Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Nov 1932

Vol. 44 No. 8

Vote 52—Agriculture.

Mr. O'Kelly

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £37,808 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1933, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmha-íoctha agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riara na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisí i gCabhair.

That a sum not exceeding £37,808 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1933, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture and of certain services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

Mr. Gorey

This is a very important Vote and I thought the Minister might have something to say on its introduction. I am waiting to hear what he has to say.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

I have nothing to say.

Mr. Bennett

As the Minister has nothing to say on the subject of agriculture, I do not know what action we ought to take on this Vote. Everybody in the country is aware of the present condition of the agriculturists. One might engage in a debate which might not end this day week if one were to cover all the ground. The Minister, however, says that there is nothing to say on the matter and I therefore find it difficult to make a speech on it. There will be within the next few days opportunities to criticise various portions of agricultural policy. Possibly, the Minister himself is not responsible for many of the disadvantages which agriculturists suffer under at present, and the Ceann Comhairle would probably rule me out of order if I referred to them—tariffs and other things for which the Minister is not directly responsible. The agricultural condition generally, however, is in a very deplorable way. One would have expected that the Minister would have made some references to conditions generally, but, the Minister having refrained from doing so, I do not intend to contribute anything more to the debate.

Mr. Gorey

Before the Recess there was an arrangement that I should move to refer this Vote back for reconsideration with a view to dealing with a very minor matter as compared with matters which have arisen since but a matter which is of some importance; that is the question of carrying out minor drainage works in the country. My idea was to ask the Minister to appoint an additional member to the staffs of the County Committees of Agriculture on the same basis as any of the other Instructors, with the same status and salary, as say, a horticultural or agricultural or any of the other Instructors. If that were done, this official would be able to supply expert advice to people who may need it on the question of drainage. That advice could be supplied in that way at the least possible cost, and the person appointed could make out a plan for every man in the county who would need it. A lot of this small drainage work could be done and would be done if occupiers had expert advice, and with the addition of an official like that to the staff of the County Committees of Agriculture it could be carried out at the least possible expense.

All that is needed is advice and example. I proved that for myself last year and this year. I had to undertake a drainage job of my own and, in order to begin at the proper point, I had to go into another man's farm and do about half a mile of a job until I got the proper depth. I had grave doubts with regard to levels and that sort of thing, not having the implements to take levels, and I did not know what levels I would ultimately get at a certain point. I used the best judgment I had, and I had some judgment in these matters, and I got just what I wanted and a little more. I know that numbers of men, who would not have as much experience as I had, and, especially, young men, suffer because of the lack of expert advice. For instance, they would not know offhand what depth they would gain after travelling a certain distance by maintaining a proper level. There is no use in doing big schemes unless you have facilities to do the minor schemes. The effect that this has on the country is beyond any calculation I could make. The Minister and everybody knows that the bog and wet land of the country is not carrying anything like its fair proportion of cattle compared with what it carried thirty to fifty years ago. It also undermines the health of the cattle. You have more fluke now than ever you had. There is more tuberculosis in the country than there ever was, and, when one talks about fluke and tuberculosis and the other diseases that can be traced back to lack of drainage, the importance of the problem is apparent. Particularly with cattle which give milk, the influence of cattle on their own kinds and on human beings is immense. You cannot have healthy families, healthy people or children unless they have healthy milk and anything that could be done at the lowest cost to the community should be done by the Ministry of Agriculture in this matter.

The suggestion I make will cost the County Committees scarcely anything —£300 or £400—and the only expense will be to the farmers who can do it in their own time. They can spend a fortnight at it and three weeks at it later on, and the only expense will be the expense of sweat, and it will do them no harm, besides giving them an opportunity of exercising their intelligence. There is no doubt at all about it that if example is shown by one or two persons in a district and expert advice given, the matter will be followed up and will be done at the lowest possible expense. I can go into the details with the Minister if he would entertain the suggestion and talk over the matter with him if he is agreeable. Having said that, we will leave it there.

With regard to other matters, Fianna Fáil, when they went to the country this year, had as one of their foremost planks the increasing of foreign markets. "While extending the home market, Fianna Fáil is determined to hold the grip we have on the foreign market"—what has the Minister done or what has his Department done to hold the grip on the foreign market? What advice has the Minister given to the Executive Council with regard to holding the grip on the foreign market? Was it on his advice that all our stock ceased to go out of the country before mid-July to the foreign market? Was it on his instructions that certain statements were made, before he and his colleagues went to Ottawa, to induce people to keep their cattle off the market? Was it on his advice that the President made a statement at Limerick and Ennis urging farmers not to put their cattle on the foreign market? Was it on his advice that the Vice-President made a statement in Ottawa that it was only a question of a short time before there was a settlement of the question and again induced people to keep their cattle off the foreign market? Was it on his advice that a present was made of the foreign market to the Argentine? The Minister knows or should have known, having advised the Executive Council, that there are two competitors for the English trade on that foreign market—the only foreign market he has. Did the Minister tell them that on one side was the Argentine, with £500,000,000 of English money invested in it, and that there was always a fight between them and the other competitors in the English market? I put the Argentine on one side and, on the other side, I put the English, Scotch and Irish feeders—if you like, you can add the Canadian, which does not affect it very much. I put the Englishman first, the Scotsman second and the Irishman third. I put the Irishman in the weakest trenches, the trenches most easily attacked by the Argentine and the first trenches to fall if there is going to be any fall. The Minister and the Executive Council made a present of the English market to the Argentine— they made a present of the first line trench, and the position is now that the Argentine jumped in and gobbled the market you were supplying. Your market has gone now and your stuff is on the English market in competition for that portion of it that the Scots and English had. That is the position to-day. You are going to keep your grip on the foreign market— that is how you got elected.

The Minister talks about different classes of agricultural economics. Did he think, when he decided to make a step in another direction, that it was necessary to write down the capital of the country by fifty per cent? That is what has been done. He has twenty per cent. of an embargo, ten or twelve per cent. loss of goodwill and he has made a present of the other market to the Argentine. It is nearer to fifty per cent. than forty per cent. in actual fact. The late Minister for Agriculture used to be described as the Minister for Grass, and now we have the Minister for Scutch grass and you might say the Minister for Scutch grass and bran. The Minister is going to save the country now by growing bran. What is he going to feed the bran to?

Dr. Ryan

Greyhounds.

Mr. Gorey

They are the only things that would pay and the only things worth their salt and worth their grub. Will the Minister say that bran would be an economic proposition to feed to pigs at present prices; to feed to milch cows at present prices; to feed to beef at present prices, or to feed for the production of eggs at present prices? Does the Minister think that bran, or some of the ingredients he has in maize, will induce any man to keep a pig in the country? Does he think that with 25/- or 22/6d. a cwt. for bacon, anybody is going to buy feeding stuffs or that he is going to have a pig at all in the country in six months' time? Does he think that 18/- to 22/6d. a cwt. for beef is going to find a market for his bran? We heard a question to-day, or yesterday about the foreign market outside the present market, and I believe that the Minister has sent a special ambassador to the Continent to develop the foreign market and the only result of it was a certain amount of stuff which he sent into Belgium. He would not tell us the loss yesterday. The facts are that there are three great men in Ireland to-day—De Valera, Johnny Lord and Mosey Lee.

Dr. Ryan

What about Gorey?

Mr. Gorey

The only thing is that I have never engaged in the foreign markets. The Minister and the President have deliberately entered into competition to put Johnny Lord and Mosey Lee out of business, and the only market they can get is the trade those men had in Ireland of sending old horses to Belgium to make sausages. They brought down the best agricultural produce so as to enable them to compete with the trade of Johnny Lord and Mosey Lee.

I would like to know what did the Minister do in this crisis. He is the man in charge of the Department and I would like to know what advice did he give to the members of the Executive Council. What advice did he give his fellow-delegates in Ottawa, to the Vice-President, for instance, who was responsible for holding the cattle in this country for three weeks? I was one of the fools and it was because of his advice that this country lost nearly one million pounds. That is a serious point to remember—that it cost this country nearly one million pounds because the people took the Vice-President's advice. The people acted on the indication he gave in the course of an interview in Ottawa. You are a most unreliable lot, the whole of you. As Deputy Bennett mentioned, we will have another opportunity of dealing with this matter later on. I thought it a pity to let the Agricultural Vote pass without a little reference to the subjects I have dealt with. Having made that little reference, I will leave the matter so for the present.

Mr. Dillon

There are only three matters to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention at this stage. One is the position of the agricultural instructors throughout the country. There is a popular impression amongst the people, partially due to oldfashioned prejudice and partially well-founded, that there is no use in asking the agricultural instructors anything. In my opinion, that is a very regrettable state of affairs, because if the people made more use of the knowledge that the agricultural instructors are prepared to impart to them, it would be greatly to the advantage of the people. If you want to bring the instructors into closer touch with the people, you have to get over those two existing obstacles, prejudice and a reluctance on the part of the people to trust them. So far as prejudice is concerned, I suggest to the Minister that the best way to overcome an unreasonable prejudice is to give an ocular demonstration to the people that the methods advocated by the instructors are the best methods and that if they are followed out they will result in a substantially improved return.

In pursuit of that idea I suggest that the Minister should at least experiment in certain areas with small demonstration farms. If it is true, as I believe it is, that the Department's methods are an improvement on old-fashioned methods in the country, there is no reason why an instructor should not earn his salary on a demonstration farm. I am not talking about an experimental farm, which is quite a different proposition altogether. I am speaking of a demonstration farm where the instructor could demonstrate the results of conclusions that have been arrived at by experiments in Glasnevin and on other experimental farms. I believe that if an agricultural instructor had a small farm of that character in any area, he could pay his own salary and that farm would be a standing exhibit for all the small farmers of the district; it would be an indication to them of what better farming methods could do in their area.

It would serve another purpose. It would bring home to the authorities in the Department of Agriculture that there is no use in training an agricultural instructor in Glasnevin under the conditions that obtain in Glasnevin and then sending him down to West Donegal to teach the farmers there how to grow crops on rocks, because the fact is that the farmers in West Donegal know a great deal more about the management of that class of poor land than a great many thoroughly well-intentioned young instructors. Unless the Department will awaken to the fact that there are areas, particularly in the West and North-West of Ireland, where very specialised knowledge is necessary in order to make an instructor an efficient man, the instructors will be able to do very little good work in those areas.

I suggest the Minister should look into the question of giving the instructors whom he proposes to send into the areas of West Donegal, West Mayo and West Galway special instruction in the types of agriculture that are appropriate to the kind of land the people have there. I suggest also that there should be demonstration farms set up in a few selected areas so that the instructor will have an opportunity of putting into operation the schemes he recommends to the people. Let the instructor, on his demonstration farm, prove to the people that with proper methods of production the most remunerative return can be got from the land, and I think it will then be found that there will be a very great change in the attitude of the people towards the instructors. If that suggestion is carried out there will be, I believe, a very great all-round improvement amongst the small farmers who, at present, are not getting all they might get through consultation with the local agricultural instructor.

I believe that the agricultural instructors are anxious to help and they are only too glad when they are approached by small farmers. At the moment I think they find that if they volunteer advice to farmers they get a short answer, and in those circumstances their usefulness is very much restricted. My experience of agricultural instructors has been that whenever I required their assistance on any problem they have been extremely helpful and have displayed every anxiety to do all they could. I think if the Minister inquires into the position he will find that the instructors find themselves harassed by the reluctance of the ordinary small farmer to trust them. While a great deal of that is due to prejudice, a good deal of it is due to the fact that some instructors are trained under circumstances entirely different from those prevailing in the areas to which they are sent to instruct.

