tillage and industry and increased the population of the country. What do we find is the fact? We find that since 1923, since they came into power, the population has decreased by a quarter of a million, tillage has decreased by practically the same figure, 244,000 acres, and the number of cattle has reduced by 248,000. The number of pigs has also decreased. The number of sheep has gone up but the number of pigs has decreased to the extent of 59,000. That, in sum and substance, is the result of ten years roughly of Free State policy.

I am quite satisfied to adopt what Deputy Anthony says would be a good thing for us to adopt in this coming election. I would be quite satisfied that the country should judge the Free State Ministry by its economic policy and leave every other question aside, but that will hardly happen, because Ministers are so found of dragging in the civil war. We do not mind how often they drag it in; we are prepared to meet them on that, but if they wish to confine themselves in this coming General Election to their economic policy we will be happy to meet them. For the reasons I have just given it is very unlikely that they will. They will talk of war and rumours of war, shootings and murders. They will try to hide as best they can the shocking [3055] results of their maladministration, financially and economically, in the country. They will try to hide the housing conditions in Dublin, the abominable conditions that are there in greater number than when President Cosgrave took control, the President who, we were led to believe, was the one man who was sincere in his efforts to improve housing conditions, the abominable conditions which he knows are worse now after his administration than they were ten years ago.

There are hundreds of families living in slums and cellar dwellings. Many years ago these same cellar dwellings were outlawed by the then medical officer of health, but under the administration of President Cosgrave, a Dublin man himself, an administrator for a long time in Dublin's municipal affairs who knew the conditions well, these same cellar dwellings have had to be opened again, and people have been obliged to live in them because of the neglect of the President and his Ministers to deal adequately with the awful crime which is at their doors of allowing human beings to be forced to live under the conditions in which they have to live in the City of Dublin. The housing conditions are very bad, and it is largely the result of their economic policy. The two things are interwoven. If a serious sustained effort had been made to carry out the old industrial economic policy of Sinn Fein by these late disciples of Sinn Fein, the housing conditions in Dublin could have been better as well as the unemployment situation. One would advance with the other, but because unemployment and industrial development have been neglected, have not only been neglected but retarded by the Ministry opposite, the housing conditions in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Drogheda and elsewhere are as bad as we know them to-day.

There is to be no hope for the unemployed if we are to accept the Vice-President's word as speaking for the Ministry. They are to remain there and rot in the cellar dwellings and slums of Dublin, to rot and die of rheumatism and the various diseases that improper, bad housing and want of nourishment engender. There is no [3056] hope at all for them, rearing up their families in hunger, misery, hardship and want, dying, as many infants do die, in the City of Dublin. The rate of mortality amongst infants is inordinately high in this great City of Dublin. A great deal that charity can do is being done, but not everything that can be done. The citizens deserve a good deal of credit, but so far as the Government is concerned, with the big resources they have at hand—the resources of a State which can buy £29,000,000 worth of goods from England—the resources of that State should have been put into industrial development long ago, and if that were done the housing and health conditions in Dublin and other urban areas, not to speak of rural areas, would be vastly improved. Instead of that, we have to accept that there is no hope for the unemployed except to get rid of the Ministry opposite. I hope the people will do that very quickly.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Hogan): If, instead of voting £250,000 for the relief of unemployment, we voted £2,500,000, we could have relieved ten times as much unemployment. There is no reason why we should not vote £2,500,000 for the relief of unemployment if we had the money. We could find it if we doubled the income tax and doubled the tax on tea and sugar. That would be one way of finding it; or if we retained the land annuities, that would be another way of finding it. We should have done that, and that would have gone very much further towards dealing with the problem. It would also have the advantage that probably increasing taxation to the tune of £2,500,000 would give more employment than taxing consumers to the same extent. Deputy de Valera gave it as his opinion that if we were suddenly cut off from all intercourse with the rest of the world we could feed and maintain ourselves here. That is also true. Robinson Crusoe proved that. He was cut off from the rest of the world, and he managed to feed, maintain and clothe himself, and he lived very happily. Whatever Robinson Crusoe may have thought of his [3057] position, I absolutely refuse even to consider the problem of living in this country cut off from the rest of the world, listening to Irish constituent assemblies talking about the Oath, about the difference between Document No. 1 and Document No. 2, the limitations of majority rule and all the other questions that interest Deputies opposite. As far as I am concerned, I refuse to consider that position.

