In Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (6th Dáil) – Thursday, 28 May 1931

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed).

Dr. Ryan

Proceeding to another sub-head—N. 2—there is a sum of £6,500 this year as compared with £5,500 last year under the Bovine Tuberculosis Order, 1926, etc. I am aware that the question of clean milk does not come within the province of the Minister for Agriculture, but if the Minister could change the policy somewhat under the existing regulations with regard to this Bovine Tuberculosis Order, not only could something be done for the health of the people, but we could also reap certain economic advantages. Last year, in speaking on this Vote, I referred to this question, and pointed out that a certain scheme had been put into operation in Canada which eventually had for its object the complete stamping out of tuberculosis amongst cattle. That has been done in Canada and it could be done here. I am advocating it here for two reasons: (1) for the sake of the health of the people; (2) for the economic advantages which might be derived. As this is not the time to stress the point with regard to the improvement of the health of our people, we may pass it over by saying that we at least agree it would be a very desirable object to achieve. Taking this subject from the point of view of agriculture, I think that we can even make a good case for the stamping out of tuberculosis in cattle from the agricultural point of view alone. We export a very considerable number of cattle from this country every year. As a matter of fact, it is the one item in agriculture, or in any other branch of industry in this country, where the exports considerably exceed the home consumption. If we have a very large export of cattle it would be a great advantage to the industry if we could guarantee that the cattle exported were completely free from tuberculosis.

In addition to that, milk is used in the rearing of stock and if we had a clean supply of new milk from tuberculin-free cows we could rear our young cattle free from tuberculosis, and that would be a big economic advantage. A bigger advantage still would be if we could have clean skim milk for the feeding of pigs. The Minister has at his disposal figures to show that the prevalence of tuberculosis amongst pigs is much higher in the creamery districts than in other districts. There could be no better proof that tuberculosis in pigs is always due to the milk fed to those pigs. The bacon industry is a very important one and considerable loss is suffered by the rejection of pigs either wholly or in part on account of tuberculosis. If we could eradicate the disease in pigs, we would achieve something very substantial for Irish agriculture.

Under the present orders there is a certain amount of inspection of meat for export and a certain amount of inspection beyond that. At times people are compelled to get rid of cattle because they have been pronounced to have tuberculosis by some veterinary surgeon. I believe that under the existing regulations the owners of these animals are paid about half their value. I think that that is not a sensible procedure, because if people believe that they are only to get half the value of the animals destroyed they are certainly not going to help the authorities by pointing out that some of their cattle are affected. If we want really to stamp out tuberculosis in cattle it would be better for the Department to offer a higher compensation than that. If they were to give 75 per cent. of the value of the animals destroyed I am sure they would get more help from the owners of stock. A Commission was set up on this subject some years ago and they went to a great deal of trouble to draw up a report. It is a very valuable report for anybody interested in this subject. There are Deputies in the House who sat on that Commission and I am sure that they have not changed the opinions they held when the report was written.

Any scheme that we may adopt to eradicate tuberculosis from our cattle would take many years to achieve its object. I believe, if we want to avoid very big State expenditure, that we will have to take such a scheme in stages. It will, perhaps, take 20 or 30 years before we eradicate tuberculosis completely. As it is going to take so long, that is if we do not want to spend a great deal of money immediately in stamping it out, I think that the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Local Government, and the Executive Council ought to consider doing something about this in the near future. I mentioned here last year the scheme adopted in Canada and it seems to me a scheme that could be adopted here in this country without any great expense to the State, and still with the hope of success within a period of from fifteen to twenty years. That is about the most we can hope for. The only expense the State undertook in Canada in the beginning was that they supplied free veterinary inspection, free vaccine and any stock-owner who wished to avail of these facilities had only to notify the proper authority whoever it might be. He then had a visit from the veterinary inspector and had his herd inspected and he knew where he was. That was the first step and a very important step. I know from my own personal experience, and from what I heard from others, that it is an expensive item in this country even to get one's cows tested as to whether they were tubercular or not. I believe there are many farmers who would like to know, if nothing else, which cows were free from tuberculosis so that they might keep them and breed from them and get rid of the others. They went a step further in Canada and prepared regulations under which certain municipalities adopted a tuberculin-free milk scheme. When these municipalities adopted the scheme they compelled the milk suppliers around the particular town or city to have their herds tested for tuberculosis. That meant that a certain number of cows in these herds were rejected and had to be replaced by tuberculin-free cows which meant in turn that the stock-owners of the country who had tuberculin-free cattle met with a ready sale and so certain municipalities were able to adopt this scheme without any great disturbance to the milk supply or to the general economy of the country.

They went further than that in Canada, and made an order that in any district where two-thirds of the stock in the district were tuberculin-free, and certified by the Government veterinary surgeon as being free, then the other one-third were compelled to adopt the scheme also. So that they got districts in Canada entirely free from tuberculosis. These districts began to merge into larger districts and zones, and after some years' working Canada found that it had large districts completely free from tuberculosis in cattle. I merely mentioned the outlines of that scheme as a scheme that could be adopted in this country without any great expense to the State. It will involve some expense certainly, but it is a scheme that would fit into our economic conditions here, and under which we could hope, in the course of fifteen or twenty years, to have achieved the object of having herds completely free from tuberculosis, and the milk supply in our towns and cities completely free from tuberculosis.

But for the present I want to repeat what I said in the beginning, that if we want to make this scheme in any way a success, and to get rid of tuberculosis in our cattle, we should see that the owners of stock are paid a higher amount of compensation than at present. I do not believe you can get co-operation from the owners of stock if they only get 50 per cent. of the value. They should at least get 75 per cent. before we could expect proper co-operation from them.

Taking the exports of cattle for the first three months of this year and comparing them with the first three months of last year, Deputies will remember that in the beginning of last year there was a very large export of cattle from this country. It was pointed out by the optimists that that was a sign that we had at last turned the corner in our economic life. But there was a danger evidenced in the export of cattle last year, and that was that the number of cows and calves exported showed that it was a thing that could not continue indefinitely, because if we were to deplete the stock of cows we had in the country, or send young calves out of the country, we could not expect to keep up the number of cattle we had in previous years. When it came to the census of June, 1930, that view was proved to be correct. The number of cattle in the country in June, 1930, was found to be less than in June, 1929. As a further proof that the view was correct, that we were exporting cattle on a wrong basis last year, and that it was not a sign of prosperity in the country that cattle were going out at that rate, it was found that people wanted money and that that was the reason that they were selling their cattle.

If we take the first three months of 1931 as compared with 1930 we find that the number of cattle going out has gone down by 6,000, so that we have not as many cattle for export this year as we had last year. The number of store cattle going out has gone down by 12,000 in the same three months. We have not the stock in the country this year that we had last year for export. The number of milch cows exported has, however, gone up by 2,000 which is a very serious thing. The causes for that may be many. The slump in the price of butter, the poor prospects in the milk and butter industry and in the creamery districts in particular may account for the fact that stock owners are prepared to sell off a certain number of their cows and have them exported. That may account for the fact that 14,000 cows were exported in the first three months of this year as compared with 12,000 in the first three months of last year. Extreme necessity may also have obliged people to sell their milch cows. People may have been compelled to sell off whatever cattle they had that were saleable in order to pay their rates and taxes and meet other expenses. That may be the reason why they had to sell off a number of their cows.

We have also an increase in the number of calves exported. The number this year is greater than last year though last year showed an increase over the previous year. In the first three months of this year we exported 14,000 calves as against 12,000 in the first three months of last year. I believe that is a very bad sign because anybody travelling through this country, even people travelling in a motor car, can see that we have plenty of grass for cattle. We could do very well with those calves if we could afford to keep them at home. If our farmers and graziers had the money to buy calves they would have kept them here on the land. The position must be that our farmers are not able to buy those calves, and hence they are exported.

In connection with our exports I would like to refer to the position with regard to eggs. In the first three months of this year there was an increase of 156,000 great hundreds as compared with last year. I refer to this because it is an industry that was stressed in the report of the De-rating Commission. Deputies will remember that in the report of the De-rating Commission 13 points were given as to how farming could be made pay. One of the points was that the people of this country should go more into the egg trade. Whether they had anticipated the report of the De-rating Commission or not, or whatever the reason, the farmers of this country had already done that. The position at any rate is that we have an increase in exports for the first three months of the year as compared with the first three months of last year. But if we had an increase in our exports we had the usual experience in the case of eggs as in that of all our exports. The price received this year was lower than the price paid last year. It was lower by 1/1½d. a great hundred. That represents a very big difference to the people producing eggs here. It means a difference of 1/6d. per hen per year when examined in the light of the statistics that are supplied to us. It represents a very important difference when one remembers that people trying to make a living out of the egg industry consider that they have a fair profit if they can make between 2/- and 3/- per hen per year. If the profit these people were making last year is to be cut by 1/6d., then what they are going to get this year will be very thin indeed. It is questionable whether poultry breeders will be able to remain in business much longer.

I have dealt with the exports of butter, bacon, cattle and eggs. I find in regard to the exports of live-stock and live-stock products that for 1930, as compared with 1929, they have been reduced by £2,000,000 the comparative figures being: 1929, £34,000,000 and 1930, £32,000,000. A reduction of that magnitude shows the necessity there is that something should be done to relieve the depression that exists in the agricultural industry. The position created certainly requires serious consideration from the Minister, the Government and the Dáil.

The Estimate for this Department, according to the figures given by the Minister, works out at something like £480,000. If anyone goes through the Estimates they will be struck by the importance given to live stock as compared with tillage. The greater portion of the Vote is spent on live stock, if one divides up the various sub-heads as between live-stock and tillage. A small amount is given for investigation and research in certain crops. Under sub-head E.4, for instance, there is a salary of £500, with bonus, making a total of £684 for an expert in tobacco and sugar beet. I often heard it said that there is no such thing as an expert. I think that is true, because no matter how much a person may know about a subject there is surely a little more to be known, and expert denotes the superlative. To be told in the Estimate that a man can be an expert in tobacco growing and sugar beet is rather extraordinary. Even if the man is an expert in both these subjects why should the House be asked to vote this sum of £684 for him? Half of it, I suppose, will go to the sugar beet and the other half to tobacco growing. Why should this House agree to vote £342 for his expert knowledge of tobacco when we consider the views held by the Minister and his Party on the growing of tobacco?

We have been told here and it has been proved by votes in the House that, as far as the Minister and his Party are concerned, there is going to be no place given to tobacco growing in this country. Yet the Minister has an expert in tobacco growing and proposes to pay him £342 a year. As regards the other half of it for beet growing, I suppose I had better reserve what I intend to say on that until the sugar beet Estimate comes before the House. It might have been better for the country if an expert on the drawing up of agreements with the sugar company had been employed and paid this £342 rather than in paying an expert to teach people how to grow beet when they cannot get a price for it. Under sub-head G.1—Improvement of flax growing—there is provision made for the expenditure of £1,174. I would like to know what is the return for that money. Where is the flax being grown? What use is being made of it, and are the Government seriously considering going in earnest into this matter of flax growing, trying to produce the flax that we require for our own requirements in the Free State so that we may be saved the cost of importing linen from other countries?

If that is the intention of the Government, if they have a hope of getting flax grown here extensively, and if we can meet the requirements of our own market, then I think, as far as this Party is concerned, it would agree to money being spent on the proposition. The Vote for the Department of Agriculture is strongly biased in favour of the development of live-stock. I would like the House to realise the total requirements of the home market and the foreign market, as far as farmers are concerned, in live-stock products as opposed to crops. We were told in The Agricultural Output of Saorstát Eireann for 1926, a publication issued by the Statistics Branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce, that the output of live-stock and live-stock products was £50,000,000. In the same publication we find that the value of the total amount of crops produced during the same year amounted to £45,000,000, which is not a very big difference. For live-stock and live-stock products the figures were £50,000,000 as against £45,000,000 for crops, not including grass. In the same year there were exports of live-stock and live-stock products amounting to £25,000,000.

It is rather strange that we should have a Department of Agriculture which is concentrating on the development of live-stock and spending most of the money that goes in grants and most of its energy in the development of live-stock, considering that the requirements of our home market are worth £25,000,000 compared with £55,000,000 for crops. Such is the case. Of course I know it will be stated that our net exports of live-stock and live-stock products amount to £25,000,000. It appears to me that talk about the requirements of tillage, and of its advantages, is falling on deaf ears. I believe that if the figures for 1930 were taken they would be much more marked than the figures I have given for 1926. The acreage under wheat in 1930, compared with 1926, has gone down by 2,000 acres; barley from 141,000 acres to 116,000 acres; oats from 647,000 to 644,000 acres; and potatoes from 375,000 to 347,000 acres, so that if the output of agriculture was taken in 1930 we would find that the output under crops and cereals would be much lower than in 1926, even if prices were the same.

Another question that arises is that the acreage under beet in 1930 was 14,000 acres while as far as one can find out it will be down by 10,000 acres this year. People who had land ready in which to sow beet had to fall back on some other crop, and if possible they had to depend on some cash crop. We would like to know whether any provision has been made to get these people over their difficulty. I do not know what prospect they have now or what crop they have sown. As a matter of fact I heard from various sources that these people found considerable difficulty even in getting seed oats. The season was so late when it was finally decided that the price of beet would not be increased they felt that the only crop they could sow was oats and they found it was almost impossible to get seed to sow.

Mr. Gorey

Why?

Dr. Ryan

They found it impossible to get seed oats.

Mr. Gorey

Because it was not good enough to sow.

Dr. Ryan

A few years ago an application was made here by an organisation known as the Grain Growers' Association, and the Minister in his usual way set up a Commission which was to report in a few months. December, 1929, passed and December, 1930, passed, and now the Commission is almost forgotten, but it has made no return. We were told at the time that there was no case to be met, and that the imports of grain, oats and barley were negligible. There was talk at that time about German and Russian oats, and we were told that the imports did not amount to anything. If we look at the return of imports for the first three months of this year as compared with the first three months of last year, we find that the imports of barley and malt have gone up from 105,000 cwts. to 293,000 cwts., and the imports of oats had gone up from 24,000 cwts. to 79,000 cwts.

The import of maize has gone up from 1,392,000 to 2,292,000. There has been a very marked increase in the imports of grain coming into this country in the first three months of this year as compared with last year. Exports have gone down. It is true that they are small, but they have gone down. Barley has gone down by half, and the export of oats has gone down from 122,000 to 67,000. The export of malt has also gone down, so that the grain-growers who spoke on this subject a couple of years ago would appear to have had a better case than the Minister realised. We would like to know at any rate what the result of their application is, and whether the findings of the Commission are going to be published or not, so that we may know that they will, at least, meet with the courtesy of a reply from the Commission. We here, on these benches, on a few occasions, also advocated the growing of wheat, and we have been told on a few occasions lately that we have dropped our wheat policy because it was preposterous under present conditions. As a matter of fact what is the position?

First of all, I would remind the Minister and Deputy Heffernan and some other protagonists against wheat growing that some of the objections that were made against wheat growing impressed me at the time but they impress me no longer. I remember that in the majority report in regard to wheat growing it was stated that wheat could not be grown on lea land unless of one year's standing. That means that if lea land has not gone out of tillage more than one year wheat could not be grown successfully upon it. I questioned that at the time and was told by members of the Farmers' Party and others that it was quite true. I took the risk this year, however, of growing some wheat on lea land which had not been ploughed within the memory of anyone in the district. I would like if some members of the Farmers' Party or anyone else who has any doubt would come down and see whether it is a good crop. I may, of course, be a better farmer than any member of the Farmers' Party. It was also said that wheat could not be utilised as a nurse crop. If any member of the Farmers' Party comes down—I may say that I am doing these experiments at my own expense and they have turned out very well—I can show them a field containing first and second crop meadow in which there are seven patches—two were under wheat, two were under barley and three under oats. I defy any member of the Farmers' Party to show where the wheat was when the grass seed was sown or where the barley or the oats was.

Leaving those objections aside we were told that even if there were no objections to the growing of wheat it could not be grown from a financial point of view. We were told by the Minister for Agriculture that we could not get wheat grown at 30s. a barrel and that the only way to do it would be through the gun. The only thing he had in mind was that people were doing better out of beef, eggs and butter than they could possibly do out of wheat. That argument, however, does not stand. If farmers were offered now 30s. a barrel for wheat they would be much inclined to drop dairying and butter and egg production.

Mr. Heffernan

How much would it cost?