The next matter I would like to touch upon has reference to the ravages that take place throughout the country by reason of the effect of fluke in sheep and cattle. In my opinion much greater damage is caused by contagious abortion. So far as fluke is concerned, most of us who have an interest in the matter know that adequate drainage will greatly mitigate the evil, and the prudent use of specified drugs will tend to cure the affected animals. That knowledge requires to be more widely spread. There are enormous numbers of calves lost every year, and a very considerable number of sheep also because of the prevalence of fluke. I think what is required is some form of propaganda informing the people how to avoid the disease.

The question of contagious abortion is entirely different, and it is becoming a very great menace to the cattle trade of this country. There are hundreds of small farmers, particularly in the congested areas, which I know best, who have contagious abortion on their farms and they do not know it. What is worse, there is a popular belief amongst the country people that if you find contagious abortion in one beast the best thing you can do is to turn the animal out on grass. They believe that the bacillus of contagious abortion, like all the others, is very rapidly weakened by exposure to the air. In that belief, as the Minister knows quite well, the people are entirely mistaken. The result of turning cattle suffering from that disease on to the grass land is exceedingly injurious. Not only is the particular stable in which the beast is housed at night in the winter months affected with the disease, but the whole of the land on which the animal is grazing is also affected. In those circumstances there is a very great danger of the spread of the disease over a far wider area. In order to prevent anything of that nature, very intensive propaganda is required so that the people may be properly warned of the dangers of contagious abortion.

There is also very much required in this country a more intensive veterinary research than is at present going on. I fully appreciate the difficulties of veterinary research and I know that on the Continent, in England, and even in Ireland, work is at present being done on this question. I think the Minister should consult his expert to ascertain if any financial assistance the Oireachtas could give would bring us nearer the day when there would be a discovery of some effective cure for the disease. As far as I have been able to find out there is at present no cure for contagious abortion. It is very difficult to get a definite and unequivocal diagnosis from a veterinary surgeon. If a man has a valuable pedigree beast, and if a veterinary surgeon comes and states that he thinks, but is not sure, that the animal has contagious abortion—yet the cow is not having any calves—he is placed in a very difficult position. He does not want to take the animal to the fair while there is a suspicion of contagious abortion; he does not care to turn it on to the land and, at the same time, he does not want to have it slaughtered or destroyed, so long as there is a reasonable hope that it is suffering from some other disease from which it may recover. As the Minister is aware there are a number of other troubles in animals closely resembling contagious abortion. To my mind the loss to small farmers owing to the prevalence of that disease is alarming. If the Minister could state what the annual loss is as a result of cows failing to have calves in due time owing to contagious abortion I think it would surprise the Oireachtas.

The only other matter I want to refer to is the question concerning premiums for bulls. I have not been able to discover if there is any system in the Department dealing with the giving of premiums. The result at present is that where there is a pretty good foundation stock of shorthorn heifers, if an enterprising person applies to the Department for a premium, he gets one for an Aberdeen Angus bull and in about three generations there is not a single pure-bred beast in the district. You can argue with the country man and try to persuade him that any good-looking cow will produce a good first cross between two different breeds, but you will never persuade him that that cross-bred calf has in her qualities which prevent her from being a really good breeder herself. I suggest that the Department should consider the question of surveying the country, should ascertain what type of cattle are in each area, and provide where there are good foundation stocks of Shorthorn cattle a generous premium for Shorthorn bulls and, similarly, where there are good foundation stocks of Aberdeen Angus cattle, a more generous premium for an Aberdeen Angus bull.

I believe that Deputy Hogan, when he was Minister for Agriculture, introduced a scheme on these lines in County Kerry. It was a great success and, although the Minister was probably roundly abused at the time, it was the means of saving for the people of Kerry a very valuable asset, even though it was done under compulsion. In Kerry they could not have anything except a Kerry bull. I appreciate that it would not be possible to act so drastically in all areas. I think the Minister should be persuaded to give larger premiums for bulls to encourage the breeding of pure-bred cattle throughout the country. If he does he will do a service which may not be appreciated now but will be of great value and be appreciated in fifteen years time.

Mr. Brasier

Deputies will probably be disappointed that the Minister of this Department, in asking for the Vote, did not support his application with some preliminary remarks, explaining the operations of the Department and dealing with the activity of the previous Government with agriculture. Deputies who discuss the position of agricultural instructors must pay a tribute to these men and to the work they do, as far as is in their power to impart information to those requiring it, on any subject so varied as the agricultural policy as it exists in this country is. The last Deputy who spoke stated that we should have demonstration farms worked by the county instructors. There are in this country farmers second to none, men who are carrying out scientific farm work on the most up-to-date lines, who are working in active co-operation with the county instructors. We have them in Co. Cork. Deputies from that county will bear me out when I say that there are farmers in that county whose methods are second to none. Some of them are small farmers, but they work hard and they are carrying on on the most modern scientific principles. I think these are the best demonstration farms the country could have. We have also demonstration plots of various crops, such as potatoes, and in County Cork prominent agriculturists and the public are invited to visit these places. I cannot see how the taking of farms for demonstration purposes could in any way help agriculturists to assimilate any more information than they get from the itinerant instructors. These men will visit any farm and will give all the information that they possibly can to those who require it. They are attending to their duties from an early hour in the morning perhaps until 11 o'clock at night.

I have no hesitation in paying a high tribute to the work of this Department. Some very ill-advised people suggest that the Department should be scrapped and that the money it costs should be devoted to some other purpose. If Deputies look back on the record of the work done by the Department of Agriculture, even in the giving of premiums for bulls, they will appreciate that fact. Deputy Dillon will be glad to know that the procedure he suggested has been adopted by the County Cork Committee of Agriculture. The highest premium is given to the dairy shorthorn bull. The utmost care is devoted to the selection of bulls for premiums. The Dairy Shorthorn Society is doing a tremendous amount of work, and while it may be open to some criticism in developing the beef bull which is a very valuable asset, at the same time there is development on lines suitable for a dairying county like Cork. A tremendous amount of good work is being done in that way. I am in agreement with keeping both the polled angus bull and the dairy shorthorn bull in the same neighbourhood, as the bad milkers can be sent to the polled angus bull, and the good milkers to the dairy Shorthorn bulls. On these lines you can develop the milking qualities. In fact we need only refer to the enormous trade in high-class heifers with England which has very wisely been stopped by the present Government and the effort made to help the farmer to get these dairy heifers, keep them in our own country and thus retain an enormous asset which has been built up with the greatest care.

I cannot sit down without referring to one important work and that is the cereal development which is carried on by the Department station at Ballinacurra. In view of the future activities of the present Government I think a very wise provision has been made at that station for the development of pure line seed barley and various other grains. Having regard to the importance of that cereal development to the country, I believe that even a larger amount should be devoted to that particular station and that more assistance should be given. I am glad to say that the price of barley has not fallen, and although it has not responded to the tariff in the manner which we would anticipate, still, at the same time, I have no hesitation in saying that the absorbing of the greater portion of the crop by maize mixtures has a tendency to provide a market which would otherwise not be available and thus keep up the price of that particular cereal which is so important to farmers of the tillage areas.

With regard to the subsidies which are given on cattle at the present time perhaps it is useless to go into this matter on this Vote or to refer to the necessity which has arisen for this subsidy. That subsidy is bound to cost the country an immense amount of money and it will undoubtedly have a tendency to increase by taxation the cost of living. Deputy Gorey referred to a very important question and that is the matter of minor arterial drainage schemes. Only the fringe of that problem has been touched in this country. Under the old land system the land owners were able to join together and form drainage boards. But now that the farmer is the owner of his own land it is absolutely necessary for the State to step in to a much greater degree than at the present moment. There are areas where the lands are waterlogged and useless. These lands are a danger to cattle and to every class of live stock, even to human life. Therefore I believe that the attention of the State should be directed towards helping to a much greater degree than it has done up to the present to carry out minor drainage schemes.

Quite recently owing to the enormous amount of derelict land in the country the county councils were enabled as the local authorities to give grants or at least loans for the provision of seeds. I think that that undoubtedly has enabled a great deal of land to be put under cultivation that would otherwise be derelict. I hope that that system will be continued in the future. That will enable farmers who have no money for stock nor any means of seeding their land to put in a crop. I would suggest to the Minister that he might assist these in a much greater degree than he has done in the past.

Mr. P. Hogan (Galway):

I take it that though it might be in order to deal with the policy of the Government as regards agriculture it would be better perhaps to confine ourselves to details on this Vote. So far as I am concerned I regard the general policy of the Government as sheer lunacy for which there is nothing good, bad or indifferent to be said. I used to be Minister for Agriculture myself and I was always annoyed when well-meaning Deputies and Deputies who were not well-meaning got up and made speeches at me. It often occurred to me that it would be an education to them to see their policies in operation The carrying out of a policy is better than speaking about it. Let their policy be put into operation for a period of years and then we will arrive at some conclusion about it.

I suggest there have been more idiotic theories in connection with agriculture than with any other industry in the country. These idiotic theories are particularly rife amongst non-farmers. For the last year, particularly, these have held the stage. Teachers, doctors, politicians, and lawyers of all sorts all have their theories about agriculture. They now have a Government which will put every single one of them into operation. I talked against these theories for years and years, but it was not too convincing.

Mr. Briscoe

Is the Deputy speaking now as a lawyer or as a farmer?

Mr. Hogan

As a farmer. I spoke against these theories for years, but it was not too convincing. I have come to the conclusion that putting this into operation will cost the country an enormous figure, though now that we have begun to do so—including the policy of grain mixing of which Deputy Brasier is so enamoured——

Mr. Brasier

I am making no apology for it.

Mr. Hogan

We have this policy of mixing maize or Indian meal with the home grown grain. We might as well continue this policy out, and after a year or two all the soft-headed people in the country will have got a demonstration as to whether it is good or not. At any rate there seems to me to be no other way out of it. We are doing these silly things at present. The education the country is deriving from it seems almost to compensate for the financial loss. The losses that will be incurred in the future in carrying through the policies of the Government will be great, but, nevertheless, I think we might as well put up with them so as to test them out. It seems to me that in agriculture and otherwise in this country we have for a long time been going around in a circle. Nothing has been tested out. The Minister will agree with me that we did get a fair test for our policy of producing and encouraging the production of live stock products. We got a fair test for that policy. I make you a present of the results. Some people say these were good, others bad. At any rate, we tested the policy out.

Let us have a shot now at growing wheat, mixing Indian meal with home grown grain and subsidising the sale of heifers. That latter scheme has had attached to it the provision that there must be two solvent sureties. Now that takes all the good out of it. I would suggest to the Minister that he should withdraw that condition. It is not Fianna Fáilish enough. It does not trust enough. Having two solvent sureties is rather an aspersion on the character of the poor borrower. I would suggest to the Minister that he should withdraw that condition. He knows perfectly well that he will never get the money back. This condition as to having these two solvent sureties is taking the good out of it.

There is another scheme about providing seed wheat, seed oats and seed barley. We all know that seed can always be provided by a farmer. Even this year, when goodness knows things are bad enough, a man could provide seed. There will be no shortage of the seed potatoes or seed oats required to be sown. No farmer will have any difficulty in providing this seed in the ordinary way.

