Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 13 May 1949

Vol. 115 No. 9

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture (Resumed).

Mr. Commons

Last night I was impressing on the Minister the very great importance of drainage to the farming community, and, particularly, to the constituency I represent, where farms are so small and drainage is so essential. I can assure the Minister that the scheme he has in mind will meet with a good reception in the western counties and will be appreciated by the people as a whole. I was also pointing out that, with the special employment schemes and the new scheme of drainage about to be initiated by county councils, there will be an immense amount of overlapping of these three schemes unless the Departments concerned co-operate with one another. If that is done, these schemes will be much more successful. I have no doubt that the Minister has this in mind, and I am convinced that he will move along the right lines when this scheme of his comes to be put into operation.

Another matter I should like to impress upon the Minister is the enormous losses sustained by our farmers each year through young calves contracting disease and dying when they are from nine months to one year old. A veritable plague seems to have stricken the calf population of the country for a long time past. At the present price of calves, that means an immense loss to the farmers and to the country. For that reason, I suggest to the Minister that, if at all possible, he should institute a free veterinary service so that when calves contract disease or fail to thrive the farmers would have a veterinary surgeon to call on immediately for the treatment of the calves so as to put a stop to these immense losses. That would be of great benefit both to the agricultural community and to the country as a whole, because if one in ten or one in 20 of the calves die from some disease that means an immense loss in live stock every year over the Twenty-Six Counties. In the west, we blame the wet condition of the land for the prevalence of disease amongst young calves and the farming community have to take very great care in order to save their young stock. Despite their best efforts however, the losses are still pretty heavy, much more heavy than these people can afford. The loss of one or two calves out of 20 may not mean very much to a large farmer, but the loss of one out of three or four calves, which is all a small farmer can rear, is a very serious matter for him. I do not know what the intentions of the Minister are in regard to this matter, but if he could make a free veterinary service available for the treatment of younger stock he would be striking at the roots of disease and preventing great losses to our live-stock producers.

The people, of course, have to be taught to co-operate in regard to this matter. Unfortunately, the average farmer seems to be suspicious of any type of inspector or veterinary surgeon and prefers to rely on old methods he has learned and to treat his animals himself, methods which in many cases are not very successful. If there were a free veterinary service and the farmer called in a veterinary surgeon to treat his animals, it would pay a 100 per cent. dividend. If the Minister decides to establish this service, it would be one of the best that could possibly be introduced.

The next matter I want to refer to is the different ideas that people have with regard to the type of cattle most essential for the country. Unless we have a milk strain of cattle, of course we will not have butter for ourselves or for export. I intend, however, to deal only with the type of cattle suitable for my constituency and to allow those who are authorities on the different types of dairy herds and the 500-, 600- and 700-gallon cows to speak for themselves. In my part of the country beef cattle are much more important than dairy cattle. We rear and send on to the market what we call forward stores and in producing these we rely on the Aberdeen Angus and the Hereford or Hereford Crossbreeds.

We have not received the amount of encouragement that we should like from the Department of Agriculture. The Department has at all times given more premiums to the committees of agriculture for the dairy shorthorn or the beef shorthorn than they have for either the Hereford or the Aberdeen Angus. That may be all right in milk producing areas but, in the areas which concentrate mostly on the production of store cattle for which there is a ready market, I think the Minister would be wise if he gave to the committees of agriculture more premiums for those two breeds of cattle which are so essential for beef purposes, i.e. Aberdeen Angus and Hereford. The Minister told the committee of agriculture in County Mayo that this is a free country and that he had no objection to anybody purchasing any of those bulls who wished to do so. Acting on this advice several farmers who could not get premiums from the committee of agriculture went to the bull show last spring in Ballsbridge and failed entirely to purchase a bull of any description there. The prices were so high that the average small farmer could not afford to put £100 or £120 to the purchase of any of those cattle. I am only making a suggestion as a person who has a thorough knowledge of the cattle-rearing system which has been in existence for 300 years in my locality and which will continue because the efforts to establish creameries in our county about 14 or 15 years ago met with entire failure and financial loss both to the Government and to the farmers as a whole.

I suggest that the Minister should consider increasing the premiums in number and amount of money in the areas which prefer to produce beef cattle so that small farmers, in particular, would be able to purchase the necessary type of bull. I am one of those who, like the Minister, can never have any sympathy for the mongrel breed of cattle. If we do not get the pure stock we are not going to produce the pure article. In giving this concession he would be giving to the County Mayo something we have been crying out for and will accept with a great deal of thanks.

The next thing the Minister is very interested in is mechanised farming. We hear complaints and talk for and against mechanised farming. As an individual who has lived all my life on a very small holding of land—so small indeed that it cannot be called a farm at all—I still believe that mechanised farming can be advanced a great deal by the introduction of the smaller type of tractor and the other instruments which are labour-saving and would take the drudgery and the heavy work out of the farmer's life, such as the ordinary reaper and binder and the haymaking machinery which are now on the market. Those can be used on the smallest farm. It is no use saying that a farmer would need a five, six or ten acre field to use a reaper and binder. I saw them brought in last year to the smallest field of an acre or even half an acre. I have seen it cut down work to a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes when the same work would be a day's hard labour for the poor farmer with all the help he would have. The tractor is most valuable because the speed at which work can be done by the smaller type is in itself progress, and a source of greater agricultural production.

However, with all these devices which will tend to take the hard work and the drudgery out of the farmer's life we again find a big fault. The people who would have to purchase them cannot afford to do so. Very few people who live on a holding of a valuation of less than £20 can afford to buy a tractor. The prices are so high at the present moment that it is impossible for those people to put their money, their life earnings, into the buying of such an article. They would like to do so and, indeed, they are anxious to do so. The age of mechanisation will push out the old methods, whether the people of this country like it or not. Even those who are most hostile and who have tried in every way to discourage mechanised farming must now admit that they are definitely behind the times if they try to stand in the path of progress and pretend that horses can carry out as much work as any of those machines. At all times and on all lands the horse will have its place. There is work on the farm which can be done by tractors and mechanised force, but there is also work which can and must be done by the ordinary humble horse. Each of those, having its own place on the farm, can help in its own way to bring production up to what the Minister and people want. I would, however, point out to the Minister that it would be useful if some scheme could be devised whereby long-term loans or credit facilities of some kind could be given to farmers who are anxious to purchase machinery. It would repay itself by the greater production that would be achieved. Otherwise, people must go on wishing that they had this or that but cannot afford to buy it. Eventually they will turn round and say: "Why does the Department of Agriculture not help us? We have millions to spend on many things. Why can we not have millions to help us out by loans for the purchase of machinery"?

I would never advocate giving free grants of any description to farmers for the purchase of machinery. A loan, however, will repay itself. What better can any Government do than give loans at a low rate of interest to the agricultural community in order to help these people to produce more for export and contribute to the nation's wealth? This matter has been treated rather too lightly and the financial facilities offered by the Agricultural Credit Corporation are not sufficient. I had hoped that the Minister, in his sincere efforts to bring mechanised farming to the smallest farmer, would have introduced some loan scheme giving better terms and concessions to the people, particularly the small type of farmer of, say, a £20 valuation, in order to purchase these machines. I had expected that that would have come in this year. I know the Minister is asked to do almost the impossible. I know that his interest in those people is, perhaps, more than my own because he must have practically the same ideas living, as he did, most of his life on the borders of the constituency which I represent. In his own business 19 out of 20 people who come into his place at Ballaghaderreen are of the smaller valuation type of farmer. His knowledge of these people must give him an understanding of exactly what they want. I hope he will take into consideration what I have spoken about and give those people the financial help they need in this matter.

One of the faults we have to find with the Minister is the fact that the subsidies are to be taken off fertilisers. It is no use saying the price of fertilisers is something which the ordinary farmer can touch. The price of fertilisers at the present time is entirely too high. Where is the man who can purchase a ton or two tons of fertilisers or artificial manure of any description at the price it is now?

We admit that the people are purchasing more of them than ever before. They have adopted the suggestion to buy superphosphates and to mix them with ammonia on their own premises. We have been carrying out that system in Mayo for years. In fact, in my own locality I have never seen any other mixture used. It has given us the finest results. Despite all that, I would say that the price of these manures is too high. I am not a great believer in subsidising the farmer in everything. The general opinion is that the price of fertilisers has jumped a little too much this year to leave the farmers satisfied. I will accept, as I have accepted time and again, the Minister's explanation of the cause of that. While I agree that the people who mix their own artificial manures can have them at a cheaper rate, have them of as good a quality as the imported fertilisers and get as good results, I still maintain that artificial manures should be available at a cheaper rate for farmers, both big and small. If that were done, you would be giving something to the farmers which was going to go back into the land, something that would help to increase productivity. Any money spent that way can never be said to be wasted.

I have always maintained that money spent, for example, on the roads or on other non-productive works can never be of any real help to the country. Why then should not fertilisers be made available at the lowest possible price to those who are willing and anxious to use them? The cheaper they are the more of them that will be used, especially on land that is barren and infertile and that has not had a dressing of fertiliser for possibly 40 or 50 years. If the fertilisers were made available at a cheaper rate, poor land of that kind would get a substantial dressing of it. Any farmer who has an interest in his land would do that. It can be said, I think, of most farmers that they have a sort of pride in being able to produce the maximum amount from any crop they put into their land.

The Minister has had to bear a lot of abuse because, it is said, he is entirely a grass farmer. He has been assailed on that from all sides. He has had to listen to a barrage of talk to the effect that his one ambition is to produce beef for the British market. That is entirely untrue. Time and again the Minister has declared that his policy is one of mixed farming and that the safest market any man can have for what he produces on his land is the one which will take what he can walk off his farm. A scheme such as that is being put into operation by the present Minister. Therefore, it cannot be said of him that he is entirely in favour of grass farming and of the raising of beef for the British market only. We know that you must have feeding for cattle. In order to have it during the winter you must have tillage. The last war taught the people of this country better than any Department of Agriculture or any Minister could teach them that, it is not only essential, but in many cases better for farmers to produce on their own land the feeding they require for their live stock than to depend on imported feeding stuffs. We realise, of course, that we must import maize meal for the production of pigs, but for the feeding of live stock during the winter, and for the feeding of cattle which are sold in the Spring as forward stores, the produce from the farmer's own land is equally as good, and in many cases better than the imported feeding stuffs, and, what is more important, can be made available at a much cheaper price.

The Minister has said, and it is true, that the market which the farmer creates for the consumption of what he produces on his own land will, in the long run, be of more benefit to him than any other method of farming. Cattle pay better during the months from November to March and April than at any other period of the year. Everyone realises the truth of that, especially those of us who are engaged in the production of forward store cattle. We find that, when we feed the cattle during these months from the produce of our own land, they leave us more money than at any other time of the year. It is important also to remember that under that system the farmer makes available a great amount of farm-yard manure which goes back again to the land and which is far superior to any artificial manure that can be produced. There is nothing that will help more to restore the fertility of the soil of the country than the use of plenty of farm-yard manure.