Dr. Ryan

I am coming to that. Deputy Heffernan said on one occasion that it would cost millions. On the following Sunday I was in his constituency in Templemore and I said that I would challenge him to meet me in his constituency, in any hall or at any cross-roads, and I would prove to him on last year's figures that it would cost only half-a-million. That statement was published in the local papers and in the "Irish Independent," and though Deputy Heffernan probably saw it he did not take it up, but the challenge still holds.

Mr. Heffernan

Do it now.

Dr. Ryan

I will.

I do not want to be at cross purposes with the Deputy later on. We will say that the present price of best wheat is 18s. The difference between 18s. and 30s. is 12s.—say 10s. for the purposes of this calculation. On 4,000,000 barrels that would mean £2,000,000.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Dr. Ryan

The point I want to make is this. If the Minister will look the matter up he will find that there is a gazette in the library which corresponds to our "Irish Trade Journal." He will see there retail prices, and he will see that the price of bread in England for the last three months was 1½d. less per loaf than here—8½d. here and 7d. in England. I am only giving that as an instance. Go back then to our own Food Prices Tribunal, and if you correlate the price of wheat, the price of flour and the price of bread, if you leave the price at what it was last year, then half a million should do.

Mr. Heffernan

You are leaving bread too high.

Dr. Ryan

That is the way the Government left it last year.

Mr. Aiken

Leaving it in the way you are leaving it.

Dr. Ryan

Speaking about the Government and Deputy Heffernan's anxiety for the consumer and of the price of bread being too high, I would advise the Deputy to look up these two gazettes, the Board of Trade Gazette and our Trade Journal here. He will find that there is a difference of 1½d. in the price of the loaf between here and England—8½d. here and 7d. in England. There is a great deal of talk here about putting up the price of bread if we are to do anything. There is a difference of 12/- per sack in flour. I believe that if we wanted to do it, we could do a lot with that 12/-.

Mr. Heffernan

Why do you not reduce the price of bread?

Mr. Aiken

Why do you not do it?

It cannot come under this Vote.

Dr. Ryan

I just wish to appeal to the Minister to see if something could not be done to cheapen credit through the Corporation. The thing which matters in this country is really the markets. It will be admitted, I think, that the farmers are able to look after their business, and are able to turn out their goods fairly well. What they want is a good market. According to the agricultural output census of 1926, which I quoted before, we find that every person living in a town in the Free State is worth £10 as a customer to the Free State farmer, while every person working in a town in England is worth only 13/-. When I mentioned that to Deputy Heffernan here before he answered me with a reference to the Chinaman's shirt, that if an inch of cotton were put on to the Chinaman's shirt it would change the whole position. That is all right, but the way we must look at the matter is this: if we are going to buy a certain manufactured article, whether it is machinery, boots, or clothes, it would be more to the advantage of the farmers, I hold, considering those figures, to buy it from our own townspeople rather than from people in Great Britain, because every person whom we put to work in a town in the Free State is worth £10 as a customer for agricultural produce, whereas a man in Lancashire or elsewhere is worth only 13/-. That is how the argument holds. It does not matter whether our population is lower here than in Great Britain. The point is, that if we put a man into work here in a town in the Free State, he is much more valuable as a buyer of agricultural produce than a man in Great Britain.

The Minister for Finance some few months ago, speaking at a dinner of the Accountants, said that the only hope for his country was a revival of British industry and we hear the same thing over and over again from other speakers who talk about the advantages of the British market. But there is no market in Britain or anywhere else that could be as important to us as our own market. That is why I say that at first sight we should do our utmost, looking at it from the agricultural point of view alone, to get work for our people in the towns. As has been pointed out here on various occasions, taking the number of registered unemployed in the towns and putting along with them the number who are not registered, it is estimated that the number who are not working in the towns would not be far short of 50,000. If we could get those 50,000 people back to work they would be a great advantage to the farming industry as consumers of agricultural products.

Another matter arises to-day. Under the present system in this country Irish agriculture is producing 70 per cent. of our total production. The whole thing is very lop-sided. The result is that when our agriculturists have sold as much as they can to our own townspeople, they have to go outside the country to look for a market for the surplus. If we had all our people working in the towns we could not change that completely. We would still have a surplus for export. It would be necessary to have that surplus for export because we would still have to import some things. But a great deal of the surplus of our agricultural products could be absorbed by the home market. Agriculture is producing 70 per cent. and industry 30 per cent. of our national wealth. I think it will be agreed that whoever are the producers in this State are practically the people who are carrying the country on their backs. They are the people who must pay all the rates and taxes. If not, then we must be living on our capital and going bankrupt. It is clear to us that agriculture must have to pay 70 per cent. of the taxes and rates. Now, if we were able to increase industrial production by 100 per cent. it is quite possible easily to see the result.

At the present time about £25,000,000 is the total output of Irish industry. If we were to increase that by 100 per cent. then we would have the position where the townspeople would be producing 45 per cent. of the national wealth instead of at present 30 per cent. of the total production, and in turn the townspeople would be able to pay 45 per cent. of the rates and taxes and the other expenses of the country. That would be an enormous relief to the agricultural producers, the small farmers and the agricultural labourers, and to everybody else who is engaged in agriculture. It must be quite plain to anybody if they take a simple example. If the people are put to work in the towns much more than at present, if they are able to buy more cigarettes, if they are able to buy more beer and to bet more, no matter what they do, they pay taxes on these things, and these taxes go into the revenue. In turn when the Minister for Finance comes back here next year he will be able to give relief in taxation, and any relief or remedy he gives in taxation will go to the advantage of agriculture that wants it so much.

Apart from these things there are direct charges for unemployment in this country in the towns. There is the unemployment insurance for 1930, which cost £228,000; the relief grant for unemployment was £300,000. There was paid in home assistance £548,000. Not only that but if we consider the old age pensions we all know from our own experience of the country and the present depressed condition of the country, that there are numbers of people getting the full old age pension who would not require it if conditions were better and if their children were employed, and so on. It is the same with the National Health Insurance. It would not require to be paid on the same scale as at present. There would be a direct saving in unemployment benefit.

We would be able to effect a saving of one and a half million pounds each year in rates and taxes if, instead of giving a subsidy to unemployment, we gave a subsidy to employment. But we are told that people will have to pay more for their goods if tariffs are put on. Perhaps they will, but that has not been proved either. But supposing that the people did pay more for their goods if more tariffs were on they would be getting back the one and a half millions that they are paying at present in the way of subsidising unemployment through relief from rates and taxes. The people would then be in a position to pay more for the goods they would buy under the tariffs.

If we follow logically the arguments of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the Dublin Mercantile Association, and the various other people who passed resolutions against tariffs, and if we follow logically the arguments of the Minister for Agriculture, where would we come to? We are producing under tariffs in the towns of the Saorstát something about ten million pounds worth of goods. If we dropped our tariffs what would become of this production? For our own comfort and for the comfort of our people we would require to import that ten million pounds' worth of goods. There would be boots and apparel, cigarettes, rosary beads and quilts, and all these things would have to be imported. They would have to be imported from another country, because we could not produce them here without a tariff. We would have to pay for these imports in the only way in which we could, and that would be by exports. Where would we get a market for another two million cwts. of butter, or where would we get the butter to send to that market? How long would it take us to put five cows where we have now only two cows? When we had the butter, where would we sell it? Where would we find a market for three and a half million cwts. of bacon or for three million pounds' worth of eggs to pay for that £10,000,000 worth of goods which we would then be importing but which we are now producing under tariffs? That is the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the speeches that I have mentioned. If we dropped those tariffs we would have to let those people go unemployed and import all the stuff that they are now producing and pay for it by agricultural exports. Instead of the agricultural community having to pay 70 per cent. of the rates and taxes they would have to pay 85 per cent., because they would be producing everything and would practically have to carry the whole country on their backs. They would have to support the 15,000 people employed in the tariffed industries, as we have to support the unemployed at the present moment. Further, we would have to find a market for the goods they are buying at the present moment. That is the bright prospect that would confront the farming community, if we dropped the tariffs.

With regard to the export market, our experience is that we cannot compete. We are trying to compete, it is true, but our experience is that we have been driven out in regard to one article after another. Not alone that, but we are being driven out of the home market as well. The output of agriculture in 1926 was £64,500,000, and that was at a time when the index of agricultural prices was 140. In 1930 it was 124 and the output of agriculture was probably much lower. The output per worker was £96 in 1926, and the output was lower in 1930. In 1926 the output here was lower than in countries with which we could make any favourable comparison. It was lower than in the North of Ireland, in Scotland, Wales, England or Denmark. In the year 1929 to 1930 there was a decrease of 10 per cent. in agricultural prices. In connection with the price of agricultural products during the same year there was a decrease of only 7 per cent. in England and Wales. That is a thing one finds it very hard to understand. We have been told here on various occasions that we are pioneers in many things in the agricultural world. We are told we have the best livestock breeding and the standard of our cattle has been raised, and the result is that we are meeting with a ready sale in England, Scotland and Wales. We look down upon the people of Scotland and England with scorn because they have scrub bulls. With all that the price of our agricultural produce went down by 10 per cent. last year, while it was down only 7 per cent. in England and Wales.

Mr. Heffernan

I want to correct one point made by Deputy Ryan. The Deputy, in his cheap, schoolboy way, goes back to the wheat policy which he and Deputy de Valera propounded. If I happened to be the father of that policy, as I believe Deputy Ryan is, I would never mention it here again or, for that matter, on any platform in Tipperary or anywhere else. I believe I did see some challenge made to me to discuss this matter with the Deputy. I would be——

Mr. Blaney

Afraid.

Mr. Heffernan

—ashamed to appear on any platform and seriously discuss this so-called wheat policy. I would have more respect for the intelligence of the audience. I will not make any reference to the report of the Economic Committee because I think it is quite unnecessary. The figures are very evident. I think the Deputy agrees that the wheat requirements of this country are 11,000,000 cwts. That means that 4,400,000 barrels of wheat are required in this country. The proposal of Deputies de Valera and Ryan was to the effect that the farmer should be subsidised to the extent of the difference between the world market price of imported wheat and the price at which farmers could grow it economically in this country. It was agreed that farmers might possibly be induced to grow wheat if they were guaranteed a price of 30/- a barrel. Considerable doubt was expressed as to whether or not they would grow wheat with that guarantee. The world price of wheat is not more than 16/- per barrel. The difference would, in that case, be 14/- per barrel.

Dr. Ryan

It came down 2/-.

Mr. Hogan

I quoted the price at which I bought the best wheat over a month ago. I believe it has fallen since.

Mr. Heffernan

The Deputy wants to be like a smart schoolboy in a serious debate. That is really all he is. Let us take the price of wheat at the present day at 16/- a barrel; that is the world price. It does not matter whether the difference is 14/-, 16/- or 18/-. I will not take into account the difference that has to be considered in regard to moisture content. I think the difference from the point of view of moisture content would be something like 3/6 a barrel. Taking into account the difference between the price of imported wheat and the price you will have to guarantee the farmers, it works out at 14/- a barrel. That, applied to a total of 4,400,000 barrels— the total amount required in this country—would amount to £3,520,000. In all seriousness I ask the House to take into account that that is the subsidy which Deputies de Valera and Ryan are asking the taxpayer to carry in order to develop their policy in regard to wheat. Deputy Ryan is the usual cheap, childish, amateur farmer; he is amateur in everything. The Deputy really wants to confuse the issue.

Dr. Ryan

I am not a postman anyway.

Mr. MacEntee

What about the professional postman?

Mr. Heffernan

Deputies should not endeavour to draw a red herring across the trail, and the red herring in this instance relates to the Food Prices Tribunal. Reference was made to the price of bread, and I believe it is costing more than in England, but, if it is costing too much, and if the Deputy and his Party can see any way of reducing the price of bread, that is their job. If they get into power it is their job to do that. The reduction of the price of bread will then be purely a matter for them. If we can put the findings of the Food Prices Tribunal into operation and reduce the price of the 4-lb. loaf by one penny an advantage would accrue to the consumer; but there is no connection between that and wheat growing. It will not be necessary for me to meet the Deputy on any platform in Tipperary or anywhere else. To carry out the Deputy's policy would cost the taxpayer no less than £3,520,000. If I were a shadow Minister for Agriculture I certainly would not have put forward that scheme in all seriousness.

Mr. Derrig

Deputy Heffernan has taken it upon himself to administer a blow to the wheat proposals put forward by Deputy Ryan. He says they are not worthy of consideration. We all know that policies for placing the country on a proper basis cannot bear fruit in one, two or three years. There are policies that have to be carried into execution over a long period of time before they show good results. The policy that this Party stands for is the policy of reverting, as far as possible, to the type of economy that we enjoyed before the abolition of the Corn Laws. The fact that at the present time the world is in a state where low prices are the rule, and you have intensive development in agriculture in a great many States, does not mean that whether we find a particular policy applicable at a particular moment or not we are going to give up that policy for ever and agree with Deputy Heffernan that the policy is totally unfitted to be carried out.

The ultimate object of agriculture must be to maintain the food supply and the population of the country. When Deputy Heffernan or anybody else finds fault with the wheat subsidy we can point from this side of the House to the beet subsidy and ask whether the country is, in fact, getting value for the enormous amount of money that is being spent on that particular method of developing tillage. Whether you develop beet or mangels or wheat you are, at any rate, trying to put the largest number of people on the soil by so doing. You are trying to produce the maximum amount of food, and you are, in any case, safeguarding your country in one important particular. You are trying to do what ought to be the ultimate aim of all statesmanship, and that is to maintain and to conserve the population in your own country, and to improve their standing. So long as you are absolutely dependent, as you are at present, on fluctuations in foreign markets, on conditions and circumstances arranged by financiers in Wall Street, or some other place, you cannot believe that the economy of your State is in a sound or flourishing condition. That is our position. We do not believe that the present state of affairs, therefore, is satisfactory. We are trying to get out of it and to effect a better economy. It may take time. But when Deputy Heffernan calls attention to the question of wheat no doubt he may find an argument in his favour in the matter of wheat, but he conveniently forgets all the other points in the Fianna Fáil programme, which not alone Deputy Heffernan's own Party, if they had the courage to say what they think, but a large number of members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party believe in; that is to say, a tariff on bacon, a tariff on butter—we have had that already—and the keeping out of all classes of agricultural produce that can be produced in this country; keeping them out particularly when it is proved that they are being produced in a foreign country below the cost of production that prevails here, and that they are being dumped here at a price with which we cannot possibly compete.

Deputy Ryan has very rightly expressed the necessity for increasing and extending our industries in the towns so that we would not be completely dependent on the agricultural industry, which seems to be in for a period of continued depression. Therefore we want protection for our industries, and we want the further development of industries in the towns. My own belief is that since that process may take a long time, we ought, in the meantime, while we are doing that, to do everything possible to give security to the tillers of the soil by every legislative weapon that we have at our disposal. We ought to try to give security to the man on the land to enable him to give employment, and to face the future with more confidence than he is doing at present. This Vote is of particular importance because there is hardly a single aspect of agricultural work in the Free State that does not seem to be covered by the vast multitude of inspectors and of officials that the Minister has provided for the farmers, to enable them to walk in the way they should go.

Before reviewing some of the items that strike me in this Estimate, I should like to ask the Minister whether he seriously believes that the superficial explanation that he advanced yesterday in reply to Deputy Ryan, who found fault with the wiping off of £168,000 in respect of creameries, can be accepted as an explanation— that that £168,000 in fact represents redundant creameries, and therefore that completes the matter. I do not think that the Minister can expect the House to allow it to rest at that. The fact is that the Minister carried through a very big commercial transaction in the purchase of these creameries. He staked his reputation on the organisation of the dairying industry. He invested a sum of £677,000 of the taxpayers' money in that enterprise, and this year the Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, announced that these assets had been written down by £168,000. It does not matter to us whether the £168,000 represents redundant creameries that have, in fact, been closed down, or represents creameries that are being transferred, or have, in fact, been transferred to the Societies. The fact is that an asset which should have represented a certain amount of money to this State, now represents £168,000 less than the Minister originally calculated it was value for. Therefore, the Minister, on the admission of the Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, paid an excess price of £168,000 to the creameries.

