They saw that that policy would not help to maintain our population on the land. The question of wheat, I submit, is more fundamental than any other part of our agricultural policy. It will always be a necessity in the country. There will always be a steady demand for it, amounting in value to £7,000,000 a year. The whole of that money is going into foreign hands at present although it is within our grasp and capacity to keep it in circulation here. I submit that, whatever the technical difficulties or whatever the personal experiences of individual members of the so-called Farmers' Party and those who think with them may be, there are in the Cumann na nGaedheal Party a number of people of sufficient national sentiment to realise that there is a national aspect to this question also, and that the matter of retaining the sum of £7,000,000 per annum in this country is of great importance. When we consider that our adverse trade balance amounts to £13,000,000, it stands to reason that if the £7,000,000 could be kept at home that adverse trade balance would immediately fall away. In addition, it would put money into circulation in the country. We see that the Governments of Great Britain, America and other countries are trying to improve the purchasing power of the people, and they realise that with the great increase in machinery and the enormous vogue in advertising, as well as the increasingly high standard of living, people must have more money at their disposal. Our agricultural community has not enough money at its disposal to pay its way let alone to maintain the position which circumstances are forcing on it of living up to what I said to-day was a false standard, but at any rate it is a standard which is generally accepted and from which, unfortunately, we cannot go back unless we force down wages, which would, of course, mean forcing down the under-dog all round.
We have to try to go ahead and raise the income of the people. Deputy Mathews and others told us about the possibilities in the cattle trade, but all that they tell us in the end is that it depends on the Argentine to some extent whether our export trade to Great Britain is going to be remunerative or not, that if there should be some change in some of the countries on the other side of the globe our cattle trade may be crippled, just as it was threatened before by the Canadian cattle trade. There are also large areas in the country which, we submit, have not got any benefit from the present policy of concentrating on dairy products. I understood the Minister for Agriculture last autumn to say that the beet subsidy was not likely to continue very much longer. If that is removed whatever slight security the farmers in that particular area where beet is grown had that they would get some kind of stabilised prices will also be removed. So far as I can see, the Irish tillage farmer will be abandoned, and I do not see any prospect of the policy of the self-contained farm being effective. The size of Irish farms varies greatly. In addition, we must remember that, owing to the standard of living which has been forced upon us, our farmers must have money and must keep their children at a standard of living far higher than children were kept twenty or thirty years ago, and they must pay expenses which formerly they had not to pay.
All these things, in addition to the heavy slump in prices which they have experienced, mean that our farmers must get cash, as if they do not get cash returns it will be impossible for them to make ends meet, let alone to keep up the present standard. Surely there is nothing heretical—on the contrary, it is advisable from the national point of view—in trying to keep that £7,000,000 in the country. If we were to start a new industry like the Shannon Scheme or the manufacture of sugar beet the money would be kept at home, but there is still more reason to take the wheat industry and try and keep the money in it at home. No matter what people say, most farmers have experience of growing wheat, and the only thing that will keep them from growing it, or any other crop, is the question of price. We suggest that in the present agricultural depression it is worth considering whether we cannot go the whole way towards meeting our requirements. We want to set up a body that will control the imports of wheat, that will give such price to our farmers as will enable them to grow wheat properly, and to supply a large percentage of our requirements from home-grown wheat. We are told that that is going to cost money. So it is. In the present state of affairs, which discloses very little in the way of advancement, everyone will, I think, agree that every farmer is losing money.
Some bank managers admit that agriculture is not thriving, and even those who have had the courage to state that the harvest was good have forgotten to say how the harvest was marketed, what price the farmer realised and whether it sufficed to pay his expenses. It may have sufficed to pay the bank, but I am certain it did not pay the farmer's way.
We are asked for de-rating. People are asking that £2,000,000 should be placed at the disposal of the agricultural community in the form of abolishing rates on agricultural land. That has to be given, I take it, without imposing any restrictions or conditions on the grant of that relief, if it is granted, and it is probably going to mean extra taxation. A great many people say that de-rating relief is necessary, that it is only natural that the farmers here should claim to be placed on the same basis as farmers in the Six Counties and in England. If it is good policy to give de-rating relief to all classes of farmers without any conditions, I cannot see why it should not be good policy to subsidise a thing which would have a specific advantage for the country, by which you would, in the first place, keep all this money in circulation at home, and, in the second place, be giving a fillip to agriculture, a fillip which would undoubtedly react on other industries. If we take that £7,000,000 and keep it at home, we can be sure that the whole lot of it is not going to leave the country again as so much unfortunately is leaving it at present. We can take it that a great deal of the money is going to go back into Irish industry and is going to be the foundation of investments, capital and savings which will be kept in the country. If we take that £7,000,000 and endeavour to keep it at home, in that way we are doing a very sensible thing. We are putting money into circulation where very little money is in circulation, and I think that consideration is a very important one.
We are all for developing our industries, but our industrial policy has not carried us very far. Any newspaper critic is able to point out the comparatively small amount of employment our tariffs have given. Our little industries are either faced by rationalisation and huge combines in other countries or they are faced by big combines coming into the country which threaten to wipe them out. We are faced with a tariff policy that has merely resulted in the assimilation of our industries by foreigners. Agriculture is the one industry which can never get into the hands of the foreigner and which must always remain in the hands of the Irish people, but it certainly will not be an inducement to the Irish people to develop it unless the House really says that it is out to give relief. Unless we really mean to do something for agriculture we cannot expect the people to have the right spirit.