I can assure the Minister that, in my constituency, we look with very great satisfaction on the efforts that he has made since he became Minister for Agriculture. We realise, of course, that things have been getting a little bit easier in the world, but we also realise that unless encouragement was given, as it has been given, by the Department of Agriculture and by the present Minister, that the little extra production which is being secured at the present time could not possibly be obtained. Therefore, I think the Minister should be given the chance and the opportunity to carry on in the way that he has been doing. He has shown that he is giving close personal attention to the work that he has undertaken. I want to assure him that, even though we have chalked up a few black marks against him as regards the fall in the price of eggs and the taking away of the subsidy on fertilisers, nevertheless, the good things that have happened since he became Minister and the efforts that he is making in his Department, outweigh by far some little failures which may be beyond his control.

Despite the drop in the price of eggs, poultry and egg production are on the increase. Of course, we can never convince the people that 2/6 is as good a price as 3/- a dozen for eggs, but we can convince them that the long-term policy of holding the price at 2/6 for a greater number of years is a sound and a good one. It is far better for the people to have a guarantee of 2/6 a dozen for their eggs for two years longer than to get 3/- a dozen for them for three or six months at most. We know that the poultry producers will accept the Minister's statement that the 3/- a dozen. or the 5/- a score, would have ceased towards the end of this year, when eggs would have dropped in price by 1/6 or 2/- a dozen. The Minister, by extending the period for two years, has ensured that the poultry keepers will have a guaranteed price of 2/6 for the next two years. That, in the long run, will prove more beneficial to them than 3/- a dozen for a few months. When that has been explained to the people they can have no quarrel and no grievance with the Minister. They would, of course, like to get more for their eggs if they possibly could. If the Minister succeeds in keeping this guaranteed price for the producers for the next two years, I can assure him that he will have the whole-hearted support of the Party that I represent and of the farming community as a whole.

The efforts of the Minister to lift the farmers and the agricultural workers to a place in the sun in this nation is something that no previous Government that we have had since this State was established 27 years ago attempted to do. We owe a debt of gratitude to the present Minister for Agriculture for attempting that. If we can produce for him the commodities which he requires for the export markets which are ready to take them, we will be doing our duty, and he will be doing his if he continues with the good work that he has been doing since he became Minister.

Mr. Lahiffe

Those of us who listened to the Minister for Agriculture last year when he was introducing his Estimate, and who listened to him again yesterday, must, indeed, have wondered what has happened when they found that he was so mild this year in his introductory speech.

Mr. Dillon

I was wondering what was making Deputies over there so mild. We have all got mild.

Mr. Lahiffe

Perhaps his contact with agricultural committees and other organisations throughout the country has at last convinced him that the Fianna Fáil agricultural policy was not as bad as he would like people to believe, or perhaps he has taken the hint from his colleague, Deputy P.D. Lehane, not to say so much and not to say it so loudly.

Last year the Minister began his introductory speech on the Estimate with a terrific attack on the Fianna Fáil agricultural policy, and last evening he said something about the farmers being flogged by inspectors over a period of some 15 years. What type of farmer had inspectors coming in on his land during the past decade? Was it the farmer who always did his duty by the community, or was it the lazy farmer, as he describes him, who never did and never will do anything for the benefit of the community unless he is compelled to? In my constituency there are mostly small farmers who have lived by tillage and who will, despite the Minister's criticism of the tillage policy, have a large percentage of their land under tillage. No matter what the Minister or any other member of the Government may say, he cannot convince those people that by a tillage policy you will, as the Minister described it, rob the soil of its fertility.

In his speech last year the Minister used these words:—

"The fertility of the land in this country has reached a degree of degradation lower than has been known for 100 years past."

Then he referred to the condition known as aphosphorosis. I would like to know from the Minister whether any of the patches in the chart which he was good enough to produce last evening, the patches suffering from aphosphorosis, were ever tilled, or if it is possible to till any of those patches. I have studied that chart and I notice that part of my constituency which is supposed to suffer from aphosphorosis is land that is to a large extent affected by flooding and water-logging. The portion of my constituency which is most affected is on the border of the Shannon and there are small patches on top of a barren mountain. However they got up to test it, I do not know. I would be prepared to challenge the Minister to produce evidence that any of this land suffering from this disease has ever been under the plough. The Minister not so long ago said that the only effective way to restore fertility to the land is by tillage.

Mr. Dillon

You cannot have it both ways; you cannot denounce me for attacking tillage and denounce me for recommending this. Make your mind up.

Mr. Lahiffe

I would like the Minister to be consistent.

Mr. Dillon

Make up your mind which way you are going to attack me, and stick to it.

Mr. Lahiffe

Despite what the Minister says, and despite his antagonism towards tillage, the only way to restore fertility to the soil is by a proper system of tillage rotation. If farmers will produce three or four crops of wheat on the one soil—and there are cases where farmers have done it—with no root crop in between, that will destroy the fertility of the land. There are not many farmers who will do that, and the farmers who did it in the emergency years are not the poor farmers of the West of Ireland.

In his speech yesterday the Minister made no reference to beet or wheat, we noticed. I would like him to make some pronouncement about the production of beet for sugar for the nation. Perhaps he will be good enough to let us know what he thinks about it. With regard to wheat, the Minister said on various occasions that the production of it was all a cod, a rotten fraud and a waste of good land. This year he tells us that the only cash crop a farmer can grow now is wheat. He has turned the table completely upon himself when he says that the only cash crop the farmer can grow now is the crop which he told us at one time was only a cod, a rotten fraud and a waste of good land. I would like the Minister to be consistent on this as well as other matters.

Mr. Blowick

Is he not consistent?

Mr. Lahiffe

The Minister for Lands is not either. Coming back to the flogging of the farmers by inspectors, only last year the Minister for Agriculture said that unless there is a war there will be no compulsory tillage in Ireland in 1949, nor ever again if he can help it. He follows that up by saying:—

"But if there is a war farmers can look out. When I start compelling people it will be a very detailed and drastic procedure, because you will grow what you are told and grow it right."

Is not that a threat of compulsion if there is a war? Will the Minister deny that for the last decade there was not a major emergency confronting the nation?

Last year he said that he hoped to revolutionise agriculture by providing modern housing and implements. Perhaps he will tell us why he has not made any attempt to provide modern housing? What has he done, or what does he propose to do, to provide modern implements? I should like him to tell us when he proposes to accept applications for houses under the housing scheme. He promised to introduce that scheme on 1st April, but nothing has been done. He should now make a statement on his policy in that regard.

There is one matter that is causing a considerable amount of anxiety and uneasiness all over the country. I refer to the price of eggs. We have heard a good deal already in this debate about the reduction from 3/- to 2/6. The Minister said the price was guaranteed until the 1st January, 1951. I wonder is the Minister absolutely correct in that. On the ten minutes past ten news on Radio Eireann on the 14th March, 1949, it was announced that "Mr. Dillon at Lifford to-day stated that the price of eggs to the producer till January, 1951, will be 2/6 per dozen"—a reduction of 6d. Now, the following morning on the B.B.C., at 8 o'clock, it was announced that the Eire Minister for Agriculture was going to give eggs to Britain at 2/6 per dozen until the end of 1951. Is the Minister for Agriculture or the B.B.C. correct? If the B.B.C. are not correct, then the Minister should correct them. These contradictory announcements cause a good deal of anxiety to the egg producers.

With regard to milk, last year, for the first time, the month of April was put into the summer period. Every farmer knows that the month of April is the hungriest month in the year. Putting that month into the summer period in regard to price was a very foolish piece of work, indeed.

The Minister went to a lot of pains yesterday evening to tell the House and the farmer how to destroy praiseach in corn, and he conveyed to the House that a new weed-killer would be introduced. It is just as well to let the Minister know that the weed-killer "Agrazone" has been widely used in the West of Ireland, not only for the destruction of praiseach in corn, but also for the extermination of thistles, nettles, docks and so forth. I think he mentioned something about 2 per cent. I do not think he is correct in that. I think 1 per cent. will do the job quite satisfactorily.

The Minister referred to veterinary services. Am I correct in assuming that these services will only apply in the case of those who produce milk for sale and that they will not apply to the farmers in general? Last year I advocated veterinary services for all the farmers. I am glad that the Minister has made a beginning now, but I would ask him to make those services of general application so that the small farmer might have the benefit of them. Small farmers are somewhat reluctant to send for a veterinary surgeon if a beast is sick because the fees are fairly high and they do not want to incur more expense. I compliment the Minister on the start he has made in this direction.

I want to deal now with the 1947 Poultry Act in relation to poultry supply farms. Last year the Minister told us that there would be mobile units to test the poultry stock against disease, especially B.W.D. The county committees were told not to go ahead last year with blood testing, because the mobile units would be on the road practically immediately. What happened? Up to the beginning of the laying season, which would be almost into the months of October and November, mobile units had not appeared. The Minister then sent word to the county committees to go ahead with the testing. Now, the county committees had been held up during the months in which they could have carried out the work and they were then faced with the colossal task of doing all the work when the laying season had actually started. Everybody knows that when you blood test poultry at the beginning of the laying season you curtail the laying for some weeks. In a good many poultry farms during the year there were reactors to B.W.D. That meant that the entire flock had to be subsequently retested. Every time you test you retard the laying capacity of the hens. That is one point that the Minister should consider this year. If he is not prepared to send out the mobile units he should notify the county committees in time for them to go ahead with the work. There was quite an upheaval in my constituency in this matter. Our county instructors were working 24 hours in the day in an effort to overtake the work. That certainly was not fair to them.

I would ask the Minister to expedite the report on blood testing. Everybody knows that where you have a contagious disease in a flock the longer you leave the carrier of that disease in the flock the greater the danger is of spreading the disease. That danger could be eliminated by the mobile units. With regard to the reports of post-mortem examinations on fowl, last year we experienced considerable delay in getting such reports. If there is disease in a flock and the report is delayed the danger of spreading the disease is greatly aggravated. In the latter part of the year the reports were speeded up and there was a considerable improvement. This matter should get the Minister's immediate attention in order to ensure that there will be no delay in the reporting of such tests in the future.

There is another matter which is causing a good deal of uneasiness amongst the supply farms. All over the country at the beginning of the laying season trucks were sent out all right to the supply farms. Early in April, however, the supply from these farms was curtailed. We do not know the reason for that. Some hatcheries went so far as to accept only one egg per bird per week. Nobody could say that the supply farms have got fair treatment from the hatcheries. Perhaps the Minister would look into this matter to see if he can remedy it. Now that he is acquainted with the facts I am sure he will do all in his power to make the position satisfactory. Anyway, that is a matter that should not escape his attention.

Mr. Blowick

What is the case the Deputy is making?