I have often asked the question in this House, when and how the Minister for Agriculture expects to get back from the dairying industry the money that he has invested. Anybody who knows the conditions down the country and the amount of trouble that has arisen in regard to this whole matter of redundant creameries must be very doubtful as to whether the State may not, in fact, be at a much greater loss than £168,000 which we have lost this year. We may be at a loss of fifty per cent., or we may be at a loss of the whole amount that we have spent on this very uncommercial transaction. The Minister for Agriculture has constantly preached to the farmers the necessity for thrift, hard work, early rising, attending to their business and improving themselves. He has told them that the one big thing necessary was to reduce overhead expenditure. Deputy Gorey gets up and says that the local authorities ought to be wiped out because they are not effecting economies as they should; that they are not giving the ratepayers value for their money. I commend to Deputy Gorey's attention this Estimate for £434,964 and I ask him how long would he be attending county council meetings in Kilkenny before he would have such an opportunity for a pruning knife or a guillotine as he has in this Estimate? A considerable amount of the money seems to be spent on research work and on educational facilities. If we do not reap immediate benefit from them we must at least hope that the country will ultimately benefit from them. But, leaving these out of consideration, there are a number of items it seems to me demand explanation. In the first place this Department is peculiar in the sense that although we have a regular standing staff at headquarters which costs the taxpayers something like £117,000 in salaries, wages and allowances, we are in the unfortunate position that every new development that the Minister for Agriculture seeks to bring about, every statute that passes through this House in connection with agriculture, seems to demand a fresh staff of inspectors and officials to carry it into operation. It seems to me that there must be a considerable amount of overlapping in connection with that matter.

Mr. Gorey

Where does it come in?

Mr. Derrig

We have, for example, the expenditure on the improvement of flax growing. It is a small item, but nevertheless it would be interesting to know whether we are, in fact, getting value for the money we are spending upon it, or what is the amount of flax-growing going on in the Free State at the present time. We are spending £1,174 on that. Then we come on to the question of the improvement of milk production, and in that matter we have the taxpayer paying the sum of £27,000. It seems to me that the Minister ought to have very good grounds for asking the taxpayer to foot a bill of this kind. I notice the amount that is recouped from those who benefit from this expenditure is only £1,775, so that the State is at a loss in respect of this matter of £25,000.

I shall be told, of course, that all this eventually is for the benefit of the farmer. I shall be told, as we were told in the appendices to the De-rating Commission Report, that all the money spent upon this Department must be counted as money going back into the farmers' pockets. My own impression from talking on this matter with farmers throughout the country is that they would rather have no inspectors at all and no officials, with the idea of saving at the present juncture, rather than have expenditure of this kind if there is not an absolute certainty that a return is being got for it.

You come on then to the improvement of live stock, and you see there also a very heavy expenditure. A great many farmers, no doubt, benefit by that expenditure, but in this as in other matters you will have complaints from the small farmers that a great many of these schemes, even if they can be proved worthy and profitable to the country, are, in the long run, for the benefit of a particular class, and that the ordinary small farmer is getting no advantage out of them at all.

Mr. Gorey

To what scheme does that apply?

Mr. Derrig

The improvement of live stock, for example. We come now to the county committees of agriculture. A very considerable amount of money is being spent on grants to these county committees, but I notice that a very large proportion of this is eaten up in salaries and bonuses to instructors. The Minister for Agriculture, in his opening statement, indicated that the sum of £84,000 was going out in grants to those local committees. I notice that out of the total of £37,000 which was allotted in special grants something like £24,000 goes in salaries and bonuses to officials.

In connection with the congested districts, where there are special schemes, there is a considerable increase this year in the number of officials, and the only thing that has saved these schemes up to the present, it seems to me, is that the overseers and assistants in these areas are not paid by the local committees, who might find that they were not getting value for their money, and have been complaining of that, but that they are paid directly by the Government. This year the Minister for Agriculture has increased the number on these special schemes from 69 to 86. The amount that is recovered is very small in comparison with the total expenditure. The schemes there are not economic, because they are not even able to pay the expenses.

There are a large number of agricultural schools and farms under the control of the Minister for Agriculture, and it seems to me that these farms are not being run on a basis which enables them to pay their expenses. I must admit that a very considerable income is shown from some of them. For instance, in Athenry the income is £5,500, but the total expenditure, however, is £7,600. Some of the other stations show more unfavourably than that and the amount recovered is a much smaller percentage. I would like to know why a great effort could not be made to make these agricultural farms and stations, which cost something like £32,000, self-supporting. With regard to the costing officer to whom the Minister for Agriculture has referred, I think anybody interested in the question of Irish agriculture must welcome the effort to put this important matter of farm accounts on a somewhat better basis than it has been in the past. There are many countries in Europe which publish annual statements showing the average return or income from the farms of different valuations and different conditions—I think Denmark is one of these countries—so that the public and the legislature and the Government and everybody concerned can always have first-hand information of a reliable character as to the actual position in the industry.

I congratulate the Minister on taking steps to try and provide the country with expert opinion, as far as he can do it, in the matter of farm accounts, so that the public will not be in the position they are in at present when a very important crisis, as for example the beet crisis, is before it. At present the only notice they take of it in a great many cases is to say: "Oh, the farmers are constantly grumbling; they are really well-off but they have got into the habit of believing that they are badly off, and no one can shake them in that belief," and therefore a great many people in the country do not take the interest in the future of agriculture that they should. Besides, it is extremely difficult to discuss important questions relating to agricultural policy if we have not this information.

There is a definite allocation in this Estimate of £60,000 for the purchase of creameries. I do not know whether the policy of repayment of State expenditure is in full operation throughout the societies, but as far as I know the amount that has been repaid up to the present is comparatively small. Before the Dáil grants a further sum of £60,000 this year I think we are entitled to know what exactly the Minister is doing to get the societies to carry out their guarantees and their contracts for the repayment of the sums already advanced. As I have said, there is hardly any branch of agricultural work in which we have not a staff of inspectors to deal with. In the case of practically every Bill that the Minister for Agriculture has brought in it has been found necessary to set up a special staff to administer it. I do not wish to weary the House by going over the whole Estimate, but I maintain that the work that is being done should be done in large measure by the headquarters staff of the Department. That staff seems to be largely occupied, not in doing any particular work themselves in direct communication with the farmer, but simply in supervising the work of other officials who are, in fact, carrying out the different schemes through the country.

The Deputy knows nothing about it, but he wants to show us how infinitely little he is. In every way our production of eggs has been up to the standard in quality and freshness, and to-day the English consumer has absolute confidence in Irish produce.

Mr. Davin

What about prices?

Mr. Hogan

The relative prices have changed for the better. Prices are lower, but they have changed consistently for the better.

Mr. MacEntee

Of course if rock bottom is touched you cannot sink much lower.

Mr. Gorey

What the Department should do would be to go over and force the English consumers to buy more, and they should bring Deputy MacEntee, the fighting man, with them.

Mr. MacEntee

If Deputy Gorey would leave Deputy MacEntee out of it I would be happy.

Mr. Gorey

Whatever price we are getting the position of Irish eggs on the English market to-day is different to what it was four years ago. There is no question about that, except amongst a lot of cackling fools. Dealing with the selection of bulls, Deputy Ryan said that more discretion should be exercised by the inspectors when making selections. I think that cry had some volume in Limerick last spring and the previous spring. I happen to know something about the cattle trade, and from my observation I would be inclined to say that instead of being too severe the examination has been too lax. I have seen bulls coming from Limerick aged two and a half years, and I was surprised that many of them were licensed.

Mr. Clery

One matter that has been talked about this evening is the improvement of live-stock. I think a great mistake is being made by the Department of Agriculture in this respect. Deputy Gorey talked about the prices paid for bulls, premium bulls and non-premium bulls. I think a very great injustice is being done in the prices that are being paid for premium bulls. At Ballsbridge Show every year you have prices averaging 100 guineas being paid for premium bulls. These bulls are bought by farmers from all parts of the country and at very enhanced prices. The ratepayers of each county into which these animals go have to pay a very substantial portion of that price out of the rates. When we look at it in a broad light we find that the only people who really benefit first-hand and all the time in a big way by the prices that are being paid for these animals are about half-a-dozen breeders in this country who breed those premium animals.

I think a great mistake is made at first in having the inspectors of the Department examining those bulls and awarding premiums to them at the Dublin Show before they are purchased. It simply means that the bull that is granted a premium is increased in price by some sixty per cent. to seventy per cent. That bull, as a result of having the premium granted to it, is sold at a very enhanced price. Deputy Gorey said that large numbers of non-premium bulls are purchased and they are of a very high quality too. It is generally recognised that you have a very large number of animals at the Show that are practically of as good quality as those that have been awarded premiums.

I think a very great injustice is done to the purchaser through having these premiums awarded before the sale. I think the animals ought to be sold on their merits. When the animals have been purchased by the farmers they should then be examined by an inspector to find whether they are worth the premium or not. The reason I make the suggestion is this, that you have only half a dozen breeders—perhaps there are more—who gain the main benefit of this improvement of live stock. These animals are purchased at very high prices and they are brought down the country. The farmer who buys one of these animals in a country district is perfectly well aware when he purchases the animal that he is buying it at a price which would not pay him, but he is guaranteed by his local committee of agriculture a certain remission in that price. I do not know of any farmer who has purchased a premium bull at Ballsbridge who would purchase were he not beforehand guaranteed by his local committee of agriculture a sum amounting to practically three-quarters of the price he paid for the animal at Ballsbridge.

I think that policy should be reversed. Indeed it requires to be looked into more carefully by the Department of Agriculture. It means that the people who buy these animals, the ratepayers in each county, are not getting real value out of them. It is a certain number of petted breeders from the North of Ireland who are coming in and reaping the enhanced prices every year. These people are reaping the greatest benefit that is to be got out of the Acts passed here for the improvement of live stock. I really think the matter should be inquired into and that some other method quite different from the method of directly subsidising these northern breeders in that way should be found.

Though all these Acts have been passed for the improvement of live stock and other Acts have been passed by the Department of Agriculture the experience of farmers who have a practical knowledge—and I claim myself to have a practical knowledge in this respect—is that the farmers are reaping no direct benefit. One can scarcely point to a single Act that has been passed from the very start which has made it more profitable for the farmer to produce. If you go through the Acts that have been passed here you will see that the farmers have got more instructions from the Department of Agriculture than any farmers in the world. Yet in spite of all these Acts and in spite of all these instructions scarcely one of these Acts or any of these instructions have made it more definitely profitable for the farmers to produce. They have probably given our live stock an enhanced value in the English market. That would be a good thing, but we find when it comes to a matter of cash that we are not in any better position than before. I am quite clear in stating that here.

The idea of wheat-growing is scoffed at by Deputy Gorey, by the Minister, and certain other Deputies who call themselves Farmer Deputies. If wheat-growing would even increase the price of bread I would be in favour of it, and I am not afraid to make that declaration here coming as I do from a very congested area, where the people have small uneconomic holdings. I am prepared to get up before any audience in my county and preach that even if it increased the price of bread, wheat-growing in this country would be a benefit to the country. By wheat-growing you will provide employment for the labourers and for our working people, and that will place us in a more independent position than to depend on foreigners who come in here to exploit us.

I am convinced that the Minister for Agriculture, were he not so bound up by the importers' rings and distributors' associations of various kinds in this country, by the large distributors who live by importing foreign goods, flour and other commodities and selling them here at enhanced prices, would be in favour of wheat-growing. If he looked at it fairly and was not bound by those rings, financially and otherwise, in his own political organisations, I believe he would to-day be in favour of wheat-growing in this country.

I am convinced, despite what Deputy Gorey says about our bad climate, that wheat-growing would pay the country. If we spoke about our bad climate in the way that Deputy Gorey spoke about it to-day we would be told at once about the danger and the injury we were doing to the country, and that because of what we had said tourists would not come here. That is what would be said if we had spoken about our climate in the way that Deputy Gorey spoke to-day. But despite what Deputy Gorey has said this country is able to grow wheat as well as any other country. I am convinced that Deputy Gorey has probably 100 acres of land that would grow wheat as well as the land of any other country. If the Deputy would hire labour from the West to till his land he would make it pay. It could be made profitable for Deputy Gorey to get out and allow the men who would till the land to till it. This idea of wheat-growing, proposed from these benches, is laughed at by Deputy Gorey and people like him. I say we could produce in this country £1,000,000 worth of wheat. Two or three years ago there was talk in this House about all that was done for beet-growing in Carlow. But now no one wishes to boast about the three and a half million pounds that are being given to the beet growers of Carlow. They are vary chary to-day about boasting about that in Kilkenny or Carlow. In the light of what happened recently in Carlow and Kilkenny, if the proposal came from us to-day to give £3,500,000 to the beet growers you would have people like Deputy Gorey, Deputy Heffernan and the Minister scoffing at it, just as they scoff at the proposal in reference to wheat. Not so many years ago Deputy Gorey would scoff at the idea of saving the bacon industry by a tariff. To-day he is one of the foremost advocates of it we have in the House. I will do him the justice of saying that it is not because he is the director of a bacon factory that he advocates it, but because he has learned that the bacon industry to-day is in a very precarious position. If something is not done, and done in a big way, you will have people going out of the production of pigs.

Mr. Gorey

I was always in favour of it.

Mr. Clery

It is the one big industry in the West of Ireland, but it does not pay the people there to produce pigs to-day. Are the Minister and the Executive Council going to wait, as they waited in the case of butter, until a crisis arises, until the people have gone out of pig-producing altogether, before they decide what policy they are going to adopt to save the industry? The Minister's policy seems to be that agriculturists must wait until England grows prosperous. A statement he recently made at a public meeting was to that effect, that the best thing that could happen for this country was that England would grow prosperous, that the economic situation in England should improve. Are we to take it that his policy is to throw his hands up in despair and wait for something to happen to improve conditions in England, and that when things improve in England the English people in their own big generous way will help our farmers to prosper? If we have, what we were told we had a few years ago, the best Minister for Agriculture in the world, he, with his ability and his fully-staffed Department, should be able to find some way in the meantime of carrying on the agricultural industry here in a prosperous way without having to wait for things to happen in England to affect agriculture here. When the Minister talks of things being bad in England and that the result of that is that things are bound to be bad here, does he not realise that conditions in England are reflected in the West of Ireland in this way, that thousands of agricultural labourers, who have to go to England for a few months every year in order to earn a livelihood and to be able to rear their families, are finding it very difficult to find employment in England at present? Even though the Minister may think that our proposal that we should go in for more tillage and grow more wheat, instead of paying the foreigner to do it for us, is not a very valuable one, does he not think that the migratory labourers who are out of employment in the West would be better employed even in tilling Deputy Gorey's farm or sowing wheat in the midlands, and that that would be a way out of the depression here; that it would improve the condition of these labourers without having to wait for conditions to improve in England in order to give them employment? This thing of scoffing at proposals which come from this side of the House simply because it suits the political methods of the Minister is not a fair way to meet the position. If there is one thing that we have learned during the last couple of years it is that the Minister may be a good lawyer and a pretty good speaker on public platforms, but that he has not proved successful as a farmer. He may boast that he grows more wheat than all the members of this Party put together, but he knows nothing about tillage or about the results of it.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Hogan)

I do not grow an acre of wheat.

Mr. Clery

I heard the Minister say that he tilled more land than all the members of this Party put together. He boasted recently at a public meeting of his wonderful tillage.

Mr. Hogan

What I said was, that not being a fool, I do not grow an acre of wheat. There are other tillage crops.

Mr. Clery

I wish you would prove yourself not to be a fool in other respects. That is only one instance. You have proved yourself to be foolish in other respects, to the farmers' cost. We must get away from the idea of hero worship of the Minister. We should remember that he is a very ordinary man. We may find Deputy Gorey differing from him in the very important matters of importing foreign oats and foreign bacon. We should realise that, of the two, Deputy Gorey is the more practical man.

As to the proposal that Deputy Ryan made to-day about wheat, all Deputy Gorey could say was that it contained a whole lot of "Ifs" from beginning to end. "Ifs" govern many things. If the Minister was more interested in tillage and less in grass we might not have so much reason for complaint. If Deputy Gorey could succeed in getting the Minister to realise even now that there is a danger of the bacon industry collapsing things might be changed considerably. If Deputy Gorey was not recently discovered not to be what he poses to be in the South of Ireland he would not have got into court. Deputy Gorey should not find fault with our proposals about wheat unless he has some more concrete argument against it than saying: "You have a whole lot of ‘ifs' in the statement." I would like if the Minister would tackle this question not in the gibing, political fashion in which he always attacks it. We are prepared to treat him decently, and even say nice things about him if he would do that, but any proposal which came from this Party about increased tillage, the growing of wheat, the saving of the bacon industry, and even of the butter industry, was attacked by the Minister in a gibing manner.

