That is not the point I am going to make. What I am trying to get at is this: whether the Minister is correct or incorrect as to the cost of production, and while he may say that the farmer can do certain things, he must bear in mind the weather conditions and the land that some of these farmers have to live on. The Minister would want to do more than that to prove to the satisfaction of those men that what he says is true and can be done. If the farmers are not doing what the Minister thinks is right, and if he thinks the policy they are following is not in the best interests of the State, then the Minister, in his capacity as such, has a duty to perform, and that is to educate these people as regard the methods he thinks right, and prove to them that they are right. The Agricultural Commission set up under his Ministry saw the force of that argument, and they recommended to him that he should acquire a number of average farms over the country, manage them under his supervision, and prove to the people that those farms, managed according to the ability and the scientific knowledge of the men trained for that work, could turn out a certain crop valued at so much for a certain cost of production. Why has not the Minister done that, and taken his chance with the ordinary farmers who have to get their living from the land, and prove to them unmistakably by work and scientific knowledge what could be done? Why has he not, in the interests of these people in order to educate them to understand that their condition can be bettered by pursuing a certain policy, discharged that obligation? I put this question to the Minister last year. He replied, and I think there was an amount of weight in his reply, that the advisability of taking a chance in doing that was questionable, but when the conditions are as serious as at present desperate efforts have to be made to improve the situation. I think the Minister will agree with me that if farmers are not doing certain things it is because they have not the knowledge of the good that would come from doing those things. It is no use in saying that the fault lies with their laziness. The majority of the farmers under 50 acres are, with their families, the hardest worked people on the face of God's earth. The Minister has admited that it is his function and the function of his Department to educate the farmers. There is no better or more practical way for the Ministry to try and educate the farmers than by going amongst them and doing the work they have to do, showing them it can be done better than they are doing it, and that by so doing they will get more money and help towards building up a happy and prosperous State. The solution of the problem is—we will not disagree on the necessity for organisation—for the Minister to take his courage in his hands and acquire farms in every county, say, within 20 miles of each other, and under the management of the instructors in that county, show what can be done with that farm to restore its native fertility, improve its productive capacity, improve the live stock, and the rest. But the Minister will have to battle with the climate as we do. I am not saying he does not appreciate the difficulties, for he does to a certain extent, but he will appreciate them better when the men come to him with the cost of production and the produce they have been able to collect. He will also have reports from his men coming in contact with the farmers, who will perhaps understand the psychology of the farmers better than the Minister does. As a result, he may devise other means of educating them so that they may organise. I am not going to dispute with the Minister what may be done through organisation. I have a little experience of organisation, and I say the first thing you have to do in organising is to educate the people. If the Irish farmers are not in the position of the Danish farmers, we must remember that the Danish farmers got their opportunity fifty or sixty years ago by a system of education to improve their standards of knowledge, and the Irish farmers have not so far got a similar opportunity. We ought to have sympathy with the Irish farmers, recognise their difficulties, and see what we can do to improve their position. I am inclined to the view that practically the whole fate of agriculture in this country is and will be dependent on the education we can give to our people. We are going, in a sense, to have a new problem when we put on the land thousands and thousands more small farmers.
There is certainly going to be more tillage. We should, I believe, be able to add to our exportable surplus. If we are to get the best out of our exports, I recognise that there has to be organisation amongst our people. But take the position as you find it to-day in the country. Let any man here go down to the country and try to get the farmers in a district to do certain work. Will he not find great difficulty in trying to have them organised? Take the Minister's own agricultural instructors in the various counties. Question them as to the effect of their efforts in the counties in trying to educate the people. Some farmers think that they know everything about their own industry. They do not. There is any amount of room for improvement. There are a lot of things to be taught, but who is to do the teaching? The Minister took responsibility on behalf of the State. The Minister has got to consider whether the money spent in this way is giving the best possible results. This work has been going on for a considerable period. I admit that good results have accrued up to a stage. A certain policy has been pursued for a number of years. But the Minister has to consider whether pursuing that policy for a further series of years will bring improvements or whether that policy will have to be changed. If you ask a county instructor—even one of the ablest men you can get in any county —what the result of his efforts will be if he goes into a district to get a body of farmers to come to a lecture, you will learn that not five per cent. of the farmers living in that district will come to the lecture, although it deals with matters that affect them in the management of their own business. The men you cannot get to come to the lectures are the sons of farmers—even the eldest boy in the family, the man who is to get the farm. This is an important fact and it has got to be recognised. If you are to have organisation, you have to expend a certain amount of energy. The people who have energy to expend are generally the younger people. If they see the reason for organisation, you can get them to do the work. But it is much more difficult to get the man of 50 or sixty years of age to tramp out to a meeting and do his part in organising. You have got to train and educate the younger men—the coming farmers.