Mr. Lahiffe

The hatcheries have refused to accept eggs from certain farms in spite of contracts to accept all the eggs these farms could supply. It happened from early April in some cases that they have accepted only one egg per bird per week. There is another matter that might have the Minister's attention, namely, that when you have, as you are bound to have occasionally, an outbreak of contagious disease on a farm, the hatcheries, after supplying chicks to their customers, will get a report that the chicks are dying. A report is then made to the Department and a test is carried out on the farm. The hatcheries may be able to trace the source of infection to one farm. I know that in some instances they can trace it as far as five or six farms. Generally, the net result of the investigation is that the eggs from five or six farms are taken out of the incubators in the hatcheries, but even when the result of the blood test shows that four or five of these farms are free from disease these farms must suffer with the farm that is found to be affected.

I wonder if something could be done to trace the source of infection in such a way that the one farm affected only would be made the subject of these precautionary measures. It is not fair that four or five farms should be victimised because there is an outbreak of disease on one farm. Further, during the year I knew of a case where the owners of a supplying farm have been notified by the hatcheries not to send any more eggs. They do not know the reason for that further than that the hatchery has been notified by the Department not to take eggs from this farm. I think it is entirely wrong that it should be left to the people on the farm themselves to find out why the eggs were not accepted. I think the onus in this matter should rest entirely on the Department and it should not waste one moment in trying to discover where disease really existed. I know myself that the disease of B.W.D. is prevalent all over the country and, like foot-and-mouth disease, if it is not wiped out, at the beginning, it will cause a good deal of worry and expense to the farmers concerned.

I shall conclude by again asking the Minister to allay the anxiety that exists throughout the country in regard to the guaranteed prices for eggs until 1951. If the guarantee exists, well and good, but the people should be told about it and told in time, because they have been fooled long enough.

Mr. Blowick

Yes, by Fianna Fáil Deputies who are going about trying to stir up unrest.

Mr. Lahiffe

What was the result of the farmer's vote during the election? All the farming constituencies gave a majority to Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Blowick

The farmers will tell you what they think the next time.

Mr. Browne

Having listened to the last speaker, I wonder has he studied the returns or the figures which reveal a big increase in exports and a big increase in the volume of agricultural produce during the past 12 or 18 months? Has he studied the figures from the 1st January last year to the 1st January of this year to the 1st May of this year? If he has examined these figures, I think he will have to agree that the Minister's policy since he took over charge of the Department has been thoroughly justified, and that he is not called upon in any way to defend that policy in this Estimate.

Mr. Lahiffe

Did the Minister not promise the day-old chicks would lay within three weeks?

Mr. Browne

The Deputy had his opportunity while he was speaking to make his points, and I did not interrupt him. The Minister last year gave us a clear exposition of his policy and told us how he was going to operate that policy, and manage the Department for that year. That policy has worked successfully, as everybody knows, throughout the year and no better proof of its success could be afforded than the document which the Deputy got here this morning. We have heard a good deal in the course of this debate about the production and price of eggs. Is the Deputy aware that, during the 1914-18 war, eggs reached a price of 60/- per long hundred, or 6d. per egg, and that after the war, due to the fact that no provision was made for a long-term policy, the price of eggs speedily fell until it reached a figure as low as 9d. per dozen. That was due to the fact that the whole question of providing a proper outlet for production was overlooked and neglected. The deal that the present Minister has made with the British authorities provides a guarantee to the farmer and the farmer's wife of stable prices for a long period ahead. In my opinion, it is one of the finest bargains any Minister ever made so far as this country is concerned. That deal guarantees to the farmer's wife and the poultry keeper that every egg produced during the full laying period of the chick now a day old, which may be a year or two years, can be marketed at a satisfactory price. In that way, the woman now buying day-old chicks knows exactly what she is going to get for the eggs produced by that chick during her laying life. That guaranteed price is 2½d per egg to the producer.

Mr. Lahiffe

I hope they will get it.

Mr. Browne

You have got a guaranteed price until 1951. If you do not already know it, it was your duty to find out how long this price was going to last. I come from an area where 75 per cent. of the farmers depend for their livelihood largely on egg production. So far as I was concerned, I was very careful to take steps to ascertain how long the new price would operate. Surely the Deputy is aware that the net price to the producer is 2½d. for every egg placed with the wholesaler or retailer and that that price is guaranteed to last over a certain period?

We have heard a lot about the question of pig production. Surely the Minister may justifiably claim that the steps which he has taken to increase pig production during the year have borne fruit and that the legislation which he has put in operation for a part of the year has been very successful. Has it not resulted in a big increase in pig production? The production of pigs in this country had more or less disappeared. It was overlooked and neglected, but the present Minister has brought it back. Anybody who looks up the report of this paper will find that the number of pigs for the period of 17 weeks to the 3rd of May, 1947, was 84,000 and in the same period of 17 weeks in 1948, 64,000. It declined. But in that period this year the number was 214,785. That goes to show that the Minister has put into effect his intentions regarding the pig industry.

To go back to the question of the supplies available to the shops, everybody knows that it was a novelty, a luxury to get a bit of bacon in any shop. Now we are getting away from that and bacon has come into the shops and on to the counter. Bacon, as well as eggs, is getting plentiful. People say that the cost of living is not going down and that no effort is being made to bring it down, but the one way to bring it down is to put the stuff on the shelves. If you put bacon, eggs and every other article people require to keep their households going on the counter the competition will bring down the prices. It is only by producing more and putting more in the shops that you can bring down the cost of living through competition amongst the various business people. You are not going to get a reduction in the cost of living if people have to keep their quotas hidden in order to supply their own registered customers.

Mr. Lahiffe

Would it be wiser, in order to bring down the cost of living, to tell people not to purchase the articles as has been done?

Mr. Browne

Would you be one of those people?

Mr. Sweetman

That was your policy.

Mr. Browne

You could not tell farmers not to buy bacon, tea, sugar or flour. These are essentials and they have to buy them.

Mr. Lahiffe

Your Minister did it.

Mr. Browne

Nonsense.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Browne is in possession.

Mr. Browne

We hear a lot about the price of manure but we have not heard anything about the price of manure in 1947, 1946 or 1945.

Mr. Blowick

No, because the old Government did not bother their heads about getting any to have a price.

Mr. Browne

Every farmer at that time had to beg a few bags of manure and he was lucky if he got half what he required. Compare the prices this year with the prices last year, the price of mixed superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia with what it was in 1946 when you had to pay £6 for a bag of sulphate of ammonia to mix with five or six bags of other manure. Now it is about 36/- and can be mixed with superphosphate. That mixture costs 20 per cent. less this year in view of the lower value of sulphate of ammonia. The farmer can get that from any shop now while last year he could only get it from the very select few and had to pay £5 or £6 a bag for it.

Mr. Blowick

£10.

Mr. Browne

I suppose there were cases where it cost £10. This year the farmer can go to any merchant and buy as much sulphate of ammonia as he likes for 37/- or 39/- a bag and make up his own mixture so that the mixture is far cheaper than the mixture he would make in 1946.

To come back to the point that has been raised about the price of potatoes and oats, that price will, in my opinion, depend on the price of Indian meal. You cannot have cheap Indian meal and dear oats. That is the case wherever you go, certainly if you go into Connacht. If I propose at a meeting of the county committee of agriculture that we should reduce the imports of Indian meal to a half for the purpose of increasing the market value of oats I know the answer I would get from the people of my constituency. Indian meal is necessary if you want to increase production of eggs, bacon or beef. It is the normal pig food that people will buy. No Minister can give a guarantee as far as the export price of oats is concerned, and the same applies to potatoes. The export value depends on world conditions. Everybody knows that, and if world conditions are such that you have not an export market for oats, the only alternative is to make use of the oats at home. The Minister, however, can give the farmer a guaranteed market at home for everything he can raise on the land. All he has to do is to go into pig production or egg production or feed his cattle better than they were fed in the past. He has a guaranteed market beside his own door and that cannot be disputed. No egg that can be offered to a man on the roadside will be refused. They are looking for them and racing for them. There is not a pig that can be brought into the market or the factory that is not canvassed for—people are trying to get them. There is not an animal that is brought into a fair but there is a buyer for it. There is a guaranteed market for barley and oats at home but the price, as far as export is concerned, depends on world conditions and no Minister could give a guarantee. You can make use of these crops at home and I hear no complaint from the farmers of my district. The only thing they are afraid of is whether the price will continue and for how long it will continue. I do not think that anybody has reason to believe that it will not continue for a big number of years. In my opinion, the price of eggs and bacon and the market for them will last for a number of years.

The farmer complains about the price of oats. I advise the farmer who has surplus oats to get into fowl and pigs and feed more to his cattle. The farmer who grows oats, barley and potatoes to sell in bulk is not the class of farmer who is making proper use of his land. The farmer who does that, who grows oats, potatoes and catch crops, and wheat to send to mills, and uses those things on his own land to feed to his own stock, is making the best use of his land. In my district and in my constituency, many of the farmers with £4 to £5 valuation can rear big families on this method of farming and they are making a fairly good living and working their land properly. They are not doing it by threshing oats and then looking for a market for it. The market is there—let them put in a few extra breeding sows and go in for pig production, let them get day-old chicks and also feed more to the cattle, in that way disposing of every bit of stuff grown on the land.

We can see the proof of that. I am told that this year many farmers used a lot of oats for feeding young cattle. We have no complaint this year of young cattle dying and there is nothing wrong in the way of fluke. If the cattle were fed with oats in previous years, we would not have had complaints of big numbers dying from fluke and other diseases.

The Minister referred to the advantages to be gained from keeping ducks. There is a case to be made for a market for duck eggs. There is a general feeling of unrest regarding the duck egg trade, as the prices are irregular. There is only the home market and when they get plentiful the price falls to a low level and it is not a paying proposition. At other times they get scarce and the prices go up. I am led to believe that a market could be got for duck eggs if the situation were improved. It is an egg very cheap to produce, ducks are easy to feed and there is little danger of anything going wrong. I wonder if the Minister could make a market for duck eggs. It might be in liquid form, as there are big confectionery sales here and in Britain and Scotland. I believe if this part of the poultry industry were handled properly the farmers would get a better return from keeping ducks.

I congratulate the Minister on the way he has handled his Department in the last 12 months. It is the most important Department. When you join it with that of the Minister for Lands, you have practically every section of the people concerned. Directly or indirectly, they come from the land and every section has some contact with raising some class of food from the land, from the biggest farmer to the smallest crop owner in the city. I congratulate him on the success he has made of his Department in the year 1948-49.

Mrs. Rice

I could not let this opportunity pass, when I listened to Deputy Browne from Mayo making such extraordinary statements. Fortunately or unfortunately, I come from Mayo and I know it almost as well as he does. I visit it annually and I am sorry to say that the land is in no more production than when I was a child. The rocks are still there and the little barren patches are still there. The people are trying their damnedest to eke out an existence. Deputy Browne tells us that farmers with £6 to £7 valuation can rear cattle and stock out of the produce of those lands. That is an extraordinary statement. People have found it very hard, in my day and even down to this present time, to make a livelihood out of the land in Mayo. There are no ranches available there. The people are industrious as far as they can. He says the only thing to do is to produce crops and feed them to stock. They have not even the byres or places to keep stock.