I have a very great objection to the statement he recently made against tariffs. As Deputy Ryan has said, the logical conclusion of the Minister's recent statement about tariffs is that you are to have no industry here at all except grass-growing. You are not to protect industries. If it is right to protect certain industries, and if it has proved to be profitable and has given employment, there are other industries which should be gone into as well, and it would be found profitable to put a tariff on other articles which are coming into this country just as it has been found profitable in the case of the articles on which a tariff has been imposed. If the farmer is not to continue to carry practically the whole burden of taxation we shall have to create industries which will bear part of the burden. It is only by a policy of tariffs that we can do that. Perhaps this has not much to do with the Estimate, but it is the attitude of the Minister on this question to which I object. If the Minister is not going to take some measure which will save the bacon industry he should let us know what policy he has for the Gaeltacht. The people there were advised some time ago to go in for pig-producing, for poultry-raising and other matters, and I should like the Minister to indicate what his policy is for these areas. They differ very much from the beet-growing areas in Carlow and Kilkenny. Has the Minister any definite policy for them? If he has, it has not been indicated to us so far, and I should like if he would deal with it in his closing statement and tell us what it is.

Mr. Bennett

The debate so far has not been very illuminating. Very little attempt has been made to attack the Estimate as a whole, and I shall follow the general precedent and not go into too many details. Looking at the Estimate from top to bottom there is not much in it to object or offer opposition to. There is one item to which I may refer and that is the sum of £300 granted in aid of the Irish Bloodstock Breeders' Association. I am very glad that the Minister has seen fit to give that grant. The bloodstock breeders in Ireland suffer a very considerable hardship. Irish thoroughbred horses, sold all over the world, in India, Africa, Australia, the United States, and several other countries, are always returned as English horses and, naturally, the buyers from these foreign countries when they want to look for thoroughbred horses go to England and not to Ireland in search of them. It is proposed to start a scheme to counteract that, and many other things also. Unfortunately up to this money was not available for advertisement by the Bloodstock Owners' Society, but the Minister has now come forward to help the cause. I am sure there will not be any objection to that in any part of the House.

As Deputy Ryan and other speakers have said, the principal part of this Vote is in connection with livestock. I am very glad it is so. Most of the four or five of what I might call the principal livestock Acts dealing with agricultural produce such as Fresh Meat, the Dairy Produce Act and the Purchase of Creameries Acts have been referred to at length. I would like to make one or two remarks about the Live-stock Breeders' Act.

If the position of the live stock of this country was to be maintained, and if our export trade was to hold its own it was incumbent on the Minister to see that the standard of perfection of the Irish stock was kept up. Unfortunately there did appear to be a danger to that inasmuch as certain proprietors of cattle—people who kept in-calf heifers for sale and dairy owners who did not rear their own calves while they made every attempt to purchase the best heifers they could —were very often content with any kind of inferior bull procured at any small cost, with the consequence that the result in progeny was very inferior. That state of things the Minister could not allow to continue and consequently legislation was produced and, I might say, favourably received, all through the country.

In the administration of this legislation there was naturally considerable hardship at first. Naturally people who had their animals rejected were disappointed and dissatisfied. Take a county like Limerick, where there were numerous bulls, more than in other places, much dissatisfaction was felt. I might say that in Limerick there was decided dissatisfaction at the administration of the Act. I had to make representations on several occasions to the Minister. The Minister received me very favourably and did whatever he conceivably could to try and make provision to lighten the hardships of the people. Still the dissatisfaction continued.

Early on in this spring, long before inspection came along, I again went to the Minister and suggested to him as a possible remedy that he should send a new set of inspectors altogether to Limerick this year and that that might possibly have some beneficial effect. This the Minister agreed to do, and did so. But again there was a very considerable number of bulls rejected, particularly in the eastern portion of Limerick. Now while I am not blaming the Minister for this, because I know he has taken every possible precaution, as he assured me he would, and I know it is a fact that the standard demanded for bulls is the same as in other counties, still I am satisfied myself that a great number of high-class animals have been rejected in Limerick.

Mr. Gorey

And about time.

Mr. Bennett

Without any offence to Deputy Gorey I think I know my business in that line. Now, why this should be I do not know. I am not blaming the inspectors. I believe they have a number of reasons for it. One explanation might be that the standard of bulls, especially in Limerick, is so high that the bulls in Limerick would be more than the average in other counties. That may be a possible explanation. I do not say it is the real one. Another is that unfortunately, in Limerick, bulls are out-fed, not in-fed; they are not pampered. Possibly when they were presented for inspection, they were not in the condition that the inspectors were accustomed to find such animals in other counties. I say that is a possible explanation. I can see no other. I suggest to the Minister, as a way out of the difficulty, that he might possibly delay the inspection for next year, seven or eight weeks later than usual, and that might have some result, but I do not know that it will. I am making these remarks not by way of criticising the Minister's action. I recognise absolutely he is not penalising Limerick any more than any other place, but the difficulty remains. I personally have knowledge, and very considerable knowledge, that first class animals have been rejected. Deputy Gorey said that he had seen three year old bulls that came from Limerick, that were very bad animals. I quite believe him. I have seen three year old bulls from Limerick, and they were not good animals. I say, talking about the condition of cattle, that any man can judge a fat beast, but it takes a judge to judge a thin beast.

Mr. Gorey

Quite true.

Mr. Bennett

That is why a lot of the bulls presented in February and March were rejected. At any rate many of those culled beasts were very excellent beasts. As an illustration of that, I should like to invite some of the Deputies here to see some of the store cattle that I shall be selling in October next, and a number of which will be some of the rejected bulls cast by inspectors because they were a little short of the condition required. I do not want to say any more except that the dissatisfaction is there. There is some inconceivable reason for it. I do not see any way out of the difficulty except possibly that it might be time enough in Limerick to inspect the farmers' bulls in May which formerly were inspected in February. If that were done, the animals would be in better condition to present for inspection than in the earlier month.

Deputy Ryan made several allusions to the other Acts passed within the last four or five years for the advancement of agriculture. Take the Eggs Act. I shall only say this, that there is no doubt that the standard and quality of eggs have been improved since the passing of that Act. Every Deputy in the House recognises that. The days of the really bad egg are gone. None but the good article is exported, and the same applies to dairy produce. The same applies to agriculture. Two things were necessary in the development of dairy produce. One was cleanliness, and the other quality. As a result of the legislation passed here, the day of the dirty dairy and of the dirty churn is past. Not only has the standard of butter been improved, but even the cream has been improved under the regulations made for cleanliness. Allusion was made to the purchase of creameries. The time has not yet arrived when one can say whether or not the purchase of the creameries, and the price paid for them, was right or wrong. Only a portion of the creameries purchased have, so far, been allotted to the co-operative societies. There is a very considerable asset in the Condensed Milk Company in Limerick and in its adjunct creameries at Knocklong, Drumkeen, Tipperary and other places. All this is very valuable property, and at the moment I would not attempt to put a figure on it. Some day this property will have to be disposed of. It is at present being run by a committee on behalf of the Minister. It will have to be disposed of some day, and I hope that day will arise soon. I do not believe in Government-run concerns. The sooner that property is settled the better it will be for everybody.

While dealing with this question of the creameries I want to refer to the reference Deputy Ryan made to them last night when he quoted me for his own purpose as being antagonistic to the views of the Minister. He said that I agreed with certain resolutions that were passed at a meeting held at Nicker. What I said at that meeting I would be quite prepared to repeat here. I do not speak with two voices, one in the Dáil and one in the country. I was invited to attend the meeting, and I did so. I did not know what was to be discussed. Probably if I had I would not have attended. I did attend the meeting, but I certainly was not in agreement with the resolutions passed, even though Deputy Ryan said that I was. Deputy Ryan purported to read last night from a report that appeared in the "Limerick Leader" to prove that I was there and that I agreed with the resolutions. Luckily, I was handed this morning a copy of the "Limerick Leader," in which there is a very curtailed report of my speech. The report bears out what I said last night. The report states:

Mr. Bennett said that as one of the Government representatives in County Limerick he did not agree with some of the things that were stated in the resolutions before the meeting, and with some of the remarks that were made from that platform.

Further down it says:

Most of the people present appear to be in sympathy with the statements made in the resolution and by the critics of the Government who had spoken from the platform, with which he (Mr. Bennett) did not agree.

I certainly did not. I may say en passant that most of the speakers were from neighbouring counties. They were not from the County Limerick at all. A great number of those present were also from the neighbouring counties. That is as far as my agreement goes to which Deputy Ryan refers. Later Deputy Ryan quoted me as, if I may so put it, as passing a slur on the Minister, and using the hackneyed expression "heaven-sent Minister." When the Deputy was quoting he might have quoted the caption which appears in the paper in heavy type—"If there had been a rise." I commend that to the Opposition. One man said: "You won't go against Hogan." Another said: "The heaven-sent Minister." That does not appear on the report, but it was said. It was the person that used that expression that put the words into my mouth. The report goes on:

"Continuing, Mr. Bennett said they all recognised that the burden on the farmer was intolerable at the present time, but circumstances had been most unfavourable in many directions during the past three years. Supposing that instead of a fall in the price of milk there had been a rise what would be the position to-day of those who criticised the Government legislation in regard to agriculture? To an extent that was not recognised; their grievances were brought about by a fall in the price of milk and in the price of other agricultural commodities and neither Mr. Hogan nor a heaven-sent Minister could have prevented that."

The burthen of the song that was sung by the Opposition to-day, by Deputy Ryan, Deputy Clery and the others who spoke from that side of the House, was that the Minister's policy was a bad policy, that there were no money results from it. Deputy Ryan emphasised the fact that our agricultural produce was realising £2,000,000 less now than two years ago. Deputy Derrig followed him and said that the world was now in such a state that low prices are ruling all over. The burthen of their song was that there has been a fall in prices.

What I suggest to the Opposition is that if there had been a rise in prices during the last three years they would have no criticism whatever of the Minister's policy, so that we may take it that the fall in prices was a godsend to the Opposition. Without it there would be no criticism of this Vote from that side of the House. In fact, we would not have any speeches at all to listen to to-day. The only criticism there has been on this Vote from the opposite side of the House is that Deputies have got up one after another and stated in different words that prices have fallen. Deputy Ryan, I am glad to say, has returned to the attack as far as wheat is concerned. I hope that the Party and himself will stick to it. I hope they will keep up the agitation for wheat growing that they revived this evening in the Dáil until after the next General Election. If they do it will be received by some members on this side of the House with acclamation. I only hope that they will stick to the policy which I thought they had renounced, but which from the evidence we had this evening, they have now revived. I have no criticism to offer on this Vote. The Opposition had none except the incidence of the fall in world prices. That has really been a godsend to them. It has put into their hands a weapon with which to attack the Minister.

Mr. Haslett

I am utterly opposed to the amendment proposed by Deputy Ryan. He spoke about the export of cattle and put forward the plea that we were going on the wrong lines, because there are less cattle in the country than previously. That can be viewed from another standpoint— that is, the standpoint of the farmer. That is that there is no anxiety about the exportable surplus of cattle. Those in the cattle trade as rearers, graziers or dealers rejoice when the trade is on the move. There is nothing more distressing than going to a fair and finding that no business is being done. I think it speaks well for the industry that there is good trade for the export surplus. With regard to young heifers leaving the country, it is a pity that more of these are not retained for breeding purposes. The trouble is to know what to do. During the war, steps were taken in that respect, but I do not think any Government would risk taking the same steps now, and saying that no heifers should be exported unless they had the four broad teeth. It is a pity that more of the good heifers are not kept so that we might have a better stock of cows coming on. Sometimes there is a suggestion made through milk-recording societies that, instead of taking drastic steps there might be inducements in the way of premiums so that those with good stock would be encouraged to retain them.

Deputy Ryan emphasised the question of wheat-growing. I thought the wheat question was dead and buried. The Deputy spoke of it as a nurse crop and said that hay-seed following last year's wheat crop would be a perfect nurse crop. I want to take Deputy Ryan a step further. I grow wheat, but not on a large scale, because I do not believe it would pay me to do so. In the field in which I grew wheat I am putting in turnips this year. It is three years since there was wheat in that field. It was followed by hay, and oats and turnips are now going in. This week the old man who was sowing the turnips told me that there was no difficulty in knowing where the wheat was, as he never had such a time in his life in preparing the land. Wheat is a hard crop on the land, because it leaves a trail behind it that will be there for many a day. I had a letter during the winter from a young man who went out to farm with a cousin in Australia. The farm was a mixed one for wheat-growing and for sheep. In his letter he told me that they did not know what to do with the wheat there, as they could get no sale for it. I was speaking to a young man home from Canada, and he said that there they did not know what to do about wheat. They thought when they were getting one hundred cents a bushel it was a bad price, but subsequently they got only fifty cents, and now I understand the price is about thirty cents for tops, and for second and third grade it is lower. I do not think any sane person who has studied the question would say that we could grow wheat in the face of that situation. Why should we employ ourselves in growing what is a drug on the market and which can be bought at half the cost of production?

Mention was made of the egg business. I think the steps taken to deal with eggs were very good. Anything that ensures that what we produce to sell is the real stuff is a step in the right direction. We want the stuff we are selling to be exactly what we describe it to be, and in this respect I think the Eggs Act has done good work. The great pity is that we have to put a big mark on our eggs going to the other side. It is only this week that I happened to hear of the difference in price there is between eggs in the Free State and those sold immediately across the Border. At present a farmer who is living on the Border and whose normal market is across the Border has the right to export a certain quantity of eggs. People who brought eggs across last Monday got 7/11 per great hundred in Northern Ireland, while eggs of the same weight and quality were sold in Monaghan for 6/8—a difference of 1/3. We cannot blame the Minister for that and I am not making a point of it. That was caused because, as we claim to be separate from the British market, our eggs must be so marked. I made representations to the Minister, and I will do so again, to the effect that the mark on eggs should be much smaller and neater than it is.

I want to refer to a point raised by Deputy Davin. It was very interesting to hear the Deputy speak on the butter question, although he described himself as not being a butter producer or a farmer. At the moment, the butter question is one of the big questions of the day. I hold some fairly strong views on that, and I am ready to pay a tribute to the Department of Agriculture for what it has done in inspecting the creameries, seeing that they have proper machinery for making butter, and testing the butter to see that it is the proper quality before it is exported. But I part company with them there, because I say that the marketing of our produce is the important thing. In some way we should carry things a step further, and instead of leaving the butter on the ship or on the train we must go further. This is a national question and should not be approached in any political spirit. There should be co-operation on every side as to what is best to be done for the butter industry. A calamity has happened this year. In this House, during the past season, we put on a tax of 4d. a lb. on butter. A great many people questioned the wisdom of that imposition. That is not what I am going to complain about now. What I complain about is that before there was any exportable surplus of butter, in the month of April the price fell so that the creameries lost unnecessarily because of bad marketing, and because too many of them cut prices. I think a very conservative estimate of the loss to the creameries, and incidentally to the farmers, for that period would be between £50,000 and £70,000. We are now approaching the butter season, and when these numerous sellers with comparatively small supplies of butter go on the British market they will be miserable failures. I think Deputy Davin was right, that what is wanted is steady supplies. No small creamery can give that. Some of the bigger ones can do so. The whole thing resolves itself into a national question, and sooner or later this House will have to face the question of what is to be done in regard to the butter industry. We may make the very best article under the best conditions, but in the end, if the farmers do not receive a good price for it, our efforts will be a miserable failure. Even milk that has to be turned into butter is not a paying proposition. It is one of the sidelines of cattle raising, and it is necessary that we should make all we can out of the butter industry.

A national calamity came on us this year when one essential part of the scheme was put out of existence and nothing was brought in to replace it. The Marketing Tribunal brought in a report, and a great many thinking people would have liked to support it in principle and work it out in detail. The whole thing, however, was torpedoed—I do not know if that is the right expression—at the very start, and, because of some personal prejudice and perhaps of something looming in the distance, it never got a chance. People who purported to favour it had no idea how it was going to function, while others opposed it. Anyway, things got mixed up, with the result that the industry has not got going, though the summer season has started, that is, if we are to have any summer at all. What is to be done? I think it is too bad that this great industry should be placed at the mercy of a few people who can send out circulars to the creameries inviting their proxies, get hold of them and outvote a sensible scheme. That situation will have to be faced by this House, not by any particular Party, but by the House as a whole, and let the House take any odium, if odium is attached to it, of saving the industry. It is nonsense to say that the organisation has failed because the price of butter has come down. It has come down in the markets of the world, but there is no reason why our butter should not be selling to the best advantage now. We are producing the right stuff, and the difficulty is to have it sold right.