Mr. MacEntee: You prefer Buckingham Palace?

Mr. Hogan: I would actually prefer Buckingham Palace, I would much prefer it. As far as I am concerned, living in this country cut off from the rest of the world and listening to the sort of drivel you hear in this place, and which we will be treated to under certain circumstances, would be too much for me. Apart altogether from the elementary nonsense talked by Deputies I have an objection to people being charitable at other's expense. This and every unemployment debate resolves itself into the fact that you have Deputy after Deputy getting up on the benches opposite and explaining at great length, as if he were a patriot, how exactly he would like to spend other people's money and the whole time there is not a blush or the slightest conception that people are making themselves ridiculous and adopting an attitude that would not be adopted in any other country in the world. As far as I am concerned I decline to waste my time teaching elementary economics to Deputy de Valera or telling Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly why we have not got cotton mills which would employ thousands of hands, or why we do not produce sufficient wheat to supply the home market and also to export.

We refuse to take these propositions put forward either by Deputy de Valera or Deputy Lemass seriously. I believe that neither of them knows anything about business. They have been in politics all their lives. They are professional politicians and they will continue to be professional politicians to the end. They mistake that for patriotism. They know nothing about [3058] business; the drivel they talked to-day is futile nonsense and I refuse to take it seriously. I will not enter into a discussion as to tariff reform and free trade. I will say this. I would rather have one preference from England economically than all your tariffs; one preference on one big item in agricultural exports would give more employment and produce more prosperity in this country than all the schemes advocated from the opposite benches put together. I have no fear either that if we succeed in getting any such preference we would thereby cause any injury to our nationalism.

Mr. Aiken: The Minister for Agriculture (Deputy Hogan), of course, is very fond of getting preferences from England. He would like to wash John Bull's dirty shirts for him. I suppose that is what he is going to do now, running with his tail between his legs. All this about taking in each other's washing is bunkum. What is the whole world doing but that? This question of export and import that the Minister for Agriculture is talking about will some time in this world have to be dealt with in the proper manner, and we here will some time have to say that the export and import trade will have to stand on its own feet. We should only buy from abroad what we can pay for by exporting goods. The Minister for Agriculture would like one little preference from his old friend, John Bull. If he cannot get his dirty linen to wash he wants one little preference. I would say if the British gave us ten per cent. on butter it means a matter of £100,000 at the most. If they gave us ten per cent. preference on our cattle it would amount to half a million, or a million at the most. Our agricultural exports have been decreasing. If the President and the Minister for Agriculture had only the manliness to stand up to the British and say: “We in this country buy from you more than any other country in the world and you are taking less from us than you are taking from our competitors,” they would get something from the British. As Deputy O'Kelly pointed out, we buy £29,000,000 worth of British goods and the British buy only [3059] £25,000,000 worth from us. Yet the British are buying £35,000,000 worth from the Danes, and the Danes are only buying £6,000,000 worth from them. There is a case for talking to the British if you want to get them to deal in a fair way with our exports. We are buying five times as much as the Danes and they are buying less from us than from them. This crawling after the British for a little bit of their washing has brought this country to what it is. The gentlemen over there who sneer at Griffith's policy should go over to England and do John Bull's dirty washing. Let them stay there, for God's sake, and leave men here who will stand up for the Irish people against the British, or against any other people who will try to crush them. The Minister for Agriculture has damned impudence to get up in this assembly after climbing into power without ever doing anything except running around pretending he was backing Griffith's policy. He has damned impudence sneering at Griffith's policy.

Mr. MacEntee: He backed it when it became profitable for him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Surely the Deputy ought not to interrupt speakers on his own side.

Mr. Aiken: Deputy Hogan wants to know where we are to get this £2,500,000 which he suggests would relieve unemployment. Where would we find it, except from the foreigner? We have been giving an average of £50,000,000 or £60,000,000 a year unnecessarily to foreigners during the last ten years. Instead of crushing the income-tax payers or others any more we should find relief for unemployment out of the money we are at present giving to foreigners. That is where to find it and that is our policy. If they want a little bit of it immediately, we would find some of it from the large salaries that the Ministers and others are at present filching from the people who are in want of bread. The Minister for Agriculture, at least, should not talk about professional politicians. The one man who made a financial success out of politics without any risk to his [3060] own skin was the Minister for Agriculture.

