Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Jun 1934

Vol. 53 No. 7

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 25—Supplementary Agricultural Grants.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £450,489 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, 1935, chun an Deontais Talmhaíochta do mhéadú (Uimh. 35 de 1925 agus Uimh. 28 de 1931).

That a sum not exceeding £450,489 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, 1935, to increase the Agricultural Grant (No. 35 of 1925 and No. 28 of 1931).

The total amount to be provided out of this Vote, and already provided by a Vote on Account, will amount to £900,989. The Estimate now before the House is for the same amount as last year, and is drawn up in precisely the same form. In addition to the £900,989, of which £450,489 is the second moiety, there will be given from the Central Fund a sum of £599,011, under Section 48 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1898, making a total under these two heads of £1,500,000. In addition to this, however, there is, of course, the amount which will be provided under the new scheme for distribution of the agricultural grant which is to be put in operation in the current financial year. Briefly, the intention under that scheme is to allow the maximum rate of relief, which is the same rate of relief as was allowed in 1933-34, on the first £10 of valuation to occupiers of holdings not exceeding £20 valuation, and on the first £20 of valuation to occupiers of larger holdings. Additional relief will then be made available to the occupiers of holdings exceeding £20 valuation in proportion to the number of male adults in full-time employment on their holdings. Legislation validating this arrangement and repealing the existing statutory provisions governing the distribution of the agricultural grant, will be introduced by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health in due course. The comprehen- sive scheme which consists of three parts—the present Vote, the Central Fund Charge, and the additional grant under the new legislation—will bring the total amount granted in relief of rates on agricultural land up to £1,970,000. That is to say, in addition to the amount which we provided up to the present, it will be necessary for us to bring in a Supplementary Estimate for an additional £470,000. Provision for this additional expenditure was, of course, included in the present year's Budget. This provision of £1,970,000 represents an increase of £220,000 on the amount provided last year, and is an increase of almost £22,000 on the peak provision made by our predecessors in office, namely, £1,948,000. It is £22,000 more than the amount provided by them in 1931-1932.

Mr. Belton

How much over?

Mr. MacEntee

£22,000 over the amount provided in 1931-1932. Having regard to the fact that the Dáil will have an opportunity of discussing all these proposals regarding the distribution of the agricultural grant, in 1934-1935, on the proposed Bill—in which the finances of the agricultural grant will be largely reconstructed— and again on the Supplementary Estimate which will follow that, I suggest that no very useful purpose would be served by occupying the time of the House in discussing the question at the present moment.

Mr. Cosgrave

The Ministry, on the occasion of the introduction of the Vote of £750,000, was in opposition, and suggested that that Vote should be increased to £1,000,000, that is, an additional £250,000. In the first year of their administration they gave that £250,000, but in the following year, which was last year, they apparently repented of their extravagance, their generosity, or the validation of their undertaking, and they deducted £448,000 from the grant last year on the plea that they were going to devote £450,000 to unemployment and insurance. That £450,000 was not so employed. It was earmarked, set apart, and provided for, but it was never employed. The Agricultural Grant, therefore, suffered a loss of £448,000. Assuming that that was the position last year, the position this year is that the Ministry has come to the conclusion that it was not wise to give that £250,000 which they fought so valiantly for a couple of years ago, and they satisfy their consciences now by giving £22,000 more. That is the sum and substance of the whole story.

Mr. Belton

I noticed that the Minister, who is by no means weak in the lungs, spoke in an inaudible tone when he was giving these figures, and, somehow or other that I could not follow, he got a figure of £1,970,000 and told us that it was £22,000 more than his predecessors gave in 1931-1932. While the present Estimate is for £450,489, the Minister told us that from the Central Fund there will be paid a grant of £589,000 odd. I think he must have got a dose of Government of Ireland Acts on the brain, because he referred to the Government of Ireland Act of 1898. I think he meant the Local Government Act of 1898. The Minister will not get away with his juggling of figures so easily as that. The Minister is giving nothing to agriculture out of the Central Fund that was not an inherited obligation not only of this Government, but an inherited obligation of the previous Government. The original grant that he talked of, of £599,000—call it £600,000—was a grant of right to the landholders of this country, rooted in their title on their land. The Local Government Act of 1898 was passed, and the Grand Jury system abolished, as a protection for the landlords at that time who previously paid half the local rate. It was a section of that Act which provided that the Government would pay a grant in relief of local rates, standardised at half the rate on agricultural land for the year 1898. That grant was in no way a relief of the burden then or hitherto borne by the farmers of the country, but a relief of the burden hitherto borne by the landlords of the country. When we have Ministers going down the country telling the people what "We, the Government," are paying in rates—as for example, the Minister for Education in Longford last week swelling his chest and saying that "We, the Government, pay more agricultural rates than the farmers of the country"—it shows how much that "We, the Government," know about farming conditions and rating conditions in the country.

The Minister wants to get some kudos out of this. I think when it is analysed there will be very little kudos for him and his methods in reference to this £600,000. It was in the year 1924, I think, that the previous Government that neglected industry in this country, if we are to accept the statements of the present Government, by not utilising the physical powers that they had at their command, found themselves in the possession of about £600,000 realised from tariffs. They recognised that the farming community were large contributors, and another £600,000 was given to them. That was the position when the Budget of 1931-32 was introduced, and when a motion was put down by Deputy de Valera, as he then was, as Leader of the Opposition, that there should be an increase in the relief of rates on agricultural land of £1,000,000. That motion was defeated, and ultimately it was agreed by the House to give an additional £750,000. That £750,000 was raised by the taxation then imposed and which is still functioning or producing. That sum was raised by a tax of 4d. a gallon on petrol and a 1/2d. per lb. on sugar. The previous Administration only allowed £750,000 for the produce of this taxation, because it would not be producing fully for 12 months, but in the year ending March, 1932, it produced a yield of about £750,000. As a matter of fact, the yield was between £800,000 and £900,000. These taxes are producing since, and have produced £1,000,000 for the full year they have been in operation. I put it to the Minister for Finance to contradict that. The whole million of money advocated by the Party opposite, when they were sitting on this side of the House, has been found out of taxes imposed to give relief, out of rates, to agricultural land.

The grant which is proposed for the coming year is substantially the same as it was in 1931-32 at a time when, in the cool, deliberate, calculating judgment of the Fianna Fáil Party when they were on these benches, agriculture could not survive if it did not get £1,000,000. We have now the Minister who was then the shadow Minister for Finance swelling his chest, and telling the House and the country how agriculture could not survive under the conditions that then existed, and that an immediate advance in the agricultural grant of £1,000,000 was essential, bringing the whole agricultural grant up to £2,200,000, or within a very few pounds of that. What has the Minister to boast about these days? We are now £220,000 short of what he said agriculture could not survive without three years ago. Is agriculture in any more flourishing condition to-day than then? Of course, whenever there is any discussion here on agriculture the one Minister who religiously makes it a point to be absent is the Minister for Agriculture. The Government leave a Minister here who can simply sit down and smile, because he knows that the House and the country do not expect him to know anything about agriculture; and they are not deceived. We are £200,000 short of what the Minister said we should have three years ago, and that £200,000 is being produced by taxes imposed to produce money for the relief of rates on agricultural land. When the Minister replies, I challenge him to deny that the tax imposed by the late Government to produce an extra agricultural grant in 1931-32, has produced £1,000,000 every full year since that tax was in operation; so that on the matter of this grant of £750,000 the Government to-day is making £220,000 out of the transaction. Three years ago there was a free market. We could sell anything we produced. The general level of prices, all over the world, was, perhaps, 20 or 30 points higher than to-day, yet when prices were better than they are to-day and when agricultural conditions, in the opinion of the Government, required £220,000 more to keep it alive than the same Government is offering to-day—that shows the difference between the politician in office and the politician out of office.

As I said at the beginning, in the year 1924-25 or 1925-26, I am not sure which, the agricultural grant was doubled when the Government of that day found themselves with a surplus of £600,000. The tariffs then imposed produced a surplus beyond anticipation and the Government had about £600,000 on hand. They decided to devote that to the relief of rates on agricultural land. Their surplus approximated very closely to the old agricultural grant, so that they decided to double the agricultural grant that year. Now if we examine the position of the case—I was so informed at the time and I know it to be so—the Government doubled the agricultural grant because they considered the incidence of the tariff fell heavily upon the agricultural population, so they devoted this surplus out of the proceeds of the tariff to the relief of agricultural rates. If that principle is carried out by the present Government I wonder would they be here boasting that they gave £20,000 more last year than their predecessors in office? I have already shown that the £750,000 that in 1931-32 was given for the relief of rates was given out of the produce of taxes imposed on sugar and petrol. Those taxes were not producing for a whole year but they produced a little over £750,000. For a whole year they produce over £1,000,000. Instead of the claim of the Minister for Finance that the present Government are giving, in relief of rates, £20,000 more than their predecessors gave during the last year they were in office, the present Government is, in fact, giving £220,000 less than their predecessors not actually gave, but could give, if the taxes had been producing for the whole year. The two learned agriculturists we have on the Government Benches smile. Nobody who knows anything about agriculture will come into the Government Benches when there is a debate affecting agriculture proceeding.

Mr. Lemass

It is a knowledge of arithmetic that is required in this case.

Mr. Belton

I am sorry the Minister has not got it. Will the Minister take down a few figures now and we will test his arithmetical knowledge. Will the Minister add £600,000 to £600,000? That made £1,200,000 when I was going to school.