I think the Deputy deserves a token of appreciation from the Minister for making the best case that could be made for the Minister's policy. He comes out boldly with the statement that the only reason we should do anything in this country in the line of agriculture is as a side line to help us to produce cattle and pigs. He thinks that the policy of this country should be aimed at the production of cattle and pigs. That is the old, traditional policy of the country and it is the policy which the Minister has adopted, but he has not adopted the argument quite as successfully as Deputy Haslett, who said that we should not produce what is a drug on the market and what can be bought at half the cost of production. Deputy Haslett and the Minister for Agriculture should look into the future and try and judge the future by what has happened in the past. They should see that we have been driven out of one farm crop and product after another simply because other countries grew so much of these products that they became a drug on the market and could be dumped into this country and England at half the cost of production.

We have been driven out of the tobacco market, though at one time we produced enough tobacco to supply eight millions of our people, and then had enough to export. We were driven out of wheat production though we produced sufficient wheat for 8,000,000 people, and had some to export. Anyone with an eye in his head can see that if the policy of foreign countries is to continue to produce butter, and dump it on the British and Irish markets, the farmers in England, Ireland, and other countries similarly situated are going to be driven out of production. Deputy Dr. Ryan gave us figures showing the decrease in the growing of oats and barley in this country. He also gave figures showing the increase in the imports of oats and barley into the Free State during the last three months, as compared with a similar period in 1930. He showed that the importation of barley had jumped by a hundred per cent. and that oats had gone up also to a great extent. Recent information I have got is to the effect that there are many ships on the sea at present carrying oats in here from Russia and Germany, and this produce will be dumped into our mills, and turned out as Irish oatmeal. If Russia or Germany, or any other country, for whatever reasons of policy seem best to it, continues to dump oats in here under the cost of production, where will we be? We will be driven out of the production of oats also, just as we were in the case of the production of wheat and tobacco. If Australia, and if all the southern European countries, as well as Russia continue to dump butter under subsidy into the English market, and even over here, what are we to do?

I want to put these questions first to Deputies, so that they may see the difficulties ahead, and see what the solution should be. We must not throw up our hands and say that nothing is to be done, and that, as Deputy Haslett says, we should not grow what is a drug on the market, and what can be imported at half the cost of production. As a result of the Government policy we are now faced with the situation that imported oats, barley, butter, bacon and eggs will be a drug on the Irish market.

Mr. Haslett

Would the Deputy say whether we would not be better employed in growing what we can sell?

Mr. Aiken

Would the Deputy say what form of produce we could produce at the moment at a profit? Is there an answer to that question?

Mr. Haslett

Yes, there is; but I am asking you a question.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is an unsatisfactory system, as the Deputy will find.

Mr. Aiken

I think Deputy Haslett will admit that producing butter and getting our farmers 3½d. or 4d. per gallon for milk is not going to be a paying proposition, nor is the production of eggs for sale at 6/8 per hundred on the Monaghan market going to be a paying proposition. The fact is that these are things we are producing for export. We are following the Minister's policy of producing more for the British market. Other countries are doing the same thing, and the result is that the more we produce, the less we find ourselves getting in that market. It seems to me hopeless, from the point of view of the farmers, to continue that policy, to continue it blindfold, shutting our eyes and opening our mouths waiting to see what will be sent to us. If we only consider what happened in the past we will see that we are going to be driven out of the production of butter, bacon and eggs, as we have been driven out of the production of wheat and tobacco. We are rapidly being driven out of the production of barley and oats; we will be driven out of the production of oats unless we take steps to save the situation.

Deputy Haslett stated that we should only go into dairying as a side-line to the production of cattle and pigs. That is to be the end-all and the be-all of our agricultural production—the production of cattle and pigs. In our opinion farming should be conducted in this country in order to produce a better livelihood for the people, both the people who are engaged in agriculture and the people generally who are living in the country. That is the point of view from which we approach the whole question of the difficulties in which the farming community find themselves. Looking to the future, we see no possibility of our competing on an economic basis with foreign farmers.

Deputy Gorey stated that bacon was produced under slave labour conditions in some other countries. I am not saying that that is true, but I think this is true: that unless we take steps to protect our farmers they will have to compete in the sale of their produce against countries that have the lowest possible cost of production, against countries in which producers live on the lowest standard of comfort on which human beings can exist and continue to produce. That is not our standard for our people. We believe that this country is capable of keeping the three million people we have here, or even three times that amount, on a much higher standard of comfort than that upon which we are existing at present. Our agricultural policy would be directed towards that end. A man must work to live, and there is no doubt that the production of tillage gives much more employment and distributes much more wages than the production of cattle. We could produce very efficient cattle ranches in this country by turning the whole country into five or six cattle ranches. Whether it was wet or dry the cattle could graze ahead. We could do that and produce more cattle than we are producing at present. If we were simply aiming at the production of cattle, that is what we should do, but if we are aiming at keeping the biggest possible number of people on the land, then our people should turn to the production that will keep the largest number here on the soil.

Members of Cumann na nGaedheal and Deputy Haslett sneer at our wheat proposition. Deputy Heffernan said a few words and then skipped off lest anybody might cross-examine him on what he said. Deputy Dr. Ryan, when speaking, pointed out that the Government turned down the tariff on flour and turned down the wheat proposition on the plea that it was going to add to the cost of bread to the consumers. He pointed out that by keeping bread at the present price level, and ensuring to the millers and the bakers the profits which the Food Prices Tribunal said were fair, we could produce all the wheat we need in this country at a cost or at a subsidy of half a million pounds. That was on the basis of giving the farmers 30/- per barrel for wheat. I think that if Deputy Haslett got the opportunity of producing wheat and had a guaranteed market at 25/- per barrel, he would have very little else on his farm. He would give up producing eggs at 6/8 per hundred and butter at 100/- per cwt. If Deputy Heffernan or anybody else says that on our wheat scheme it would cost three and a half millions to subsidise all the wheat we could produce, then the fact of the matter is that the consumers of the country are paying three millions too much for their bread at the present time. If they have as great a sympathy with the consumers as the people in Cumann na nGaedheal occasionally have, when they want to argue against some Fianna Fáil policy, they should see that the price of bread is reduced for the consumers by £3,000,000.

The average price of bread in 1930 was between 9½d. and 9¾d. per loaf. A fair price of flour on that basis, according to the report of the Food Prices Tribunal, would be 43/11 per sack. A fair price for wheat which the miller could afford to give the farmer on that basis, on the basis of 43/11 per sack, would be 30/- per barrel. If you deduct for moisture and milling 2/3, you have 27/9 which the miller could afford to give to the farmer. Therefore the subsidy the State would be called upon to pay would be, for four and a half million barrels of wheat, four and a half million times 2/3. That is roughly half a million pounds. These figures are given on the assumption—they cannot be contradicted—that all the wheat could be produced here and the bread made out of it sold here at the present price. It would only cost a half a million pounds to do it.

Supposing that it did cost £2,000,000 to do it, I believe myself that it would pay us well. We have no other crop to turn to in order to reduce our adverse trade balance. I think it was Deputy Flinn who once said that a nation is simply a larger family. If I went to some Cumann na nGaedheal T.D. to-day, or even to Deputy Haslett, the best Cumann na nGaedheal T.D. of all, and pointed out to him where, by giving £2 to some idle relative of his who was living with him, he could save himself buying £7 worth of goods in the shop, he would say it was a very good proposition for the spending of £2. That is the situation we have here. We have many thousands of idle hands and idle people whom we have to support by doles, rates and other ways in charity. We are keeping these people, and we believe that it would be good national policy to employ our idle people on the land by giving them the necessary £2,000,000 to produce the wheat we require in order to save ourselves from giving the foreigners £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 for the wheat we import. It is the same proposition as the farmer giving his son £2 to produce something for which the farmer would have to pay £7 in the shop. The spending of that £2,000,000—and we would be giving it to our own people— would save us from sending £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 to the foreigner for what we are able to produce ourselves.

However, I do not think that the Cumann na nGaedheal Party are going to adopt the wheat policy, and they will simply content themselves with refuting our arguments. I am sure there are several Cumann na nGaedheal farmers quite satisfied that our policy should get a trial, but I do not think they will support us in giving it a trial until the Cumann na nGaedheal Party is out of office.

The Minister, in his statement, said that we were spending £137,000 on education and research. I would like to ask him if he is satisfied that we are getting the best possible value for that money? It is a large sum to spend in addition to the four and a half millions already spent on education. Honestly, I do not think that education in the country is showing any great improvement as a result of a yearly expenditure of almost five million pounds. We are an agricultural people, and 75 per cent. of our people are depending for their livelihood on our agricultural production. Education should be directed as far as we can direct it to giving our people an interest in the land, and teaching them to become better farmers. Practically nothing has been done in the primary schools. We had that out on the Vote on Education. The Minister for Education himself does not seem to be interested enough in the matter to discuss it. The Minister for Agriculture must see that agricultural education is one of the first requirements of the country. The Dáil spent a lot of time last year passing legislation to compel farmers to do this thing and the other thing, to work their farms and to market their produce on the best possible lines, on lines which properly educated farmers would say that they should follow. This £137,000 is now being spent in addition to what we are spending on primary and secondary education. I think we are not getting the best possible value out of it.

The system the Department and the county committees of agriculture follow is to have itinerant instructors. A college or two is being kept up for the purpose of training these instructors. This instruction can hardly come to anything. A lot of the time of the instructors is wasted in collecting the classes. They get very poor results in most counties, even on the first few nights, and after the first few nights these classes melt away. Take the average county, on which we are spending £1,000 a year on these instructors, and I suggest that if we spent half of that thousand, and gave £50 each to ten farmers' sons between the ages of 17 and 18 years, to enable them to go to one of several colleges which might be established throughout the country, and keep them there for a year, the whole training being devoted to teaching them to be better farmers, and training them to go back to the land, and make a success of their own farms, we would get more value for our money in that way.

At the moment any agricultural education that is being given is directed towards turning out those itinerant instructors. Glasnevin is practically entirely devoted to that. They are making the best job they can of it, but, in my opinion, the system is not right. I think we are turning out good men if they had a proper opportunity of passing on the knowledge they have acquired. I think that the best system of passing on that knowledge that the professors and teachers have acquired is by the setting up of other colleges organised solely for the purpose of training farmers to go back and work on their own land. We are turning out plenty of teachers at the moment. But it is difficult for them to pass on the knowledge that they have acquired. The classes they organise are difficult to organise. This takes up a lot of their time, and the classes are very poorly attended. They cannot do much work in that way, particularly when the students they get have no preliminary training whatever. Itinerant instructors might as well be talking Greek to them as reading out to them a comparatively simple lecture on the up-to-date methods of agriculture. I think it would be a good thing to have this Vote referred back.

The Minister is not taking cognisance of what is going on in the world or what this country is going to be faced with in the future. He is creating a very nice machine. He is going to have very nice butter, very nice eggs and very nice bacon, and he has very nice machinery for producing these. Even if the Minister had nice butter, nice bacon and nice eggs the time is coming when it will be impossible for him to sell these commodities abroad at economic prices which will pay the farmers. We have the whole agricultural machinery dressed up but it will have nowhere to go. Deputy Dr. Ryan pointed out that the people in our towns and villages buy £10 per head of their agricultural produce from the farmers, as against 13/- per head that the English population buys from them.

It is fifteen times more worth our while to set Irishmen working somewhere in our own country than to set Englishmen working in England. It is better for the Irish farmers that one Irishman would get work in an Irish town or village than that fifteen Englishmen would get work in English towns or villages. That blows sky-high the argument of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce that the only hope for agriculture is that there should be some increase in prosperity in England. The hope for agriculture here is that we should have a Government that would devote its attention to creating a market that would be protected for the Irish farmer, a market in our own towns and villages. Instead of subsidising the export of butter and giving cheap butter to John Bull in order that we may create foreign credits so as to enable us to import wheat, it would be much better to subsidise our young people to produce the wheat and the other agricultural products which we are importing. If we only produced here the agricultural produce which we are importing we would not have a single idle man or woman who is willing to work.

Even if the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies have not the courage to go into the Lobby and express the disgust a great number of them must have at the whole outlook of the Government in regard to agriculture, I hope they will put the screw on within the Party and make the Government adopt a little more of the Fianna Fáil policy. The Government have already adopted a few ideas that they swore they never would adopt. A couple of years ago they said the land could not be vested for a great number of years. Suddenly they adopted the Fianna Fáil way, and they are now going to do the vesting within a period of two years. If Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies threaten the Government again as they did on the occasion of the last Budget I think they can get the Minister for Agriculture and others to adopt the Fianna Fáil method of dealing with agriculture. We will then be able to get decent prices for what we can produce, and we can give employment to our young people rather than to foreigners.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

It would seem that the natural duty of an agricultural community, a community which is fully 70 per cent. agricultural, would be to produce all the food requirements of the country. It does not seem to me to be any argument that that food can be bought at a cheaper price from other countries. If we take the position of meat production, I think most Deputies will agree with me that owing to the economic depression on the other side the working population of England is being gradually forced to use what is known as cheap foreign meat. In other words, they have to use what is called frozen tack. It is cheaper than chilled meat, even. I have not the slightest doubt that chilled meat is really good meat, and few of us would be able to recognise any difference if we found it cooked. I want to point out that the industrial population of England will become accustomed to that meat because of the severe economic depression that exists there, and, as we know, when people once get into a certain habit it is very hard to eradicate it. Any Deputy may argue just as Deputy Haslett argued: Why should we produce meat here when we can buy it much cheaper from the Argentine? In fact, why should we produce anything if we can buy it cheaper elsewhere?

Mr. Hogan

We should not.

Mr. O'Reilly

That argument would hold good if we were in this position: Suppose we were a balanced nation with a big industrial arm. It would be quite correct then; but we are not in that position, nor do we hope to be for some considerable time. The policy pursued by the Minister for Agriculture is nothing different from the policy pursued hitherto, although conditions are completely changed. I take it his policy is one of central control of agricultural production. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, if he has any policy on industrial production, has one of centralisation. Of course, the world has begun to find out already that that is not quite a correct policy. I daresay the Minister will come to the same conclusion ultimately.

The Minister for Agriculture started with the dairying industry. He found a number of creameries in the South of Ireland—in Limerick—which had created undoubtedly a great tradition in the English market. They had created a great respect for their products. Owing to the dislocation following upon the war, prices fell slightly. With the enthusiasm of youth the Minister started in to remodel the whole system. Some firm in England —I think they were known as Lovell and Christmas—were owners of those creameries. I do not know what the sum exactly was—it may have amounted to half a million—that the Minister offered for the creameries. Anyway, Lovell and Christmas accepted it. I do not know anything much about Lovell and Christmas, but I have heard once or twice that they are very large distributors in the creamery industry. Being in the position of distributors, there is hardly a doubt about it that they had something to do with the price paid for butter. It is very strange that the butter of reasonably good quality that we produce here should not alone fetch the lowest price of any other butter on the English market, but be actually losing its market.

I think that that is the position at present. It is all right to criticise, but in discussing such a serious problem as agriculture it is good, as far as possible, to be a little constructive. As far as the butter trade is concerned, it was not very much different from most other trades that we carried on in the English market. I am aware that the English people, especially those who buy our products, object to anything in the line of officialdom. I mean by that that there must have been a good deal of error in the marketing of our butter products in one way or another. It may have been that we took no steps to advertise and that we were up against a nation which is highly trained in that respect. The Danes recognised for a good many years the importance of advertising. That may have been the case. I have no knowledge of it. But I do know that the people in England who know that we produce butter are not very numerous. The knowledge is fairly restricted even up to the present day. We have, of course, certain areas around Lancashire and we may have a small market in London, but I think that that is the extent of our market. No great effort has been made to extend it. I was informed some time ago that butter ordered from certain creameries in the South of Ireland was actually supplied by Messrs. Lovell and Christmas. I do not know how that came about. They may have had the butter bought up and in storage here, but that was the case. But there may have been great danger that, although we bought from Messrs. Lovell and Christmas, we had not completely finished with perhaps the most vital part of the matter, namely, the selling part.

Deputy Bennett asked what would we do supposing prices had increased and that there were good prices for agricultural products. My reply is that we would still criticise with the object of getting better prices. That, I take it, would be the duty of any Party in opposition. I do not see why anybody should resent fair criticism, as long as there is an effort being made to be constructive. We must all have our opinions. There is one thing I am convinced of, and I take it a great many people in the country are convinced of it, and that is, that it is time we faced up to this whole question of agriculture and realised exactly our position. Our position is that we have begun here to housekeep for ourselves and we must make every effort to see that farmers who got land at a high price are going to be put in a position to be able to pay for the land by getting a reasonable price for the commodities they produce from it. The whole world, because of sheer poverty, owing to the aftermath of war, and the foolish questions of reparations and exchanges, is absolutely dumping goods into these countries in order to get money, and that position will continue for some time. As far as our own community here is concerned, we ought to make an effort to be independent of that sort of thing and encourage farmers to produce what we want here by restricting the market as far as foreigners are concerned.