Deputy Hogan, from Clare, with his usual keenness, saw through the speech of the Minister for Finance. He pointed out that the only thing the Minister for Finance said, and the only hope he held out for the future that the Government would deal with unemployment, was that they were going to watch conditions. I think his exact words were “they were going to watch the economic position carefully.” The Government have been examining the position so carefully for the last few years that they have succeeded in creating unemployment for almost half a million people. They have created unemployment for 300,000 who had to leave Ireland and for the 80,000 who are here at the moment. They are going to examine the question carefully in the future and create employment. We ask them for God's sake to give up examining the position and let some one in who would do a little bit of work. The Minister said that this £250,000 was given a few years ago as a means of temporary relief of distress in the worst period of the year. If each of the workers got his share it would mean £3 per head, or about a week and a half's work at £2 per week. Contrast that treatment of the 80,000 workers of this country who want to work with the treatment given to the Governor-General. They are going to give £250,000 to workers at £2 per week for a week and a half. Since this Government has come into operation, they have given the same amount for the upkeep of one establishment here in this country: that is the Governor-General's establishment. Surely we should have some little sense of proportion in dealing with public affairs. Any honest man looking at the state of the country, and seeing how anxious people are to work, would say that it is a disgrace that a thing like that should go on. It is the same in every other Department of the Government. If the Minister for Agriculture would apply himself a little to cutting down extravagances here instead of running after John Bull's dirty linen he might do something more for the unemployed.

[3061] The whole situation is very serious in this country. This year 17,000 less of our unemployed emigrated than last year. 17,000 young people who are willing to work and who would ordinarily have gone abroad are in this country. It certainly is an insult to this country that the Minister for Finance should say that our people left it owing to a “longing for wider spheres.” It is as great an insult as to say, as President Cosgrave said, that those who emigrated from this country left it to see their friends abroad. The 43 or 45 per cent. of the people who were born in this country and are now abroad left it because it was made impossible for them by the enemies of their people to live here. Certainly from the results of the policy of the Ministry, they must be classed with the enemies of this country because of the result of their policy. Deputy Anthony qualified for Cumann na nGaedheal in the coming election when he palavered the Government and said that we could do nothing here unless someone somewhere else did something else. That is the antithesis of Griffith's policy— that if we were given the means to make our people rich in the material and moral way we should set ourselves to make them rich and happy no matter what happened anywhere else. We can do it. If our foreign trade is to stand on its own feet we can set about giving everyone who is able to work employment. The Lord knows that if we were sensible men we should be glad that there are 80,000 people who are there to do all the work required to be done in this country.

We have plenty of houses requiring to be built. There are plenty of roads requiring to be made, there is reafforestation to be seen to, and there is the proper care of the sick. There is plenty of work for these 80,000 spare hands to do. Why on earth do we not keep at home the money that we are paying foreigners is more than I know. I believe that the people on the Government Benches since they took over the protection of English sovereignty in this country from the British, have imbibed a large proportion of the British mentality. That mentality to-day is something of the same sort as [3062] the mentality of the landlords who allowed our people to die of starvation in great numbers during the Famine years. They have the mentality of the old British Government and the old British representatives in this country who believed that in order that a few people might be well off somebody had got to starve. Under the existing system of economic development there should be at least no excuse for that. We are living in a country now, and any single man can produce more of any single article in a specified time than hundreds of families could use. With the modern equipment we have in this country we could produce enough wealth to enable twenty millions of people to live. Yet with all that possible abundance and produce why should we allow our people to starve? Why should we allow them to be housed in hovels is more than I can understand.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

In my opinion this state of things would not be allowed to go on by men who were living up to real Irish traditions, men who knew their people and were working for a national, political and economic policy in line with the ideals and with the wants of the people. We have plenty of work here to be done. We have 80,000 idle hands. We have plenty of food that would keep these 80,000 hands in good working order to do the work that requires to be done. I hope that if this is the last sitting of this Dáil the people in the country will have the wisdom to kick out the Government who have made such a miserable failure in governing the country. These gentlemen over there have made this failure of the government of the country after having spent over £250,000,000 during the last ten years. Who in the country outside their own immediate friends have benefited from the expenditure of that money? What business man who is not an active friend of the Government is any better off for the expenditure of that money? What farmer, what labourer or what shopkeeper is any better off for that money? Not a single one. We have been all crushed by taxation in order to [3063] keep in luxury a few people in this country, and in order to pay debts abroad which we do not owe, either legally or morally. That is the record of this Government and I hope to goodness the people will have the wisdom in a few weeks' time to give them a good kicking out when they get the opportunity.