Mr. Lemass

Quite right.

Mr. Belton

The Minister was going to school later than I, but I do not think he learned as much as I did. If the Minister gets into a more involved calculation and finds himself entangled, I shall help him out. If he looks up a publication of his own Department dealing with imports and exports he will find that a 4d. per gallon tax on petrol imported for 12 months, with a 1/2d. per lb. tax on imported sugar, would produce about £1,100,000. Those two taxes were imposed in 1931-32, and they produced a sum which should be devoted to the relief of rates on agricultural land. The Government that went out that year imposed those taxes, but the taxes were not producing for a full financial year, up to 31st March, 1932. From 1932-33, they have been producing fully, and they leave in the till of the Minister for Finance over £1,000,000 a year. The previous Government devoted all the produce of these taxes to the relief of rates on agricultural land. Previously the taxpayers did not pay these taxes. I could give instances, which would be superfluous in this debate, where agricultural communities lost heavily by these taxes in comparison with the grants they got. The agricultural taxpayer was, perhaps, more heavily hit than any other taxpayer as regards the increased tax on petrol and sugar. He had not paid, so he could not expect the full benefit during the year of imposition, but the following year, and this year, he is paying and, while he expects to get the benefit, the Government will not give it to him.

Perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce would try his skill at a bit of arithmetic in regard to that taxation deliberately imposed for the relief of rates on agricultural land. If he examines the produce of these taxes, he will find he will have the sum of £600,000 twice, and £1,100,000 on top of that. That is £2,300,000. The Minister for Finance has just boasted that, in the present financial year, more will have been given for the relief of rates than was given by the Government's predecessors in 1931-32. But there will have been taken from the community £350,000 more in taxation which was earmarked originally for rates on agricultural land. The position is that we are getting, roughly, about £300,000 less relief than the previous Government gave during their last year of office. Let the Minister for Industry and Commerce try his skill at arithmetic on that and see if he will smile.

Mr. Lemass

The farmers did not get it.

Mr. Belton

I am not talking about the farmers; I am talking of agriculture. The Minister, and his colleagues, always want to use the word "farmer" in order to give a sectional and class tinge to a discussion on agriculture here and, particularly, on a platform. They want to drive in a wedge and they talk of the small farmer, the big farmer, the grazing farmer, the tillage farmer, the nationalist farmer and the planter. They want to split up the country in various sections. I am not troubling about the farmer, as such, in this matter, because, if all the farmers were obliterated, somebody would have to go and work the industry of agriculture. It is the industry of agriculture that should concern this House and not the individuals who may be responsible for sectional operation of that industry. It is the rate on the agricultural industry with which I am concerned. If the Government to-day were to deal honestly with agriculture and were to carry out the policy of devoting these taxes to the relief of rates on agricultural land, they would be giving £1,000,000 for that purpose instead of £770,000. In doing that, they would be only carrying out the policy of their predecessors.

They are £230,000 short of what should be given if they carried out the policy of their predecessors. That is only on the basis of that grant. But their predecessors had another policy which was enshrined in their decision in 1925 to double the agricultural grant. That policy was this: that as industrial tariffs imposed a burden on agriculture the surplus left from them should be transferred back to agriculture by way of doubling the agricultural grant. I support the industrial policy of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but not the method or manner in which he handles it. He has a litany of new tariffs for us nearly every week. Now to make a comparison between the returns from customs in 1931-32 and the returns in the last audited statement.

An Ceann Comhairle

To make that comparison would not be relevant to this Vote.

Mr. Belton

I submit that it is relevant in this way. The agricultural grant was doubled in 1924-25 by the previous Government. It was doubled because of the surplus from tariffs, a surplus which approximated very closely to the original agricultural grant. The previous Government doubled the agricultural grant at that time on the principle that industrial tariffs imposed a burden on agriculture, and they held that in doing that they were recouping agriculture in some way for the burden that was imposed on it by the Government's industrial policy. I am suggesting that the present Government should adopt a similar policy as regards the produce from customs. If the previous Government were right in the principle that they adopted it shows that there is now an increased burden being put on agriculture without any quid pro quo for agriculture. It is in that way that I want to bring in this question of the produce from customs. If the policy adopted by the previous Government were carried out by this Government there should be a large increase in the agricultural grant, and agriculture would have nothing to thank the Government for doing that, apart altogether from the depression in prices, the economic war and other things. I think it is substantially correct to say that the difference between the customs returns for 1931-32 and for last year—God only knows how many tariffs have been imposed since and how many we are likely to have to face this year— is about £1,500,000. Now, if agriculture were given that sum of money it is entitled to it in equity. It would have nothing to thank the Government for, because who contributed it? The man following the plough and the man milking the cows.

I want to make it clear that I am not arguing against the Government's industrial policy, but I am arguing on the equities of the case. There is the fact that the sum of £1,500,000 has been put up by agriculture. That is an imposition that was not on agriculture three years ago. It is fair, I submit, to make a comparison between the money grants given to agriculture in this year, 1934-35, and those that were given in 1931-32. Owing to tariffs, agriculture is this year paying £1,500,000 more than it was paying two or three years ago. That is the extra burden it is now bearing, and it would be only meeting the equities of the case if agriculture were recouped that sum, or, we will say, £1,000,000. The sum of money left for agricultural purposes by the previous Government to the present Minister for Finance was £2,200,000. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce questions my arithmetic let him disprove my statement. That was the sum that was left available every year in the till of the Minister for Finance for the relief of rates on agricultural land, and on top of that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has in the last two years increased the burden, so far as Customs are concerned, by £1,500,000. It would be making a liberal allowance if one were to say that £500,000 of that was contributed by people other than the agricultural population. It would not be meeting the whole case for agriculture if instead of the sum of £1,970,000 for the relief of rates on agricultural land, £3,200,000 was given, because the money provided by the previous Government was £2,200,000, to which should be added another £1,000,000 as a set-off against the increased burden on agriculture due to industrial tariffs. That gives a total of £3,200,000. If instead of that sum of £1,970,000 the sum I mentioned was given, it might go near fulfilling the promises that Fianna Fáil made before they became the Government. It would go near the cost of derating agricultural land, and with that even the Minister for Industry and Commerce might be induced to jump the fence of derating agricultural land.

So far as this Vote is concerned, there is nothing in it but this appointment for the agricultural community. No varnish brush that the Minister may use can put a good face on this question of the grants. The Minister for Finance endeavoured to-day to boast that he is giving £20,000 more than the previous Government. Play was made by Ministers and by Deputies opposite that the amount given in 1931-32 was subject to deductions for arrears of land annuities. That is still the position, because the amount of arrears of land annuities will be deducted from this grant. All the county councils have been advised to that effect by the Minister for Local Government. If the Government, and, particularly the Minister for Industry and Commerce, above all Ministers of the Government, not excepting the Minister for Agriculture, were to give this matter the consideration it should be given—the Minister for Industry and Commerce puts on a tariff to increase industrial production, and it is the easiest thing in the world to increase production, to make an article, but the whole trouble is to get a market for that article—and were to advance a policy that, out of the proceeds of these tariffs, the burden on agriculture would be lightened, he need not bother about the interests of agriculture for the moment, but about the industrial interests that will be served by improving, by lightening the overhead burden, the industrial market, which is the agricultural population of this country. I would not think that the Minister was doing any more than his duty if he came in here and, instead of refusing to give all the money the previous Government provided, or providing machinery to produce that money for him for the relief of rates on agricultural land, he obliterated all the rates on agricultural land. He would not, in my opinion, be giving any more to agriculture than the equities of the situation demand, on the basis of the increased burden of tariffs.

I do not want to go into the fall in the general level of prices; I do not want to go into the loss sustained by agriculture through the economic war; I do not want to go into the loss sustained by agriculture through the quota system and the limitation of the fat cattle market in England. I would, perhaps, test the patience of the Ceann Comhairle on these matters but for the fact that they will arise on other measures, and it is when they arise fully on such measures that they can best be dealt with, and more effectively than they can be dealt with by raising them on a subsidiary matter like this. I desire finally to emphasise that even if there were no economic war, if that market over there remained as it was, and if there was no quota system imposed by the British, and no fall in world prices, the Government would be only giving to agriculture what agriculture is entitled to if they derated agricultural land, because of the increased burden they have put on agriculture since they came into office by the imposition of industrial tariffs, namely, a sum approximating to £1,500,000. I wish to express dissatisfaction at the amount of this Agricultural Grant. The Government have nothing to congratulate themselves on, and, in fact, they have deliberately betrayed agricultural interest in the matter of these grants.

There are some details of these grants on which I should like to speak. Last year we were allowed, I think, 2/- in the £ on our valuations up to £20. That meant that we were allowed £1, and we had more annoyance sending in forms for that £1 than the £1 was worth. There is another newfangled proposal this year—the Minister for Agriculture is heartily welcome —that there shall be relief at a certain low rate on the first £20 of valuation and that in respect of each adult employed full-time there will be an allowance at the low rate of £12 10s. 0d. The working farmer who has a son or sons, of 17 years of age and over, employed full-time on the land, will be allowed to regard these as full-time employees and to get the allowance in his rate at the low rate of £12 10s. 0d. of his valuation for each adult workman employed. If it is right to adopt that principle, would it not, if I may use the phrase, be more right to give the allowance to working farmers who have six or seven children, none of whom is 17 years of age? Under this arrangement, a man with a big family, the members of which are under 17 years of age, gets no allowance for that family, but a man whose family are over 17 years of age and who are worth something to him will get the allowance. The man who is hardest hit, with a young family who are unable to work, gets no allowance, while the man with a family who are able to work will get the allowance.