In Mayo they live on very small holdings. Through the help of our two native Governments, they have improved those holdings and no longer the strangers refer to the homes in Mayo as like the kraals of the South African natives. The trail of the Sassenach has left Mayo in that regard. Under the two native Governments they continue in their humble and well-kept holdings, but they still have not got the land to feed stock as Deputy Browne says. They are able to keep families with the help of children who have gone abroad. In my own day, they waited for those cheques from the children abroad to pay the rent, rates and taxes, and those conditions still exist to-day.

There are no industries in Mayo to keep the people in the country. They have been going abroad to earn their livelihood all down the years. All during my lifetime, when the State occasions and rent days came along, they anxiously awaited the letters from their children. They have got prosperous by their children abroad. To give the impression that the people of Mayo rear stocks or produce off their land is, to my mind, entirely untrue. In West Mayo the land is just as barren as ever it was. Along the west coast they used to have an industry called kelp burning, by which they made some sort of income, but this has been done away with now. The London company's boat used to come in to the west of Ireland and load the kelp from the shores, but that has been done away with. The only thing they make money at now is the collection of sea rods. That has improved their circumstances, but only for the children abroad they would be just as poor as in the years gone by. The land is not there. They work hard with spade and shovel and could not have mechanised farming or use modern machines as some of their fields are not the breadth of a machine. Therefore, all that rubbish as to how they should get rid of the produce is hard to believe.

There are some questions about farmers of County Monaghan I would like to put to the Minister for. Agriculture. As he knows, Monaghan County has small farmers and is mainly a tillage county. They are deeply concerned about the statement he made, that he intends to do away with the conacre system under which they produced crops. They had to do it in that way as it was their only means of living. They are most industrious people.

If that system is abolished, it will react very adversely on the people of the county the Minister represents. I want to tell him in plain language—I am not a farmer, but I speak on behalf of the farmers of County Monaghan; I have lived in rural Ireland all my life and I know the conditions of these people—if he puts that into force, in whatever way he does so, it will have very serious reactions. I suppose the same applies to other counties. The farms in Monaghan are not so small that the people could not live on them, as they are a most industrious people and the land is good. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he does not propose to interfere with the farmers of County Monaghan, but these farmers have suffered considerably under the present Minister's administration. I think he has treated his own county of Monaghan in a worse fashion than any other. There are tons of potatoes lying at the back of ditches in the county for which the farmers cannot get sale. The Minister tells these farmers to get into pig production, but, for a young bonham, they will pay £7, and where are they to get it? As I say, they cannot get sale for their potatoes and their oats is lying unsold in their lofts and some of them have not got even lofts to keep it in.

To crown all, we have the flax business. The Minister has put the tin hat on things in that respect, or has tried to. He wanted to make little of the men who went over his head and negotiated with the flax millers of Northern Ireland. I do not say that they got a good price, but it was better than nothing. They had already taken the land, some of it at £21 an acre, for flax growing and what were they to put into it? Surely he would not advise them to sow potatoes and corn again. It is ridiculous the way he has treated the County Monaghan farmers. When the Minister got the first offer in respect of 4,000 tons at 31/3 per stone, he should have consulted the flax producers and should have asked them what they thought of the offer, but he got high-handed and told the northern people to go to blazes. These farmers were in a terrible situation. They had for generations been buying conacre for flax and they bought it in October, and they were waiting for some indication from the Minister as to what the price of flax was going to be.

I trust that I am in order in referring to this matter, as I am not used to speaking in this House. The Minister went to County Monaghan, and, when the flax producers had made arrangements with the northern buyers, he tried to throw cold water on the negotiations which had been successful up to a certain point. He advised the farmers of the county not to grow flax and said that, if they experienced any trouble about selling it, they need not come to him. He wanted to discourage flax growing, as he discouraged the growing of tomatoes in the Gaeltacht. I think it was a dastardly thing to do, and I am surprised that the Minister, who knows the difficulties of the people there, should do such a thing.

He will still have some die-hards to rally round him in support of what he has done, but that is immaterial to me. What I am interested in is the welfare of the small farmers of the county and of the women who assisted in saving the flax crop and in pulling and spreading it. They regarded it as their crop and, out of the proceeds of the crop, they usually got something for their own use. I met an old lady recently in the bus and she said it was a dreadful thing the Minister had done, that if they had got only 28/- a stone they would have been glad of it. The Minister is certainly not to be congratulated on his handling of the flax business.

With regard to butter, the Minister was gravely concerned about what he was going to do with the surplus butter being produced. Would it not be a good thing if he induced his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to deration butter? Let him think of the children who, since butter was rationed, have suffered gravely by reason of lack of butter. Butter is an excellent food for young and old and, if he has so much butter in stock and so much butter being produced, his first duty is to the people at home. I know that his heart bleeds for other countries, and especially for Britain, but he should consider the needs of his own people before worrying about what he will export to Britain. It would be a decent thing to deration butter completely. There are many people in our cities and towns who would be glad of such a decision. People at present cannot afford to buy meat, and bacon is unobtainable in the country. They are very lucky if they get a pound of rashers a week. Although we have been promised more bacon it has not yet arrived and rashers at 3/- a lb. are a rather expensive diet for children, whereas, if butter were available, it would be a good thing. The Minister will say that he has taken the controls off country butter, but it has gone up to 4/- and 5/- a lb., whereas creamery butter is 2/8 per lb. I suggest that it would be a generous act on the part of the Minister to deration butter and make plenty of butter available for the people, and especially the children, who, as I say, suffered greatly from lack of butter for years past. It could not be helped during the war years, but the Minister now tells us that we will have butter to burn, so to speak—he does not know what he is to do with it—and I hope he will induce his colleague to deration it.

I should be very glad if the Minister would assure the farmers of County Monaghan that he does not propose to interfere with the old custom there of taking conacre, which is their only means of living.

Mr. Beirne

I have the honour to represent a county in which there are different classes of farmers. Some people say that, in Roscommon, we have all ranchers, but I entirely disagree with that, because, in part of the area I represent, there are farms of moderate size—up to 100 acres; there are middle class farms of about 20 acres down to ten acres; and then the farms of very low valuation from 30/- to £3, so that I can speak with a fair amount of information regarding the feelings of different classes of farmers in my constituency. It is my duty to offer congratulations—my own personal congratulations and also the congratulations I have received throughout my constituency—to the Minister for the noble work he has been doing in his Department.

The speech we had from the last speaker was most depressing in all respects and seemed to cast a gloom over everyone, in regard to conditions in Mayo and in Monaghan. I happen to know something about County Mayo. I live in a neighbouring county and am engaged to some extent in the cattle business. I know what can be produced in Mayo. I have travelled a good part of the county and have attended fairs at Claremorris, Balla, Kiltimagh, Ballina and Westport, and I never saw there the horrible picture painted for us by the last speaker. The ranchers of our county, as they are called, the men with 100 and 150 acres of land. when they want to get a store beast to bring into beef, they cross over to Ballyhaunis, Ballinrobe or Ballina and get the finest type of cattle that can be produced in this country, and, from my experience of the county, I can say that the picture painted for us by Deputy Rice is not quite accurate.

Most of the speeches from the opposite side have been depressing, and most of the speeches have been dishonest, because, on the figures given by the Minister yesterday and conveyed by post to every Deputy to-day, we must all admit that the agricultural industry is improving and that the present Minister is the one man who will rehabilitate that industry, and put it on a sound footing. No practical effort was made, since I came into this House, by the two former Ministers to tackle the problem in a serious way. Their approach to it was entirely different from the approach of the present Minister.

It may refresh the memories of the Fianna Fáil Party if I read some extracts from the speech made by Deputy Smith when he was Minister for Agriculture at a time when compulsory tillage was being enforced and when it was in the hands of Deputy Smith. I should like to put before the House some of Deputy Smith's remarks in connection with compulsory tillage. I would like to point out that his approach was entirely wrong. It was made in a domineering fashion. It was not an inducement or encouragement. It was a tyrannical approach which was resisted and resented by the farmers. I quote from Volume 106, column 2239, of the Official Report, where the ex-Minister was speaking on compulsory tillage:—

"I shall tell you that I had them safely tucked in the back of my mind when I was talking in Navan and if it had not been for the kind of season that Providence decided to send us I would not have had them tucked in the back of my mind; I would have had inspectors tucked after them, and I would have tucked them out into fresh land, and I would compel them to break fresh land, and if they did not do it I would tuck in the tractors through the ditches and through the gates and tuck out the land for them."

That is the approach of one Minister. Further down in that column, Deputy Smith, the then Minister, said:—

"If the Lord Almighty provides us with good weather that will enable us to make a start, and if there should be a necessity next season to be as rigid as heretofore—and there may be—I am going to tell them here and now that I will recruit the full of ten fields of inspectors, and I will spend plenty of money in paying them travelling expenses and everything else, and I will hire all the tractors and machinery I can get and I will go down and pick every one of the `cods' out and I will say: `take down that piece of wire and put it around the other corner, and just break it up until we see will you get more than four barrels or four and a half barrels,' no matter what their lamentations are about wheat-growing. We hear when they come to the Minister that the community should not ask them to do this job until they get a fair deal for it. Now, the price may be fair or not, but, in so far as expressions of opinion as to the price come from that quarter— and they come from that quarter— they come from owners of land who, when they are told to till, pick out the most inferior piece of land to try to comply with their quota.

When I do that, you can call me a thug or a clod or a driver, whatever you like, I do not care. If I am here in the position of Minister, so sure as I have the Almighty to face some day or other, I will end this nonsense. That is my attitude to this question of production. I have heard more of this word `production' since this debate started than I have heard for as long as I can remember. My back is nearly broken listening to it. Maybe I should not say much more. We were talking earlier in the debate about Guinness, but Guinness is never about at the right time."

Mr. Sweetman

What year was that?

Mr. Beirne

19th June, 1947.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Thanks be to the Lord he was not there the following year.

Mr. Beirne

If the people of this country are tired of the present Administration and if Providence should bring about a change of Government in the very near future and should that terrible catastrophe occur that Fianna Fail would get back into power, I presume we will have Deputy Paddy Smith back again as Minister for Agriculture and I presume he will repeat the words he addressed to the farmers of this country in 1947 when he told them that he would break down the fences and put the tractors into their land, when he told them in that tyrannical language that they had not freedom, that he was their master and they were his servants and must do what he commands them to do.

Remember the approach the present Minister has made to the farmers of this country. Yesterday, he stated in this House that he did not assume that there was a master in this country, that he placed himself at the service and disposal of the farmers and that he regarded himself as the servant and not the master of the farmers. We do not want to revert to the intolerable condition in which the farmers were placed in 1947. The poor farmers, the middle-class farmers and the wealthy farmers of Roscommon do not want to revert to it.

There are some people who resent and object to the Minister's flamboyant and, as they say, irresponsible, speeches. I am not one of those people. Every note the Minister strikes in that flamboyant way is a note of provocativeness. I admire him and I advise him to continue in that strain. Instead of depressing people, he is raising their hearts by that kind of speech. Some time ago, after he had made these flamboyant speeches about which there is so much comment, his words became a reality. His statements are by no means irresponsible. He is a practical man of sound ideas, which he can put into practice and has put into practice.