Mr. Corry: It is rather pitiable that on the occasion of every adjournment in the Dáil we have to debate the problem of want and unemployment in the country. If there was one thing more pitiable than another to-day it was the excuses that the Minister for Finance put forward for the inaction and total uselessness of the Executive Council during their period of office. We had one excuse after another put up by him. And on top of it all we were told “Oh! if you put on tariffs you will ruin the farmers. That is the last straw.” That is, that the employment of 80,000 people who are at present being fed, housed and clothed by the farmers out of the rates by home assistance and taxation—that the absorbing of these people into employment was going to burden or to wipe out the farming community.

That is the last word we had from the Minister for Finance as to the policy of the Executive Council, which has taken 227,000 acres out of tillage, and he then turned round and told us all about sweated labour in other countries where tariffs are imposed. If there are any people on the face of God's earth who are at the present day in a state of serfdom it is the farming community, the farm labourer, who is working at from 5/- to 10/- a week, or the farmer's son, who is working for nothing at all but his board and lodging. What worse position can a farmer be in who is producing milk at 4d. a gallon; who is producing oats at £4 10s. a ton, barley at £7 10s. a ton? What worse position can these farmers be in than they are at present? Yet out of their sweat this benevolent Government hands over 3¼ millions of money yearly to John Bull. That money is handed over out of the sweat of these unpaid serfs.

[3064] We have heard from the Minister for Finance all the evils that attened on tariffs. He had the impertinence to tell us that he had examined the problem of unemployment closely and the problem of tariffs closely, and that whatever tariffs were necessary were put on by him. Certainly he did. He examined the position closely, and everywhere he found out an industry a tariff on which would bring in some revenue which would not interfere in any way with the amount of foreign goods imported, but would increase the amount of revenue to his Department, he put on a tariff. His sole concern with the tariff was that it was a tariff out of which he would get some revenue to spend on his friends and relations and the friends and relations of the Executive Council, who need not go to see their friends and relations in America in order to get a livelihood.

We are told of the £800,000 a year that we are paying to the foreign millers for milling flour for us. If that money were given to keep labourers here in employment, he said, it would have the effect of robbing the farmers. That is one of the things we heard from the Minister. He told us that the £165,000 a year that we are paying to maltsters in the North of Ireland and in England for malting barley would, if paid to labourers in our own country, rob the farmer. These are the suggestions that we hear from the Minister. If there is anything more ridiculous than those arguments it is the miserable dole that is being served out here always, particularly on the eve of a general election, in order to dupe with a sop the poor unemployed people in the country until the election is over. The people can then starve for another five years. That, however, is a thing that the labourers and the workers of this country are too wise to swallow just now.

If there was anything more pitiable than that it was the statement made here by the most Christi n and Catholic Independent Labour Deputy who has lately grown wings preparatory to his flight. If there is anything more pitiable than that it is to hear his declaration that it was the [3065] bad times in America which caused so large a proportion of unemployment here. The only remedy that the Independent Labour Deputy could find for unemployment in this country is to deport them to America. I am very glad that the situation has arisen when the people of this country, if they cannot find work for the unemployed, will have to feed and clothe them at home. We can no longer deport them. We cannot any longer send out 30,000 boys and girls every year. I am glad we cannot any longer carry out the policy of Lord French, who said at one time that there were 100,000 too many young men in the country, and that they should have been got rid of.