Nevertheless the Minister for Agriculture insists on these schemes of his because he read about them in some copy book. He must make advances to the county councils to supply the wheat; he must subsidise heifers; he must mix maize with tailings and so on. There are people who ought to be sensible, but they believe in that sort of thing. Now we are getting these schemes into operation. This is exactly opposite to the policy that has prevailed here for ten years. I would like to see it tested out, and I put it to the Minister for Agriculture that he ought to do his best to keep the present Government in office for the next two years, so as to be able to test out this policy of subsidies and bounties. I think this sort of foolishness must be killed once and for all, and there is only one way of doing that, and that is "put it into practice." There is one rather important phase of agricultural policy which is very much beloved by the patriotic people in the country that has already been pretty well blown upon—that is tariffs on agricultural produce. For seven weary years I told the people that tariffs on agricultural imports would not increase prices. For the same seven years every patriot in the country, every Republican, all the select people, the University professors, all the so-called educated people and especially the politicians told us: "Protection is the thing, protection is the stuff, it will get you higher prices." I remember reading about all the bacon that used to come into this country, Polish bacon and, worst of all, Chinese bacon—about all the dreadful stuff that we were told was coming in.

Mr. Brasier

The Deputy knows well that when he was a Minister he put a tariff on bacon.

Mr. Hogan

I do not think so.

Mr. Brasier

Well, your Government did so, any way.

Mr. Hogan

If I remember correctly Deputy Brasier was a firm believer in tariffs, like myself. At any rate, we used to hear about all the butter, all the oats and all the beef that was coming into the country. It used to be said "this is an agricultural country, and look at all the agricultural produce that is coming in. Is it any wonder that prices are low and that the farmers are not prosperous? There is an obvious remedy and it is to stop these things coming in; put on high tariffs against these agricultural imports." It was suggested that any other Government except the Government which notoriously was in the hands of English importers, like the last Government, would clap on tariffs: that at once prices would go up and all would be happy. Is not that, I ask, a fair picture of the sort of propaganda that came from the Fianna Fáil Party in the last five or six years, or are they getting away from it now? Did they not tell everyone that what was needed were agricultural tariffs and that these would lead to prosperity at once? Now we have prohibitive tariffs on beef, mutton, bacon, eggs and on every possible form of live stock and live stock products, prohibitive tariffs that are almost embargoes. We have had them for the last year. Have we learned any lesson? Have they increased prices by one copper? Remember I do not mean have they put up prices, but have they increased prices above last year's level? What I mean exactly is, have they stayed the fall in prices by one copper? There is not a lb. of beef or mutton coming into the country now. What is the price of mutton now? 3d. or 4d. What is the price of beef? 22/- a cwt. If you had not the English embargo, what would it be? About 30/-. Is not that the world price in spite of all your tariffs? What are pigs at the moment? 22/- or 24/-, and that with your prohibitive tariff. The world price is something like 33/- or 34/-. Yet the Party opposite spent the last five or six years, their friends, their propagandists and themselves telling the country that tariffs would be its salvation. We have a high tariff on oats, but what is the price of oats this year? 10/-, I think, for black, and 11/- for white. I think that lesson will sink in.

Mr. Corry

And 7/- last year.

Mr. Hogan

One thing at any rate has been proved, and it is that tariffs, no matter how high, are no protection for a product that has to depend on an export market. We have the extraordinary situation here, that the Party that spent five or six years telling the electorate that tariffs would be their salvation, that the home market was the real market for this country, are now subsidising exports. Was there ever such a situation? Is there any other country in the world where that could occur? I do not believe it. I think the policy should be carried out logically in all its stark foolishness, because I think that the people should get a demonstration, a complete demonstration, as to what the Fianna Fáil plan for agriculture is.

Coming down to details, one may say that almost every scheme of the Department of Agriculture has been wrecked, all the sound schemes that were there long before I took office. The Department had some very sound schemes which were being administered with great value to the country. They were there always, and all the energy that should now be going to administer them properly is being spent on foolish experiments, the sort of experiments that I have already mentioned, experiments such as the buying of cattle for the Belgian market. I asked a question yesterday as to how many cattle have been bought and as to what was the result of the transactions. I would not be told. I was told it was not in the national interest to do so. That is an extraordinary point of view. I do not think that any man closely in touch with the cattle market and with the prices of cattle would give that answer because he must know that I would have no difficulty in finding out. But then he might reply, "why did you ask?" My answer is that I am entitled as a Deputy to ask for information for people who should not have the trouble of finding out. They should get it from the Minister. Just imagine when cattle are being bought at 25/-, 26/- and 27/- a cwt. sending officers of the Department to the market to buy them to sell in Belgium.

Surely it was not necessary to lose big sums of money in order to prove that cattle bought here at 26/- and 27/-a cwt. could not pay in Belgium. The market reports give one that information. Yet, yesterday the Minister told me that I might be disappointed. I assume that what he really means is that they will pay later on. If that is what he means then I say it is a blue look-out for the country. What it comes to is this, that cattle are going to fall to such an appallingly bad price that it will pay to buy them and sell them against old horses in the Belgian market. If the price of cattle falls much below what it is at present, then of course you can sell them against horse flesh in the Belgian market and you will not make a loss. But it ought not to be necessary to carry out actual experiments to get that information. It is to be found in the market reports, and these are available to the Department of Agriculture and to enterprising farmers in the country. I suggest that the Minister ought to have realised that if there was a market for cattle in Belgium you would have plenty of enterprising men in the Dublin Cattle market buying cattle and selling them there, men who already had been selling certain types of cattle there. He should not have wasted the public money in a futile piece of nonsense such as sending up his officers to the Dublin Cattle Market to make a laughing-stock of them by sending the cattle across to Belgium to lose money. That is the sort of thing that can be done now. All you have to do is to pretend to be a patriot or to call yourself a patriot and you can do anything you like. I would not have been allowed to be a Minister for two hours if I had attempted to do such a thing. There are at least half a dozen schemes embarked on by the present Minister for which, if I did one of them, I would have been marked down as——.

A Deputy

A traitor.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

Yes, as a traitor, as the Deputy remarked. As I was saying, you can get away with any of this foolishness or lunacy if you call yourself a patriot and say that you are doing it in order to do your bit in this war with England. But this period of lunacy will pass. I am certain it will pass. It may be that certain people in the country at the moment, from one reason or another, are ready to see out that foolish policy. I have heard people make speeches in the present crisis who would not have dreamed of saying these things a few years ago. However, that lunacy will not last, and I suggest to the Minister that, even though he feels that he must do those sort of things, he should at least try to keep the large number of first-class schemes which are in the Department at the moment. He should try to keep them together.

Apropos of that, Deputy Dillon said that it would be well if the agricultural instructor was in closer touch with the farmer. Of course it would. But I do not agree with Deputy Dillon's remedy of demonstration farms. I think there are a lot of objections to that, but I would point out this: At the moment you have a fine Department with a big number of efficient officers, who have been educated and trained not only with a view to giving instructions in the rich places like Meath but also in the Gaeltacht, because you have not only instructors but overseers specially educated to give instruction in the district. They cannot do their work properly—I have got no information from them—but I know they cannot do their work properly. When we took over the Department in 1922, we helped to make a certain number of changes and experiments, some good and some bad, which upset the Department considerably. What we must realise is that ordinary day-to-day administration is far and away more important than experiment. Experiment has its place. I suppose every Department which is energetic does make experiments, but what is important in a big Department like the Department of Agriculture is not the experiments, but the seeing to it that the day-to-day work is done efficiently, that the staff is kept up to scratch, that the senior men are doing the work they should do—checking the work of the junior men and seeing that they are doing their work efficiently. Without such work you can have no proper administration. I believe that while this phase of foolishness lasts, while these frantic efforts are being made to develop foreign markets that do not exist, and to cover up losses of money—I believe that while all this lasts, the ordinary normal administration of the Department, which is far and away more important than any of these experiments, is bound to suffer. That is one of the losses which the country is incurring at present, the size of which they do not really appreciate.

If I might mention one detail in connection with their administration it is this. I believe that the Live Stock Breeding Act improved the quality of the cattle in this country, generally, very much indeed, and by live stock I mean not only the cattle, but pigs. I believe that our cattle were approaching something like perfection and our pigs very near it. The pigs are very good indeed in this country. Just before I left office, however, I was coming to the conclusion, and my experience since then has strengthened that conclusion, that the Live Stock Breeding Act, as it is operating, is operating against the dairy cow and in favour of the beef animal. I think, if it is operated as it is being operated at present, without making some attempt to encourage milk as against beef, that in a comparatively short time you may find yourself with magnificent looking cows, very fine cattle and pigs, but that it will be extremely hard to get a good milking dairy cow in this country. The Act is operated in this way: There are licensing shows in practically every parish twice a year—in spring and in autumn. The animals are inspected there entirely on view. That is to say, pedigree or other qualities are not taken into account, and they are inspected as they would be on their appearance or, in other words, on beef. That is bound to give an advantage to the animal that is bred from beef animals, and it is undoubtedly working out in that way. While the quality of our cattle and live stock, generally, is being improved from the point of view of beef and bacon, there is no doubt about it that we are gradually breeding out milk. That is a very serious problem for the Department of Agriculture. I confess myself that I do not see a way out of it at the moment. I do not think that Cow-Testing Associations will remedy it, but I am satisfied that some way out will have to be found; otherwise the milking qualities of our dairy cows will deteriorate and deteriorate very gravely. If the Minister, in the intervals when he is not engaged entirely in fighting the English, would concentrate on a problem like that (which will take the co-operation of a number of officers in the Department of Agriculture and entail serious thought and work from himself) and try to find some way of levelling up the position of the dairy cow so as to give the dairy cow the same chance the beef animal is getting at the present, without at the same time reverting to the old system, he would be doing a good work for the agriculture of this country and a work which will yield big dividends later on when all this foolishness and lunacy is forgotten and we all get sane again.

Mr. Corry

We heard a lot of illuminating statements from various Deputies, and I would suggest to them that they take Deputy Hogan's remedy and test it themselves. We hear farmers getting up here and talking about agriculture and systems of pure strain barley and all the rest of it, and they do little of those things themselves. For instance, one Deputy was talking about a two-bull show—one for the milk and another for the beef. Those arguments are rather comical when you hear them coming out here. Then we had Deputy Gorey talking about foreign markets and our grip on the foreign market, and that we were losing our grip on the foreign market. What are we losing? Here it is: "At Maidstone last week sheep were sold for a shilling a head." Deputy Gorey would sell them for that, and he would pay rates and annuities. I think he is anxious for more land. An English estate agent will give him six farms on a line, and he is prepared to let them rent free to anyone who is prepared to cultivate them.

Mr. Gorey

You should go there.

Mr. Corry

Let the Deputy go there, he is so fond of the English market, and he will be near it.

Mr. Gorey

We will subsidise you.

Mr. Corry

"Only one sample of barley in every fifty is being brought to the breweries, and the feeding stock barley is now being sold at 21/- a quarter"—a quarter meaning two barrels. You can make that up—10/6 a barrel—and owing to the policy of our Minister for Agriculture it is 16/-a barrel here. I know it. I sold it for that. I sold it for it this week—16/- a barrel for barley. Those are things that I would like you to consider when you talk of the mixing scheme. We were told very solemnly from those benches last year and the year before: "If you dare put a tariff on barley Guinness will go." He is here yet. The brewery is here yet. The tariff is on the barley and Guinness has not gone. I did not hear that he was going. I do not know whether Deputy Hogan has any information that he is going. Beamish's brewery is still going full belt down in Cork, and the price of barley is now 16/- here and 10/6 in England.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

I thought it was 18/-.