I wish the people on the other side would come down to sense and forget their little prejudices and be more constructive and helpful instead of offering foolish criticism. The ex-Minister, Deputy Smith, although he spent a couple of hours here yesterday expounding his views on agriculture, did not put forward even one constructive suggestion but poured out a tirade of abuse on the Minister. That is not constructive. That is not good or useful for the country. Remember, we are spending days debating this Vote when perhaps there is more valuable work to be done. Destructive tactics should not be adopted.

The Minister has been called a Minister for grass and told that he favours grass more than tillage. I could never see that. He has never displayed that attitude as far as I can see. He caters for the grass farmer and for the tillage farmer, but he does not employ tyrannical methods to make the farmers do what he likes. He induces and encourages them and allows them to be their own master.

The question of oats and potatoes has been raised by various Deputies. Some Deputies appear to be annoyed about the prevailing prices. In my constituency there is no disappointment or worry in regard to the prices of these two commodities, which can be easily disposed of at remunerative prices. Oats is making from 2/9 to 3/- per stone, which, I think, is an economic price. Potatoes are from 10/- to 12/- a cwt. So that there is no grumbling, as far as I know, about these prices in my part of the country. The poultry industry is flourishing in all parts of my constituency and the farmers' wives there are perfectly satisfied with the price of 25/- per hundred for their eggs. It has always been assumed that if you get a cwt. of Indian meal for the price of 100 eggs the egg business is profitable. As a matter of fact, you can buy Indian meal for £1 3s. 0d., so that if you get £1 5s. 0d. for eggs it is profitable. That is profitable, and there is no doubt about it. I would issue a warning to the Minister in connection with hatcheries and supply farms. I am afraid they are open to some abuses. We have had this year serious losses in day-old chicks. Large numbers of these chicks have contracted this disease and died. I would ask the Minister to keep close supervision on the supply farms. Much more eggs are being sent to the hatcheries than can be produced on the farms, which convinces me that eggs are being sent by some individuals through the supply farms to the hatcheries. I would ask the Minister to check that abuse.

I consider that the price of artificial manures is reasonable this year if people are not too lazy to mix their own fertilisers—the sulphate of ammonia with the superphosphate. In that way they can have manures at a very economic price. I have heard of people one time paying up to £60 per ton for sulphate of ammonia. To-day, as Deputy Browne has said, the price is from 17/- to 19/- a cwt., which is a big change. However, that price was abnormal. On the whole, people have nothing to say regarding the price of manures because they are much cheaper, on the average, than they have been for some considerable time.

Deputy Mrs. Rice was very much concerned about the conacre system. I hope the Minister does not intend to interfere with the small patches of land of, say, nine or ten acres which are let under that system. I think that what the Minister had in mind was that he would take drastic action against a certain type of people who are letting land under that system. There are certain people — as, for instance, big business people in the City of Dublin—who bought lands in different parts of the country, perhaps in Westmeath. These lands are now being let at fabulous prices. Remember, those are not small farms. They are farms of at least 200, 300, 400 and 500 acres. I am in complete agreement with the Minister that these people should not be allowed to carry on in that way. If they are not in a position to farm those lands they should not be allowed to let them for grass. The Minister should make representations, with the co-operation of the Land Commission, that such farms should be taken over by the Land Commission and divided so as to relieve congestion.

It is very refreshing to hear Deputy Mrs. Rice say that we are going to have a surplus of butter. I suppose it will come at the end of this year or perhaps at the beginning of next year. I am delighted to hear it and it is certainly a change from some years ago when the Fianna Fáil administration were handling things badly. It is a fact that we can now look forward with hope to having a surplus of butter, eggs, bacon and other farm produce. On the whole, we should all be satisfied with the position—even the people who are sitting on the other side of the House. The figures which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech are more than convincing that the gross turnover in agricultural produce has increased enormously. To the Minister that state of affairs is definitely due.

In conclusion, I congratulate the Minister. I hope that God will spare him for many years to act in his present capacity in this country. I say that before many years are past our agricultural industry will have an entirely different complexion. All the farmers of this country, both big and small, will have more comfort and there will be more security in agriculture than there has been for the last 20 or 25 years.

Mr. Corry

I cannot help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for the Deputies opposite on account of the position in which they find themselves to-day. For a certain number of months there was a share of growling and moaning and talking about putting the Minister out, but now they are driven into the corner. They have to pat this Minister on the back and say: "I congratulate you, sir, and the more you whip me the more I will lick your boots." That has been the attitude not alone of one or two, but of all the so-called Farmers' Party which sold out in this House.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Is this meant to be a contribution to the debate?

Mr. Corry

Has the lawyer something to say? I am not here for one moment for any——

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

We were wondering why.

Mr. Corry

——cross-examination from anybody who cannot get a brief outside, so shut your mouth.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That approach to any debate in this House is not edifying.

Mr. Corry

I am giving notice that I am not going to listen to any interruptions. Anybody who interrupts me in this House is going to get his answer.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is responsible for order in this House.

Mr. Corry

Well, preserve it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I warn the Deputy that I will take no impertinence from him.

Mr. Corry

First of all, I should like to spend a few minutes in the poultry houses with this Minister. What we want to know is what is the policy, or is there any policy? We have guarantees about prices. I do not give that much for a guarantee of price from that Minister and there is not a farmer nor a poultry-keeper in this country who would place the slightest reliance on any guarantee given by that Minister for Agriculture, because they could not. I will tell you why—and here he comes into the House. There is a paper P.E.P. which is issued by the Department of Agriculture, and in the issue of that paper for the month of May, 1948, there is a message from the Minister. What is the message?

"Message from the Minister for Agriculture. It used to be the rule that when egg supplies increased price went down. That is no longer true. We have made an agreement with the British Ministry of Food that the more eggs we send to the British market the more they will pay for our eggs. It is as a result of this agreement that shippers can afford to pay 3/- per dozen for eggs to the producers."

That is the solemn statement on which the hatcheries were put going and the day-old chicks were produced and fed with meal at 28/- a cwt. and put to produce the eggs. Lo and behold, as soon as those pullets began to lay, this agreement disappeared and they found that the price was half-a-dollar, a tanner a dozen less, despite the fact that the more they produced the more they would be paid.

Mr. Rooney

The subsidy was increased.

Mr. Corry

There is the result of this scheme. If anybody wants to talk about subsidies I would say that the £3,000,000 that was given for food supplies has now gone. There is a definite statement made by the Minister that the farmer or the poultry-keeper who produced eggs was going to get 3/-per dozen for them and a couple of months afterwards the price went down to 2/6. Probably in a couple of months more it will fall to 1/6. I suppose there will be a 20-years' agreement at 6d. a dozen before this day 12 months.

Mr. Dillon

They are out to smash the trade of this country but they cannot.

Mr. Corry

We have now an interruption from the Minister—however, I will say nothing.

Mr. Dillon

You are well advised.

Mr. Corry

We were told about the statements made by the former Minister for Agriculture with regard to compulsory tillage. At that time we were going through an emergency period in which the livelihood and the safety of the nation depended on bread being produced for our people. We are told now: "Look at the difference between the attitude of Deputy Smith when Minister for Agriculture and the attitude of Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture." As to that, here is what the present Minister stated:—

"Unless there is a war, there, will be no compulsory tillage in Ireland in 1949, or ever again if I can help it."

I should like those Deputies over there who were purring when we were listening to the statement made by Deputy Smith when he was Minister as to what compulsory measures he would take to listen to this:—

"If there is a war, the farmers can look out. When I start compelling people, it will be a very detailed and drastic procedure because you will grow what you are told and grow it right."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What is the Deputy quoting from?

Mr. Corry

From the Irish Independent of 9th September, 1948. We have a complaint made here as to the statement of Deputy Smith, when Minister for Agriculture, that he was going to use compulsory powers during an emergency period in order to compel people to grow wheat for bread for the people. Can anybody tell me the difference between the attitude of Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture and the attitude of Deputy Smith, except that the present Minister for Agriculture was more emphatic?

I have dealt with the position as regards eggs, the Minister's guarantee to the people whom he forced into putting up hatcheries and producing day-old chicks, and all the rest and what he did afterwards. He gave a guarantee in May, 1948, that the price of eggs would be 3/- per dozen and then dropped it. I have drawn a comparison between the attitude of the former Minister for Agriculture in forcing people to produce food during an emergency period and the attitude which the present Minister says he will adopt in the same circumstances. I can see no difference between them. nor can anyone else.

Then on the 20th March, 1948, the present Minister for Agriculture issued an advertisement as follows:—

"A great many farmers have been inquiring as to whether there is anything that various individuals can do to help the Government. The answer is, yes. Every tillage farmer in Ireland will carefully complete his compulsory tillage quota, sow from one to five extra acres of barley and oats and he will help the Government. Let us show them.

James Dillon."

Then we had this:—

"I ask you to do all you can to increase the area under barley, oats and potatoes. For each of these three commodities there will be a certain and profitable market next year. The more oats the farmer grows the greater the service to the nation. If any farmer finds himself with a surplus, let him communicate with the Department of Agriculture and arrangements will be made to put him in contact at once with a purchaser who will take his surplus at a satisfactory price."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That quotation is from?

Mr. Corry

An advertisement in the Irish Independent of the 20th March, 1948, paid for out of the public purse. That was the advice given last March to the farmers—to grow oats and potatoes. What became of the oats and potatoes that were grown?

Mr. Dillon

What became of your oats?

Mr. Corry

If the Minister was living anywhere except in Dublin he would be kept awake at night——

Mr. Dillon

What became of your oats?

Mr. Corry

I knew the Minister, and the moment I threshed them I sold them.

Mr. Dillon

For how much?

Mr. Corry

30/- per barrel, more than any one of your dupes got.

Mr. Dillon

What are you talking about then?

Mr. Corry

I know the Minister is regretting that I was not caught with the rest of them. That was the advice given by this responsible Minister to the people last March. They grew the oats and the potatoes and what was the result? The present contract price for the Cork County Home and Hospital for potatoes is £6 7s. 0d. per ton or 6/8 per cwt. I wonder what price the farmers are getting? That is the new prosperity that we hear all the talk about. The farmer who sold his potatoes in February and March and November and December, 1947, got £16 per ton and he is now selling them for £5 per ton and his representatives in this House congratulate the Minister on what he did for them.

The same thing applies to oats—45/-per barrel for oats in the harvest of 1947 and 20/- per barrel in the harvest of 1948. That is the result of the Minister's advice. Is it any wonder that the farmers facing that condition of affairs do not know what to do?

They are afraid of their lives to follow any advice given by that creature over there. That was his advice last year. He went on to make a declaration—he is so fond of making declarations—on the 18th June, 1947, in this House. I think it was the same day that was quoted here by my friend a while ago in connection with a statement made by Deputy Smith. I am quoting from the Official Reports, Volume 106, column 2040:—

"... because I practised that, when the time of emergency came I was able to grow more wheat per acre on my land than any of the pirates who had been mining their own land with wheat during the previous ten years."