That has been the policy of the British Government here, and it has been faithfully followed by the Executive Council in the last nine years. The Government have taken a very good lesson from their predecessors. If that £250,000, small and all as it is, were devoted towards starting an industry in this country which could be fairly protected, it would give permanent employment to, say, 500 men. It would be money well spent. But this things of throwing £3 to a man around the Christmas time to keep him quiet until the election is over is worth nothing. The unfortunate position that we find is that there are young boys from 21 to 23 years of age who never did an hour's work since they left school and who can get no work to do. What is to become of those when they go on for three or four years more? After three or four years more of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government these young men will become regular drones and will be good for nothing. That is the condition of affairs that we find everywhere.

Down within a mile of my house on last Monday night there was a meeting of the unemployed. It is a purely rural district and there were 93 men present, fathers of families who could not get an hour's work. There are Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies sitting here who saw that as well as I did, yet in the very place where these men could get employment the machinery was being sold as scrap iron to the Jews. [3066] And we have that position whilst our Navy is sent up to Belfast for repairs.

We have the same condition of affairs existing in Youghal, where you have 280 fishermen starving. Why? Because of some immoral relations between Queen Elizabeth and some old lad to whom she gave a charter. That charter is used at present to starve those fishermen out of the country. That is the charter that is preventing fishermen in Youghal fishing even for sprats in the mouth of the Blackwater. And then we are told that this is a National Government. Down in the town of Midleton you have £22,000 a year taken out of the mouths of the workers through the importation of foreign flour and malt. In other words, you have one-tenth of the total relief grant that is now being given taken from the workers in one town. Deputies here will remember that when Rank's were taking over control of the flour milling industry some time ago we were told: “Our Minister for Industry and Commerce and for Japan and China is going to keep a careful eye on the import of foreign flour and see that there is no increased importation, for if there is he will take drastic steps to deal with it.” When 10,000 extra tons of flour were imported this year where was the Minister? What action did he take? What is the Minister getting a salary of £1,700 out of the people's money for? Is it for settling strife between the Chinese and the Japanese, or is it for looking after the unfortunate people here who are being starved out of existence? I find the same condition of affairs in every single town in my constituency. The people of this country are asked to subscribe generously. Does anyone for a moment think that the people of this country are fools enough not to see through the circular that was issued by the old landlord gang the other day?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Now let us get back to the unemployment debate. The Deputy will have to leave the general election outside.

Mr. Corry: I will keep to the unemployment debate. I have no intention [3067] of bringing the general election in here.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy has tried to do so.

Mr. Corry: The election will be dealt with all right. Every fellow will get his due.

Mr. MacEntee: This is a debate on the adjournment.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: It is a debate on unemployment on the adjournment.

Mr. MacEntee: There has been no agreement about it.

Mr. Corry: In the town of Cobh there is a complete dearth of employment and no effort whatever is made to remedy the situation. In Youghal the fishermen are starving because an old charter must hold sway. In Midleton the flour mill workers are starving because the Minister for Industry and Commerce is looking after the affairs of the Chinese and the Japanese, the Geneva Convention and the Imperial Conference. I am sure the £50 that was subscribed by the flour millers of East Cork towards Cumann na nGaedheal at the last general election will not be forthcoming this time. They paid for the £50 all right. That is the condition of affairs that is existing in every town owing to the inaction of the Executive Council. Is there ever to be an end to it? We had the Minister for Grass getting up and telling us all about agriculture. I could carry out the agricultural policy he has carried out for the last nine years, and I would not want any land to do it. The Minister's agricultural policy consists of driving bullocks into a yard and feeding them with foreign meal. The policy of the Minister for Agriculture is to grow grass on 400 acre farms. That is his policy in a nutshell. In my constituency that policy has reduced the number of agricultural labourers from 11,000 to less than 5,000. In five years over 6,000 labourers have been deprived of employment. That is a pretty good record for the Minister for Agriculture. That is the condition of affairs we have existing here.

[3068] The people are living long enough on doles and sops. I think the time has come to place a Government in power that will do something better than giving doles and sops. We have been asked where we will get the money. While £250,000 is being given to the unemployed, £360,000 could be given as a cost-of-living bonus to civil servants who have salaries of over £400 a year. That is the comparison. £350,000 for fellows with £400 a year and £250,000 for the unemployed. That is the policy that has been carried on year after year. This Government can be very generous with other people's money. As this is, I hope, the last occasion on which I will be looking across at the present Executive Council, I do not wish to be too hard upon them. If I come back to this House I hope when I look across at the opposite benches that there will be someone else there besides the gang that has starved the people of this country for the last nine years.