If that principle is to be introduced at all, I would rather support a proposal that the man with the family under 17 years of age should get the allowance in his rates rather than the man with a family of 17 years or over it, because the older family is a help while the younger family is a burden. The most difficult time for parents, whether they are farmers or not, is when the oldest child is 14 or 16 years of age and the ages of the others range downwards. They are an expense and they have to be minded. They are going to school and are no source of help, but when they are over the age of 17 and become a help, the allowance will be given in respect of them. I do not think that is an equitable way of dealing with the matter. That is only a detail in the application of this, but I think the county councils would gladly welcome the brushing aside of all these little things and the giving of a grant for the relief of rates which would be applied all the way through. It will come to that yet because of the difficulties of administering the Act on these lines.

Those, however, are only the details. The main principle is standing out, and no camouflage can conceal it, that the present Government inherited a sum equivalent to £2,200,000 for the relief of rates, and they have added to the burden on agriculture, £1,500,000 since, while all they offer out of that pool for the relief of rates on agricultural land is £1,970,000. The Minister for Finance says that that is £20,000 more than their predecessors gave them, while the Minister for Industry and Commerce said it was a question of arithmetic. I should like to hear some arithmetical solution of his of this matter.

Mr. Curran

I am sorry that I did not hear the Minister for Finance when he spoke introducing this Vote. It would be well if Deputies, in discussing the Agricultural Grant, cast their minds back to find out where it originated. What is the history of the Agricultural Grant? The history of the Agricultural Grant—I presume, Sir, I am in order?

An Ceann Comhairle

This a Supplementary Agricultural Grant.

Mr. Curran

Yes, a Supplementary Agricultural Grant. The history of the Supplementary Agricultural Grant dates back a long time. The reason of the Agricultural Grant at all is that in the past the landlords were liable for half the rates. I do not know whether the Minister for Industry and Commerce or even the Attorney-General knew this thing to be a fact. Sometime in later years, the powers that were took a certain year's rate and they said they would give the equivalent of that as an Agricultural Grant. I contend that half the rates only should be borne or should be a burden on the individual farmers. After the Agricultural Grant was given, the expenditure went up. But the Agricultural Grant remained the same. I always contended even in the days of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government that the farmer or the landholder should be asked to pay only half of the local services. The landlords had got away with their portion of it. I have here the figures for the amount of the grant in my own constituency and the net amount which was levied. During the year 1931-1932 they bear a very close comparison to what I argued. They are mathematically on a fifty-fifty basis. In 1932-1933 they still bore a very close comparison, but since then the amount levied on agricultural lands has been considerably increased. I notice in a part of my constituency that a sum of £34,000 was deducted from the Agricultural Grant the other day. That is a very regrettable state of affairs for the farmers and it is about time that this whole question of the Agricultural Grant towards rates on agricultural holdings should be faced up to. We believed, in the past, and we believe it now, that we are entitled to derating on agricultural land. That question was talked about on every platform in the country by the Government Party, who said that when they would get into power they would derate agricultural land. What has happened? The fact really is that it is the Government who are defaulting in connection with the local rates because they reduced the Agricultural Grant, thereby pushing on the burden to the farmers.

I remember not so very long ago the railways, who were large ratepayers, went into court and applied for relief. They based their case on the fact that their paying capacity had gone down and that they should get a certain amount of relief in their rates. Under some law or other they got this relief owing to the fact that their earning power was not as good as it had been. But then the whole thing was pushed on to the farming community. The same thing has happened with regard to the Capitation Grant for the Mental Hospitals. The original idea was a 50-50 basis of expenditure. The expenditure went up, but the Capitation Grant remained the same, with the result that it was pushed on to the ratepayers, who are principally the agricultural community.

As regards the distribution of the Agricultural Grant for the coming year, I take the view that it is no credit to the Government. Their action is only bearing out what is said on platforms all over the country—that the Government are out to smash the farmers and take their lands from them. We may as well have it out straight. Take a farmer with a poor law valuation of £100. He would not be a very extensive farmer in my county. That man is allowed the increased Agricultural Grant on the first £20, and £12 10s. for each male worker he employs. Assuming that he has two male workers that will mean £45. He will get a relief of 6/1 in the £ up to the £45 valuation, and then you are going to charge him 10/6 in the £ from £45 up. Of course, this is only bearing out the Government policy. They have made it and they are making it impossible for the moderate or for the fairly extensive farmer to carry on. Does not every one know what is at the root of this policy? It simply is to smash every extensive farmer. I take the view that the fairly extensive farmer has as good a right as anybody else in the community. If by hard work and energy he has increased his holding, does not that show that he is a class of man that should be encouraged? The man who goes out and increases his small or moderately-sized holding by the purchase of an adjoining farm is generally the most progressive man in the community. But that is the man that the Government is out to smash, and they are getting about it in a very efficient way through the operation of the distribution of this Agricultural Grant.

The other day I brought some facts in my constituency before the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. I asked the Minister if his attention had been called to a statement made recently by the Commissioner. The Commissioner, of course, is their own. He was put there by the Government. What does he say in connection with the whole problem? He said that in his opinion the time has come when the annuities should be separated from the question of rate collection. It is idle to say that they should be mixed up any longer. It is unjust because annuities are not being paid that you are going to turn around and collect them by a deduction from the Agricultural Grant. That is what is happening. You are collecting these annuities from the ratepayers who have already paid their own rates and annuities.

A question was asked here some time ago as to the amount of rates that were unfunded in South Tipperary. It appeared that £4,000 were not funded. I presume that amount was blotted out. In the County Kerry the amount that was blotted out was £38,000. That is exactly the position. I have been a member of the local bodies in South Tipperary, and the ratepayers there always faced up to their responsibilities while they were able to do so. Now owing to circumstances which I, like Deputy Belton, do not want to go into, they are unable to pay. We do not want to drag in the matter of the economic war. When things have gone against the farming community, and they are unable to pay, we are told by the Government and their supporters that it is a case of a "No Rate Campaign," and so on.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has been informed that this is a Supplementary Grant, and it is not in order to discuss the separation of the rates and the annuities, nor is it in order to discuss local administration. The Deputy has been given a good deal of latitude.

Mr. Curran

I bow to your ruling. As regards the agricultural grant, if it is not the intention of the Government to derate land, I think it ought to be. I think it is the least they ought to do. It is the least I would expect from any Government, and which I expected from Cumann na nGaedheal when they were in power. I want to say plainly that when the Derating Commission was sitting everybody expected that there would be derating of agricultural land. That is what put the present Government over there, because the previous Government did not give it; and that is what will put the present Government back in opposition again if they do not face up to their responsibility in connection with derating.

Mr. Lemass

Do you stand for it now?

Mr. Curran

Absolutely.

Mr. Lemass

The whole Party?

Mr. MacDermot

Certainly.

Mr. Curran

As far as that is concerned, I want derating if I can get it, naturally.

Mr. Lemass

You are agreed upon it?

Mr. Curran

I am agreed, absolutely. Do you not agree that we ought to get it?

Mr. Belton

If the Minister wants to know, the answer is "Yes."

Mr. Lemass

Does the General say that?

Mr. Curran

I put figures before the Minister and the Attorney-General. As I said in my opening statement, the Agricultural Grant has its roots in history. It is time to face up to the responsibility and see that the agricultural community get a square deal in connection with the grant. I pointed out before that in the past the landlords were liable for 50 per cent. of the local rates. That was the history of the Agricultural Grant. Governments in this country are very good when they want to get into power and will promise the farming community everything and anything; but when they get in the farmer is left where he always was. As I said, the fact that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government did not give full derating is one of the reasons why the present Government is in power. But that is nothing in comparison with what is happening now. In 1931-32, in South Tipperary, we got an Agricultural Grant of £85,000, and the net rate demanded from the agricultural community was £78,000. In 1932-33 we got an Agricultural Grant of £85,000, and the net rate payable by the agricultural community was £89,000. I have not got the exact figures as to the present situation.

I say, however, that if you do not want to give full derating a fair and reasonable basis for the agricultural grant would be a fifty-fifty one. Any Government which is in power should realise the history of the agricultural grant. The deduction of the unpaid annuities from the agricultural grant is making the position more serious for everybody. The Government have a responsibility in connection with the local rates and the agricultural grant, and if they evade their responsibility and do not give the amount which they should give as an agricultural grant, what is the position? It is the Government who are defaulting. Certainly under present conditions rates cannot be paid as they were formerly. As I said, the increase in rates last year was equivalent to the total rates in my county in 1914-1915. That was due to the fact that the board of health accepted a responsibility which they should not have accepted, and that is for paying home assistance to able-bodied people. I do not know what the position is now or will be, but certainly the Government have not covered themselves with glory as regards the agricultural grant. They have been chopping at it and keeping it from the various county councils. As Deputy Belton said, there has been an increase in everything that the farmer has to buy. The Government ought to realise the position and try to remedy it. If they do not, I cannot see how local services are going to be carried on under present circumstances, with the deduction in the agricultural grant and the inability of the farming community to meet their obligations.