Now we are told about deterioration. It is not shown in the results of the acreage of wheat grown, which I extracted from the Department, and in the quantity of wheat per acre. As a matter of fact, they evidently found some people who took notice because the number of barrels of wheat per acre was largely increased last year and was brought up to and beyond the 1939 level despite all the moaning that has been done. The Minister went on to say:—

"I want to say again, with emphasis, that once wheat from abroad is available to this country again, I would not be seen dead in a field of wheat on my own land in this country, because I know that that whole rotten fraud in fact was invoked to permit the Rank interests and the other milling interests in this country to charge our people 30/- a cwt. for flour when they were selling it in Liverpool for 19/-."

That was the opinion of the Minister for Agriculture in connection with wheat. One would expect that a Minister who, the moment he came into office, showed his dislike for wheat by advising the farmers not to grow any more but to grow barley, oats and potatoes, would follow that up. However, lo and behold, in the Connaught Tribune of March last the Minister put in an advertisement which said: “The farmers who want a cash crop should grow wheat or malting barley”. I looked and I wondered if they had changed the Minister for Agriculture overnight. Had the boys succeeded in their prayers that they say very piously every night: “May the Lord remove that Minister for Agriculture, the bane of our existence”? But no, it was the same Minister who would not be seen dead in a field of wheat, who now advised the farmers that if they wanted a cash crop to grow wheat. Lo and behold, in that Minister's advertisement there is not one single word about oats or potatoes. The oats and potatoes days are gone. They are finished. This is, then, the attitude of the Minister and no wonder that people down in the country are wondering what is his policy. Is there any policy? I admit that the Minister says so much that we cannot believe any of it. I even read another statement that he advocated tillage.

Mr. Dillon

Has the Deputy finished reading it?

Mr. Corry

I should need a long time to read it.

Mr. Dillon

It is a pity you would not finish reading it now that you are at it.

Mr. Corry

Because of those advertisements we would like to know what is the policy of the Minister for Agriculture. I should like to know what exactly those Deputies over there are congratulating the Minister on or what they hope for agriculture in the future. They talk about poultry and pigs. I could get a big yard anywhere and could carry out that policy without seeing a sod of green grass, let alone one acre of God's land, in this country. You can carry out the complete policy, as far as the poultry and pig game is concerned, with one good big yard. You do not want any land at all. We who have the misfortunate to own land in this country want to know what we are going to do with it. Are we going to find our prosperity on the following lines? A reduction in the price of oats from 45/- to 20/-; a reduction in potatoes from £16 a ton to £6; a market for flax wiped out; milk the same price as was obtained in 1947 when our costs were something like 40 per cent. less for production than they are to-day. Milk is practically the same price as it was in 1947. In 1947 the price was increased from 10½d. to 1/2. Will anybody here who represents the agricultural community tell me that 1/2 to-day is as good for a gallon of milk as the 1/2 in 1947? Is there anyone who can make that statement and stand over it? Deputy Lehane congratulated the Minister on his firmness, but said that he often said a little too much. The Deputy Lehane who speaks in this House as a "yes man" behind the Minister is different from the Deputy Lehane that we meet at our meetings in Cork. With regard to any crop that the farmer produces, let us make a comparison between his costs to-day and his costs when the present price for milk was fixed. According to Deputy Lehane—I will get the quotation in a moment—labour costs have been increased by 60 per cent.

Mr. P.D. Lehane

I thought you were going to produce the quotation.

Mr. Corry

I am. Wages have been increased by 60 per cent., raw materials by 23 per cent. and the rates are up by 5/- in the £. This outrageous Minister for Agriculture has been doing everything to ruin the farmer since he fixed the price of milk at 1/2 a gallon and 1/4 during the winter months. Since then there has been this increase in costings according to Deputy Lehane. I do not know what particular type of farmer the Deputies opposite pretend to represent. They must be feeling very small when they have to get up here and pat the Minister for Agriculture on the back and congratulate him.

Despite all the schemes and all the pressure that the Deputies opposite pretend to bring to bear on the Minister, he tells them that there will be no further increase in milk prices. They did pretend to bring a lot of pressure to bear on him. On the 20th November, Deputy Halliden told the Farmers' Association in Cork:—

"We are going to bring this Minister to heel. If he remains obdurate against increasing the price of milk we will approach the Taoiseach and the Government on the matter."

I wonder did they and what the result was, and why the boys are still sitting over there? According to all the Deputies opposite, the price for milk was uneconomic in 1944 and 1945. In December, 1947, and January, 1948, it was uneconomic and not good enough at all. If so, how is that price O.K. to-day? These are things I would like to have an explanation of. On the 1st November, 1948, in a published statement made by the Minister he said:—

"I have not the slightest intention of asking the Government to increase the price of milk beyond 1/2 and 1/4 in the winter."

Last Christmas, as a result of all the pressure, the Minister had a change of heart. His heart bled for Deputy Halliden, for his milk and for his cows. According to a statement which was published in the Irish Independent on last Christmas Eve, he told them

"he had been greatly impressed by the case made by the deputation and by representatives of the Munster dairy industry."

Though the Minister had stated that he would not increase the price of milk, he told the deputation

"that he would now, having regard to the case made by the deputation, reopen the whole question and he was sure any recommendations he made would be favourably considered by the Government."

That was the happy Christmas that he wished to those farmers. They should be thankful for it. They could lie down happy in their beds at Christmas and wake up in the New Year to find that they were getting an increased price for milk, and so everything in the garden would be lovely. The boys waited until January and February and then started in a little race to know which of them would be the first to get out with the good news about the increase. But on the 17th February, the Minister, when replying to Deputy Halliden in the Dáil said that

"he did not propose at present to advise the Government to increase the price of milk."

That is the position with regard to the Deputies opposite who pretend to represent the farmers, whose raw materials have increased by 23 per cent., labour costs by 60 per cent. and an enormous increase in the rates. All that has occurred since Deputy Smith, when he was Minister for Agriculture, fixed the price of milk at 1/2 and it is still to be kept at 1/2.

I now want to refer to another statement made by the Minister in relation to a crop grown by the farmers which is keeping four big factories in production. These factories alone give employment to between 1,600 and 2,000 people. We are entitled to know what is the Minister's attitude and what is his policy towards beet. The only statement we can find on that will be found at column 2042, Volume 29, Dáil Debates, 18th June, 1947, when the present Minister said:

"I am convinced that beet will go up the spout after peat and wheat, and God speed the day."

That is the Minister's policy in regard to beet. That was a statement he made in one of his most responsible moods— I admit that he is often irresponsible— on beet. A certain amount of what I will call spade work was necessary to bring about the happy day when beet would go up the spout. The Minister sought the assistance of the Minister for Industry and Commerce on that job.

Each year, when we as representatives of the beet growers of this country went to interview the sugar company, we had to produce figures showing costings—the increased costs and the freight charge for beet. On those figures in 1946-47 we got an increase of 10/- per ton on beet. On the 1947-48 crop we got a further increase of 9/8 per ton. That was given, not by increasing the price of sugar to the consumer, but out of the increased price paid by the manufacturers for sugar. The economic cost of producing a pound of sugar in this country is 6?d. Manufacturers were charged 7½d. and the 12/10 a cwt. was allowed to collect there and it went to pay the farmer the 9/8 a ton increased price paid for beet, due to his proving to the sugar company that there was an increase in the cost of production. The Minister wants to know what the increase exactly is. There is 1/- a week in wages, in labour costs, and it has been worked out at 8d. per ton on beet.

We went to meet the sugar company last November and we found that the Minister for Industry and Commerce raided the sugar company and extracted from them, according to the figures he gave me in this House, somewhere around £380,000 from the 12/10 paid by the farmers who wanted sugar for harvesting, by the fellows who wanted sugar for jam and by those who wanted sugar for other purposes. All that money was raided and collected without any authority from this House by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and there was nothing left to pay the farmer the increase of roughly 9/6 a ton that he should get for his beet this year.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The administration of the Department of Industry and Commerce does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Corry

It arises in this way, that you have this year a reduced acreage of beet and not increased production.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The administration of the Minister for Agriculture and the policy of the Department arise on this Vote.

Mr. Corry

We expect the Minister for Agriculture to make some attempt to protect those who have the misfortune to be represented by him, who have him as their spokesman in the Cabinet. We expect the Minister to see that that money will be left there, just as Paddy Smith saw it was left there for the beet-growers to pay the increased costs, since he knew that any attempt to pay it by an increased price on sugar would be met by a shout about the rise in the cost of living. That was not done and, though the sugar company recommended an increased price, the Minister declared: "You got off so well under the Fianna Fáil administration that you can now live on your fat." Though the cost of production of beet had gone up by 9/6 a ton the farmer had to produce at the price he got during the Fianna Fáil régime. If that policy is pursued, that policy as enunciated by the Minister—I quoted it a while ago—I am convinced that beet will go up the spout after peat and wheat and, according to the Minister, "God speed the day."

Mr. Dillon

Not before the Beet Growers' Association provide us with their accounts, I hope.

Mr. Corry

The Beet Growers' Association are the bane of the Minister's existence because the Beet Growers' Association dealt with him as I will be dealing with him in about an hour's time. I will be dealing with the Minister's activities in the barley field.

I will now come to a rather grave matter. I am sorry that Deputy Lehane is not here. I expected, when he was dealing with this matter yesterday, that he would deal with it as a farmer's representative, having at heart the interests of the farmers in that portion of the constituency that I handed over to him; that he would see that they were not robbed and that the good work I did there would be continued. I will now quote from the Southern Star of the 7th May, 1949. Under the headings “Kilmurry Tidings” and “Creamery Group's Future” this appears:—

"Rev. Fr. Coyne, S.J., President of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, recently visited the Bengour and Mossgrove branches of the Tireltin group of creameries and explained to suppliers the position in regard to the future of the group. He said that the Minister for Agriculture had decided to wind up the Dairy Disposals Company and had given suppliers the option of taking over creameries if they formed a co-operative society, but failing that would divide the group and distribute the branches among neighbouring co-operative societies. In the event of further delay in coming to a decision the Minister would, he added, go on with the alternative arrangement."

We have heard a lot about inspectors. We have heard a lot about the end of compulsion. But I want to know the reason now why the unfortunate farmers in that district are to be treated in the way in which this Minister proposes to treat them. I spent a whole month fighting with the Department of Agriculture to get those men out of their difficulty in the past. The Minister is now apparently carrying out that policy which seems to be carried out by every Department of State now: "We got a furnished house and, in order to live, we will sell the furniture." Those farmers were threatened with extermination because of a debt of £7,000 odd. They came to me and I took up their case. I met a decent, honest Minister for Agriculture then and the result was that these creameries were taken over. Now, the present Minister tells them: "I am selling the furniture in the house; you will either come in and buy it or I shall sell to somebody else." Having sold to somebody else, you will find yourself in the happy position of another group of farmers with whom I had to deal under the Cumann na nGaedheal régime and with the then Minister for Finance. That was the Minister who told those farmers that they would have to drive their milk five miles further every day to the creamery that he had taken over.

