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?