Mr. T. Murphy: I would like to repeat what has been said by other Deputies that it is a great reproach to the House that at very frequent intervals in the course of our work we have to return to this question. I listened with great disappointment to the speech made by the Minister for Finance. When he sat down I felt that this debate was likely to prove as fruitless as many other debates on the same subject. In a recent statement the Minister for Finance laid down the principle that schemes of work to absorb unemployed people should be economical more than productive. I think that was the view he took. When one considers that something like £56,000 or £60,000 has to be provided for outdoor relief one sees that there could be no worse form of uneconomic effort than the payment of that money, or the continuation of a situation that necessitates such payment. The Minister for, Finance asked us to be careful about taking steps that might have the effect of reducing the standard of living. That argument would sound very good if we did not know the actual condition of a great many of the people. Within the past [3069] three or four days I met a man who has been idle for 12 months. He has to maintain a wife and family some way, has to pay rent and to buy boots and clothes. I ask the Minister to suggest how anything that could happen here could reduce the standard of living of a man in that position. A case was reported to me recently where a kind neighbour visited a large family in a certain part of West Cork and found them around the table enjoying the luxury of boiled turnip and salt. I ask the Minister, what hope have people of that kind? What prospect do they see of conditions of that kind being ended? Is it any wonder that people in that unhappy position are apathetic about elections, about parties and about recording their votes? They have reached the point when they begin to despair. They come to the conclusion that no party is going to do anything for them. To intensify the apparently callous disregard that has grown up with regard to unemployment, one has only to turn to certain public statements. I read almost with despair a statement that was made in public during the past week in which it was pointed out that there was no situation that could not have been worse. If that is the message that is to go out to 80,000 people who are unemployed, then these people will reach the stage when they will despair of there being any hope for them. They will begin to feel that they are absolutely disregarded and that we have developed a mentality in this country in which we regard unemployment as a natural condition of things, and that did not demand any remedy.

Ministers tell us that the safety of the country depends on sound finance and the maintenance of high credit. Sound finance and high credit are very necessary, but it seems to me, as it always seemed to Deputies on these benches, that the highest form of credit we can have is the credit of being able to absorb our people in employment and in being able to point to the results in the productive efforts in a contented people. I agree that there must be some relation between conditions [3070] in other countries and the conditions that obtain here, but I could never understand how it is that we must always inevitably take comfort in our own misfortunes in the fact that things are bad elsewhere. It seems to me that we were in a very favourable position as a result of getting control of our own affairs, and that under the new conditions we had a new future before us, and an opportunity of reaching a time when the bulk of the people would have a chance of living in their own country. I do not think this should be a party matter. We have never approached it from that angle. One regrets that all through the nine years we had to deal with this subject we had the same tales of piteous misery recited here year after year. It is a reproach, and somewhat of a degradation, to us to have to open up and to dilate on the miseries of the people. There does not appear to be any other way of fixing the attention of the Ministers on them. I am glad to say that the efforts made in this House during the past eight or nine years have had some effect. Thinking people who have considered the question note with pleasure that outstanding figures in the Church in this country to-day, as well as gifted preachers, have been devoting a great deal of attention to it for some time. They have unanimously termed it an un-Christian and an unnatural situation, and they have been very definite in their declarations that remedies are available for attacking the problem if they are availed of.

In the “Cork Examiner” this morning there is a report of the opening of a bureau in Cork by the Lord Mayor yesterday, where unemployed could register, which is very illuminating as regards conditions in that city. The building was crowded out and the people swarmed along the stairways and corridors and queued up in hundreds in the streets. The Parish Priest, at the opening of a bazaar in aid of the unemployed in Passage yesterday, described conditions in that town as the worst within the memory of the inhabitants. I had conversation with home-assistance officers in my constitutency lately who told me of cases which had been brought to their [3071] notice where not acute poverty but actual starvation existed. Even with conditions of that kind existing in one home, the head of the family stoutly resisted the advances of the home assistance officer to afford assistance to him. He declared that he would not accept home assistance, while he admitted that he was in extreme want. He preferred to endeavour to find some employment if he could rather than accept assistance. That is typical of the outlook of a large number of our people. The home assistance figures, the figures of those registered in the employment exchanges, and the figures available to charitable societies do not at all represent the position so far as a large number of the people are concerned, because they have always hidden their needs and have rather resented inquiries and investigations into their position. I agree with the statement of one Deputy in relation to the point made by the Minister for Finance that we should not take cognisance of the conditions of unemployment prevailing in other countries. Sweated labour and sweated conditions, he said, were responsible. The position of the small farmer in this country and of the agricultural labourer is as bad as it could be. The agricultural labourer, earning 7s., 8s. or 9s. a week in a great many places, with his food from his employer, must be in a desperate condition. I know that such a man cannot maintain his family with any semblance of decency unless there is some means of supplementing his earnings, and that means has to be found in the shape of home assistance occasionally. The condition of the farmer in these places is very little better.