Mr. Bennett

I have to join in the protest against the inadequacy of this supplementary grant. The original policy of the Ministry opposite, before they became a Ministry, was to relieve agricultural land altogether of rates. Some of us have a vivid remembrance of the promises made in that direction. I need not go further than the debates in this House when the late Government brought in a proposal to give an additional £750,000. Government Deputies who were then in opposition pleaded whole-heartedly for an extension of that grant. Some of them almost went as far as advocating full derating. I do not know that any of them went quite as far as that, even at that stage. However, they were only a short time in office when they began to rat on the question of full derating.

Before they became a Government one of the arguments put forward by the President himself was that the £750,000 additional grant proposed by the late Government was no good; that £1,000,000 was the least that should be given, and that even £1,000,000 would not be any great relief to the unfortunate farmers in those days. Having put forward his argument on that line, he pointed out the kindred ailments that the farmers were suffering from besides that of rates, and made the remarkable allusion that the burden of tariffs fell more heavily perhaps on the farmers than on any other section in those days. They were suffering not only from the burden of the rates, but the burden of the tariffs, and that was under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. I should like to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce if the farmers suffered from the burden of the tariffs in those days, how much are they suffering from the burden of the tariffs now? Nobody ought to be in a better position to answer that than the Minister for Industry and Commerce. If, as the President maintained, the relief given then to the rates was inadequate, because the farmers were suffering from the imposition of tariffs, what sum would be necessary by way of relief now, in view of the imposition of additional tariffs? If I was to put forward no other argument for an increase in this grant now than the imposition of tariffs, I venture to say that the Minister for Industry and Commerce would agree with me that there is more necessity for an increased grant now than there was when an additional £750,000 was given. We are debarred from going into the economic war, and I have no intention of referring to it. We cannot, however, get away from the fact that the farmers' position now is infinitely worse than it was when the additional £750,000 was given. Many circumstances have made his position worse. His income has been depleted. In fact, I might say it has disappeared, and his ability to pay taxation of any kind has lessened, particularly his ability to pay rates.

I was not in the House when the Minister made his opening statement, but Deputy Belton stated that the Minister said he had increased the grant. We are only concerned with this supplementary agricultural grant at the moment. We have here added to the original amount a sum of £150,989. I presume that is what one might call the mutilated remains of the £600,000 grant originally given. The Minister at another period docked off £448,000 from the agricultural grant. We were under the impression that it might have been restored in full instead of in part.

No argument has been offered from the Government Benches as to why the amount of this grant should not be larger. There is more necessity now for a large grant than even when the original grant was introduced. When the present Government were sitting here in Opposition they told us that £750,000 was an inadequate sum, and it should be, at least, a million, or more. When they took up office they proceeded to make it a million, and I give them every credit for that, but shortly afterwards they robbed us of a sum of £448,000, and they left the position worse than it was. The result was that nearly all the county councils were placed in a difficult position. The announcement of the reduction of the agricultural grant was made subsequent to the striking of the rates by most county councils, and considerable difficulty ensued. I believe that one or two county councils got into trouble because of the action they were obliged to take. Nearly all of them were placed in the position that they had to strike a higher rate than the farmers could bear. Almost every county council found it difficult to get in rates this year, firstly, because the rates were too high, and, secondly, because the farmers were unable to pay. Possibly they would have been unable to pay even if the rates had been reduced because of the conditions in which they now find themselves. That is one of the principal reasons why we demand an increase in this supplementary grant.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce adopted his usual line of argument when his Party find themselves in a hole. He asked one Deputy here, across the House, "Are you in favour of full derating?" I am not going to satisfy the Minister by telling him whether or not we, as a body, are in favour of full derating. I will, however, remind him that his Party declared not once, but a hundred times, that they were in favour of full derating, and now we want you to live up to your promises. We want you to go as near as you can to keeping the promises that you have made. It is no argument to ask us are we in favour of derating. Deputy Curran, who was asked that question, is, and so is Deputy Belton, but why should you ask them to answer for the whole Party? I am not going to tell the Minister whether I am in favour of full derating or not.

Mr. Holohan

Why not?

Mr. Bennett

I leave it to the Minister to find that out for himself. The Fianna Fáil Party definitely tied themselves to derating when they were fighting the last election; it was one of the main planks on their platform. The Government partly won their election on it, and one would expect they would make an attempt to live up to their promise. One would imagine that instead of decreasing grants they would add considerably to them. We did expect that in regard to this grant there would be a considerable increase.

Mr. Lemass

So there is.

Mr. Bennett

If the Ministry do not find it possible to redeem their promise in full they might at least have made a serious attempt to provide more money than they are now providing. The agricultural community are frankly disappointed with the action of the Ministry. There can be no possible case made for lessening the grant. The Minister is full of declarations. Take the President's argument in regard to the original grant. He told us, at one time, that tariffs bear more heavily on the farmers than on anybody else. They certainly bear very heavily on the farmers now. They have been added to considerably, and, bad as they were some years back, they are now a doubly heavy burden. The Fianna Fáil Partly in the last election declared themselves openly to be a derating Party, and the agricultural community expected them to live up to that. Of course, the Minister does not mind disappointing us here, but perhaps he will mind disappointing the country. The country people are disappointed at the niggardly way the Government have attempted to live up to their promises to relieve the rates. There never was a period when such relief was more needed. It would be idle to advance any further arguments than I have advanced. I presume, at this stage, it would be useless to make an appeal to the Ministry. I can only, in the name of my colleagues in the agricultural community, make the strongest protest possible against this very inadequate supplementary grant.

Mr. Haslett

The very name of this supplementary agricultural grant suggests that there is a need for it. I will just put forward some of the factors which make up that need. We have had this supplementary agricultural grant for some years and I am rather disappointed that the Government have not embraced the opportunity that this grant would afford them of making a generous gesture towards agriculture. They have been telling us how interested they are and what they are doing for the farmer. Of all the grants, this is the most direct relief that the farmers can have. I suggest there are a number of factors which ought to have weighed with the Government in making this grant larger. I do not think any of us will vote against this grant, but I think that the Government could, with wisdom and with prudence, have made it much larger.

First of all, we have not yet discovered what our rates will be this year. Owing to the new system of relief towards the rates that we have in operation, the returns are not yet in, and I do not think there is any secretary of any county council in a position to say yet what our rates will be. Then, there is a second factor which I would mention, and that would be the increased cost of seeds, implements, and certain manures this year. It has been a heavy year from the point of view of meeting expenses. I am speaking now as a tillage farmer, and I know that spring brings its own trials to the farmer, and that the matter of providing the seed for the land and meeting his other commitments at that time is a very serious thing. Taking all that into consideration, together with the meeting of the rates, I think it was an opportunity for our Government to consider the case of the farmer and come to his aid more generously in this grant.

Then we have the question of the increase in the cost of feeding stuffs. Those of us who have been carrying on and feeding our stock have discovered that what we are trying to produce costs a lot more than it did a few years ago. In a manner, perhaps, I would agree with Deputy Belton in this respect—that I do not object to a country raising all the feeding stuffs it can produce; but the Government in its wisdom has instituted a system now of supplying us with mixtures for feeding stuffs that raise the cost of feeding stuffs unnecessarily. You are confronted to-day with that question and it is a serious one. Perhaps its seriousness is more apparent to one such as I who knows the other side of the case. At the present time we are paying about 14/- a bag for meals; that is, 14/- for a two-cwt. bag that can be purchased at 10/- where there is no mixture of meal. That is a very big increase in the cost of feeding stuffs. Of course, then, it turns to the other side, which is the other factor I would mention, and that is the loss in the market or the decreased value of our stuffs in the market. I am not trying to make any political propaganda out of this. I am stating cold facts, as a tillage farmer, with the object of showing why the Government should have been in a more generous mood and have made a more generous gesture, especially towards the tillage and the feeding farmer.

I was interested to see in Monday's paper a speech by our Minister for Agriculture—I think it was in Muinebheag—where he said, in connection with the arguments he put up in regard to the Vote for Agriculture:

"With the single exception of cattle, the Irish farmer is to-day getting more for his produce than if the ‘free market,' so much talked about, existed."

Well, now, when we take cattle out of the farmer's income, it seems to me like taking the salary out of the civil servant's income and leaving him the bonus. It means, I would say, three-fourths of the average farmer's income. Yet, even the length that the Minister goes in that respect is not enough. Taking the last three years' returns for cattle, we find that they have been falling by about one-third, or 33? per cent., each year. In 1931 we had £12,000,000 odd worth of exports of cattle. In 1932 we had £8,000,000 odd, and in 1933 we had £6,000,000 odd. Put together, it averages a fall of about 33? per cent.

Turning from cattle, there are other things to which the farmer looks to pay his rates and to meet his commitments which have fallen off too. So that, these things altogether—I do not want to labour the point and I only want to put these few facts before the Minister —all go to show that there is really a good case for a more generous grant than we have got here. I do not take the attitude of always crying for more, but the agricultural problem that exists to-day is largely of the Government's making, and it is their duty, I think, to come more generously to our aid in this matter.

Mr. Holohan

I should like to make my protest against the smallness of this Supplementary Grant of £150,000, especially at such a time as the present moment, when there is such a large amount of depression amongst the farming community through no fault of their own. I look upon this amount as altogether inadequate. I think that, if it was meant to give relief to the farmers to anything like the extent that is required or necessary at the present moment, it would require the doubling of the whole Agricultural Grant at the present moment, not to speak of this amount of £150,000. The condition of agriculture throughout the country was never worse than it is at the moment, and the allowances and assistance that we are getting to help the industry mean very little considering the amount we are losing through other burdens that we cannot help having imposed upon us.