Mr. Corry

That is a fairly good comparison for you. I never heard such a condemnation of his own policy as Deputy Hogan concluded with. He absolutely condemned his own policy. When we were here arguing with him from time to time about the bull ring that he had built up around the country, why! who dared make any suggestion about such a policy, and here we have Deputy Hogan getting up now and telling us that milking cows are not of the best, "owing to my policy for seven years"—"owing to my policy for seven years." We heard all those arguments. He sneers at the dairy heifer scheme. He sneers at that too. Deputy Hogan's policy included a premium on dairy cattle—dairy bulls. His Department spent a lot of money on dairy cattle during the last five or six years, and the best of those heifers each year were undoubtedly going to Britain. We were subsidising Britain. We were paying premiums here for dairy cattle —breeding heifers for the English market.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Mr. Corry

Now the farmers will get an opportunity of stocking their land with those heifers. I have not the opinion of my fellow farmers which Deputy Hogan displays when he says: "Wipe out the sureties. They will not pay. You will never get them back anyway." I wonder whether it was on those lines he brought in the Agricultural Credit Corporation. If it was in that frame of mind, it was a very peculiar distribution of public money. "Give it out. You will not get it back anyway." If that was the idea behind the Agricultural Credit Corporation proposals and the distribution of money out of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, that was Deputy Hogan's idea when he brought in those things. I would like to hear some account from him as to that distribution of public moneys.

We have had a different experience, and I am proud to say it, in Cork, in regard to money that was loaned out. For instance, we lent several thousand pounds out under the housing schemes, and we cannot find anybody in arrears. They are paying up their yearly contributions in that line. The same thing applies in connection with other subsidies under which loans were given. I think it is a rather peculiar thing for an ex-Minister for Agriculture to stand up here and give that opinion of his fellow farmers, that any loan they get will not be paid back anyway. Is that co-operation?

Deputy Gorey told us about a present we made to the Argentine. I challenge Deputy Gorey or anybody else to stand up here in this House, and to state that at any time, during the last three years at any rate, a farmer could sell his cattle at the price that England could afford to pay for them, and could at the same time pay his rates and annuities.

Mr. Gorey

Can he pay now?

Mr. Corry

Could he do it last year?

Mr. Gorey

Can he do it now?

Mr. Corry

Could he do it last year? That is the question for you to consider. Your policy was to make him pay the rates, make him pay the annuities, and give him as his only market the English market. That was the policy, and that was the policy they handed us over—the Land Commission with a flood of writs waiting outside the door in bags ready to be sent out. That is the policy that drove out of employment in my constituency, on tillage alone, something like 6,400 labourers—yes, and left them outside the ditch, looking in at the result of the grass Ministry. Deputy Hogan has complained. Deputy Hogan put a tariff on butter. He put a tariff on bacon before he left.

Mr. O'Leary

He has had to educate the people of this country.

Mr. Corry

You can make your speech afterwards. I would like to hear it. I promise you I would remain to hear it if I could induce you to make it. It is all very well for Deputy O'Leary to talk. He is selling his milk here in Dublin.

Mr. Dillon

They did not try to sell it in Cork anyway.

Mr. Corry

Here is another living evidence of what Deputy Hogan complains of—the barrister-farmer, the advice, the showing us how to farm. We have Deputy MacDermot, the leader of the new farmer Party. We have Deputy Dillon to assist him. I would like to see them heading in here as farmers.

Mr. Dillon

I have farmed more land than you ever saw.

Mr. Corry

Go down and do a day's work on it. I will suggest to you one fair thing and I will suggest——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I suggest that we talk about the Estimates.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Gorey is at present running a big drainage scheme. He was telling us so a few minutes ago. I suggest that you collect all the apostles of farming—all those who are telling us about what farmers should do—and send them down to Deputy Gorey to give him a hand in the drain for a month. I am sure he will make them work and I am sure they will not have so much talk about farming when they come back. I believe that our farming policy is the only policy that will pull the farmers out of the wood. Deputy Hogan realised that before he went. A month before he went, or two months before he went, we had a tariff on foreign oats—put on by Deputy Hogan. He cannot deny it. Of course he waited first until all the grain merchants had the oats gathered into the loft, for fear the farmer would get any benefit, and then he came along and put a tariff on oats. What is the position to-day? The man who tills his land is going to get a price for what he grows on it, and the man who employs labour is going to get a price for what he grows, and I have no sympathy with the Hoganites in this country and the sooner we get rid of them the better. Unfortunately, a lot of decent farmers have caught on to the Hogan policy and we have to try by subsidies to save them from the effects of the Hogan policy. But what is the position to-day as compared with the position last harvest? As far as the farmer is concerned you have good prices—£7 per ton for oats—and incidentally the price in England is 4/9 or £4 15s. a ton.

Mr. O'Neill

How much is it here?

Mr. Corry

£7 per ton.

Mr. O'Neill

Where?

Mr. Corry

In Cork, and I know what is wrong with you. The maize grinding scheme has got Deputy O'Neill and he is trying to buy oats as cheap.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What is wrong with the Estimate?

Mr. Corry

The Estimate is on agriculture, and we are discussing agriculture. Take the farmer last year. Despite all the advice he got, despite all the warnings he got, he still ploughs his land and still grows his grain and he is rewarded with £4 10s. a ton for oats. Yes, that was the opening price and that was the price until Deputy Hogan came along at the last minute to save his Party and save his Government, and put a tariff on oats. He was compelled to do it, he had to do it.

He came along and said: "I will save the Party; I will turn my back on the whole agricultural policy I preached for ten years and I will come along now and tariff." And he did come along and put tariffs on the oats, and he came along and put tariffs on grain and tariffs on butter. But, as I told him, "Man," said I, "I don't believe in it." He states himself he does not believe in it and if he is elected again he would take off the tariff a week after getting in. The people do not trust him, they threw him out. The converted sinner at the eleventh hour never believed—that is what happened Deputy Hogan. But this year the farmer is getting an increase of 50/- a ton on his oats above the price it was last year.

Mr. O'Leary

Who is paying it?

Mr. Corry

He is getting it.

Mr. O'Leary

I am asking a question.

Mr. Corry

You did not pay much of it yet anyway. He is getting it, and the price of barley now is 16/-, and if we were not in office the price of barley would be, at the most, the price the English are paying for it, i.e., 10/6 a barrel, that means an increase of 5/6 a barrel on barley here owing to the policy of the Minister for Agriculture.

A Deputy

Where is it 16/-? Is not 14/6 the price which was paid for it?

Mr. Corry

My dear man, you do not know a thing about it, but I am telling you what happened.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Corry is entitled to make a speech without interruptions.

Mr. Duggan

In view of the fact that Deputy Corry never interrupts anybody he should be allowed make his speech.

Mr. Corry

It is very seldom, indeed, I get an opportunity of seeing Deputy Duggan's fair face in the Dáil. We are delighted to see it and he is blooming like a rose. With regard to the trouble with the barley, Deputy Brasier was correct as far as it goes. He grows no barley himself. But to come down to facts, if Deputy Brasier's Farmers' Union went out advising the farmers as to what they should do in connection with the barley and in connection with the oats, Deputy Brasier's Farmers' Union would have gained something like 30/-or 1/6 a barrel on their barley this year.

Mr. Brasier

On a point of correction, I never owned a Farmers' Union.

Mr. Corry

Well, this is the position, and I can produce to any member of this House the offer of 16/- per barrel for barley. The offer was made to a man in Midleton and, furthermore, the carriage was paid from Midleton to Cork on it, and the offer still stands. We will even take the Farmers' Union barley and we will get a price for it. That is the difference between the two policies, the policy that was depending on the English market (and where sheep have been sold to-day at a shilling a head, I am quite sure John Bull can knock 20 per cent. out of that) and the policy of preserving our home market for the Irish farmer. Deputy Hogan sneers at wheat, he is very fond of sneering at the wheat policy, but down in Cork, and I am sure in other counties, we can grow wheat profitably, and when appeals were made here repeatedly to the last Executive Council that owing to the policy of the Department of Agriculture and of the Government, that the land should be revalued and that the wheat valuation should not hold, and that the farmers holding wheat land should not be compelled to pay rates on a grain valuation—all that was ignored. The late Executive Council compelled farmers to pay rates on a grain valuation on their holdings for seven years after that grain valuation had ceased, but the average result of the wheat experiment last year was something like 21 cwts. per acre, and that at 25/-per barrel will, undoubtedly, be a paying proposition. For fear there might be any argument as to what paper I was quoting from, I was quoting from the "Sunday Express," October 9th, 1932, which gives the price of the English products I have named.

Mr. Roddy

As the items included in this Estimate have undergone so many changes since it was originally prepared, there is no use in making any reference to them in the course of this discussion. For that reason I think it was the duty of the Minister to make some statement at the beginning of this discussion to-day. The Minister is the official head of the agricultural community in this country and by virtue of that position he must accept a certain share, a certain big share, of responsibility for the unfortunate position in which the farmers find themselves to-day. It has been said by other speakers that there will be another opportunity for discussing this question on the two motions on the Order Paper in the name of Deputy Cosgrave, but I do not believe that in that discussion we shall have an opportunity of hearing from the President, who I presume will reply on behalf of the Government, or from the Minister for Agriculture, what is, at the present moment, the agricultural policy of the Government. I submit, a Chinn Comhairle, that in this discussion we should be allowed to continue after the Minister has made his statement here to-day. I think a statement of policy is due to the members of the House and is certainly due to the farmers of the country in consequence of the unfortunate position to which his policy has reduced them to-day.

Mr. Corry

What about the Land Acts? What did they reduce them to?

Mr. Roddy

The farmers at the moment are in a most extraordinary position. They are told that if they do not conform to the recent Government proposals there is a danger or a possibility that their land will be confiscated.

Mr. Allen

Who told them?

Mr. Roddy

On the other hand, the farmers by virtue of the economy which they have followed for many years past, by virtue of the traditions of the past seventy years, and by virtue of their own experience are convinced that the economy they have followed and are following at the present time is the only safe and sound economy.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy has made a very serious statement as to the Government's intentions. Would the Deputy quote the statement and say whether it was made by any Deputy speaking on behalf of the Government or what were the circumstances?

Mr. Roddy

It was made by the Minister for Defence, Deputy Aiken, in a speech which he made in Dundalk or Drogheda.

Mr. Corry

Quote it.

Mr. O'Leary

We read it, anyway.

Mr. Corry

The Deputy reads queer things.