We have heard a lot of talk about wheat. Deputy Haslett spoke of how hard wheat was on land. The county I come from has the name of having very rich land. Last week, in fact, some people described it as being the richest in Europe, and it is undoubtedly very good. I wonder how that is the case, considering that it was the greatest wheat-producing county not more than 60 or 70 years ago. If wheat is so definitely hard on land as the Deputy opposite thinks, I do not see how that could be the case. The world knows that we grew wheat largely some 60 or 70 years ago and, knowing that, the world will look down upon us if we call ourselves an agritural country with rich land, and we are unable, for one reason or another, to produce even our own daily bread. That seems to me the first step towards the organisation of an agricultural community, and where wheat is not grown and milled live stock cannot be raised. Anybody who was at the Dublin market this morning, or on any Thursday morning, will realise that at least 65 or 70 per cent. of our stock are ill-bred and ill-fed. Hundreds of cattle stand up there until 1 and 2 o'clock in the day waiting to be bought. They are a complete loss. That should not be the case. We have fantastic breeding schemes here. Anybody who goes to the R.D.S. Show will see cattle in the stalls there with premiums stuck on them. Farmers go there and have a look at bulls with premiums on them. It is the premiums they are looking at. They are really better judges of a bull than the man who passed the bull for the premium, but they take the bull because it has a premium. If you gave the premium after the farmer had finished judging him, we might get on better. We are constantly putting square pegs in round holes. It is better for us to realise the position, and the position is this, that as far as my experience goes, and I have some experience, our live stock have not improved. One of the reasons they have not improved is because we gave up the system where individual choice was put in practice and have resorted to a system of centralised selection. What I refer to is this: Anybody who was acquainted with the live stock of the country for many years past will recognise that in certain counties and districts you came across excellent cattle. There were buyers who resorted year after year to these particular districts. What was the reason? Because in these districts there were probably landlords who selected stock of the right description and gave their tenants the benefit free of their selection, with the result that you had a class of stock really suited to the districts. What is the case at present? Bulls are selected in the show yard and they get a premium. The men who select these bulls do not know a single thing about the cows in the area to which the bulls are going or the particular breed of bulls that would suit that area. The whole enticement is that the bull had a premium and down he goes. A few years ago, for one reason or another, whether it was the policy of the Department or not, we went in for popularising black polled Angus cattle. They are excellent, provided that you have good cows and that you can feed them well enough. But when they go down to a county like Leitrim, where the cows were not good, the results were really bad. The results can be seen in the Dublin market and at fairs in the country. That centralised system is not a good one. That the future of the cattle trade or beef production can be looked to with any great hopes, I do not believe. The only cattle that good prices can be obtained for at present are cattle that suit, not the English market, but the Dublin market, and the only hope of cattle producers and beef producers for the last year in the Dublin market was to meet a Dublin butcher. That would give some idea of how important the home market is, if it could be extended.

But so long as we have to keep supplying an industrial population which unfortunately has much unemployment at the present, and may continue for some time to have such unemployment, it may be possible that we are going to meet with disappointment after disappointment. We might as well at once face up to the position and realise that the land of Ireland is divided and has been given to the people of Ireland to a very large extent; but these people are not in a position to carry on the policy that was carried on in different circumstances; that things have changed now, and that the Irish farmers must get an opportunity of meeting heavy rates and extremely heavy rents. After all, in an agricultural community foreign prices make no difference internally. They would make a difference if we were an industrial country, but as we are not they make no difference whatever.

Another question that I would like to deal with is that of freights and railway transport as far as agricultural produce is concerned. One of the strangest features in the life of our agricultural community is this: that a farmer in Navan, in the County Meath, can get Indian corn, or the products of a farmer in the Argentine, in a much handier way and in a much better way and in quicker time than he could get the produce from a farmer in the County Wexford. I think we could not stand over that at all, yet it is the case. There is no effort made whatever to compel the railways to realise that they have duties to perform. It will have to be done sooner or later. The people are gradually doing it, because they are not using them. It is a pity to scrap them. We should make some use of them in the future. There is no effort being made at present to make the railways realise their duties. They were set up as a sort of military machine, and now they are a little out of range; they are not in the proper place. But we could make use of them, and I think the Minister for Agriculture should give serious attention to that matter.

I know a lot of people who last year and this year were anxious to get barley for feeding stuff, but they could not get in contact with any of the barley suppliers. There was surplus barley to be sold in Wexford and in other counties. I saw oats offered for sale in Oldcastle at 12/6 on a Monday, while on the Saturday before it was only worth 7/- or 8/- in Wexford. As long as that kind of thing goes on we could not claim to be an organised agricultural community at all. I am confident that it would pay the farmer and that it would pay the State a lot more if that particular question of railway transport was properly attended to. If we do export, and of course we do export, a large amount of cattle, the organisation of the railways is very important to us.

It is quite true that when our cattle leave Dublin in the boats, we have no chance of control over them, but I do not think it will be very long until we have some chance of getting control there. The shipping companies are controlling the railways now, and the cost of sea transport is far higher than land transport. I take it that there is no remedy for that at the present time. But, at the same time, if we are constantly going into a falling market, the only alternative is to reduce the cost of production. That is one way. Some system should be adopted, and some approach made to the railways, so that they could be made realise their duties, and made to take a larger interest in the agricultural community. They could be made to realise that they were making investments by their freightage, and that, in the near future, they would be multiplying the freightage they carry from one county to another, and that their duty ought to be to develop an inter-county trade. I think some attention should be given to that.

Another thing I would like to mention is this. For the last three or four years we have been gradually developing into a store cattle producing country. The meat trade is not followed up as it used to be. It seems not to have been a profitable trade, with the result that a great many people are going in for producing stores now. That is very hard on the land. The small farmer who got a new division of land, must perforce produce stores. Stores deteriorate the land rapidly, and there is no scheme for supplying any form of manure, artificial or otherwise. I think it would be well to consider some scheme, either by annuity payment or other means of payment for this manure, because the farmers are unable to buy it at the present time. If we adopt the policy of reducing the cost of production and at the same time of increasing production, which is the only way in a falling market, it would be wise to consider some scheme whereby we could supply farmers with artificial manure at a price to be payable over a period of years. It would give a great fillip to production, and it would give great assistance to the farmers to meet their land annuities, which, I take it, must be met. It is our duty to help them to meet them, and if we do not I suppose they will not be able to pay them. There is this last point I want to make, and I hope the Minister will tell us something about what he is going to do next year about it. It is not very important, but it is, no doubt, a little irritating.

He sends certain gentlemen round every year. They are necessary. I do not make any complaint about his sending them around. They are weed inspectors, but I do not know how he selects them. In the County Meath a good number of people were fined for not having their thistles cut. The cases did not come up until October or November, and one of these gentlemen who, it would appear, are selected from Kerry and Mayo, or other distant counties, comes back again to Meath to give evidence at very great expense.

The result, of course, was that the expenses were enormous. I think it would be a good job if the Minister could select some one near at hand to do that work, or that the prosecution should take place at once. It is hard lines on a man to be fined 5/- for not cutting his thistles, and then have to pay £3 or £4 expenses. That is one of the things I complain of. I think, too, that the Minister should do something to assist the fruit-growing industry in the County Meath. It is an important one. I refer to raspberry production in the Duleek area which is valued at something like £7,000 a year. The price last year was not as high as the year before, but the crop produces in or about £7,000 a year. That is an industry that could be very highly developed. I would be glad if the Minister would see that more attention was paid to it. There is also a district in the Co. Meath where young trees are raised. That particular work gets very little attention from the Department. I am told that most of the trees raised there are exported. Under the forestry scheme that is now in operation I think it would be a good thing if arrangements were made for the purchase of young trees in that area and have them planted in other parts of the country. I am sure that particular development has already been brought to the notice of the Minister.

What I want to draw particular attention to is the importance of developing fruit-growing in the area in which it has been carried on. I believe there is room for big development there, and that it should receive special attention from the Department. I do not know that any assistance is given to the fruit-growers. Some years ago a few people seemed to know of their existence. I think they ought to get encouragement. There are certain districts in the country suitable for the production of particular commodities, and I think the aim in our agricultural economy ought to be to encourage them as much as possible. The future of this country does not lie along the line of policy pursued up to the present. The political and economic changes that have taken place demand a complete change of policy. I believe our policy ought to be to develop along the lines of producing all our requirements as far as we can. If the growing of wheat is not made a national scheme at least we should give every encouragement to farmers to produce as much wheat as they need themselves for their own households.

Mr. Kennedy

The most amusing part of this debate has been the constant reference from the other side to the amateur farmers on this side. Apparently the sanctum around the Minister must be preserved—the yarn that he is It, that the lawyer-Minister is "It" in agriculture—ably assisted by Deputy Heffernan. Because Deputy Heffernan formed a political party and called it the Farmers' Party, therefore, everybody else who speaks on this subject is only a politician, notwithstanding the fact that eighty per cent. of the inhabitants of this State earn their livelihood from the land and that eighty per cent. of the representatives in this House are sprung from the soil and represent rural constituencies. The situation appears to be that anyone who speaks on this subject is only an amateur farmer unless he sits behind the Minister for Agriculture. Those who sit behind him sing their paeans and hymns of gratitude because he has carried on the policy of Plunkett House, the policy of grass, which he inherited from the British. Since the inception of this State he has seen the home market for bacon, butter and oats snatched from under his eyes and the Poles come in and capture the bacon market. He has seen the Germans come in and capture the oats market. We have all this praise for him and his policy, the policy carried on by Plunkett House. There is this difference between the Minister's policy and the policy of Plunkett House. Under the policy of Plunkett House the people disappeared and the number of cattle and sheep increased. Under the Minister's policy the people are disappearing and the number of cattle and sheep is decreasing. The statistics issued by the Minister's Department prove these facts.

We heard a masterly speech from Deputy Gorey about embarking on the growing of wheat because the world price for wheat had declined. Deputy Gorey apparently closes his eyes to the fact that the price of every other agricultural commodity—butter, eggs, oats and bacon—has decreased to the same extent as the price for wheat. If Deputy Gorey's argument is a sound one, that because the international price of wheat has decreased, we should not grow wheat, then equally we should not produce butter, bacon, eggs or poultry. Deputy Gorey seems to forget, when speaking about the international price of wheat, that at present there is an International Conference sitting in London dealing with that particular subject, with the suggestion of rationalisation and of curbing export. It is a world problem, just as the production of every other agricultural product is a world problem to-day. But, as Deputy Derrig indicated in the debate, our policy should not be guided by the particular circumstances of a particular year or couple of years. It should be directed to the production of essential food supplies for the community and of keeping the greatest population possible on the soil of Ireland. Certainly that is not the policy of the Minister for Agriculture.

Previous speakers have dealt with the amount of money spent on agricultural instructors. With the exception of the Land Commission, in my opinion the money spent on these agricultural instructors is the greatest waste that I know of. Every reasonable Deputy knows that you might as well not have these instructors in the counties they are operating in at present.

Tillage has declined, production of cereals has declined, and is declining every year. Has the fact that these agricultural instructors are in the counties made for the production of one extra acre of any crop? I know of no greater waste of money than the payment of these agricultural instructors, and it would be cheap if they were pensioned off for the rest of their lives. I suggested previously that one of these men should be put on an average sized farm and told to carry out his schemes there. Let him pay for his pet schemes out of revenue, and we will see how he will make it pay or how he will knock a living out of it. We had a lecture from Deputy Gorey about the privilege we enjoy from the English wholesaler and the English consumer. One would think that they were standing at Holyhead and at the Liverpool docks, crying out that they wanted nobody's products but Paddy's products. Dealing with that subject the Ministry as a whole have done nothing to break the shipping combine which transports practically all our agricultural products. Leaving aside the collapse of world prices, one of the factors tending to keep down prices for Irish bacon on the London market is the mishandling that goes on on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Boats due to leave Dublin at 12 midday with cargoes of bacon have not left at 12.30, 12.45 or 12.50. They have missed the connections on the other side, with the result that the bacon arrives late for the market. That affects quotations all round, and I have absolute proof that it has occurred more than once. It has occurred dozens of times, and the Minister has done nothing to tell that combine, which enjoys a privilege and a monopoly here of the transport of Irish produce, that they will have to render some account of themselves.

I know from the man who owns the sire that he was not examined by the Department's officials, and that they went there to buy him. They may have had intimation as to his breeding. He had it examined in this case and certainly it was a very funny examination. The horse would not be allowed into the Free State then, yet he is standing in County Galway. Deputy Gorey referred to premiums for bulls and mentioned that good bulls were sold at a cheap price. That is easily understandable and I think Deputy O'Reilly has dealt very well with the point. People are going in for breeding good bulls now and the fact that a premuim is attached to a bull enhances its price.

Deputy Davin dealt with the question of credit for farmers. When is the Minister going to set about providing cheap credit facilities for farmers? The profits from agricultural production at present do not allow for the payment of large interest on money advanced. The conditions that obtained when a certain institution was set up in this State do not obtain now. Never was there greater necessity than now for the provision of cheap credit for farmers. One proof of that is this, that the estimated sum required for the Agricultural Credit Corporation has not been absorbed, and there is no likelihood of its being absorbed at the present rate of interest, because farmers realise that they could not carry on production and meet the interest which they would have to pay if they borrowed from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Deputy Davin said something about the repudiation of liabilities or debts having a reflection on the amount of credit advanced to farmers. Deputy Davin knows very well that that has got nothing whatever to do with the policy of the joint stock banks. He knows that because of their inflationary advances they cannot get paid in inflation prices and that they are not advancing credit now. That is the reason they are not giving four months bills and that is the reason they co-operated in the setting up of the Agricultural Credit Corporation. The Minister is carrying on the old policy. Every undertaking, such as the beet industry and the creamery industry, has gone to pieces in his hands. Being an ardent free trader he has not done the obvious and the right thing to save these industries.

Consequently the result of his free trade is that all these industries are at the mercy of the international depression at present existing. A policy of agriculture should aim at keeping the greatest number of people on the land. It should aim at providing the necessary food for the people of the country, irrespective of taste and irrespective of the desires of the rich city man. If war arose, if an emergency arose, if a famine arose, the rich city man would be very glad to put up with wholesome food that would sustain life for him. The ordinary, average man in the country cannot choose and make a decision between this quality and that quality of bread. The quality of bread is a very minor consideration compared with the maintenance of the population of the country and its natural increase. The present policy is, as I have said, a continuation of the previous one and it means a decrease of population, big ranches, the wiping out of the small farmer, and the establishment of a new landed class on whose land nothing will roam but the proverbial herd and his dog.

Mr. Nolan

I am not in a position to question the honesty of the speeches made in this debate, but if there is one Deputy more than another who should be praised for the honesty of his speech it is Deputy M. O'Reilly. He said that even if agriculture were prosperous it should be criticised for the sake of criticising it. Though he said many things that were really true we did not know exactly what he meant by other statements. He gave credit to many branches of agriculture, but he went on to say that he was criticising for the sake of criticising. That gives you some idea of the mentality of the Opposition. We have heard a great deal about wheat growing in this country seventy or eighty years ago. Wheat was undoubtedly grown all over the country then, but most of it was exported. Seventy-five per cent. of it was exported. It had to be exported, because while wheat in those days made anything up to 2s. 6d. a stone, labour was earning 10d. a day. How could a labourer or small farmer getting 10d. a day pay 2s. 6d. a stone for wheat? I think that should answer most of the criticism. The farm labourers and the people in the towns did not eat flour and bread, but potatoes. It used to be said in those days that the food of the farm labourer and small farmer was potatoes and point—he could point at the bacon hanging up from year to year.