This amount of £150,000, in addition to what is already granted, is welcome, but I venture to say that, in distributing this £150,000 amongst the agricultural community, the amount that the owner of land will receive will be very small. Last year, when things were somewhat better than they are now, the Agricultural Grant was reduced by £448,000. That put an additional burden on the rates in the country I represent of about 1/8 in the £. Therefore, it was very much harder for the rate collectors to collect the rates owing to the high rate that was fixed for the county last year. Many of those ratepayers have been brought to court and decreed for the amount. I know of certain cases where people have been brought to court and decreed for their rates. They are forced to pay, and they are leaving their homes practically without food or without sufficient for themselves and their families to live on. If any relief is to be brought about by this Agricultural Grant, the amount of £150,000 is only a trifle, and it should be doubled in order to bring about any relief. I am not now going into the fact that the agricultural community is in a bad way. We have pointed that out on a few occasions, and perhaps there will be other occasions for doing so. I am altogether dissatisfied with the amount of this Agricultural Grant, and I believe it will be of little use. If the Government was any way decent the least they could do would be to double the grant in order to give some relief to the farmers.

Mr. O'Donovan

I desire to join in the protest against the amount of this grant. I was not here for the Minister's opening statement, but I understand that he said the Government had increased the grant. Reading through it, I cannot see anything in it, except a reduction of well over £300,000, and that at a time when the agricultural community is not able to pay its way. The small farmer is singled out as the type of man that this Government is inclined to bolster up. Speaking for a constituency which consists 90 per cent. of small farmers, I can tell the Government that their position is very bad. They have to bear the burdens imposed by tariffs. These are heavy items. Agriculturists have also to face the loss of their markets.

There has been no increase in the price of agricultural products as a result of the industries that the Minister for Industry and Commerce says he has established in this State. There has been no increase in the price of butter, bacon, eggs, beef or anything that the small or the big farmer produces. As a result of tariffs on agricultural machinery farmers have to bear big burdens. I may say, without decrying native industry, that it will be necessary for someone to look into the quality of machinery made here, such as plough parts, spring tooth-harrows, forks, spades and shovels. Speaking from experience, I say it would be cheaper for me to pay the tariffs on the imported article than to purchase the home-manufactured articles. I am not saying that to decry native industry, but our manufacturers need to be reminded that their products are not up to the mark. When they got protection, at the expense of the agricultural community, they should rise to the occasion and should produce articles as good as any coming on the market.

This Government has been recalling what the previous Government did. It does not matter to the agricultural community what the previous Government did. This Government has run away from promises made at the election that put them into office. They promised full derating of agriculture but they have not given it. Agriculture is now in a much worse position than it was. Deputy Belton mentioned a very important matter concerning the new scheme to utilise the Supplementary Grant. He referred to farmers with families, whose sons over 17 years of age will get an allowance. These sons have reached the age at which they are useful and a help, but farmers with families of seven, eight or nine children where the sons have not reached 17, are not to get relief. They will get nothing under this scheme. To put it mildly, it is not right to discriminate in such a case, either in the case of a big or a small farmer. Farmers want assistance when their families are young and if State assistance is given at all, it is then it is most needed. I hope the Government will reconsider that matter. There is little good in dealing with this grant at any length. I suppose farmers will get no more relief. No matter how farmers suffer, the policy is to wipe them out and to make room for another class that does not know anything about agriculture. If this Government is in office when that time comes I do not know how they will face the problem of providing Supplementary Grants, or of dealing with rates and the collection of rates. Do they mean to live up to the promises they made at the election? As I am going to deal with that question, I am sorry to observe that there is not a single representative of agriculture on the Fianna Fáil Benches.

Mr. Donnelly

There is.

Mr. O'Donovan

Is there any representative of agriculture on the Govern ment Benches? They are afraid to be here. I suppose their conscience is pricking them, and they have not forgotten the promise of full derating that was made to the agricultural community. They have the sense to remain outside the House while this Vote is being discussed, but the country will remember it for them, and for the Government, because there is disappointment all over. There will be a rude awakening some day.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Curran said that the increase in the rates between last year and the previous year in the South Riding of Tipperary equalled the entire amount levied in rates upon that area in the pre-war years, and that the tendency in that part of the country for a number of years was for rates to increase. It is true that in most counties the rates have been moving upwards for a number of years, since the boards of assistance undertook the responsibility of providing for able-bodied destitute persons. Deputy Curran forgot to remind the Dáil that the charge for maintaining able-bodied unemployed persons has now been taken on to the Central Fund, and to the extent that that charge increased the rates in any part of the country, the operation of the Unemployment Assistance Act, when it is in full operation, will effect a considerable reduction in the rates, particularly in county council areas. In urban areas, and in county borough areas, there is a levy on the rateable valuation to provide portion of the Unemployment Assistance Fund. There is no levy on the county council areas. The full benefit of that Act in these areas should take the form of a substantial reduction in the rates. Deputies also forgot to remind the Dáil that, despite the fact that the Unemployment Assistance Act in its operation will mean a reduction in the rates in county council areas, we are, nevertheless, increasing the Agricultural Grant in this year by £220,000. Deputies opposite have been speaking as if we were reducing the grant.

Mr. Belton

Over what year?

Mr. Lemass

We reduced the grant last year because, in that year, for the first time, farmers were getting the full benefit of the reduction in the land annuities.

Mr. Belton

What are you talking about? Are we not paying them twice to Britain?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

Mr. Lemass

Deputies opposite frame a number of stock speeches which they deliver regularly at every cross-roads in the country. They are still delivering them, even though the facts of the situation have changed. That is why we had all the Deputies opposite speaking as if they had a new reason for deploring a reduction in the grant, when, in fact, it is being increased, and has been fixed this year at £22,000 higher than it was ever fixed by our predecessors.

Deputy Belton entered into a long statistical argument designed to prove that it was unfair to criticise the Cumann na nGaedheal Government on the amount of relief they provided in their last year of office. We should give them credit, he said, for the amount they might have provided in the following year if the unkind voters had not put them out of existence in time.

Mr. Belton

How much did you provide?

Mr. Lemass

We prefer to judge our predecessors by their performances. They provided, in the one year in which they provided most for local rates, a smaller sum than is now being provided and the larger sum that is now being provided has got to be related to the reduction in rates to be anticipated from the operation of the Unemployment Assistance Act and to the fact that the land annuities were halved last year. Deputies forget——

Mr. Holohan

They have reason to forget.

Mr. Belton

They will have to forget it.

Mr. Lemass

Deputies forget that the cash charges on farmers have been substantially reduced.

Deputies

Nonsense.

Mr. Lemass

The land annuities have been halved. The sum provided for the relief of rates is being increased and the rates themselves are being reduced in consequence of the transfer to the Central Fund from local funds of the one charge which was causing the most substantial rise in the rates for years past. The rates in many counties are still too high. They are high due to the mismanagement of local affairs by inefficient councils. At the last election, in many counties in Ireland, majorities of incompetent ward-heelers were elected who have been since mismanaging the affairs of local authorities and imposing unnecessary burdens——

Mr. McMenamin

What counties are you referring to?

Mr. Lemass

The majority of them. Next week I hope that situation is going to be remedied.

Mr. McMenamin

Wait and see.

Mr. Lemass

Instead of these incompetents, who have been imposing unnecessary burdens on the backs of the ratepayers, we shall get people prepared to co-operate with the Government in providing an efficient service at the lowest cost. What do Deputies opposite want?

Interruptions.

An Ceann Comhairle

There are two Deputies in this House whom I shall not warn again for interrupting. I presume I need not name them.

Mr. T. Kelly

You need not name them.

Mr. Lemass

Deputies opposite have been talking about derating. They said that Fianna Fáil promised derating. We faced up to the position last year whether or not it was advisable to derate agricultural land.

Mr. Holohan

You did promise derating.

Mr. Lemass

We had all the money we required to do it last year. The Government could have done it last year.

Mr. O'Donovan

You did not stand up to your promise.

Mr. Lemass

It was merely a question of the wisdom of the policy. We decided instead of derating agricultural land to reduce the land annuities by half and it took a larger sum to do that. If, instead of reducing the land annuities, we had derated agricultural land entirely there would have been a substantial saving to the Exchequer.

Mr. O'Donovan

You made a lovely mess of it.

Mr. Lemass

Do Deputies opposite want to derate agricultural land? Deputy Curran says he does. Deputy Belton says he does. Do any of the others? Is that a policy of theirs? Does Deputy Cosgrave want to derate agricultural land? Is there anybody on the benches opposite who can speak with authority for that Party and say what its policy is on that matter?

Mr. Cosgrave

Do you want an answer?

Mr. Holohan

The farmers have to pay the land annuities twice over and they have not got derating.

Mr. Lemass

Does Deputy Cosgrave stand for derating agricultural land entirely?

Mr. Cosgrave

Do you want an answer now?

Mr. Lemass

"Yes" or "no."

Mr. Cosgrave

Do you want an answer now?

Mr. Lemass

It is going to be a quibble because he cannot express it in one syllable.

Mr. O'Donovan

He cannot quibble like you.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Belton said he is, but the General did not say it. Deputy Belton proposed a resolution in favour of derating at the last Cumann na nGaedheal Convention and he nearly caused a split—Deputy Belton on one side and the rest of the organisation on the other—fifty-fifty !