How is that to be done? I believe that the system of education that the Ministry has pursued will have to be altered. I think that a good deal of the work done by agricultural instructors will have to be changed. They will have to concentrate on other work and on other methods. The first effort, I believe, must be the management of these farms. After that, if you are going to educate the people, you have to make an effort to arouse their interest. You have to interest the younger people and get them to come out. We must all recognise that a lecture is often—even on the part of the most capable lecturer—very dry. A lecture on something material has not the charm for the young man or the young woman in the country that the picture-house has for the people of the towns and cities. They cannot be got to come out in crowds to the lecture down the country as they come to the theatre in the city. I believe that the Minister for Lands and Agriculture must change his methods if he wants to educate; and if he is serious in trying to educate the farmers and their sons and daughters, he must employ methods that will arouse their interest and get them out. I suggest to the Minister that modern methods must be employed to achieve this end. I believe that if the Minister makes an effort to use the cinema, and to use other things that can be employed, it will be possible for him to educate the farmers who, he says, require education. I see the Minister smiles. Perhaps he does not believe it. I will try to represent to the Minister what I think ought to be done, and the effect it would have amongst the people. I myself was at the Spring Show, and from what I saw there I believe that one way in which the people of the country could get a better indication as to the faulty methods employed and the possibilities of improving those methods, would be by the Minister organising visits, through the railway companies and through the County Committees of Agriculture, of large parties of farmers to the Spring Show. It may be a big thing. But we must all admit that the majority of the small farmers of the country have never been given a chance of getting far enough from home to see what other people are doing.
That is the cause of the failure to get better results. The man who has never been farther than the next town, and has only seen his neighbour's fields as he passes to the fair or market, has very little opportunity of knowing what other people are doing. If he has not changed his methods and brought his land into line with the land of people who follow the best methods, it is because he has not seen any better. Many people have to see to believe. I went through the Department's section of the Show, and I saw cattle there from the agricultural station in my own county. I saw them side by side with the cattle brought in from the Dublin market for demonstration purposes. I saw big animals which we should not have, six feet high, and animals three feet high, which we should have. That in itself would be an education to any young man. In every other branch of our industry there is an opportunity for the small farmer to get an education at the Spring Show that will be lasting. It is no use telling a man what he ought to do if he cannot see it done. That is my experience of the ordinary farmer, and I have as much experience in that respect as anybody else. If there was sufficient organisation amongst our people to make it possible to bring them by the hundred or thousand to a place like that, you would accomplish more educationally by a few visits than by other means in twenty years. I am convinced of that. If that is not done, and if education is to be continued, I believe other methods must be adopted. Demonstration plots along the roadside—a method that has continued for a number of years—will, in my opinion, not be of much value any longer.
Perhaps, to a certain extent, tests of the newer varieties of potatoes coming out might be continued, but as far as I can see that method of demonstrating must be changed. It has served its purpose. All that could be got out of it has been got out of it, and these instructors must concentrate on other methods and on other work. If there is necessity for education, they must continue education. But how are they going to do it? The Minister smiled when I spoke of using the cinema. But get a man understanding agriculture and capable of giving an interesting lecture, take him down to a hall in the country, and let him have a film that will demonstrate up-to-date methods in connection, say, with cattle or pig-rearing. Let him start, say, with turning the good one and the bad one out together, the animal that is properly shaped and the animal that is not properly shaped; let him go on with the feeding of it through the various stages; let him go to the market with the animal that has done well and the animal that has done badly on the same food; let him compare the weight of the two animals; let him compare the return in £ s. d.; let him take the animals to the factory and have them made up; let him take them out of the factory, say, in sides of bacon; let him demonstrate the value in pence per lb. of the good animal over the bad animal. Let him do the same with every other branch of the industry. Let him deal with the breeding of cattle. Let him deal with the milch cows. Let him deal with the seeds, particularly the newer varieties, with the fields properly manured and the fields not manured—let all that be done, and I say that the man who would not walk one hundred yards to see the effect of the application of manures or the growth of certain seeds in his neighbour's field, and on whom, if he did go, the result would make very little impression, will go a mile to a hall to see this film which will make a lasting impression on his mind. If he has cattle or pigs he will go next day and turn them out to see the comparison between his own stock and those that he saw the previous night. I make that submission to the Minister. It may be of no value. I am giving my own opinion of what ought to be done. It is very difficult to arouse interest in agricultural education in the country, and the Minister has got to consider, if he is going to spend more money, whether he is going to get value for the money or not. I believe that practically everything depends on the amount of education we can impart. If that is done proprely there will not be half as much trouble as regards organisation.