Mr. Roddy

The farmers are told that they must produce in the interests of the nation and not in their own interests or for the purpose of making individual profits. That is the new economy that the Government want the farmers of the country to adopt. On the one hand, as I say, you have the Government whilst not actually insisting on the farmers adopting this new policy, nevertheless threatening them that if they do not adopt the proposals they have recently introduced, there is a danger that the land will be confiscated and used for the general good according to the statement of the Minister for Defence, I think it was in Drogheda. On the other hand, the farmer is satisfied that the economy he has followed for the last sixty or seventy years is still the right economy if he is to make any profit for himself, and that it represents the greatest profit and the greatest advantage to the nation. By virtue of this conflict it is inevitable that a feeling of uncertainty should exist in the minds of the farmers. It is inevitable that there is a certain amount of inactivity on their part. It is inevitable also that deterioration, in consequence of the conflict of policy and of views, will set in amongst the farmers generally. I say, in view of the uncertainty brought about by the policy of the Government, it is certainly due from the Minister to make a full and complete statement of his agricultural policy. It is, as I say, due to the members of the Dáil and it is also due to the farmers of the country. I do not propose to say anything more at this stage, but I hope to have something more to say on the subject after the Minister has made his statement.

Mr. Harris

Deputy Roddy stated that the farmers of this country were satisfied with the economy that existed up to the time the present Government succeeded in getting office. That economy depended upon the prosperity of Britain and the industrial depression in England and the industrial depression alone, for the past nine or ten years, has broken down that economy. But the Irish people and the farmers of the country even when that economy was comparatively successful were not satisfied with it. The great majority of the Nationalist farmers of the country were not satisfied with that economy. You might find some of the old landlord element or the very big graziers, who form a very small section of the community and who had the very best land in the country, satisfied with it, but they were the only people who were satisfied. The economy of which Deputy Roddy spoke meant that one farmer's son could hold the farm and there was no remedy for the rest of the family in the country. They might clear out; they might go to America or anywhere they liked. That left farmers' families throughout the country in the position from which they could not get away. They could not get into the professions. They lived to be old men and women all huddled together in the one house on the one farm. In that way many families have died out. We see them throughout the country at the present time. We see four or five brothers and sisters living together on the same farm and eventually dying out.

Mr. Gorey

They will be all dead against Spring.

Mr. Harris

The breakdown of that economy is due to the depression on the far side. The new economy to which the Government is looking forward, is the placing of the people back on the land, the tilling of the land, and the growing of food for the Irish people. The Minister for Agriculture by his wheat scheme is making a big start in that direction. The success of the new agricultural economy depends on the success of our industrial development also. It is imperative that we should develop this country, that we should make it a self-contained country and not have it a depopulated straw farm for England as it was in the past. It is imperative on us now to develop our industries and with the development of our industries our agriculture will develop.

Of course, we realise that it is necessary to foster foreign trade, and the Minister is doing his part in trying to maintain our foreign trade. We know what the present conditions of agriculture in England are, and the position in which the English farmer is. We know that the English market is not able to maintain the British farmer and we cannot expect it is going to do any good for us, and we should have very small hope if we were compelled to depend on it.

Mr. Davin

I was greatly surprised that Deputy Roddy, who is a farmer, should give expression to the views that the farming community to-day should be satisfied with the economic position of fifty or sixty years ago. Deputy Roddy has some knowledge of the conditions prevailing in England for some years past. These conditions have led to the serious state of unemployment in that country and to the consequent reduction of the purchasing power of a very large section of the British industrial population who, for many years, were the principal purchasers of Irish beef. Anybody who followed the history of the past few years, and especially since the European War, knows perfectly well that in Lancashire and in Scotland and Wales, which largely purchased Irish beef, butter and eggs, unemployment has grown to a large extent. There are not these orders for these commodities to-day, and are not likely to be in the next few years, because the same employment is not prevailing there now as in years gone by.

I have, in previous debates on this matter, pointed out the danger to the Irish agriculturist of that position, and the necessity, as a result of that position, of the Irish Government taking such steps as would provide for the loss of our export market. Deputy Roddy may conscientiously disagree with the whole policy of the present Ministry, but, surely, he does not disagree with that part of the policy of the present Minister for Agriculture, which saved the dairying industry in the past few months by adopting a policy which the Cumann na nGaedheal turned down before they were turned out at the last General Election. The bounty policy of the Minister has saved that industry, at any rate, for the time being. I know no alternative policy put up by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party which would have done better for the farmers of this country than the policy recently adopted by the Minister for Agriculture.

Does Deputy Roddy deny the fact, that were it not for the grain policy of the Minister, many of the growers of the country would now have their corn in their barn instead of having sold it at a reasonable price or would have been only able to sell it at a small profit? Does he agree with the policy, so far as it applies to the dairy farmers and the grain growers of this country? If he does not would he tell us what his policy is? Neither he nor any of his colleagues who have spoken told us what they think would have been a better policy than the policy adopted by the Minister for Agriculture.

I readily admit that the existing situation, so far as it affects the farmers, is far from healthy, and the Minister and his colleagues will have to sit down and consider where we are going in regard to the existing situation. I refer particularly to the bounty policy of the Minister for Agriculture. When the bounty policy was put into operation, and when the Minister decided to provide a bounty for the pig producers the price of pigs was 34/- per cwt. The price in my constituency in the last few weeks varied from 20/- to 25/- per live cwt. I understand, from people who know more about the practical side of farming than I do, that farmers engaged in pig production would have to get 35/- per cwt. in order to enable pig production to pay. If the farmers, therefore, are to be forced to continue, as they are under the existing policy, to sell their pigs at prices varying from 20/- to 25/- and 28/- per live cwt., they will be compelled as long as they are obliged to do so to eat up their capital. And that will lead to a very serious position in the long run so far as it affects people engaged in pig production. A large number of the people engaged in pig production are the small farmers, and, in many cases, people living in labourers' cottages, throughout the country. Many of the people living in labourers' cottages, who have been in the habit of getting employment from the local farmers and the local councils, for six or eight or nine months in the year have, for the remainder of the period, been compelled to eke out an existence as a result of the small profits they made in the past out of the pigs they reared and sold. I readily admit, also, that were it not for the bounty policy of the Minister for Agriculture things would be worse than what they are.

I would be satisfied with the extended policy in existing conditions if I could have an assurance from the Minister that he had satisfied himself that the bounty raised from the taxpayers, as a whole, was going back to the people for whom it was intended. I do not like to subscribe to a policy which compels the taxpayers of this country to continue indefinitely to raise large sums for the payment of this bounty while realising that these large sums are going to the middlemen and not to the producer. I have seen some figures and I have been given a certain amount of information in regard to the matter, and I am satisfied that, in many cases, the benefit of the bounty is going to the middleman and not to the producer. That being so, I appeal to the Minister and to his colleagues to sit down and consider whether some alternative method may not be found to enable the Minister, on behalf of the taxpayers, to see if it is possible that the large sums raised in bounties shall go to the producer, as intended by the Government and as intended by those who support the Government.

Mr. Gorey

It is not going to them.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Gorey may perhaps contribute to the discussion before it concludes and he can give us his own personal experience.

Mr. Gorey

I got none of it, anyhow.

Mr. Davin

I am satisfied, and my colleagues are satisfied, that unless this Government make up their mind by methods that they can devise to guarantee the market and a fair and economic price for those engaged in pig production, those people will go out of production in the long run because otherwise they would simply eat up their capital. In a short time unless some such methods are devised by the present Minister there will be a great falling off in pig production.

Mr. Anthony

I am tempted to intervene in this debate because of the amazing speech of Deputy Davin——

Mr. Davin

You made the same speech when a member of the Labour Party.

Mr. Anthony

I can understand the sensible and honest contribution of Deputy Harris in this debate, because Deputy Harris is consistent in his attitude in relation to the whole position of the Government's agricultural policy of this country. But when we come to the position in relation to the agricultural policy of the Government as manifested by Deputy Davin, I feel constrained to ask one or two questions. Deputy Davin wants to play hot and cold. He wants to give benediction to the agricultural policy of the Government and, at the same time, to square his conscience with his own constituents. But he cannot have it both ways. He either agrees with the agricultural policy of the Minister or he does not. If he does not agree with him, let him vote against the Estimates. If he does agree with it, he should never have made the speech he has just made. He has told us that he is not satisfied that the pig producer is getting a proper or adequate price for his pigs.

Mr. Davin

Getting the benefit of the bounty.

Mr. Anthony

The bounty in the long run comes out of the farmers' pockets and the producer's pocket. We have heard something about the development of foreign trade being coincident, or going hand in hand, with the development of the home market. Are we sensible or sane people? We have the dead walls of the country placarded with the legend, "Boycott British Goods." When we talk about foreign markets, what do we mean by foreign markets? Our only foreign market, if we use the term for a market outside our own country, translated into common or garden English, is the British market. If it means anything else, it means that we must find a market for our agricultural produce in Belgium, Sweden, Norway, America, and I might even mention Japan and Peru, After all, there is some dictionary meaning for the word "foreign." When we talk about foreign markets we must have regard to the conditions around us. Does Denmark want our bacon or eggs or butter? Does France or Belgium want our butter, bacon, beef, or any other agricultural product? We are told, by no less an authority than the President of the State, himself, that after years of waiting and promises we have not yet found that alternative market. Yet, to-day we have repeated in this House this rubbishy talk about foreign markets and an outlet for our produce. When it is all boiled down as a result of common experience what do we find? That we are doing our best to get rid of the one and only market we have.

Perhaps it would be of some interest to Deputy Davin to learn something about what is occurring amongst some of the very largest producers of pigs in this country, and, incidentally, to let him have some information as to the effect of the agricultural policy of this Government on the ordinary working-class people. I am sure Deputy Davin has some latent feeling for the plight of the poor working classes in this country to-day. We may be told that the price of beef and potatoes and of every agricultural product has gone down, and that the working classes in our cities and towns are enjoying all the benefits to be derived from the low prices of agricultural produce. Beef and mutton are relatively cheap. Why are they cheap? Because of the fact that the farmer, as evidenced even by the statement made by Deputy Davin, has to get rid of his live-stock at an uneconomic price, has to get rid of nearly everything he produces at an uneconomic price. Potatoes in Dublin to-day are selling at 4/- per cwt. and at in or about that price in Cork City.

Mr. O'Leary

Not so much—3/-.

Mr. Anthony

Does that pay the farmer? Is not the natural reaction to that kind of thing that the farmer, instead of producing for the home market, is going to go into production for himself and his family? Why should the farmer be expected to produce his beef, mutton and pork at a price which does not pay him? If you ask any practical farmer if his farm is paying, he will tell you it is not. Is it not a fact that fairs recently have become a very tragic failure? To come to a point which I know will interest Deputy Davin, I shall quote from a letter received from one of the most extensive farmers in the country, a man who employs a very large amount of labour. He says:

I do not think my losses will be under £1,200 this year. Unfortunately, the more intensively a man farms the more he loses. I have lost 20/- each on some 500 heavy pigs and have still to market at further losses.

That, of course, means that he began to fatten the pigs at a period when he did not anticipate he would have lost all this money. He goes on to state:

I have now decided to get out of them altogether, as well as change all my plans as regards hand-feeding cattle and sheep.

That letter is indicative of others I have received. It proceeds:

You see, we are now faced with a situation by which one quarter of our pigs is taken away from us at the British port or, alternatively, we must feed for a limited home market which chokes up the first week an extra couple of thousand pigs are sent to our curers. The week before last, as you probably know, every curer refused to take a pig for days.

The excuse given on that occasion was that the pens were full, that they could not take delivery of any more pigs. The letter proceeds:—

I very much regret I have to discharge good men who have been years with me.

Deputy Davin cannot have it both ways. This is a case where a man has to discharge men off his farm who were in the enjoyment of relatively good wages and conditions, the best conditions, I submit, that operate in any part of agricultural Ireland. The letter proceeds:—

One had to go a few weeks back, and two to go at the end of the next week.