I do not think that it would be possible now for us to feed eight million people and grow sufficient wheat, even with the subsidy as suggested by Deputy Dr. Ryan. Again, the Department is being criticised for the purchase of creameries, but no doubt every individual in the State at that time approved of the purchase. It was, however, unfortunate that the price of butter fell soon afterwards. Unfortunately, too, a small percentage of the people objected because they had to go a little distance extra to the creamery. About five or ten per cent. of the people have a grievance, but the 90 or 95 who got the advantages under the purchase scheme did not give the Department any praise for it. The Department should get credit, for, after all, the purchase of the creameries at that time saved the co-operative system. Were it not for the purchase of those creameries it is very doubtful whether they would be in existence to-day, because the proprietary creameries would reap the advantage. If the creameries had not been purchased, we would not have combined marketing. Deputy Davin spoke about compulsory marketing. That is all right, but I wonder would Deputy Davin and others like to make good the losses incurred by the creameries in Limerick owing to the fall in the price of butter. Undoubtedly they have lost during the last few years by combined marketing. I am sure that the Limerick creameries will not have compulsory marketing, and I am glad that when it was proposed a few years ago I advised the farmers not to have it. Though they criticised me at the time they are glad now that I did not agree to it.

We may have made mistakes in regard to marketing, but let us learn by them. The criticism directed at the Department for buying the creameries should be a sufficient warning to the Minister to keep his hands off compulsory marketing. There was a good deal of criticism about a month ago in regard to the purchase of a toffee factory from Messrs. Cleeve. My opinion is that the further the Government keep away from interfering in industry and commerce the better it will be for the Government, for the Department and for the people generally. The Livestock Breeding Act has also come in for a good deal of criticism. Deputy Dr. Ryan said that livestock had not improved. We had exactly the same sort of criticism a few days ago in connection with education, and we were told that the standard of education to-day is worse than it was thirty years ago. Deputy Dr. Ryan thinks that livestock to-day is inferior to that of thirty years ago. It is not, and that is proved by the fact that the British Government are copying our Act. The Act has been a success. It has not been 100 per cent. success, because it is very hard to get a standard animal all-round. I agree that it is difficult for the Department to try and get people to take that view, but we are prepared to help the Minister in that respect. I suggest to him that an inspector who examines bulls at a show should explain why he rejects some of them. There may, for instance, be thirty bulls at a show, and an inspector may pick out ten that should be rejected and ten that should be passed, but then there is the borderline between these two classes. I think that the inspector should explain why he accepted some and rejected others. I do not desire to criticise the inspectors, but I know that when one of them was asked recently to say why he rejected a particular bull he refused to give any information.

Deputy Gorey referred to the fact that there were bad two and three year old bulls coming from Limerick. I would like to point out that all these bulls are not bred in Limerick. One of the objections we have to the Livestock Breeding Act is that a good bull may be rejected in Limerick, certainly a better type of bull than the bull we have to buy in Kerry to replace him. A good number of the bulls in Limerick come from Kerry. If Deputy Gorey went down to Limerick and saw these bulls, he would not be so ready to suggest that the bad bulls come from Limerick. I must also say that the Act has improved very much the standard of bulls. I say that the Act is necessary, because 30 per cent. of the bulls accepted should not be accepted. For that reason alone the Act is necessary. Somebody suggested that the premium bull is not much better than another bull which might not be given a premium. The winner of the Derby may not be very much better than the second horse, but still there is a very big difference between the two horses. An individual who is successful in getting honours in an examination may certainly not be as good a person in general business as a person who merely passes. Still a premium is the best test one can have. He gets first place and he is therefore entitled to the premium.

Deputy Dr. Ryan frequently complains of a reduction in the livestock population. He has made that complaint year after year. That must mean that our young stores are getting dear. The natural scarcity that exists makes them dearer and the producer of the stores is getting the benefit of that. It is not very long ago since we were unable to export our stores. We had an unfortunate outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Wexford, and Deputy Dr. Ryan headed a deputation from Wexford to get the Department to use its influence to get the ban on Wexford cattle removed.

Dr. Ryan

As a matter of fact, I did not, and I was not asked to head the deputation. I might have if I were asked. That is the fourth misstatement that the Deputy has made, and I would not have interrupted him but I thought he made it in good faith.

Mr. Nolan

I apologise to the Deputy, but nevertheless I think Deputy Dr. Ryan will admit that the people of Wexford and the country generally were very much upset by the embargo and were anxious to have it removed. There is no embargo now and the stores are going a good price because they are being sent across the water. The stores are going a good price, which is making up for some of the losses incurred by the fall in the price of butter. That is a matter for which we should be grateful instead of complaining that the price of store cattle is too high because they are being exported.

Some Deputy complained that we had not winter dairying. There is nothing to prevent anybody in any district going in for winter dairying if he wishes to do so. They have the advantage of the tariff on butter, and we will give them all the support possible. Somebody spoke about the lack of credit for farmers. It is one of the disadvantages of co-operation that the co-operative creameries are not giving the same facilities to their suppliers that the proprietary creameries gave facilities, they were certainly recompensed, because they lent money to farmers to buy cows, and that was an advantage to them. The co-operative creameries did not see their way to do that, but that is their own affair. It is in the power of any co-operative creamery, as the members wish, to lend money. There is no bank which would refuse a co-operative society a loan on the security of the suppliers. There is no doubt that they could not get a more gilt-edged security than that.

Mr. T. O'Reilly

I would direct the attention of the Minister to the restrictions which he has imposed on the farmers in South Kerry in regard to bulls, and I again enter a protest on behalf of the people of this area. Of course, this protest is an annual event. The Livestock Breeding Act permits in this area only Kerry bulls, except in the case of three or four farmers, with the result that the cattle have deteriorated to a very large extent. Before the Act came into force the people in South Kerry were in the habit of introducing shorthorn bulls, bulls of a shorthorn strain. By that means they kept up the bone of the Kerry cows, so that we had a nice class of stores for the market and a nice class of cows for the dairy.

I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to the loss which has been sustained by the farmers in this area by the operation of the Act. There are approximately 6,500 farmers in South Kerry in the area affected. They hold lands capable of rearing about 35,000 cows. We will assume that there are 28,000 calves reared every year. Recently, owing to the cattle being of a very small type and badly shaped, the people are not able to sell most of their cattle as yearlings, and they have to keep them until they are two years old. We will take it that half of the 28,000 are sold as yearlings. I took the trouble of going round the constituency addressing meetings, and I asked people of various shades of opinion the loss they sustained per head by the operation of this Act owing to their being unable to sell the cattle when they were yearlings. They told me that it was at least £1 10s. per head, a good many said it was £2, and others told me that it was £3 in the case of two-year-olds.

I am sure that the deputations who waited on the Minister for Fisheries and the Minister for Education during their South Kerry tour this year— people of their own colour in politics— told them the same thing. If you sell 14,000 yearlings at a loss of £1 10s. each it will amount to £21,000. If you sell 14,000 two-year-olds at, we will say, a loss of £2 10s., it will mean a loss of £35,000. That would mean a loss of £56,000 a year to the people of South Kerry, or more than their annuities and rates combined. If the Minister went down to a fair in Cahirciveen or Kenmare and told the people that henceforth there would be no need for them to pay annuities or rates, what a welcome he would get! How the papers would boost the action of the good Minister for Agriculture. But does the Minister do this? No, he imposes a further tax, so to speak, on them of £56,000 a year. The Minister for Education and the Minister for Fisheries went through Kerry last summer. I know that in three places deputations, composed of Cumann na nGaedheal people, waited on them in regard to this particular Act and asked them to use their influence with the Minister for Agriculture to get those restrictions removed. South Kerry is the only part of the globe, I venture to say, where a man will be fined for having a good bull.

I will give you an instance to show you how unpopular this Act is. There is a gentleman named Mr. Randall living near Kenmare. He found that he had been losing considerably by keeping bulls of the new type, and he purchased a registered polled Angus bull. The agents of the Minister for Agriculture found this out and they told Mr. Randall that he should do away with the bull, but Mr. Randall and his neighbours, both Imperialists and Republicans, of all shades of opinion, combined and said, "We will not do away with the bull. He will go on the run and we will shield him while he is on the run." The bull did go on the run for many weary months. He had been on the run for eight months before the poor fellow was captured and brought to justice. It is the general opinion in Kenmare that it was a great shame that the Minister for Agriculture who imposed a tax, so to speak, of £56,000 a year should have been at large while the bull had been on the run, because it was considered that the Minister's activities had more to do with the depreciation in the quality of the Kerry cattle than had Mr. Randall's bull. I would like to ask the Minister for Agriculture was there any demand from South Kerry for these restrictions except, perhaps, from some of his friends who had been selling bulls at very remunerative prices and who boasted of it in the public Press.

I think that about £5,000 was set aside aside by the Land Commission this year for relief works in South Kerry. If £50,000 or £20,000 had been set aside instead of £5,000, how happy the people in South Kerry would feel? Still there is a sum of £50,000 taken out of their pockets every year, and all for nothing. I never heard before of one section of the people being robbed without some other section benefiting but in this case it is as if it were taken out of their pockets and thrown into the sea. There would be no use, I suppose, in appealing to the Minister at this eleventh hour to remove these restrictions. I would agree with the Minister that the bulls there should be true to type and of good shape, but the people themselves ought to know better than the Minister which class of bull would suit their requirements best. They should know their requirements in this respect as well as the people of North Kerry, East Kerry, West Kerry, or any other place. If it suited them they should be allowed to have a shorthorn, a polled Angus or any other sort they wished. I do not see why these farmers should be imposed upon like this by the Minister. I suppose there is no use in appealing to him, but I hope that he will change that regulation and I hope that I will not see him in Kerry if he does not.

Mr. T. Sheehy (West Cork):

It is exceedingly painful to any Irishman who has a love for the Free State and believes in its future prosperity to have to listen to the speeches that have been delivered from the Opposition during this debate. Never in the history of any assembly were there speeches delivered that were so wide of the mark. The only redeeming feature about it was Deputy Kennedy's speech, which proclaimed that there never would be success in this State until he was on these benches. That was the remedy he had for all the ills of the agricultural population. For the information of Deputy Kennedy, I wish to say that I have been associated with agriculture. Thirty-five years ago I was one of the guarantors who established the Carbery Agricultural Society. There is another agricultural society and a most successful one in Clonakilty. Within the next fortnight or three weeks those two societies will hold their annual Shows and I would ask those who are criticising the Minister and his policy to visit these Shows. There they will see unanswerable evidence of the great work that the Minister has accomplished for the farmers in the last seven or eight years. They will see there splendid horses, splendid cattle and splendid pigs, and they will see a contented and prosperous peasantry who are deeply grateful. They never complain or groan. They were satisfied and pleased the other day when their lands were vested and they got a 10 per cent. reduction. They realise that the Minister cannot do impossible things. The chief charge against the Minister for Agriculture is that he is not opening fresh markets. When he went across to England last year he was denounced. At the present time he is opening markets in Scotland, Wales and England for our good eggs and good butter, and not one of those on the opposite benches has the manliness to proclaim that he is doing his level best on the lines that they want. This is the first time that I heard the Opposition say that they wished to have anything to do with England or its markets. Now they would be very glad to have these markets. What those of us who accepted the Treaty honestly and honourably—the small farmers in particular—want is that the 45,000,000 people on the other side of the Channel would give us first preference for our butter, eggs, cattle and pigs. That is a very material question. That is what the small farmers who are toiling and moiling want, and it would be well for other people to take a leaf out of their book. If one of the Deputies on the opposite benches would take a little farm of 10 acres in my constituency and work as these people do he would be a healthy and prosperous man after a time.

I do not wish to take up the time of the House because we are all anxious to see the blow that the Minister will level at his critics. He will blow all their little points to the wind because there is nothing in them. They have over and over again put him in the pillory but he is admired and respected and he is received throughout the length and breadth of the Twenty-Six Counties with the cry, "Bravo, little Paddy Hogan."

Mr. Hogan

Dr. Ryan

It was creameries I mentioned.

Mr. Hogan

My answer to that is that I will spend whatever sum is necessary on creameries, but I consider that £300 spent on advertising Irish bloodstock is money well spent. There is no use in trying to get away with the idea that I am in favour of the racing man, the rich man, or the millionaire. Irish bloodstock is of profit to every man who uses the stock afterwards. The horse trade is one of very considerable value to this country. Our bloodstock distinguished itself in the most extraordinary way during the last three or four years, and it would be losing a great opportunity, indeed, if we did not co-operate with the breeders' association in advertising our stock in England and America. I make no apology for this £300. With regard to this expert on beet and tobacco, we are not accustomed to divide a man into two. This particular expert concentrates on beet and has nothing to do with tobacco. My opinion as regards tobacco-growing is well known. I do not think that tobacco can be economically grown in this country. Deputy Clery also made an adventure into agriculture. He discovered that the premium bulls are bred by very few people. They are bred by 400 or 500 people— even those which come to the Dublin show. He also said that the average premium bull costs 400 guineas. That is nonsense. The average price at present of a Hereford premium bull is about 65 guineas. The average of an Angus is about 50 guineas. Shorthorns are around 45 guineas. The Deputy suggested that the judging for premiums should take place after the event—after they had been bought by the small farmers.

The first observation to make on that is that apparently he has no idea of what the scheme is. The small farmer is chosen for the premium by his county committee of agriculture, and he comes to the county committee for the premium. If the farmer buys a bull, and if the bull is not accepted afterwards by the Department, the man loses his premium. It is clear, therefore, that inspection must take place before the bull is sold, so that the purchaser may know where he is, and may know whether he will get paid or not. The second point made by the Deputy was that the people who breed live-stock, Herefords, Aberdeen-Angus, and Shorthorn cattle, should not get the benefit of their enterprise. There are hundreds and hundreds of these people all over the country, and they are as much entitled to encouragement from the State as any other class. They are performing an absolutely vital function in this country, and it is only cheap politics to make a distinction against them. Some of them are very small breeders and some of them even with a premium make very small profits. I make no apology whatever for encouraging them by giving them a fair share of the premiums. The only thing I am sorry for is that we have not more people going in for breeding good pedigree animals in the country.

Deputy Derrig took a most extraordinary line, but you never know where you are when dealing with members of the Fianna Fáil Party. The Deputy objects to sub-heads G2, G3, 1, and some other sub-heads. G2 is for the improvement of milk production and the Deputy specifically stated that he objects to that. He objects apparently to the expenditure of £12,000 towards cow-testing associations. At the moment, we are making a grant of 4s. and the farmer himself contributes 3s. per cow for cow-testing. Deputy Derrig objects to that expenditure. He went on to state that he objected strongly to G3. That is an item of £9,975 for the improvement of live-stock. It includes £2,000 for loss on the re-sale of stallions. We buy stallions, good heavy thoroughbreds. We have had considerable numbers of them. The average farmer could hardly afford to go in for the full price of such an animal and we sell them at less than the price at which we bought them. Deputy Derrig now announces that he objects to that. He told us so. He told us there is a loss made. He has in fact now become an economist and free trader almost. His policy as announced in fact by him was to sell them at the full price.

There is also a sub-head here which enables us to pay carriage on premium bulls and boars bought by the small farmer and brought back to his farm. That item for carriage is a considerable amount. Deputy Derrig objected to that also, if we are to take the English language to mean what is ordinarily meant by it. The Deputy objected to this money given to the county committees. He also objects to paying the bonus to agricultural instructors on what to him appears to be a considerable salary. The agricultural instructor has a minimum salary of £239, which includes bonus, and the maximum salary of £495 after twenty to twenty-five years' service. Deputy Derrig objects to that payment, and thinks, apparently, that the county instructors are paid at too high a rate.

Of course, he does not say that down the country. That is a good enough statement to make here, whereas down in Kilkenny, or in any part of the country where the agricultural instructors are thought well off and where every hard-working farmer knows their value, the Deputy will praise them. The Deputy went on to say that all these schemes should be made pay. What does Deputy Derrig mean by "pay"? That is to say we should have no premiums. We should never sell animals to the small farmers on reduced terms. That is an extraordinary point of view for the spokesman of the Party that professes to take a special interest in the small farmer. Where would the small farmer get live-stock unless we give him the animals at reduced terms?

But that is the sort of criticism put forward here by Deputy Derrig. Deputy Ryan complains that we are taking money from the producers of butter and eggs to pay for other things, and that complaint is immediately followed by Deputy Derrig making the opposite complaint. We have one spokesman of the Party speaking with one voice and another spokesman of the Party speaking with another voice. That has been the way here during the whole debate. I have the strongest objection to it. Any man who has done farming, who understands farming, and who knows that you have to have a certain knowledge of the technique of farming before you can apply statistics to agriculture, must, having listened to all the drivel that we have heard on this debate from the Fianna Fáil Benches and to the complete perversion of statistics, agree with me that statistics should be put into the same category as the books censored under the Censorship Act. Statistics should not be allowed into the hands of anybody until he has some experience of the world and until he has become adolescent. Statistics have done the Party opposite more real harm than seditious literature.