I am not going to go into the question raised by the leader of the Opposition, but I would urge the Minister for Local Government to see whether it would not be possible to develop schemes of employment that would have a very far-reaching effect. It has been admitted time and again in this House that the operations of the Forestry Department have been slow and tedious. Is there no way by which the acquisition of land for forestry purposes could be speeded up? We have [3072] had legislation introduced to speed up land purchase in the form of vesting. We have had legislation for the removal of the legal difficulties which arose in connection with the advance of loans to farmers by the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Is there no short cut by which the huge tracts of land that are little better than waste at present could be taken over speedily and utilised for this purpose? Is there any reason why the policy adopted with regard to our trunk roads could not be applied speedily and effectively to our secondary roads? It seems to me that what is needed is courage and vision. I agree that the Government have been courageous in many matters. One regrets that in this big, dominating question there has not been any forward movement by undertaking big schemes in order to relieve what is a desperate position. I repeat that I entirely associate myself with the suggestion from a certain quarter of the House that this question ought not to be approached in a Party manner. I think that all of us should help in contributing to its solution in a very definite way. I can only repeat an offer made some years ago in this House by the then leader of this Party, that the people for whom we speak are quite anxious to join in any big national effort that would be made to remedy it. It is a job for all of us. This Parliament will stand condemned if it is not done. I hope that before the debate ends some indication will be given that some of the matters I have mentioned will be considered not in twelve months or two years' time, but will be the subject of speedy consideration, and that the obvious remedy which is in the hands of the Government responsible to the people in the country will be speedily and effectively applied.

Mr. Fahy: It was my intention in this debate to refer to a few matters connected with the land problem the solution of which might remedy unemployment, but I cannot allow to pass the remarks made here by the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture referred to professional politicians, and so styled Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass. He said they had always been and [3073] always would be professional politicians. I submit that Deputy de Valera as a professor for teachers with a good record which can be examined in the Government offices did more national work than the Minister for Agriculture in his solicitor's office in Loughrea; while Deputy Lemass, in business as a draper in Dublin, knows more about practical business in this City than the Minister for Agriculture. But if Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass were professional politicians they might have sat on the front bench opposite and Deputy de Valera would have drawn much more than the £17,000 which the Minister for Agriculture has drawn within the last ten years. I also submit that Deputy de Valera took risks for this country which the Minister for Agriculture never did. I make no reproach against the Minister's comrades on the front bench, but when he spoke of professional politicians he might have turned his eyes right or left on his own Front Bench. I am not taunting these men. National service deprived some of them and many others of making a professional career for themselves. It is unworthy of any Minister to fling a taunt like that across the House. It is unworthy of a Minister, but not unworthy of the Minister who did it.

We have had advice from Deputy Anthony: “Let us deal with the economic problems and leave the nationality out of it.” I hope his colleagues on the Labour Benches do not believe that you can divorce the economics of a country from its nationality. We are told here frequently that Denmark is our example. Denmark has progressed because she is intensely national. The Minister for Agriculture speaks of our “wild-cat schemes.” He speaks of getting preference in one large item from England. Why has he not got it? How is it that Denmark can send twice as much to the British market as we can and buy from England only one quarter of what we buy? Still we get no preference.

Dr. Hennessy: They produce it.