That is very good news for Deputy Davin and those associated with him who are supporting the Minister's agricultural policy. The letter goes on:

We must now farm on negative principles, cutting everything down, unfortunately including labour, or be ruined. With modern machinery, extra corn, if grown, will not employ half the labour needed for a full-stocked farm, where extensive stall-feeding, mixing, grinding, littering, mucking up, etc., has been part of the daily work, and all this work is being given up on all sides. No farmer can now stand up. Anyhow, my resources have been so cut down that I could not go on with it if I wished to do so, much as I hate to see my splendid buildings empty.

In conclusion he asked me if I could suggest anything. I have referred this gentleman for suggestions to the present Minister for Agriculture.

I want to advert again to the position of the city worker and the town worker—the man who is lucky enough to be in some kind of permanent employment, and who, for a time, but for a very brief period, has enjoyed the advantage of lower prices of certain agricultural products. I am rather interested to know from the Minister how long in his view are these conditions going to operate, because I feel—and I am open to correction if my economic sense has gone awry—that this state of affairs cannot last all the time, notwithstanding all the bounties that we hear about, and that, some time or another, the farmer will say to himself that he will not continue to produce at the prices he is offered under present conditions.

I do not want to comment at any great length on the present policy of the Minister for Agriculture but I certainly must have regard to what is occurring all round me. In the City of Cork, which I represent, we find that depression is growing daily. The unemployed are being continually added to and much of that is due to the agricultural policy of the present Government. We cannot get away from the fact that there are certain reactions following on this policy—the policy, for instance, advocated by members of the present Government and by their followers in the country—the "Boycott British Goods" campaign.

In my view, this is a negative policy. I would much prefer a good, strong, positive policy of "support Irish industries.""Support Irish"—I do not subscribe to this policy of "boycott British goods." It has been said that this war has been thrust upon us. The vast majority of the people in the country do not make themselves as vocal as the other side. My experience, and the experience of many people in this country, goes to show that it is a noisy minority in this country that is behind this policy of "boycott British goods"—a noisy and disgruntled lot of persons, disgruntled because of the fact that they got neither pelf nor place in the last Government and because they have, perhaps, been denied pelf or place in this Government. They are dictating the policy of the present Government. In their enmity, in their policy of hate, which can never do this country any good, they are prepared to stop at nothing, and I want to suggest to the Minister that he is translating, in his own agricultural policy, that policy of hate which is going to bring nothing to this country but misfortune and tragedy. The question that is asked of me when I out to some of the agricultural portions of my own area is: "What are you going to do with us or what are you going to do for us?" My rejoinder to that query is always to this effect: "Ask President de Valera, or ask the Minister for Agriculture, or ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce." I frequently hear that the fairs are bad and prices are bad, and I could give the Minister many instances of beasts bought for £10 apiece, fattened for at least four months, which had to be sold for £8 apiece. If the Minister thinks that that is the policy that is going to bring this country out of the rut, his economics must be wrong. We have heard from Deputy Davin that pigs were bought in his own area at 20/- a cwt. live weight, and in some cases he said 25/-. Did Deputy Davin try to translate the meaning of cause and effect? Did he ask himself the causes which contributed to compelling the farmer to sell at 20/- per cwt. live weight?

Mr. Davin

Yes.

Mr. Anthony

Well, if he did, he would easily arrive at one conclusion, and only one conclusion—and he indicated even in his own speech the conclusion which I think he should arrive at—that the present agricultural policy as practised by the present Government is all wrong. In my view, the speech made by Deputy Davin was a greater indictment of the policy of the present Minister than any speech delivered by Deputy Roddy or by any Deputy on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches. It is time we took the wool from our eyes and admitted right away that the sooner we get rid of this war of attrition, this war of hate—and it is nothing else but a war of hate, inspired by hate and enmity and the most evil passions that were ever aroused in the Irish people—the better for ourselves, and the sooner our Executive Council agrees that a positive policy which finds expression in the words "Support Irish Industry" is better than a negative policy which suggests "Boycott British Goods," the better it will be for every man, woman and child in this country, whether they be workers or farmers.

I speak as a representative of a very important borough in this country— I know that I will be out of order if I refer to the full economic policy of this Government, but in so far as it relates to the policy of agriculture in this country—our experience in Cork City goes to show that never in the history of this country was there more poverty or more misery than there is at the present moment. I am not unfair enough to suggest that it is all due to the present administration; I am aware that there were a whole lot of other factors which contributed to that economic depression, such as world war, etc., but most of the present depression has been brought about by the fiscal policy of the present Government, and, last but not least, by the policy of the Minister for Agriculture dictated by the "Boycott British Goods" cry. Experience has shown that that does not tend to bring about any kind of prosperity, and if he persists in that policy he is going to bring us to the brink of the greatest tragedy that ever occurred in this country.

Mr. Coburn

I think it is hardly worth while to speak on this Estimate in view of the abnormal conditions prevailing and also in view of the fact that it would be hardly fair to blame the Minister individually for the position of the agricultural industry, seeing that it is the result of the settled policy of the Executive Council, of which he is a member. My only reason for interfering in this debate is to comment upon the tendency throughout the country at the present moment to minimise the importance of the cattle industry. We heard speeches delivered by responsible people like Deputy Corry to the effect that the sooner the grazier goes the better it will be for this country. I am not a farmer in the strict sense of the word, but I am possessed of a certain amount of common sense. I know that the grazier is absolutely essential for the agricultural industry. He serves as a sort of clearing house for the little man in the West and South of Ireland. I do not think it is doing much good, so far as the agricultural industry is concerned, to endeavour, in speeches throughout the country, to make little of any section of the people.

Men who own large grazing farms have performed for a long period of years very useful work in the agricultural economy of the country. In addition, they keep going very many other sections of the people, notably cattle dealers, drovers, and last, but not least, the shipping industry. We cannot divorce any section of the people engaged in any industrial pursuit without affecting all the other sections, and the sooner we recognise that fact the better. Deputy Corry stated that the English market is of no use to this country. I think the obvious answer is that if the English market is of no advantage it is rather extraordinary that at the present time we are paying 12½ per cent. of a bounty to induce our farmers to send cattle to that market. I think Deputy Corry must realise, as well as every other Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches and as well as everyone in the country, that the English market is the only market in which the Irish farmer can deal with advantage to himself.

Mr. Corry

That is open to question.

Mr. Coburn

Experience has taught us the truth of that statement, and the future will bear it out still further.

Mr. Corry

Will the Deputy answer a question?

Mr. Coburn

I do not make it a practice of asking many questions.

Mr. Corry

Is the Deputy prepared to state here that at the price which the Irish farmer got for his produce in the English market last year, when there were no bounties and no tariffs, he could pay his rates and his annuities and still carry on?

Mr. Bennett

He could do it much better than he could this year.

Mr. Coburn

As far as I know the farmer was able to pay his annuities up to last year.

Mr. Corry

Question!

Mr. Coburn

Common sense tells me that he would be less able to pay them with a 20 per cent. tariff imposed on his cattle on entering the English market.

Mr. Corry

Will the Deputy answer another question?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Coburn must be allowed to resume his speech.

Mr. Coburn

I believe I have given a very definite answer to the case put up by Deputy Corry. The Deputy also stated that because sheep were sold in England at a certain price the farmers in this country must sell their sheep at the same price. Surely Deputy Corry must know that were it not for the 20 per cent. tariff imposed on Irish cattle when they are imported into England these cattle would have fetched a higher price, though it might not have been an economic price for the farmer? The farmer would certainly get a higher price if the 20 per cent. tariff were not imposed.

At the moment in the county which I represent there is a considerable section of farmers engaged in raising potatoes. I refer particularly to the Cooley district. I will remind the Minister that owing to the uncertainty as to whether a tariff will be placed by the British Government on potatoes exported to Great Britain after 15th November the farmers in the Cooley area do not know where they are. I am informed that they are inclined to sell their potatoes at prices ranging from 20/- to 25/- per ton, or 1/3 per cwt. The Minister knows a great deal about this subject, and I would like him to deal with that aspect of the situation. Let me point out that while the Government are giving bounties to the butter, cattle and pig industries very little regard is paid to agricultural products such as potatoes. Here you have a very large section of the farming community in Co. Louth absolutely dependent on the potato industry and, owing to the uncertain conditions existing, the people there are apt to incur very serious losses because of low prices. I would like the Minister to give serious attention to that aspect of the situation.

I wish to touch upon a very awkward situation which exists right along the Border. I refer now to farmers living on the Free State side of the Border who have some land on the Northern side. I am informed they are prevented from taking across the Border the produce of their farms in Northern Ireland. At the moment that question is causing a certain amount of trouble, and a great deal of uneasiness and anxiety amongst a very large section of farmers living along the Border. That state of affairs is not confined to the county I represent. It applies to every county on the Border. The Minister knows from experience in connection with agricultural produce, butter and eggs, that arrangements were made, whereby the least inconvenience possible would be caused to farmers in carrying on agricultural work. I hope the Minister will see his way to get into communication with the Revenue Commissioners, and to formulate some scheme whereby these farmers will be able to get their agricultural produce across the Border from that portion of their land which lies in the territory known as Northern Ireland.

Mr. Little

In County Waterford we find that farmers who should be assisting to carry through the policy of the Minister and of the Government are not doing so. The large type of farmer who goes in for grazing is not giving that assistance, to put the Government's policy into operation, that should be given. It is all very well for that class to be politically minded. They have in mind the fact that there is to be a by-election in Waterford, and that it might serve their political purpose to try to sabotage the policy of the Government. That would not serve either Party interests or the country generally. The country has already ratified and approved of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party. Though many active farmers may honestly take a different point of view, still, if they had the interests of the country at heart, one would expect that they would do their best to forward, say, the Government's wheat scheme, seeing that Waterford is a county in which wheat is grown.

Mr. Gorey

What part?

Mr. Little

If the County Agricultural Committee would give the assistance and the attention which it should give, by trying to co-operate with the Ministry, it would do a great deal to help the farmers. As a great deal has been said on this Vote I will content myself by drawing the attention of the House to the fact that farmers of the grazing type in Waterford are not helping in the National crisis.

Mr. Gorey

Send down a Commission.

Dr. Ryan

The point raised by Deputy Coburn with regard to Cooley illustrates what has arisen from the discussion. Cooley has been agitating for the past six or seven years to be allowed to send potatoes to Dublin, Dundalk, and the home markets. It was not allowed to do so on account of black-scab which raised a very difficult position. Under present circumstances I would like to give Cooley the benefit of the home market rather than the poor English market, in which the people are selling potatoes at 25/- a ton and to get them the £4 a ton that Deputy Anthony spoke of in the Dublin and Cork markets. I would like to give Cooley that benefit. I consulted the officials in my Department but, in their opinion, it would be a dangerous thing to do. I told the men from Cooley the last time I met them that I did not feel that I would be justified in going against the opinion of experts in the Department, and that therefore I could not allow them to sell potatoes in the home markets. It is rather unfortunate for Cooley, and I am very sorry that we cannot relax the regulations. The situation more or less illustrates that there is, at least, one body of farmers in this country very anxious to make use of the home market. They state that they are being made bankrupt because they have to sell their potatoes in the foreign market at 25/- a ton. Potatoes may be ruled out as one of the products for which there is a good market.