We are back again, apparently, to our friends' special subject, wheat and the prohibition of the imports of feeding stuffs. Somebody described the functions of a lawyer as explaining the obvious, illustrating the evident and expatiating on the commonplace.

Mr. MacEntee

And perverting the truth.

Mr. Hogan

That is supposed to be the function of a lawyer. That seems to me to be the function of the unfortunate politician, especially if he happens to be a member of the Government. Just imagine at this hour of the day and at this stage of the world having to stand up to explain to grown-up men in this country the fallacy of wheat growing. Deputies from the Fianna Fáil Party stood up and talked about wheat growing and gave the old reasons for wheat growing all over again. I can hardly listen to this particular policy. It has been so blown about that it is a positive insult at this hour of the day to begin it all over again. Mark the case made this time. It was admitted by Deputy Ryan that under his scheme the subsidy would cost £3,000,000 in the first instance. That would be the cost to this country of growing wheat even if the farmers grew it at 30/- per barrel. Personally, I have no doubt whatever that the farmers would not grow one-quarter of the wheat requirements of this country at 30/- per barrel.

Dr. Ryan

What is the extraordinary reason?

Mr. Hogan

There is one Party in the House perfectly satisfied, apparently, that I am infallible—that I am, in fact, a heaven-sent Minister for Agriculture. I agree that bran and pollard are dear for some extraordinary commercial reasons which, I suppose, have something to do with the drop in the price of wheat. I have consulted millers and men who occupy a big position in the trade and they cannot understand it. Bran and pollard are dear, but it does not affect us because we can get wheat far cheaper than ever we thought we could get bran for. I was paying 6s. per cwt. for wheat and bran was the same price. As long as the wholesale price of maize is 4s. and as long as I can get it at that——

Dr. Ryan

Will the Minister do that for the whole country?

We have the £25,000,000 market. That is the home market. What is the export market for live-stock and live-stock products? Over £30,000,000 steadily. When we have kept out this maize and got a substitute for it, and we have kept out cotton cake and got a substitute for it, we have to feed all these substitutes to the live-stock, and we have to use them as the raw material for the butter and eggs, which, as I say, will afterwards be sold on the British market and at the world price. Supposing these raw materials are dearer, will that increase our profits? If at present pigs hardly pay when Indian meal is 4/- per cwt. wholesale, is it likely to pay when we have to pay more for a substitute, or to do with a worse article? Remember all these young stock have to be fed at some period of their life, and the cows, with these imported feeding stuffs. If they are not paying, notwithstanding that these imported feeding stuffs are lower than ever they were before, are they likely to pay when they must be fed with substitutes which will cost more? Yet that is what passes for policy on the opposite side! As I say, we are back again to the position that was deserted yesterday, and will be deserted again to-morrow, but which has just been occupied for a certain purpose at the moment in view of certain contingencies which we all know of. We are back again to the old policy of wheat-growing, no matter what it costs, and the prohibition of the raw materials of agriculture, so that they may be produced in certain counties at home. I said last night that that was the constant policy of the Party opposite, and they denied it. I quoted Deputy de Valera, and I was asked to get some proof of it. It is hardly fair to ask a busy person to read all the speeches of Deputies opposite. In fact I did not, but I happened to turn up files, and I found proof of it in three papers. This is the "Irish Times" of January, 1929. Deputy de Valera, speaking in Dublin, tells us:—

"Fortunately their farmers had an alternative to the advice of the Minister for Agriculture. They had a great home market which, in addition to home produce, absorbed in 1927 by way of imports, live animals, food, drink, and tobacco to the value of £25,600,000...."

I looked up the statistics, and I found that that figure was correct. It represents the heading for food, drink and tobacco in our statistics, and includes not only food and drink in the ordinary way, but all imported cereals, including maize, wheat, flour and feeding stuffs:—

"...the value of exports under the same heads being £39,000,000.

"Most of these imports could be replaced by home products. In grain and grain products alone, the substitution of home produce for imports would increase the gross value of the agricultural output of the twenty-six counties by £11,000,000, and would bring a net gain of £6,000,000 a year to the community."

All of it.

Mr. Hogan

The same speech was repeated in specific terms in Limerick the week afterwards. Even Deputy Ryan himself in an article announced as follows:—

"Why should we waste our time, energy, money and patience in competing against Denmark, New Zealand and the rest of the world for the butter market of England...."

That is in an article in "The Nation" of April 12, 1930, which, even though it is not the official organ of Fianna Fáil, is a respectable newspaper, and would be from Deputy Ryan's point of view above suspicion. Would anyone dream when listening to Deputies to-day that they thought so little about the butter market in England after all the time they have spent telling me that I was not doing my duty by the butter market in England, that I should do more to encourage the creamery industry and the live-stock industry, and generally, that I should do more to hold our English markets?

Dr. Ryan

I have a suspicion that there was more than that.

Mr. Hogan

I shall read the whole of it:

"Why should we waste our time, energy, money and patience in competing against Denmark, New Zealand, and the rest of the world for the butter market of England, while we could by an Act of Parliament reserve our own market in wheat, feeding stuffs, bacon, butter and other agricultural produce for our own farmers?"

What is the Act of Parliament? Tariffs, licences? What is it? Are we going to reserve it at the same price? Was that the intention then? The present wholesale price of maize is 4/- per cwt. Will we reserve a market for barley at 8/- per cwt.? Barley is to be the substitute for maize. Is that the position? We cannot have it both ways. Is the barley market in this country as a substitute for maize to be reserved to the barley-growers at 8/- per cwt. wholesale? Make that proposal in Kildare. Is that the Deputy's proposal? If it is not, then his proposal is to increase the price of the raw materials, and there is no way out of that dilemma, and no quibbling will get him or Deputy de Valera, who is a past master in it, out of it. But, as far as I am concerned, I am not going— and neither would Deputies opposite if they were in any responsible position—to have anything to do with any policy of relieving agriculture at a time of extreme distress by increasing the price of the raw materials. It is amazing to me how a responsible Party, after three years' experience, should come forward and waste hours in the Dáil criticising me for not doing it and advocating it as a means of saving the country.

What is our present position in regard to butter? It was pointed out that our exports of butter have gone down. They have considerably gone down. Why? Because we were exporting none in a certain period and then, instead of sending out £5,000,000 worth to the English market we only sent a little less than £4,000,000 worth. As was pointed out, and as every Deputy knows, what is wrong with our butter in the English market is that we have not a winter trade and that we have not a large enough trade. Our butter is no good in the English market. Why does Danish butter, even at the end of last year, fetch a better price in the English market in spite of the depression? Danish butter fetches a better price because their supplies are so big and regular that they have created a goodwill in which they have had to buy even at the Danish price. If our exports fall seriously below £5,000,000 worth we would lose the little goodwill we have. Exactly the same applies to bacon. The Danes supply £27,000,000 of bacon and £20,000,000 of butter. I have it from important bacon exporters that the fact that they have split up their trade into different small markets in England so that the amount going into any one market is small, while it got them an increased price for a short time, it has seriously affected the goodwill of Irish bacon. It is generally admitted that the small supplies of Irish butter, as well as lack of winter dairying, are the reasons why we have not the goodwill we should have, and therefore the prices for our butter.

It is not only good business from the point of view of the consumer at home to buy cheap foreign butter and cheap bacon at certain times, but it is good business from the point of view of the producer who is exporting both butter and bacon that those exports should be kept up even though to do that it would be necessary to import small quantities of the same articles for home consumption. And of course every country in the world realises that. Even in Canada you have small imports of wheat and in countries that produce wool you have small imports of wool. All that is necessary in the interests of trade. What Deputies opposite have to realise is that trade and commerce is a complex thing and is not susceptible to the generalisations so dear to the hearts of politicians, especially those not in touch with everyday life and business.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is arguing in favour of the importation of foreign bacon and butter into this country.

Mr. Hogan

No, I did not know it is relevant and I do not know that I should waste time on the argument put forward to-day to show that an increase in the home market could develop industrial tariffs and that that would immediately benefit the farmers. One enthusiastic Deputy went so far as to say that if there were more tariffs there would be less old age pensions. The argument seems to be that some old woman getting 10/- for her old age pension, from the moment we compelled her to pay more for her boots or her clothing she could do with 9/-.

There is no doubt about it that a tariff policy will develop an industrial market, but for a very long period our tariff policy will have not only to increase substantially the population of the towns but will have to double the population before the home market could consume all our production in beef, butter, bacon and eggs. In the meantime we in this generation must live and we cannot allow our duties and responsibilities towards the people of the next century to commit us to bankrupting the farmers who have to live to-day in a time of very great depression.

I was asked: Supposing butter did not pay, should we produce it? We should not. Mind you, the same applies to bacon. "I, Patrick Hogan, Minister for Agriculture, or Deputy Dr. Ryan, member of the Fianna Fáil Party"—we are not the producers. We are not the people who count. The people who count are the farmers of the country. It is not a question whether they should, or should not, produce bacon. If the time should come when it did not pay to produce bacon, butter or cattle they would get out of them. I do not see that time coming. There are always periods of acute depression. There are times when you have a slump in prices, times when cattle do not pay and times when they do. The same applies to butter and bacon. But the position is that over any certain long period their production always pays in this country, whereas wheat never pays, and never will pay without State assistance. Until such time as the production of cattle, sheep, pigs, eggs and butter ceases to pay permanently the Irish farmer, whatever we may think, will continue to produce them. When these items of agricultural production do cease to pay permanently they will get out of them, but should that ever come about the whole structure of the world will have changed so much that there will be other crops. Meantime, I am banking on losing less on cattle than on wheat. There was some reference to the purchase of creameries and I want to say a word on that.

Mr. Gorey

What about Deputy O'Reilly's bulls?

Mr. Hogan

On that I quite agree there was considerable criticism of the Department's action in making regulations confining certain areas to the Kerry bull. I am prepared to go so far as to admit that there were hardships in the beginning, but what I do claim is that these hardships are getting less. That is evident from the fact that less complaints are reaching the Department. The trouble about this particular issue is that it is extremely complex. What was the position before we came in in 1926? It was that, as a result of using Shorthorn and Angus bulls, the stock there was becoming almost entirely cross-bred. They were breeding from second and third crosses and the farmers were beginning to see if that process was continued the stock would be getting smaller and smaller.

Everyone knows that the first cross, and even the second produces a virile type of animal, but that you will ruin your cattle by constantly crossing. It is admitted that the first cross is excellent. Everyone knows that the Kerry breed was disappearing out of Kerry, and that if we had allowed the process of crossing to go on you would reach a time when you would have a mongrel breed. We stepped in and stopped that. Suppose we had let it go on what would have happened was that the milk supply of the area would have gone down. In the area we are dealing with the milk supply is of vital importance because there you have small farmers and poor land.

Deputy Ryan quoted the statement which was made at the meeting held in Limerick. I know all about that meeting. I want to say, first of all, that this was really a commercial transaction. It is very difficult for a politican to carry out a commercial transaction. When you are running a business, and it is admitted that this is a commercial transaction, you really have as your partners every member of the Dáil. This was really a big business. If I were running a big business that I had technical knowledge of myself I would choose, as my partners, people who wanted to make it a success and not people who wanted to obstruct the running of it. That is the real trouble that any Government —I do not make any exception of this Government—will have in trying to carry out a commercial transaction. The business of an Opposition is to oppose and not co-operate. A Government in trying to do that is, I admit, in a very vulnerable position in this respect that you cannot carry through a commercial transaction without, let us say, half the partners in the business thinking all the time of their political interests. But I think that I will carry it through in spite of them. As Deputy Nolan pointed out the experience that I have had in this matter will make me very careful about going into anything like it again.

Mr. MacEntee

But the Minister bought the creameries before 1926?

Mr. Hogan

We bought the creameries. I am criticised now for doing so. I am running them since. I agree that it was easier then to carry it out successfully because there was a general realisation in the Dáil that this was a very big national scheme on which I got ordinary criticism. I am now criticised on a great many grounds. Will Deputies say was I right in buying the creameries? Where do Deputies stand? Is it their line that I should not have bought the creameries? I challenge any Deputy on the opposite side to say that. They will be very careful not to do so. There is no reply whatever from them about that. The general policy is sound. It has to be admitted that the idea of purchasing out all the proprietors and handing over the butter industry to the farmers and all the profits, if there are profits, was a sound policy. It is said that I bought them too dear. The first reply I have to make to Deputies who say that is that they do not know whether I did or not. They are not in a position to know. The second thing is that if I bought them for twice the price exactly the same thing would be said, and if I bought them for half the price, exactly the same thing would be said, I bought them. Could I have bought them cheaper? Not voluntarily. That is quite certain. They could only be bought cheaper in one other way and that was by introducing an Act of Parliament compulsorily to acquire the creameries and to fix the price at a definite value in the same way as the price of land was fixed. If they were got by arbitration in the ordinary way I would have to pay 50 per cent. more for them. That is quite certain. There are creameries still to be bought. I would like to buy them. I want to buy them voluntarily. I do not want, if I can help it, to have to take the very doubtful step of buying compulsorily what a man has legitimately acquired and built up. That is the last thing I would like to do, and if I had to do it I think I should have to pay a swingeing fine price. They could not be got cheaper unless they were compulsorily acquired by the Dáil. We bought the creameries and, roughly speaking, we closed half of them. It was said that we closed them haphazard. I do not regard that as serious criticism. As Deputy Nolan pointed out, it led to inconvenience. We had to close them, and everyone knows that if I had to consult every milk supplier about closing the creameries I would never close them. Everyone knows that would be impossible. Everyone realises the difficulty, and I had to go ahead and do what I thought right straight off. Is it suggested that we should have kept the creameries open?

To run an auxiliary costs £500 a year and to run a central creamery, I suppose, would cost £1,000 a year. We have closed well over sixty of them. That represents £60,000 a year to the farmers. Is not that good value for the farmers? What would it represent capitalised at 5 per cent?

The Minister has only five minutes left to conclude his reply.

Mr. Gorey

I just want to ask whether the failure to agree to the scheme is to be attributed to the committees or to the managers of creameries.

Mr. Hogan

That does not matter. The manager is a servant of the committee, and if he does not do his duty the committee can deal with him.

Question: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration," put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 48; Níl, 66.

Tá.

Aiken, Frank.
Allen, Denis.
Anthony, Richard.
Blaney, Neal.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Daniel.
Brady, Séan.
Briscoe, Robert.
Broderick, Henry.
Carty, Frank.
Cassidy, Archie J.
Clancy, Patrick.
Clery, Michael.
Corkery, Dan.
Corish, Richard.
Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Everett, James.
Fahy, Frank.
Flinn, Hugo.
Geoghegan, James.
Gorry, Patrick J.
Goulding, John.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Houlihan, Patrick.
Jordan, Stephen.
Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, Michael.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, John Patrick.
Maguire, Ben.
MacEntee, Seán.
Moore, Séamus.
Mullins, Thomas.
O'Connell, Thomas J.
O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.
O'Kelly, Seán T.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
O'Reilly, Thomas.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Sexton, Martin.
Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
Walsh, Richard.

Níl.

Aird, William P.
Alton, Ernest Henry.
Beckett, James Walter.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Blythe, Ernest.
Bourke, Séamus A.
Brennan, Michael.
Brodrick, Séan.
Byrne, John Joseph.
Carey, Edmund.
Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
Conlon, Martin.
Connolly, Michael P.
Cosgrave, William T.
Craig, Sir James.
Crowley, James.
Daly, John.
Davis, Michael.
Doherty, Eugene.
Dolan, James N.
Doyle, Peadar Séan.
Duggan, Edmund John.
Dwyer, James.
Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
Finlay, Thomas A.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Gorey, Denis J.
Haslett, Alexander.
Hassett, John J.
Heffernan, Michael R.
Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
Hennessy, Thomas.
Hennigan, John.
Henry, Mark.
Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
Holohan, Richard.
Jordan, Michael.
Kelly, Patrick Michael.
Keogh, Myles.
Law, Hugh Alexander.
Leonard, Patrick.
Lynch, Finian.
Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
McFadden, Michael Og.
Mongan, Joseph W.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Nolan, John Thomas.
O'Connell, Richard.
O'Connor, Bartholomew.
O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
O'Hanlon, John F.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Mahony, The.
O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Reynolds, Patrick.
Rice, Vincent.
Roddy, Martin.
Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
Thrift, William Edward.
Tierney, Michael.
White, John.
White, Vincent Joseph.
Wolfe, George.
Wolfe, Jasper Travers.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies G. Boland and Allen; Níl, Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Motion put, and agreed to.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Progress reported.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. until Friday, 29th May, at 10.30 a.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 28 May 1931