Mr. Belton

That is what you hoped for, but it did not come off.

Mr. Donnelly

It very nearly did.

Mr. Lemass

The Party opposite would be well advised, as I often told them before, never to initiate a discussion in regard to any matter until they have made up their minds upon it. Deputy Bennett was asked if he advocated derating of agricultural land and he refused to say.

Mr. Bennett

Why should I?

Mr. Lemass

He said that we could find that out for ourselves. How can we find that out if the Deputy does not state his views?

Mr. Bennett

You will not make me responsible for your policy.

Mr. Lemass

The policy of the Party opposite is to keep their attitude on this question secret.

Mr. Belton

We will perform what we promise.

Mr. Lemass

What are you promising?

Mr. Belton

There is time enough for that.

Mr. Lemass

If by any misfortune the Party opposite should get control of affairs in this country again, would they or would they not derate agricultural land?

Mr. Belton

We would.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Belton would and Deputy Curran would and the rest would not. Can you not agree amongst yourselves before you start talking about it?

Mr. Holohan

We will agree.

Mr. Lemass

I know there are three Deputies opposite who would agree to derating—three for, and 55 against. No doubt, in their own minds, they are the most important section in the Party but there are 55 who will vote against it and who used their votes at the Party Convention when the question came up for decision. There are Deputies opposite at the moment who considered this question of derating, who had before them, as a Government, the report of the Commission on Derating, and who brought forward in this House arguments against derating which had considerable weight behind them, arguments which they considered justified them in refusing to carry out a policy of completely derating agricultural land. There would be consequences direct and indirect of such a policy which would make it very unwise for anybody to adopt it without knowing clearly where it was likely to end. So far as the farmer is concerned what really matters to him is a reduction of his total charges.

Mr. Holohan

Exactly.

Mr. Lemass

When we had available a sum that would have derated agricultural land entirely we decided to avoid the undesirable consequences that might have arisen from the adoption of a derating policy and to give the farmer the same relief, in fact greater relief, in another way. The whole position of local government, the whole system of administration, is bound up with this question. That matter will be discussed here, no doubt, this year when the Bill dealing with the local government system, which has been promised, is introduced and at that time it will be open to Deputies to advocate any particular policy they like in that regard, but they cannot get away from this: that the annual amount required to derate agricultural land, if provided, would have meant a smaller cash benefit to the farmer than the single benefit of the reduction of the land annuities which he has already received. He has got, therefore, in respect of his total charges that 50 per cent. reduction in his land annuities——

Mr. O'Donovan

He has not.

Mr. Lemass

——and that measure of relief in respect of his rates which the figure of £1,970,000 represents, going, we admit, much more to the small farmer and to the farmer who employs labour, than to the farmer who does not. In addition, he has got, as the result of Government action in relation to the relief of unemployment, the prospect of reduced rates in future. Over and above all that he has got the prospect of securing efficiency in local administration and economy in local expenditure by his own efforts if he uses his head in the present elections.

Mr. Cosgrave

The Minister apparently was rambling a little bit in his statements, one of which certainly intrigued me. He, in effect, said that if there is a reduction in the land annuities coming to the farmers during the year it is by means of the Land Act passed here last year. The Minister is not a farmer or a Land Commission annuitant. I do not think anyone of the nine members on the benches opposite at the present moment is. Looking round me here, I suppose five-sixths of the Deputies on those benches are annuitants. What are the facts? The May and June annuities were paid, or they had the responsibility for them in full last year. Anybody who did not pay them has to pay 4½ per cent., 1 per cent. over what the Minister pays, and ½ per cent. towards the principal; that is 5 per cent. That is what the Minister calls an advantage. What does the State gain? It gained £1,000,000 in November and December. They got £1,000,000 which they had not to pay out; they were ignoring the Hogan Act. The State had £2,000,000 funded last year that is owed in land annuities. The Minister told us that the farmers got off with 50 per cent. of the land annuities last year.

Mr. Lemass

They only paid 25 per cent. last year.

Mr. Cosgrave

The Minister says they only paid 25 per cent. last year. If the Minister were in business and a man came into his shop and gets delivery of £4 worth of goods and the Minister said I will put £2 against you in the books, and I will charge you 5 per cent. interest on it for the next 50 years. I will take 50 per cent. in cash that is the other £2.

Mr. MacEntee

Where does the Deputy get the figure of 5 per cent.?

Mr. Cosgrave

Four and a half per cent.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy said 5 per cent.

Mr. Cosgrave

We will give the Minister four and a half. He is paying three and a half and charging four and a half for a debt which is not his, and which he has no right to, and which the State has no right to. The Minister for Industry and Commerce went on to say that when the Unemployment Assistance Act was in full operation it would reduce the rates. In answer to a question from Deputy Broderick in reference to the Unemployment Assistance Act when the Deputy wanted to know whether if the local body in Cork paid out they would be recouped when the Act came into operation the Minister said he had no such power. Last year when they stopped £440,000 out of the Agricultural Grant the Government pleaded that they were going to spend £450,000 on unemployment assistance. So far as the farmers were concerned they allowed them one-quarter of last year's annuities. Some of the farmers paid the May and June instalments in full and if they did not it was put down against them and they will have to pay, and the sheriff sent out to collect the amounts from them very probably. The land annuities have been halved, we are told. What would it have cost the Ministry to derate last year? Probably £1,500,000 or £1,750,000. Did they expect to collect the land annuities last year when they were imposing something like £3,000,000 upon the people at the same time? The Minister says that there is £22,000 more granted this year than in the peak time of the last Administration. I looked up the returns, for 1932-33, in respect to tariffs placed upon goods which farmers have to buy. There was no way out of it. The farmers had to buy goods, such as harness, phosphates and things of that sort, and I counted up £50,000. So that the Government collected at least £50,000 on this class of goods and they are handing back £22,000 and yet they tell us that the farmers are doing well. As far as the farmers are to benefit by the operations of the Unemployment Assistance Act the sooner they get it the better.

I should like to know whether the case in Kilkenny is an exceptional case. The county council there, with its Fianna Fáil chairman, has been abolished. That is the old county council; no opportunity was offered to the new county council which would be elected at the coming elections. What are the facts? They raised a rate that came within £3,873 of the amount they raised in the previous year, but the contribution was less by £57,000 from the Government towards the Kilkenny County Council. The county council collected within £3,800 of the previous year but they lost £57,000 in Government grants compared to what they had the previous year. In other words, they were expecting to get £60,000 more.

This Vote is getting into the position of other Votes. There is a nominal Vote for £1,750,000 but how much are the county councils going to get out of that? How much was there deducted last year from the agricultural grants through the nonpayment of the land annuities?

Mr. Lemass

Your Party could give more information on that.

Mr. Cosgrave

At any rate, the Minister does not like that point mentioned. What counts with the farmers and ratepayers on agricultural land is what they are going to get. You talk of £2,000,000 but we soon find that only £1,500,000 is all that counts. From the time the Land Commission was taken over from England, and we went out of office, it will be found that in the whole of the ten years the sum of £20,000 was deducted from the Guarantee Fund and added to the unpaid instalments due to the Land Commission, and consequently liable for deduction for the Annuity Fund. So that as between 1922 and 1932 the actual deduction from the agricultural grants annually and the consequent loss of assistance to agriculture was £20,000. How much does it differ now? Out of £1,750,000 how much is to be paid in relief of rates in the country and what is the sum that is likely to materialise out of that sum?

Mr. Lemass

The whole of it.

Mr. Cosgrave

It comes very badly from a Ministry who, when in Opposition were always telling the people about the advantages and rights of democracy now, when they are slightly intoxicated with autocracy, to be crying out "let us dissolve the incompetent county councils of the country." How many Ministers opposite ever sat on a county council or know anything about the working of county councils? How many of them know anything about the position of farmers or their losses. Deputy Curran told us a few days ago about a farmer who had £960 of savings, two years ago, and has not a penny to-day. Look at the papers this afternoon and you will see the depression in the prices of cattle in Dublin to-day. Last year when there was a successful sale at the Royal Dublin Society Show Ministers boasted of our high-class breeding stock, and of the good prices they got. But follow the sales of stock in the country and there you will see a drop, and for what reason? The reason is that no industry in any country has suffered as much in two years as the agricultural industry in this country has suffered.

Mr. Donnelly

The cattle trade.

Mr. Cosgrave

More than the cattle trade; practically all branches of agriculture. There is no use in Ministers getting up and saying that farmers were advised to sell oats or other things and not to keep on to stock. When men are pushed for money, must they not cash in their goods? Those who have reserves may hold on, but the man who is pressed all along the line cannot hold on, in face of a visit from the sheriff. The sheriff was never more busily employed than he has been during the last 12 months.

Mr. Donnelly

He was—under your Government.

Mr. Cosgrave

Not in the whole history of this country, even during the worst days of the Land League, was the sheriff so busily employed as he is at present. Why blind yourselves to the fact? Is it not well known that the present position cannot continue? You are endeavouring to get from people what they have not got. You are endeavouring to get from them money which they cannot make out of their industry. It is no pleasure to have to make that case.