Deputy Coburn raised another question in regard to farmers living in the Free State, who have land in Northern Ireland, and who would not be allowed to get their produce in here. We asked the Revenue Commissioners to allow these people the greatest latitude. It is in their discretion to do what they like. They were allowing farmers who had places of residence in the Free State to bring oats across from the Northern side free of duty until the farmers on the Free State side of the Border—around Dundalk market and other places—said they were being swamped by the farmers in Northern Ireland who were bringing in oats, and they wished to keep the good Free State market to themselves. That is a second case where the home market is better than the foreign market. The point raised by Deputy Coburn illustrates it.

Mr. Coburn

On a point of explanation, I was not speaking about the question of bringing agricultural produce from Northern Ireland into the Free State on a wholesale scale. I was referring to a farmer who is domiciled in the Free State, but portion of whose farm is in Northern Ireland, who, I understand, is prevented taking the produce of that portion of his farm which is in Northern Ireland into his haggard. One man informed me that he has one or two acres of potatoes in Northern Ireland, that he wants to get across the Border to his own house. As he feeds a large number of pigs he disposes of no potatoes. I appreciate the Minister's point of view, but I have mentioned the type of case I am referring to.

Dr. Ryan

I understand. We have asked the Revenue Commissioners to be as lax as possible, and to give such farmers all the facilities they can. If there are any particular points outstanding we will put them before the Revenue Commissioners. When we did act we got complaints that certain farmers in Northern Ireland were taking advantage of that sort of laxity, in order to bring oats across the Border into the market in Dundalk and other places, because there was such a good market in the Free State as compared with Northern Ireland.

As to minor drainage schemes, I agree with Deputy Gorey that a good deal of useful work could be done on very small drainage schemes rather than on the Barrow and on bigger schemes. I daresay what Deputy Gorey said is true, that so little drainage of that sort has been done by individual farmers for some years past, that there may be want of knowledge and experience of such work now, and that if expert advice were available it might be useful. I admit that Deputy Gorey spoke to me about the matter before the summer holidays. I promised to do something about it, but there was so much to be done otherwise, that the matter was more or less postponed. We may be able to do something in the near future. I do not agree with Deputy Gorey that the diseases of fluke and T.B. are on the increase. There is a certain amount of these diseases in the country, but I have not heard from the staffs we have that these diseases are on the increase. The Deputy stated that these diseases were largely due to the want of drainage.

Mr. Gorey

I did not make any claim that these diseases were on the increase, but I stated they were due to want of drainage.

Dr. Ryan

I am sorry if I misunderstood the Deputy. I thought he made that point. However, the Deputy dealt with a point made by many Deputies with regard to the question of foreign trade. He stated that when seeking election we said that we were going to increase the foreign markets and to hold our grip on them. I daresay we said that we would hold our grip on the foreign markets and extend them. Perhaps we went so far as saying that we would extend outside Great Britain or that we would have alternative markets, if necessary. We expected when we came back as the Government of the country to have a little bit of latitude and to settle down to work on these schemes, but we were hit rather suddenly by Great Britain with tariffs, and we had to turn our attention to the situation that arose as a result of these tariffs.

Deputy Gorey asked us was it on my advice that our stock ceased to go out of the country to the foreign market in July last. A great deal of the advice on the agricultural policy that has been adopted by the Executive Council has been taken from me, possibly most of it. In any case, nothing has been adopted by the Executive Council with which I have not agreed and I am prepared to take responsibility for it. It is rather an unfortunate thing that at a time when we are asserting what we think is a national right against Great Britain, and when Great Britain attacks us and puts on tariffs against us, that we have people opposite who are prepared to make any capital they possibly can out of any failures we may have had in fighting against Great Britain, instead of trying to help us on this matter of securing foreign markets.

In this matter of foreign markets we do follow the prices as well as the Deputies who are talking here and who are prepared to be glad over what they thought were reverses on our side, but which did not turn out to be reverses at all. We had the "Independent" and the "Irish Times" saying that we were turned down on the Continental markets. The fact was that we had not been turned down. As it was the first time that we applied for a quota for butter, the German and French Governments had to publish a quota, and because they published that quota the whole Press here gave that as a reverse against us going into the foreign markets. Now Deputy Gorey talks about old horses or knackers going into Belgium. He said that was the full extent of our success in getting into the foreign markets.

Mr. Gorey

It is up to you to give us the figures as to your success.

Dr. Ryan

It was not at all the full extent of our success in foreign markets. When Deputy Hogan asked me yesterday about cattle going into the Belgian markets I told him that he might be disappointed about the success of that. It is rather regrettable that I had to use that word "disappointed," and I used it advisedly because I do feel that the members on the other side would be disappointed to hear that we had succeeded.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

The Minister is wasting his time. Sure I know he lost on the sending of these cattle to Belgium.

Dr. Ryan

We will come to that.

Mr. Hogan

The Minister could get a better price here at home than in Belgium.

Dr. Ryan

As a result of the British putting on these tariffs against us we had to meet that situation. We did not want to see the whole burden of this fight falling immediately on the farmers of the country and we said we must try to take off some of that burden and to break the fall. That is why we brought along bounties. Now Deputy Gorey says that he knows that no advantage from the bounties came to the farmers. I know otherwise.

Mr. Bennett

Nobody else knows it.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Bennett will complain about the bounty on cattle and pigs, but when the bounty on butter was introduced here he was very glad to welcome it. We will have other Deputies who will complain about the bounty on butter but not about the bounty on cattle. Deputy Bennett wants a bounty on a particular commodity but on nothing else. The Deputy was most enthusiastic when we brought in a Bill giving a bounty on butter. As the Deputies here know we have asked the exporters of cattle to send full particulars to us of any particular consignment. In some test cases we have taken the precaution of finding out the price at which they actually bought the cattle and what their usual expenses are. It is easy to find that out. We found out what they got for the cattle when they sold them in Birkenhead and we find taking a large number of cattle that the entire profit got by these buyers was under 5/-per head. The average bounty was 30/-and how can anybody say that the bounty was not an advantage to the farmers? Another thing, any Deputy here can go and look at the prices paid at the Dublin and Birkenhead markets and he will find this out for himself. Anybody who inquires will find out that up to the time the tariff went on the usual profit was about 5/-. The buyer evidently who bought the cattle in Dublin wanted 5/- higher price in Birkenhead to make the thing pay. From the time the tariff went on until the bounty went on the buyer wanted 10/-and now what the buyer is getting is 6/-, so that the Irish farmer is getting 4/- a cwt. more than before the bounty went on.

Deputies speak about this economic war being responsible for the prices. Anybody on the Opposition side who takes any interest in this question knows very well what is really responsible for the bad prices. They talk about Government policy, but they have only to look at prices in Birkenhead and they will find that last week the price there was 12/- a cwt. lower than in the corresponding week last year. The difference between Dublin and Birkenhead prices last year was 5/- and this year it is 6/-, so that the whole economic war really is responsible for 1/- of a loss in price to the farmers.

Mr. Hogan

Rubbish!

Dr. Ryan

The fall in the prices in England is responsible for 12/- per cwt. Nobody can deny that. If anybody wants to look into the price he can have these figures, and let him stop talking about what this Government is responsible for. Deputy Gorey says that there is a loss of 20 per cent. through the tariff and 20 per cent. through loss of goodwill. The 20 per cent. is responsible for only 1/- a cwt. on our cattle.

Mr. Bennett

Will the Minister admit, as was stated in the debates here, that 20/- a cwt. for pigs is giving the farmer the 12½ per cent. bounty, or that 18/- per cwt. for cattle is giving the farmer the benefit of the bounty?

Dr. Ryan

I am not talking about old cows.

Mr. Bennett

I am not talking about old cows either. I am talking about prime beef. I can give the Minister the figures realised in the markets of the southern counties. Old cows are unsaleable in these markets.

Mr. Keating

I know what I am talking about and——

Dr. Ryan

I know Deputy Keating does.

Mr. Keating

——I want to say I bought prime cattle last Friday at 20/-per cwt.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

For the Minister's information I may tell him that I sold old cows last week for a little over 10/- a cwt.

Dr. Ryan

They must be very old cows.

Mr. Hogan

I sold a cow weighing 12 cwt. for about £7.

Mr. Gibbons

Which shows that the price in Birkenhead is falling quickly, too.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Gorey talked about this 20 per cent. tariff and also about 20 per cent. that we were paying for goodwill. I do not see where the goodwill comes in. I say that 6/-a cwt. is the difference between Dublin and Birkenhead markets, and if we have destroyed the goodwill for Irish beef in the English market we have also destroyed it for English beef and Scotch beef, because they have also lost it. Deputy Gorey says that the result of our endeavours is to get something like a few old horses into Belgium, and Deputy Hogan says that when the prices come to such a state that it will pay to export Irish cattle to Belgium Irish farmers will be in a bad way because the Irish cattle will be competing in Belgium with old horses.

Mr. Hogan

The Minister knows very well that old horses were exported to Belgium from this country in 1931, and it is against old horses that our cattle will be competing in Belgium. That is what we have to compete against.

Dr. Ryan

Old horses?

Mr. Hogan

It was not necessary for the Minister to go to Belgium to learn that. It was only necessary for him to go up to the Dublin market to learn it.

Dr. Ryan

It was not necessary at all, but it is necessary for the Deputy to come here to learn a little about this question now.

Mr. Hogan

That is all they ever competed against us in, in 1931 or any other time.

Dr. Ryan

A buyer that bought cattle here had to compete with a buyer that was buying for the British market and had to pay the same price.

Mr. Hogan

What was the result of the trading?

Dr. Ryan

In Belgium? I said I would come before the Dáil some time and give the result of that trading, but not at the present time. It is all right for Deputy Hogan to say that he can go to the Dublin market and find out how much we lost.

Mr. Hogan

I could not say exactly, but approximately.

Dr. Ryan

Would the Deputy go to the Dublin market and ask a trader that was sending his cattle to Dublin? Would the trader think it right and proper that he should tell the whole country what he was paying, all his expenses and how he was getting on? In any case, as I have said, it will have to come out some time and I am not a bit afraid.

Mr. Hogan

Worse things will come out, I agree.

Dr. Ryan

And have come out. Deputy Dillon spoke about agricultural instructors. Personally, I was not aware that the agricultural instructors were treated in any sort of a distant way by the farmers throughout the country. I know that in my own native county the agricultural instructor was consulted to a great extent by the farmers, and I thought that perhaps they were looked upon in the same way all over the country. It is quite true, as Deputy Hogan said, that these men, in the course of their training, get special instruction for the congested districts' areas. In fact they do know a lot about the conditions there. We have also overseers who are specialists in the problems that arise in the congested districts. I do not know that it would be very practical to have demonstration farms. We have, as the Deputy knows, gone in a good deal for demonstration plots, and in the matter of potatoes I think the instructors give quite a lot of help in the County Donegal and in parts of the west. I understand that the people have availed to a great extent of the instruction given.

The diseases in cattle and sheep that the Deputy referred to are very difficult to deal with. I have already referred to fluke and tuberculosis. Contagious abortion has been a great pest in this country as in many other countries lately. There is, as the Deputy says, a belief that if the beast is turned out on the grass its condition may improve, but that, of course, is a very dangerous thing to do. That is true. There is a popular belief in the country that what is responsible for the spread of contagious abortion is the scarcity of bulls. The work done by experts in my Department, so far as it has gone, proves that that is absolutely without foundation. They say that is not the case at all, but that the disease is spread from cow to cow and never through the bull. We do, perhaps, require some propaganda on this question. There are leaflets on the question available for anybody who wishes to apply for them. Personally I am of opinion that, from the veterinary point of view, there should be some more research in regard to this, to see if it is possible to get an effective cure, or at all events get nearer to some remedy for the disease. As to what the annual loss is we have never been able to make out what that might be.