The position with regard to these creameries is a very peculiar one. If we are to believe the words of the Minister's representative, Father Coyne, the Minister has decided to wind up the Dairy-Disposals Company. I wonder what will become of all the Dairy Disposals creameries in Clare and Kerry and other counties where they are not co-operative. I know it is a good time to sell! We have gone through a period in this country when it was absolutely impossible to replace machinery. Anybody who goes over the accounts of an industrial company can see how much is written off each year for depreciation. Not one bit of new machinery has gone into any of these creameries since 1938. This is 1949. The newest machinery in these creameries is 11 years' old. Yet this is the time when the Minister and the Dairy Disposals Company decide to sell the furniture when the covers have gone off the chairs and the legs off the tables. This is the time the Minister decides to sell that to the farmers. Woe betide the farmers if they do hot buy! The Minister will leave them no creamery at all. That is the position of affairs now. As one who spent several weeks dealing with the problems of these particular creameries when I represented that particular constituency I strenuously object to any victimisation of these people now by any Minister. I tell him here publicly, honestly and frankly that he will not get away with it.

Mr. Dillon

Ah! Now the cat is out of the bag.

Mr. Corry

And you can put a tail on him.

Mr. Rooney

It is a Manx cat, obviously.

Mr. Corry

It is time that this effort to sell these scrap-heaps to the farmers should stop. The Government sold old airplanes and made a profit. They are selling the hotels and making a profit. Now they want to sell back the old creameries to the farmers who, if we are to believe Deputy Lehane and Deputy Halliden, are at present getting an uneconomic price for their milk. Last November, Deputy Halliden had to see the Taoiseach over the head of the Minister in order to get a price for those farmers. Those farmers are now being asked to pay £18,000 odd for two scrap-heaps out in Coachford —two heaps of machinery that are 11 years old.

Mr. Dillon

If they are scrap-heaps it is odd you should leave them that way, but they are nothing of the kind.

Mr. Corry

They were pretty bad scrap-heaps when I got it down to £7,000. The State took the donkey then. Why should the Minister try to sell that donkey, that has now got spavin and has lost the hump on his back, back again to the farmers? I think the Minister will find he is making a mistake. The Minister may have gagged Deputy Lehane but he has certainly not gagged me. I have been here all the time. I represented that constituency from 1937 to the last election. I am not going to see the good work that I did for those farmers undone by the present Minister. The Minister can rest assured of that. I think now it is time we had a chat about lime.

Mr. Rooney

You will want to be careful now.

Mr. Corry

I am.

Mr. Dillon

This, of course, is vicious obstruction, but I suppose we have to endure it.

Mr. Corry

I admit it would take many a good bucket of lime to whitewash the Minister.

Mr. Dillon

I get £2,125 a year to stick this; it is not worth it.

Mr. Corry

Thanks to the Irish Sugar Company, which the Minister is doing his best to abolish, we have a considerable amount of ground limestone now at our disposal. Repeated appeals were made to this Minister and the previous Minister for a subsidy on factory lime. The Minister seemed to have an idea that it was no good.

Mr. Dillon

"Appeals" is good.

Mr. Corry

I should like to give the Minister the benefit of certain experiments carried out with that lime on farms in County Cork by the county committee of agriculture. They might convince him of the foolishness of his attitude in this respect. Field trials were carried out with different forms of lime at four centres. Soil analyses showed centres (1) and (2) to be acid and (3) and (4) slightly alkaline. Trial No. 1 was carried out on the farm of Mr. N. Tuthill, Ballinaboy House, Ballinhassig. The field was under pasture for more than 20 years. Crop grown: Lea wheat—Atle. Soil was very deficient in phosphates and lime —P.H. 51. The different forms of lime were applied in January, 1948, in equivalent quantities to the 1½ tons of burnt lime as given to plot (4). Here was the result:—

Plot No.	Type of Lime	Yield per st. acre
		c.	q.	lb.
1	Sugar Factory Lime	27	1	7
2	Ground Limestone	17	2	2
3	No Lime	16	1	4
4	Ordinary Lime	19	1	26
5	Ordinary Lime plus 4 cwt. Potato Manure	27	3	18

In plain language the plot which was treated with the sugar factory lime gave a better yield in wheat by ten cwts. to the acre than the plot which received no lime and a better yield by eight cwts. to the acre than the plot which was treated with ordinary lime.

The second field trial was carried out on the farm of Mr. D. Crowley, Liberty Stream, Ballygarvan. The field was under pasture for several years and received no lime or artificial manures. Crop grown—Lea oats. The soil was deficient in phosphates and potash and especially so as regards lime. Here again is the result:—

Plot No.	Type of Lime	Yield of grain
		c.	q.	lb.
1	No Lime	16	1	24
2	Sugar Factory Lime	36	3	11
3	Ordinary Lime	18	0	5
5	Ordinary Lime plus 4 cwt. Potato Manure	23	3	13

These are results which the Minister can ascertain for himself. If he wishes we can send him the official report of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture and compare these results for himself. He may then modify his attitude towards factory lime as compared with ordinary lime. I am sure, having made the comparison, he will revise his attitude towards us in that matter.

Mr. Dillon

Why should we subsidise factory lime which is already better value than other forms of lime?

Mr. Corry

I have given you the results of experiments carried out in two farms.

Mr. Dillon

Why should we subsidise the most profitable form of lime?

Mr. Corry

So as to get rid of the couple of million tons there are lying round Carlow factory and Tuam factory.

Mr. Dillon

There are ways of getting rid of it.

Mr. Corry

It is lying there ready for use. Why not use it instead of trying to import machinery for other forms of lime?

Mr. Hughes

It is being used.

Mr. Corry

I saw it in Carlow and I do not believe that what I saw in Carlow will be taken out of it for the next 100 years.

Mr. Hughes

We have 15 factory lorries taking it away. It is there and it is not necessary to subsidise it.

Mr. Corry

How much was taken last year?

Mr. Hughes

It is there for use by the farmers.

Mr. Corry

It is there all the time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us have debate and not a conversation across the floor.

Mr. Dillon

It would be interesting to know how we could subsidise something that costs nothing.

Mr. Corry

I gave the Minister here a short time ago some particulars of what it cost me to bring 16 tons of that lime down to Cork. Sixteen tons of lime cost me £29 odd—£16 I had to pay to the factory in Tuam and £13 freightage down to Cork.

Mr. Dillon

I was told that it did not cost you anything—that you had merely to pay freight and local charges.

Mr. Corry

It cost roughly the same as burned lime at the kiln, between the freight charge and the cost of drying it in the factory. I am speaking of factory-dried lime, not the 50 per cent. water stuff to which Deputy Hughes has referred. However, that is another day's work.

In the arguments put up here to-day we were told a lot about this thing being overlooked, the other thing being neglected and all the rest of it. What could one expect in a period when you could not get anything imported? I look upon the figures given here in regard to the increase in pigs and poultry as an absolutely natural increase, bringing us back roughly to the ordinary position we were in in 1939, back to the pre-war position. We have heard a lot about the increased production carried out during the past 12 months. That is only quite natural. If you go over to America and pay in dollars for so many million tons or so many hundreds of thousands of tons of maize meal and bring it into this country, it must be fed to something. It is going to be fed to something. Those dollars are a cost we had not before and you are going to produce something out of those dollars that you are not going to be paid for in dollars, that you are going to be paid for in ordinary currency here or in Britain. When we hear all this talk about increased production, I wonder how much extra the farmer will have to produce in order to be in as good a position as he was in here when Fianna Fáil were in office. That is the question I would like Deputies to ask themselves. If a farmer who sold his oat crop at 45/-a barrel in 1947 finds that he has to sell the same oat crop in 1948 at 20/-a barrel, how much oats must that farmer produce to be as well off with regard to oats as he was in 1947?

Mr. Rooney

How about the fellow who sold it for 35/-?

Mr. Corry

How many more acres will that farmer have to put under potatoes when he sold potatoes at £16 a ton in 1947 and now sells them, under the régime of the present Minister, at £5 to £6 a ton? How many extra acres of potatoes must that farmer produce in order to be as well of as he was in 1947? What is the farmer out in West Cork—where Deputies will soon be taking a tour for the benefit of their health—going to do to make up for the loss of the flax market? That is something else. The farmer, who, according to Deputy Lehane, is in the position of having to pay 23 per cent. extra for his materials and 60 per cent. extra for labour and of having an increase of 5/- in the £ in his rates, the farmer who has to bear that extra burden still has to produce milk for 1/2 a gallon, the price that Deputy Patrick Smith fixed when he was Minister for Agriculture—plus the sucky calf that my friend here was talking about. How many extra gallons would that farmer have to produce? He finds himself in the position that the more he produces, the less he will get for it.

I remember hearing in this House a few years back a lot of talk about putting the farmer in the "front-line trenches". It was said that the unfortunate farmers of this country were being driven into the front-line trenches for political reasons. Now it appears that that is a policy that has not been forgotten at all.

Can we agree here on one thing, that the farmer is entitled to the best price he can get for his produce? Having extracted that much, I would like to quote from the Irish Press of Monday, September 27th, 1948:—

"Mr. MacBride on Cheap Meat for Britain. The Manchester Guardian reports an interview with Mr. MacBride, Minister for External Affairs, in which he said that Ireland was grateful for Britain's decision to recognise the status of Irish citizens under the British Nationality Act. This was considered a constructive step in Anglo-Irish relations. `We on our part,' he added, `in the recent trade agreement have agreed to supply meat almost exclusively to Britain at prices far below those we could have obtained by selling elsewhere'.”

Having secured agreement from my friends that the farmer is entitled to have the best price he can get for his produce, why should the Minister for Agriculture step in and prevent that farmer selling in the best market he can obtain? Why should our meat be sold to Britain at less than we can get on the Continent for it? It is a straight, fair question. What will be purchased for our meat? I suppose the Ireland Bill. That is the price of cheap beef to Britain. If the farmer is entitled to the best price he can obtain for his produce, why is he being used, why is his produce being used, for political manoeuvring? Why is it being sold at a less price than it would fetch last year, and that under an agreement made by the man who has been elected here as the protector of the Irish farmer? It is time we got down to straight business on this. Despite this message from the Minister for Agriculture on the three bob a dozen for eggs. the Minister went over the other day and made a new agreement for half a crown. The Minister for Food in Britain turned round on the following day to the English farmers and said:—

"Having now succeeded in getting cheap eggs from the Irish, I will be able by a little balancing up to give you better prices."

And he increased the price of eggs to the English farmers to 4/1 a dozen within a week of the reduction of the Irish price to half a crown. As an expression of goodwill and thanks, they are passing the Ireland Bill now.