We ought to be able to deal with political questions separately. Economic questions should not form the subject of baton charges or revolvers and this is almost entirely an economic question. If it be an economic question, pick out any 12 Fianna Fáil farmers and compare their position with what it was 12 months ago or two years ago. Get the facts from them if you are so prejudiced that you will not take them from those who speak with knowledge from this side of the House. I am hearing, day after day, from various parts of the country of the position of affairs. The people here in Dublin, I am told, do not know anything about the conditions. In certain parts of the country, they are eating potatoes three times a day because they have not got the money to buy flour. This is not a laughing matter; it is a very serious matter.

Mr. Donnelly

Where is that?

Mr. Cosgrave

I shall give the names of the two counties privately but I shall not mention them here. I had the information from a man who has come to-day direct from one county and I received the information about the other county last week. Could it be otherwise having regard to the colossal drop in the export trade of the country? It is nonsense to say that the only phase of this industry that is suffering is the cattle trade. Deputy Bennett knows a great deal about the horse trade. He can tell the House of the number of men with saleable horses who have to sell them at a sacrifice if they sell them at all. To my own knowledge, two men have had to part with animals at half the price which they would, in other circumstances, have received. Consequently, in my view, the Dáil is not in possession of full information regarding the value to the agricultural community of this Vote. I think that the Minister might inform the House of the sum actually paid out in cash in relief of rates last year.

Mr. Brodrick

Deputy Curran mentioned that the object of the Government seemed to be to put the big farmer out of existence. Whether intentional or not, I think that the same thing applies to the small farmer. The Government have taken great credit for the increase in the Agricultural Grant. In the West, the increase in the Agricultural Grant is practically counter-balanced by the increase in home assistance, caused also by the policy of the Government. In that way it is of no benefit whatsoever. The Minister for Industry and Commerce tells us that in future the rates will decrease owing to the operation of the Unemployment Assistance Act. I should like to remind the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance of the resolution passed a short time ago by the Connemara Comhairle Ceanntair Fianna Fáil condemning the Unemployment Assistance Act as demoralising the people of Connemara and creating idleness there. That is the Act the Minister for Industry and Commerce cites as giving relief to the ratepayers.

Some people entitled to assistance under that Act will receive as low as 10d. per week. A sum of 10d. per week is going to save the able-bodied unemployed, after cycling seven or eight miles to an employment exchange. I came across a man in my own constituency not long ago who had one of these forms to fill up for a farm of a valuation of £20 or over. He asked me to assist him in filling it. He told me that he had one brother who was partially disabled and he did not know whether he would put him in as employed on the farm or not, as he was not able to do anything. In filling the form, he said that it was quite possible that he would not come under the Unemployment Assistance Act and that he could not get home assistance. The boy referred to is disabled in one hand. He was in the Post Office service for some time. Since then, I asked this man if he had received any word from the authorities and he said that he had not got a halfpenny under any of the three headings—relief under £20 valuation, unemployment assistance or home assistance.

The Government state that they are giving great relief to farmers with holdings under £10 valuation. That would, certainly, be a relief to farmers in the West who have very small holdings. But the relief they get is a credit docket for 19/9 on a £10 valuation. To receive that credit docket, the farmer must have his rates paid before July. That means that they have to be paid before the coming month. That is impossible at present because, though the rates on these little farms are small, the farmers find it practically impossible to pay them. I know several farmers who had up to ten or 12 breeding sheep and who had to dispose of those, with their lambs, in order to pay their second moiety this year and their annuities. In several cases which I know that has happened. It may be said that there is an increase in the price of breeding sheep and of lambs. There was, certainly, a bit of an increase but the prices have fallen back again. The worst feature of the position is that breeding sheep and lambs were cleared out of Galway to meet the second moiety of the rates and the land annuities and there have been no replacements on that land. That is the position down there and this increase in the Agricultural Grant is of no benefit whatsoever. That is counteracted by the increase in home assistance. When the grants were reduced some time ago by the Government it meant an increase in the rates in County Galway of in or about 1/5 in the £.

There is another point. It is said that the people are only hit in the case of big cattle. The people in the County Galway are being hit just as badly in the case of their young cattle as they are in the case of the big cattle. As regards the slaughtering of calves, would it not be a much better policy to send to the West of Ireland the calves that they are slaughtering in the South of Ireland? The position in the West of Ireland at present is that you have to pay up to £2 for a three-day-old calf while the policy of slaughtering calves is being carried out in the South of Ireland. I paid that sum myself for three-day-old calves in Ballygar, where Deputy Killilea comes from.

Mr. MacEntee

Did you tell that to Deputy Bennett?

Mr. Brodrick

I am telling the Minister about it now. Send us the calves that you are slaughtering in the South of Ireland and we will feed them. It would be a much better policy than the one you are carrying out.

Mr. MacEntee

I think that the Deputy ought to make a deal with Deputy Bennett.

Mr. Brodrick

We could make a deal with Deputy Bennett if the Minister for Agriculture had not interfered and introduced this policy of slaughtering calves. We are now paying in the West of Ireland £2 and £2 5s. for these three-day-old calves, while we have two and two-and-half-year-old cattle selling at £4. We are told that the farmers are prosperous and that agriculture is paying. I have given instances to show that that is not so. As long as that position continues, no matter what relief you give, it will not help the farmer and leaving out altogether the additional burden that has been put on him by the tariff policy of the Government.

Mr. Finlay

As a representative of the farming community, I want to protest against the unjust and unfair position in which the farmers of the country have been put by the policy of the present Government. I have been a member of the Leix County Council for the last 18 years. It has now been abolished. Last year our rate was up by £32,000. The collection was £84,000, which was very good. This year, out of a rate of £136,000, we have collected £96,000. I think that was a very good collection. Was it because of dissatisfaction with the rate collection that the county council was abolished? I do not think I would be doing my duty if I did not protest against the way the farming community is being treated by the Government. I was in the Dublin market to-day and had five beasts to sell. They only made £8 5s., or about 17/- per cwt. It is very hard to expect farmers to pay rents, rates and taxes out of the prevailing prices for cattle. The Government alone is to be blamed for the present state of affairs.

The Government say that they have reduced the land annuities. The position is that the farmers are paying the land annuities twice and three times over. It is the Englishman and the people across the Border who are making money out of the present situation. The Government tell us that the charges on our land have been reduced by about £2,500,000. I say that is not so. The losses in connection with horses are as great as they are on cattle. If I have a wellbred colt, that would be worth £70 or £80 to sell, all I can get for him is about £40. Someone across the Border buys him and gets £80 for him, so that I lose £40 on the animal. I am ashamed to say that it is the Government is responsible for the present position of the farmers. Last year the grant to Leix County Council was £16,000. This year we got nothing. As a matter of fact, this year, before we struck the rate, we had no information from the Government about the grants.

The £448,000 which used to be given in relief of rates has, of course, been cut away by the present Government. We were told that we were getting that money in another way—through a reduction in the land annuities. That is not so because we are now paying our land annuities three times over. The farmers have been reduced to this position that all they can get for a 10-cwt. beast is £8 5s. Will any man tell me how a farmer is going to stock his land with such prices prevailing? The prices farmers are getting for their cattle now are not sufficient to enable them to buy clothes for their families, leaving aside the other demands that are made on them. I am sorry the Minister for Agriculture is not here because I wanted to tell him that the farmer is not getting fair play. I do not want to say anything against the Minister for Agriculture, but I think that I have forgotten more about farming than he ever learned. Deputy Briscoe said something yesterday about the growing of tobacco. I want to tell the Deputy that I grew and sold more tobacco than he ever will.

Mr. Donnelly

And you made a good profit out of it.

Mr. Finlay

Yes. Deputy Donnelly represents the agricultural constituency of Leix-Offaly. It would be very interesting to hear him tell how agriculture can be made pay considering the position that it is in at the moment.

General Mulcahy

The absence from the House of the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Agriculture during this discussion is very remarkable. Deputy Cosgrave has pointed out that the Minister for Finance did not indicate the amount of money that is to come to the relief of rates on agricultural land during the coming year. Both for the farming community and those responsible for the administration of local government that is the important thing. Deputy Cosgrave has referred to the position of the County Kilkenny. Last year in that county the county council there raised a rate that came within £3,873 of the amount they raised from the ratepayers in the previous year, while the grants from Government sources were £57,493 less.

The Kilkenny County Council is gone on the ground that their financial position was not properly looked after. The Waterford County Council is gone, too, and the position with regard to the Waterford County Council was that last year the county council paid £25,969 less than they paid the year before, but from Government sources they got £55,856 less. The Waterford County Council is gone, after, I think, about five hours' inquiry, on the ground that their financial position was not properly looked after and safeguarded. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance has been threatening the county council in Cork that, if the result of the coming elections does not give them a different county council from that which they have at present, the Cork County Council will go the way of the Waterford and Kilkenny County Councils.

The Minister has been complaining to the Cork County Council that the collection of rates was making very unsatisfactory progress and the chairman of the Cork County Council, in a very reasonable and a very calm way, pointed out that, by the end of March last, the Council had collected £46,000 more in rates than last year. There was no information as to the amount of money less paid by the Government in grants—road grants, agricultural grants, or any other grants—but we may take it that if the Kilkenny County Council suffered a deduction of £57,000 and the Waterford County Council a deduction of £55,000, the deduction in the case of Cork County Council must have been very considerably more, because the relative amount normally spent by the Cork County Council, both from its own resources and from Government grants, is very much bigger than the amounts spent in the smaller counties of Waterford and Kilkenny and they are to go if their financial position is not better. Will the Minister tell us in what way the Government is going to assist these county councils to put their finances in a better position during the coming year? It must be perfectly clear to him that the ratepayers in Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford, or any other county, are not going to be better able to support the burden that will fall on their shoulders for the cost of local government this year than they were last year. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to show that they are going to be in a worse position.