Mr. Fahy: Why do we not produce it? They send twice as much as we do, and buy only one quarter as much from [3074] England. Tell us why we do not get a preference. Suppose we did get a preference in one product? What would it mean to this country— £100,000 or £150,000? Will that bring us salvation? We are told that tariffs are no remedy. People trot out the case of America, meaning the United States of America. Do they remember that tariffs built up America until she had half the world's gold, which may possibly choke her now? I do not know, as I am not an authority on the gold standard, but, at any rate, we might risk the danger of some of it if we got it to develop our lands. By means of tariffs and protecting their industries the American population was multiplied by ten while ours went down by half as the result of free trade. There is a point which I should like those who compare the two countries to consider. We are told that we are a small country and that we can do nothing. Look at what happened to others. We have been told by the successor of St. Peter, and reminded of it by the Most Rev. Dr. Mageean and other thinking men, of what has happened the world at present and where the present systems are leading. I submit that a small nation or a small country has a much better chance, especially a virgin country like this, so far as industry is concerned, of doing something to guide the world than many of these big over-industrialised States have. This unemployment is a danger. All thinking men in all countries realise that. There is a social danger. There was unfortunate relief for our unemployment through emigration and also through migration. The migratory labour from Mayo and Donegal is no longer so much needed in England or Scotland. These labourers get very little to do now. As a consequence you will see the labour markets in Athenry, where they stand for hire like slaves, will largely be increased. The same thing applies to Kerry labourers going to Limerick. I would rather see them working here than in England or Scotland for moral and other reasons. You are going to have the problem aggravated. You are going to have 17,000 additional people per annum in this country. How do you propose to meet that? I am not suggesting that we should double this grant at present, as it would have [3075] to come out of taxation. Economic developments are necessary to meet the problem. You have emigration stopped and migration is no longer a solution. These are two serious questions. In reading a report written many years ago on the Dublin housing problem, it was stated that it would be a social danger, a grave danger, to the State if the disease were not remedied. It did not develop into that danger because it is largely the down-and-outs, those who have lost hope, that are in the slums of Dublin; but in the country you are going to have now the farmer with two or three sons who cannot emigrate, who get even very little pocket-money. They are young and vigorous, and if you do not provide employment for them there is danger. The Government knows that. Therein lies a bigger danger, I suggest, than any attack we may have by Communists—a much greater danger, to have hundreds or thousands of active young men with no money and no employment available.

We are told about wild-cat schemes. I read recently that since the war Greece has divided her land so that no farm exceeds 75 acres. Consider the contrast. The Land Commission is very busy. It is doing very important work in connection with vesting under the 1931 Act. It is dividing land, but it is dividing it very slowly. Let us take figures here which I have just abstracted from the Agricultural Statistics for 1928 and the Statistical Abstract of 1931. In Connaught I find that above 5 acres and not exceeding 30 acres per holding there are 67,000 holdings. Of above 100 acres there are 3,100 holdings in Connaught of the Congests. From the other publication I have got figures about acreage. 92,000 holdings with 1,102,000 acres or an average of 12 acres each in Connaught; and of holdings between 100 to 500 acres there are 1,963 with an acreage of 616,200; that is to say, 2,000 holders in Connaught have half as much land as 92,000. That is a problem for the Minister for Agriculture to ponder over. I do not say that it admits of an immediate solution. I do not say that we should get all our land down to a dead level of 30, 40, or 50 [3076] acre farms. For our agricultural policy it may be necessary to have farms of 300, 400, or 500 acres, but I maintain that 2,000 holders in Connaught having more than half as much land as 92,000 holders is a danger and that a goodly proportion of this land must be divided. What is the attitude of the Government on the question? Have they a policy? I cannot go through all the acreages, but I find that in Leinster of holdings above 5 and not over 30 acres there are 33,000, and above 100 acres, 11,000 holdings. How are you going to provide for the agricultural population unless you take steps in that matter? You must divide much of that land. Otherwise unrest is inevitable. Much of the present unrest is due to that. Part of the unrest is due to the fact that there is a section who do not think that Cumann na nGaedheal or even Fianna Fáil is travelling fast enough along the line of unity and full freedom for this country. I have no use for terrorism, but I hope there will be always men, whoever is in office, who will be more advanced than the Government, without using terrorism as a means, and who will endeavour to secure 32 counties of a free Ireland.

On this agricultural problem I submit to the Minister for Agriculture that land division is not a wild-cat scheme, to ask that investigat