With regard to the premiums for bulls which was referred to by Deputy Dillon and also by Deputy Hogan, I am not in a position at the present time to express an opinion on it. The question has not come before me yet. I know that in some counties there is a belief that the Department is too restrictive on the Herefords and Polled Angus. There is no doubt, however, that if the number of Herefords and Polled Angus were increased the breeding of cattle would get so mixed that it would certainly be very difficult to get good dairy cows, whatever the beef qualities of the cattle might be.

Deputy Hogan started off in a very sensible mood by saying that it is better to give our schemes a chance as it is about the only way of seeing whether we are right or wrong. We have all sorts of prophecies as to what is going to happen if we try to grow wheat in this country. It is difficult for me to argue against the prophets as it was difficult for Deputy Hogan, ten years ago, to argue against the prophets on his Live-Stock Breeding Acts. I think the Deputy adopted a very sensible attitude when he said that we should get a chance to try the wheat scheme and see what is going to be the result. I did think, however, that the question of wheat and the mixing of cereals and so on would not be discussed to any great length at this stage but rather on the Second Reading of the Bill which is to come before the Dáil in a week or two.

Deputy Hogan said that the subsidising of heifers is a Fianna Fáil sort of scheme because, he said, we are giving out the heifers to people and asking them to get two solvent sureties to sign, knowing very well that we are never going to get the money back. That is the sort of slander on the Irish people that is thrown at them by Deputies on the other side of the House: that an Irishman never pays his debts even though he signs an undertaking and gets two sureties who undertake to pay if he cannot. The Deputy's point was that such people have no intention of paying.

Mr. Hogan

The Minister missed my point. What I said was that it was a pity that you had two solvent sureties: that that took the good out of it.

Dr. Ryan

That they had no intention of paying.

Mr. Hogan

Not the slightest.

Dr. Ryan

An Irishman has never any intention of doing the right thing, according to the Opposition. He never pays his debts and is always dishonest.

Mr. Seán Brodrick

Did not Fianna Fáil tell them not to pay?

Dr. Ryan

What does the Deputy know? According to the Opposition, an Irishman never pays his debts and never does anything right.

Mr. Brodrick

You told him not to pay. Ask Deputy Jordan.

Dr. Ryan

But if we fall out with the Britisher, then we are told that we are falling out with the most honest man in commerce that has ever lived. We hear too from the Opposition about the way we are losing our best market, of how we are losing John Bull who has been a friend of this country for so long and all that sort of thing. It is extraordinary the way that he can be held up as such a model of perfection in this House as compared with the ordinary Irishman. Deputy Hogan says that we ought to get a chance to test it for two years. The Deputy may rest assured that we will, and for a very much longer period than two years in spite of the Opposition Party and of Deputy MacDermot's new Party.

I do not know if there was anyone ever so foolish as to say that by putting a tariff, say, on butter you are going to raise the price of butter over the whole country and throughout the whole year. The tariff on butter certainly had a good effect for a part of the year. I do not know if anyone would say that a tariff on the surplus oats we had to export would raise the price over the whole country and throughout the year. We feel, when it is so difficult now to get a foreign market in England or anywhere else, that it would be a rather foolish thing for us to be buying beef from the Argentine, mutton from Australia, butter from Denmark while we find it so hard to export something else in order to get the money to pay for these imports. We think, as regards anything that we have enough of ourselves, that we ought to shut out the foreign imports and do with what we have.

There was mention by Deputy Hogan also about beef — that although we put an embargo on beef coming in here, the price of beef was 22/- a cwt., and he asked had the tariffs increased prices——

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

Or stayed the fall?

Dr. Ryan

Or stayed the fall. But the following statement was that were it not for the English embargo on the other side the price would be 30/- a cwt.—that they would get 8/- a cwt. more. It is absolutely ridiculous to make such a statement. Anyone who looks up the market prices, if both tariff and embargo were taken off the prices, would know what the prices are.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

We are looking them up every day.

Dr. Ryan

You must be reading them upside down. Then he came on to speak of cattle for the Belgian market. He said that if there was a market for cattle in Belgium and that this thing were paying, you would have plenty of enterprising men in the Dublin Cattle Market ready to go into this business. You would; but they would come in and go out again. They would come in and go out according as it suited them. Would it not be better if you had the position where you could go in and stay in all the time and make it pay?

A Deputy

Is the Minister going to stay in?

Dr. Ryan

Yes, and I will make it pay. Deputy Hogan also asks me am I going to let these first class schemes in the Department of Agriculture remain, and not upset the schemes of the Department by experimenting. There are good schemes in the Department of Agriculture — we all know that — and there is absolutely no danger that these schemes will be prevented from going on. The Deputy also said that the Live Stock Breeding Act had improved our cattle to a great extent. There is a rather simple test of that. If you find out the average weight of one and two year olds in 1921 and the present year, and it works out at an improvement of 7 per cent, that would show a considerable improvement. That is not a very scientific test, however, because there may be many cattle passed between one and two years old one year, that might not do it again. Whether this is due to the Live Stock Breeding Act is rather difficult to decide. Part of it may be due to the changed system of feeding young cattle earlier now in an effort to get them out earlier and have them matured earlier. Deputy Hogan more or less made a joke of my fight with the British all the time, but as long as I know the Deputy that has always been a joke with him.

Mr. Hogan

How long have you known me?

Dr. Ryan

I have often heard him make that sneer before.

Mr. Hogan

You only know me for ten years at the longest. At any time during that period it was very foolish.

Dr. Ryan

Well, let us say eleven years. Deputy Roddy wants to know what is our agricultural policy. I did not think it necessary to talk about the present prices in the country because it seems that there is to be a time set for that. I did not think it was necessary either to talk about cereal production since that also will be coming on next week. We were told that some Minister made a statement that the farmers' land may be confiscated if they do not conform with the Government policy. I made a statement something like that myself. I said that if they did not pay their land annuities according to law, their land would be taken from them. That is not Government policy, however. That is the law. There is a lot of talk about the present Government policy, but suppose that by any chance the country had had the misfortune to return Cumann na nGaedheal at the last election, would the farmer be getting better prices for his produce? He would be getting 106/- for his butter on the British market. That is exactly what he would get if there were no tariff or bounty. We are giving him 117/- at the creamery. That is one thing better for the farmer at any rate, and that is because Fianna Fáil is here and Cumann na nGaedheal is not here.

Mr. Bennett

You cannot know what Cumann na nGaedheal would have done.

Dr. Ryan

We know what they did before, at any rate.

Mr. Gearoid O'Sullivan

Who is paying it?

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy is paying for all the butter that will melt in his mouth. On a previous occasion I brought in a Bill that was rejected.

Mr. Bennett

You admitted that that policy did not improve on the policy of the late Government except in so far as it compelled the farmer to do what he could have done himself. The Minister admitted that to me in this House.

Dr. Ryan

That is right. That is, if every farmer had taken advantage of the machinery; but if you ask Deputy MacDermot about it he will tell you that you will never get the farmers to combine in that way. Because we are here, they are getting 11/- on their butter more than they would get if we were not here. We will leave out oats, but take the question of cattle. I say that if Cumann na nGaedheal were here instead of us, the farmer would be getting 1/- a cwt. more and only 1/-, but put that against 11/- more for his butter. Pigs would work out at 2/-a cwt. more and sheep at a little more also. I do not think there is a great deal of difference between us. I think that the farmer is just as well off as if Cumann na nGaedheal were here and there were no such thing as an embargo or a boycott of British goods.

Mr. Bennett

I thought you were going to make us a lot better off.

Dr. Ryan

With Cumann na nGeadh-eal here, and with the good will of the British, the farmer would be no better off, and we have £3,000,000 in a suspense account to our good. That will come out some time.

Mr. Hogan

Have you £3,000,000?

Dr. Ryan

Well, I think, £3,000,000. Somebody — Deputy Anthony I think — referred to a farmer whose losses would not be under £1,200 this year, and asked me how long that would last. I know a lot of farmers in this country, but I am not speaking of anyone who can afford to lose £1,200 in one year. I do not know one. Perhaps I do not know the big ring that Deputy Anthony does. Anyway, I do not know a farmer who could afford to lose £1,200.

Mr. Hogan

He did not say he could afford to lose it.

Dr. Ryan

He had the money anyway.

Mr. Hogan

He had the stock.

Dr. Ryan

I do not know a farmer who could raise £1,200 to lose it.

Mr. Hogan

Take a man who sold 150 cattle this year. What has he lost?

Dr. Ryan

He has lost a terrible lot of money — about £600.

Mr. Hogan

Apart from sheep or pigs?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Hogan

And still you do not know a farmer who has lost £1,200? There are farmers whose total capital is not more than £2,500 who have lost £1,200.

Dr. Ryan

Surely, if a farmer who had a total capital of £2,500 lost £1,200 it would mean that his stock must have depreciated by nearly 50 per cent. Not even Job in the Scripture lost that much.

A Deputy

Stock in the country has depreciated very rapidly.

Dr. Ryan

How long are those conditions going to last? I say as long as we have to depend on the British market or any other market where the people cannot pay us for our stuff. We cannot get over that difficulty, unless our bacon production goes down to the amount we can use in our own market, but as long as we have to export we will have to take the low prices, unless we give bounties, which are not in favour. Deputy Anthony wound up with an oration which should have been addressed to the Disarmament Conference instead of to this House. Those are the only points I have a note of that were raised.

Vote put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 69; Níl, 59.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Boland, Patrick.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Brady, Bryan.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Browne, William Frazer.
• Carty, Frank.
• Colbert, James.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corish, Richard.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Curran, Patrick Joseph.
• Davin, William.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Maguire, Conor Alexander.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
• Norton, William.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Everett, James.
• Flinn, Hugo V.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Geoghegan, James.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Gormley, Francis.
• Goulding, John.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
• Keyes, Raphael Patrick.
• Kilroy, Michael.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, James B.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Powell, Thomas P.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sexton, Martin.
• Sheehy, Timothy.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).

Níl

• Anthony, Richard.
• Beckett, James Walter.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Blythe, Ernest.
• Bourke, Séamus A.
• Brasier, Brooke.
• Broderick, William Jos.
• Brodrick, Seán.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
• Conlon, Martin.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Craig, Sir James.
• Davis, Michael.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
• Doherty, Eugene.
• Doyle, Peadar Seán.
• Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
• Finlay, Thomas A.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Good, John.
• Gorey, Denis John.
• Hayes, Michael.
• Hennessy, Thomas.
• Hennigan, John.
• Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
• Keating, John.
• Keogh, Myles.
• Lynch, Finian.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• McDonogh, Fred.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Minch, Sydney B.
• Mongan, Joseph W.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Myles, James Sproule.
• Nally, Martin.
• O'Brien, Eugene P.
• O'Connor, Batt.
• O'Hara, Patrick.
• O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Shaughnessy, John Joseph.
• O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Reidy, James.
• Reynolds, Mrs. Mary.
• Roddy, Martin.
• Thrift, William Edward.
• White, John.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Boland and Allen; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Conlon.

Vote declared carried.