Those are the conditions of affairs under which this nation is run to-day. Everything that the Irish farmer has produced and for which a market has been sought in Britain has been sold at less than can be obtained elsewhere. I am entitled to ask why. What do we owe Britain that we sell them the bullock for less than we could obtain on the Continent?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

What do you want the Minister to do about the flax?

Mr. Corry

The Deputy and I will talk about the flax later on, on a different Bill, and I hope he will have a good case to make for it. What kind of bargain do we expect from a proper Minister for Agriculture—not a dud one? What position are we going to bring our farmers into? Having advised those farmers—by public advertisement, paid for out of money taken from the pockets of the taxpayers last year—to grow more oats and potatoes, they were left in the lurch. Yet the Minister had the impertinence to stand up in this House and tell us that the previous Government took from the pockets of the Irish farmer £2,000,000 and handed it over, through Messrs. Arthur Guinness, to the British Treasury— because the Fianna Fáil Government found themselves in a position in which they had to provide bread for the Irish people through an emergency. On that question we hoped to put a case to the Minister, judging by his attitude and by the wild, determined manner in which he talked here and said: "That will never happen again." We asked the Minister if he intended to decontrol barley.

The Minister was very busy when the question went down and I thought it high time, in view of the statements the Minister made, to go and have a chat with Messrs. Guinness and see what they were going to do about it. I went to the phone and said: "I see you are all going for the fixed price, in view of the fact that the Minister is going to decontrol barley.""Oh, no," was the reply, "he is not going to decontrol barley at all. As a matter of fact, we have a letter from him telling us that barley is going to remain at the fixed price.""He told us in the House that you had robbed him of £2,000,000, and that this was a matter that should be looked up, that he would never allow it to happen again, and that must mean ending the control." They said: "Come and have a chat about it in the morning." I met three directors of Messrs. Guinness the next day, and we settled down to this. I produced the Official Reports of this House with the Minister's statement and, as a result, I asked for around 75/- and they said I should talk in the name of the association. However, the Minister came along in the following week here, and he did not tell us, though the question was on the Order Paper, what he was going to do about barley; but he told some bunch down the country— of course, Deputies of this House are not worth telling—that he had fixed the price at 50/- a barrel.

Having done that, the day after the Minister fixed that price here, representatives of the Beet Growers' Association—for whom he had such a hatred—met the representatives of Messrs. Guinness on the price of barley. At that discussion we found we could not touch the last harvest and we decided to fix up for the future. The Minister here, in an Adjournment debate, gave as a reason why he would not remove the control from barley that he feared the price would rocket so high that the farmers would get so much and become so prosperous that they would grow too much barley in the following year and there would be a glut. That was the Minister for you. We went to the length of dealing with this and we fixed the price for this year's barley at 57/6 a barrel, the barley to be grown under contract, thus avoiding the danger of the glut the Minister was alluding to. But we did more than that. We succeeded in persuading those gentlemen over there at Guinness's that the Irish farmer was entitled to a better price for his produce than the English farmer and we put in a differential into our bargain. It was not the same differential as the Minister put in, in regard to the price of beef—5/- a cwt. in favour of the British farmer as against the Irish farmer—nor was it the differential as between 2/6 a dozen for the Irish farmer's eggs and 4/1 a dozen for the English farmer's eggs. Our differential was the other way round: it was that the Irish farmer shall receive not less than 2/6 per barrel over the current price of English malting barley.

That is the kind of agreement a Minister for Agriculture should make for his people. Any man can sell at less than the current price—it takes a very good man to sell at over the current price. I appeal to this Minister, who advised the farmers to grow oats and had no market for them, who advised the farmers to grow potatoes and had no market for them, to remove the control now for the last harvest and let the agreement between the Beet Growers' Association and Messrs. Guinness stand for last harvest. "Oh, no," he says, "I have done very well for the farmer—he is getting 5/- per barrel more than he expected"—and that from the Minister who forced the farmers to grow 80,000 acres of oats instead of 80,000 acres of wheat and who reduced the price of that oats from 45/- to 20/-. That was his answer in regard to giving the farmer back something.

The price of English malting barley last harvest was 60/- per barrel. The price the Irish farmer would have received for his barley last harvest, under our agreement, was 62/6, and the Minister compelled the Irish farmer to sell to Messrs. Guinness at 50/- per barrel — £1,500,000 passed through Messrs. Guinness into the coffers of the British Treasury, to use the Minister's own words. And for what? For the Ireland Bill. That was over £1,000,000 taken out of the pockets of an unfortunate body of men who found, at the end of their season, that their prices were reduced in every other respect by 50 per cent. through the lunatic actions of that Minister. This is the Minister whom the poor creatures opposite have to come, one after the other, to congratulate. God help them—politics are brought to a low ebb. Representatives of the rural community! I would not mind that being done by some of the professionals over there who have succeeded in getting a professional Government for the professionals of this country, but I have the utmost sympathy for the unfortunate farmer whose representative over there comes along to pat the Minister on the back for doing things of that description. We are entitled to know now what is the policy of this Government with regard to agriculture. What reliance can be placed on any guarantee given by that creature over there?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Is it in order for a Deputy consistently to refer to the Minister for Agriculture as "that creature over there"?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is offensive. The word itself is not derogatory but, in the way in which it is used, it is offensive.

Mr. Corry

Is it in order for the Minister for Agriculture to allude here to his predecessor as "that creature over there"? If it is sauce for the goose——

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Who is the goose?

Mr. Corry

——it is sauce for the gander and you can expect to get a little addition to any slurs you endeavour to cast on this side of the House, and not even the tomato king will change that. We are entitled to know what is the policy. Have they got any? What can we offer to the agricultural community for the next 12 months? What are they to do with their land? I speak of land as distinct from the policy on agriculture which we have heard here. That policy can be carried out in any back yard—you need no land at all for it. You can throw pigs into a yard, bring in Indian meal and fatten them on it, and you can put poultry in any yard and rear them there—you want no land for that and that is not farming. I want to know what they are to do with the land and what is the policy. To produce beef for England, according to the Minister for External Affairs:—

"We on our part in the recent trade agreement have agreed to supply meat to Britain at prices far below those which we could have obtained elsewhere."

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has read that twice.

Mr. Corry

It is worth quoting twice, Sir.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy usually passes that remark when the Chair draws his attention to such repetition.

Mr. Corry

I am sorry, Sir.

An Ceann Comhairle

It does not put it in order.

Mr. Corry

That statement of the Minister has been borne out by the facts and to leave the farmers, who are entitled to the best price obtainable, getting less than can be obtained elsewhere for what they are producing is unfair and unjust, particularly when this is the only thing on which they can turn a 1d. to-day. The Minister has succeeded in making every branch of agriculture uneconomic, except the old bull. The actual effect of the Minister's policy on the agricultural community has been to bring about a reduction in the number of agricultural labourers employed in the past 12 months of 8,700 odd. But, unfortunately, we can go further. If some of the arguments put up to-day were correct, the first job the Minister should have done the moment he went into his Department was to sack every official in it. The Minister sent out a sheet of figures to tell the inter-Party boys what to say this morning, to increase their ignorance, and we had the admission from Deputy Browne, in regard to production, that, after all, Indian meal was the main food for production in respect of poultry and pigs.

Mr. Blowick

He said no such thing.

Mr. Corry

He said every such thing.

Mr. Blowick

He did not. He said it was one of the principal foods. He did not say it was the main food.

Mr. Corry

He said the main food.

Mr. Blowick

He said it was one of the principal foods. I was here, and I am not deaf.

Mr. Corry

If you are not deaf, you are often asleep. However, that is the statement he made. After all, there is no great difference between "main" food and "principal" food.

Mr. Blowick

Between "one of the principal foods".

Mr. Corry

Or "one of the principal foods". The fact remains that if you pile that up until you get the import of maize meal during the past 12 months and compare that with the increased production here, you will find that that is practically the sole reason for it, side by side with the fact that the farmer has nothing else to feed the potatoes and oats to. He has to give them to something or the rats will eat them. That accounts largely for this increase in production. What did Deputies opposite think was going to feed pigs in this country from 1939 to 1947? Could they name any grain that could be given to pigs during the emergency period? Could they name any grain that could be given to poultry during that period?

Mr. Rooney

Oats.

Mr. Corry

I know exactly what the farmers were producing during that period. At no time during that period were they producing one-tenth of the grain that was imported pre-war, apart from wheat. You had that gap between pre-war imports of maize and what was grown of barley and oats. In practically every year the acreage of oats and barley went down rather considerably. During the emergency there was no great increase in either barley or oats because the land was used practically entirely for wheat. Anyone studying the figures of wheat grown during the emergency will find that 25 per cent. of the wheat produced in this country during 1945, 1946 and 1947 was produced over the quota or over the compulsory acreage of wheat. 25 per cent. of the total was produced by farmers over and above the compulsory quota on land that, in the ordinary course, would be used for barley.

Mr. Rooney

Why not grow oats and potatoes on that?

Mr. Corry

Because at that time the farmers of this country realised their responsibility to the nation and they grew wheat. They grew the wheat that the Minister for Agriculture, in the advertisement that I read out here a while ago, is appealing to the farmers to grow this year instead of oats and potatoes.

Mr. Davern

It is no longer a "cod".

Mr. Corry

Having grown the oats and potatoes and having found that the merchants cannot be paid for the seed yet, the farmers are changing their hand this year and are turning to everything that can be guaranteed. That is their sole object. That is the only thing they are looking for— something with a guaranteed price to it, something that they can escape with. Having seen that the price of wheat is guaranteed and that even the price of the old beet is guaranteed, they are sticking to these crops and the Minister, very wisely, this year has turned over a new leaf and, instead of saying, "grow oats and potatoes," he says, "grow barley and wheat; there is a guaranteed price for both." In those circumstances and facing that condition of affairs, is it not surprising that one of the fallacies of that Minister for Agriculture has been exploded? The taxpayer is no longer asked to pay for big advertisements asking the farmers to grow potatoes and oats. For the unfortunate tune that followed the Minister's advice in that direction, the piper has been paid. It was only by careful watching and keeping our knowledge very secretly to ourselves that we, as representatives of the Beet Growers' Association, succeeded in knocking out a price for barley before the Minister had time to ring up Guinness to tell them not to pay any more than he was paying, 50/- a barrel. So that the farmer, thanks to the Beet Growers' Association, has a decent market for his barley in the coming harvest and I was so much afraid of the game this Minister was playing that I covered his full period of office, the full period in which these people can afflict us with him.

Mr. Blowick

What period was that?

Mr. Corry

Please God, it might not be after to-morrow.

Mr. Blowick

You slipped up badly. You covered the full four years although we were to be out in a week.

Mr. Corry

We will get you out.

Mr. Blowick

So now we are going to be in for the full period and you are taking time by the forelock.

Mr. Corry

I say it is a wise man that takes out his insurance policy. I I took out an insurance policy in this respect and the 2/6 a barrel over the price of English malting barley is to hold for the years 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952 and 1953.

Mr. Blowick

You were a wise man to do it for the full period.

Mr. Corry

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again on Tuesday next.

The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 17th May, 1949.