I do not know whether all the members on the opposite side think that the farmers are satisfied with the present state of affairs. I am certain that in my area, once the sugar beet subsidy, which is by no means as profitable as people would imagine, is withdrawn, the farmers will be practically thrown on the dole. We want some policy that will stabilise prices to some extent. It may be impossible to stabilise prices in the case of cattle, butter, or in the case of those goods which are sold abroad, but surely we should not tolerate the situation of having an enormous adverse trade balance and having large numbers of our farmers unable to pay their way, when we would be keeping this money in circulation here if we simply adopted some policy such as Deputy Dr. Ryan has outlined.
In addition, we still have to import from abroad; we are setting up embassies and legations in other countries, and we are talking about trade treaties. I do not know in what commodities we are going to have commerce with other countries unless we are going to become a dumping ground for Germany and other countries as we are already for the English. We are in the unfortunate position that our industries are not developed and are not likely to be developed for a considerable time. During that period, if we wanted to get trade advantages we could buy our wheat, or large parcels of it, from different countries, and try and get concessions from these countries so as to build up a direct trade when we consider it advisable.
I do not think the argument that this is a fetish should really hold. It is not a fetish. It is getting attention in every country. In Canada and Australia, farmers have formed themselves into large monopoly pools and the smaller countries of Europe have taken steps to preserve their wheat supply, partly by encouraging it at home, and partly by purchasing abroad. We read in the English papers that there is a movement in England to set up some kind of a wheat organisation because of the extreme fluctuations. When people say in this House that this subsidy is going to cost money we admit it is, but the present state of affairs is also costing money, as the people are living on land on which they are not producing. We must endeavour to get them to produce. If we must get them to do it by coercive measures those may be tried, but a little appreciation of the fact that the times are very hard, that the country must make a real sacrifice to pull agriculture out of the slough, would count for more than anything else to get the country going again.
There was a question on the Paper to-day with reference to the price of flour. The matter has been raised here several times. It was pointed out that in spite of the enormous slump in wheat prices that reduction has not reached the consumer. Neither will it reach him in the future. It is generally known that the wheat crops of the world get into the hands of a very small number of agents. That may force the price up. We could argue that the price is likely to increase in the future just as Deputy Mathews argues that the price of meat is likely to increase. There would be good ground for saying that wheat prices are going to increase in the future but whether they increase or decrease, we do not seem to feel the benefit of the fluctuations. If they increase, our farmers do not get the benefit. If they decrease, the purchasers of bread do not get it and the fact that there has been hardly any appreciable reduction in bread prices shows that in the present price of bread the consumer is paying a heavy subsidy and is getting no credit for it. It is going into the hands of individual traders. It is not going as a subsidy which would be open and under public inspection and control and which might be dropped if not found satisfactory. It is not going to give employment and to build up a national industry.
This is a large question and ought to be dealt with in a large manner. It is a question which affects tillage. All economists in all times and all countries, whatever may be the spirit of the present age, believe that the fundamental policy of any Government, of any State that is out for the welfare of its people, is to maintain the population on the land. It was that that made Germany great. But we, whatever talk there may be about our agriculture and about our development and about our scientific methods, have not got to the bottom of that question— keeping our population on the soil. If the price that is suggested in this motion is heavy, I suggest, if it achieves its purpose, it is worth it and that any price in hundreds of thousands of pounds could not be possibly too great for the advantages of giving the agriculturist the feeling that he had a Government determined to see that he would get a price that would cover his cost of production. We must remember also in that connection that there is a feeling—which is generally voiced by the so-called Farmers' Party and is one I do not agree with, because I do not think it is being used for good purposes—that the farmers if they are the taxpayers of this country are paying heavily for the support of industry. They are paying undoubtedly and it is only natural that we should support them in some way financially.
That great country Australia has proclaimed its intention of getting work for its citizens by developing its own industries and resources, irrespective of the claims and interests of other countries. You have a tariff on agricultural implements, one of the things I am sure Irish farmers would be the first to decry. Strange to say, the tariff on agricultural implements is very popular in Australia and New Zealand, also other tariffs which it is recognised the farmers are paying for. The Australian people think the farmers should get something in return and you have the position which some of our people who are terribly interested in the cost of living would consider very shocking, that in Australia Australian butter bears a tax of fourpence a lb. and New Zealand butter sixpence a lb. That is a direct subsidy and encouragement to agriculture in Australia. In Australia and Canada, they have undertaken measures like this where they have all the newest ideas, huge ranches and huge pieces of machinery. I saw that on the ranches in Canada last year owing to a certain change that was made in reaping machinery they were able in one district in the western area to do away with 10,000 harvesters. They can make economies like that in these countries and compete with us in our markets while at the same time they fall back on the policy of giving a direct subsidy to farmers. I do not see that there is anything wrong in proposing some such measure here. If we did not believe the situation was serious and that a bold, statesmanlike policy was necessary in order to remedy it we would not be in favour of spending this money. It is because we believe that this is the only solution of the question, that it is something which will definitely place tillage in the ascendency and give the working farmer the feeling that we are behind him, that we support this motion.