The Minister is perfectly aware that the sheriff is active throughout the country and that rate collectors are now being forced, against their own judgment, and against the judgment of the courts they have gone before, to distrain on people who are unable to pay their rates. There have been several declarations by district justices recently and, I think, a few of the declarations will be indicative of the very widespread condition of distress. At Dundrum, in County Tipperary, in the middle of April last, the district justice who was dealing with the cases of persons who had been brought into his court for arrears of rates, is reported in the Irish Press of 13th April, as follows:—

"Mr. A. O'Donohoe, D.J., dealing with the cases said that the evidence disclosed a pitiable condition of things which was crying out for some alleviation from some source or another. He thought the local authority ought to be in a position not to bring these cases at all. The collector could do nothing because if he did not take action there was some peculiar machinery by which he was held responsible for the debt."

There you have a district justice, sitting in court, hearing all the evidence, having all the facts put before him, and looking at it in a detached and judicial way and that is what he says with regard to the cases of a certain number of Tipperary farmers. On that occasion, there were 25 Tipperary farmers before the court in Dundrum where the rate collector had taken them directly to get an order in respect of their rates, and that was the opinion of the district justice. Deputy Cosgrave has pointed out that, day by day, we see a jolt down in the prices the farmers are getting for their produce and the Minister knows very well, as I say, that the farmers of South Tipperary, where there is a commissioner working at present, are not going to be in any better position next year to provide their rates than they were last year. He put this Estimate before us and Deputy Cosgrave points out that there is no information as to whether the county council in Tipperary is not going to be in as bad a way, from the point of view of Government grants, this year as they were last year, or whether they are not even going to be in a worse position. Limerick County Council protested, some time in March last, that the total amount of money being withheld from the county council, to meet default in annuities, was £88,000. The Minister has had the Wexford County Council deciding not to strike the rate of 7¾d. in the £ required to raise the sum equivalent to the amount deducted from the Agricultural Grant for the year ended March, 1934, in respect of arrears of land purchase annuities.

The condition of the farmers has been commented on by a district justice in Edenderry as well, and by a district justice in Clonmel. The district justice in Clonmel, dealing with the matter in April, said that he had given the people as much time as he possibly could to pay their rates but that now the situation had gone to such a point that he would not enter into the question of giving them time any more, but that he would leave it to the rate collector to carry out, without reference to him or the courts, and that any order the rate collector asked for he would give it, apart altogether from the merits of the case.

Mr. MacEntee

Would the Deputy quote the district justice's statement?

General Mulcahy

The statement was made on 25th April, 1933. District Justice Troy, in court, said:—

"I gave all the time I could to people who were unable to pay. Now I have made up my mind to leave it in the collector's hands to deal with the people who are willing, but unable, to pay."

That is, he takes even his court out of the situation and says, I am not going to have my court used to examine these facts. It is no use, and I am going to give any decree I am asked for, even though the person is unable to pay, if he express willingness to pay. I have to leave it to the rate collector to deal with his own particular statutory responsibility, and the rate collector will be responsible.

Mr. MacEntee

A district justice is not entitled to do that, and there is nobody knows that better than the Deputy.

General Mulcahy

Then, the Minister's attitude, I take it, is that he disagrees with justices, who, having examined the position of certain farmers, found as is declared in the statement.

Mr. MacEntee

I am putting it that the district justice was fed up with the fictitious cases put up to him as grounds for non-payment of rates.

General Mulcahy

Oh, I see.

Mr. Belton

I hope that will be framed in the Irish Press to-morrow, so that the country may see the mentality of the Minister.

General Mulcahy

That is a very interesting side-light on the Minister's mentality.

Mr. Belton

You will get a worse re ception than you got last Sunday, if you make that speech.

Mr. MacEntee

And you will get a worse reception than you got in Finglas.

Mr. Belton

I will meet you in Finglas at any time, or any of the "bowsies" who support you there.

General Mulcahy

Nevertheless, the Minister sitting on his seat here, or in his office in Government Buildings, cannot put his own interpretation on statements. The statements do not affect the facts, and the facts are that in the various courts throughout the country, the district justices, examining the cases, have declared that a pitiable state of affairs exists.

The only comfort that District Justice Troy seemed to have in his own mind is that the line of action he was taking in withdrawing even whatever power he had to order a period for repayment was:

"I cannot see the majority of the farmers without the necessities of life, considering that they have land they can produce."

He comforts himself, at any rate, that they can have a few potatoes, a drop of milk, a bit of butter and a couple of eggs, if they cannot have what the rate collector has come to seize.

The Minister for Agriculture completely keeps out of this picture. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health completely keeps out of this picture; but the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is so busy that he cannot tell where the 100 individual factories that he has are, can spare the time to come into this House and argue about the position of the farmers and their position with regard to local government. It is a nice commentary on the line of approach the Executive Council are taking generally as a reasonable examination of what the position is. The Minister should tell this House how much greater the grants from Government sources are going to be to each local authority during the coming year than the grants that were got last year. Unless they are substantially greater then we are going to have the position that many of the county councils will be found to be unsatisfactory by reason of their financial position, and, perhaps, awkward public representatives are going to be cleared out of their representative positions. If the district justices are fading out of the picture as people who are prepared to review the facts and state their opinions about them, or if they are being pushed out of the picture, there will, in a certain number of counties at any rate, be a certain number of county councillors who will be prepared to do that. But the Minister is preparing for the removal or the suppression of county councils on the ground that their financial position is not properly looked after. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is so busy with his factories that he does not know where they are, comes in here on this Vote to cover up the flank of the Minister for Finance and to hide the Minister for Agriculture, and asks what is our policy with regard to derating. Our policy is that the Government should make such financial arrangements for the agricultural community that neither the rates on agricultural land nor the land annuities should be collected from them.

Mr. Donnelly

I have been listening to this debate for some time. It is just one long recital, jeremiad after jeremiad, a wail of woe repeated by every Deputy who has got up to speak from the Opposition side. Certainly, the most attractive suggestion, the best suggestion and the best remark during this debate was made by the Leader of the Opposition. It was the best remark made here for a considerable time, in my opinion, if he does not mind my saying so. That was when he said this evening that the economic question is one and the political question is another. There is no one on these benches who would not agree with that. We do. Look at this from the economic standpoint and look at it leaving out any political issue and any other issue. We have heard from the Opposition Benches the cure and the panacea for all the woes of the farming community summed up by Deputy Belton in the words "Settle the economic war"——

Mr. Belton

That is the big thing.

Mr. Donnelly

Deputy Belton made a long speech this afternoon and I am sorry I did not hear it all. It was hardly right to expect that he would be in a normal condition this evening. The Deputy has had too many people to debate with through the country, too many opponents.

Mr. Belton

I discussed the question with them. It was only the Minister who was run out of Balbriggan.

Mr. Donnelly

Well, I could hardly expect Deputy Belton to be in a normal condition. These things react and people do not think normally in a state of excitement. But the economic end is one and the political end is another. It is an awful pity before Deputy Cosgrave made that statement that some Deputy from the Opposition could not get Mr. Chamberlain to have said that the other night and Deputies on the Opposition seem to have influence there. Mr. Chamberlain does not think that the economic and the political issues should be separated and he said so. Deputy Belton, who is so fond of quoting figures, says: "Settle the economic war." His cure for all these questions is to settle the economic war. It is a pity he could not get Mr. Chamberlain to settle the economic war. It is a pity that the figures given by Chamberlain did not agree with the figures given by Deputy Belton.

Mr. Belton

On a point of correction. I quoted Mr. Neville Chamberlain's figures in the House.

Mr. Donnelly

When?

Mr. Belton

I gave the figure at £4,500,000. That was the figure given by him.

Mr. Curran

On a point of order. When I was speaking on this Vote I was told by the Ceann Comhairle that this was a question of the agricultural grant and that nothing else should be brought into it. I was kept to that point. If Deputy Donnelly wants to talk about the economic war we should all be allowed to talk about it, but I was prevented from touching on it and was kept down to the agricultural grant and no more.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

A discussion of the economic war is not in order but the Deputy has only made a passing reference to it and I expect he is not pursuing that line.

Mr. Donnelly

Exactly. Deputy Belton is fond of quoting figures but he did not mention that Mr. Chamberlain said it was not a question of cash. Deputy Belton says "Settle the economic war." He gave us figures, too. Mr. Chamberlain said it is not a question of money. There are very big political issues involved. We have been asked by Deputy Cosgrave to separate the political issues from the economic issues. If I said that Deputy Belton was not thinking on the right lines owing to political excitement I could give an instance of that. Deputy Mulcahy came along on the question of annuities and rates and made a number of points. Is there any sane man who can stand for one moment in defence of the Laoighis County Council? Is there any Deputy here, knowing the circumstances, the arrears of rates, the maladministration and knowing everything that has occurred, would stand for a moment and keep a body of that kind in office?

Mr. Belton

Might I ask the Deputy was it the people of Laoighis elected that council?

Mr. Donnelly

It was not a majority of our supporters. Fianna Fáil was not in a majority on that council, if that is what the Deputy means, and they refused to accept any responsibility for it. Its suppression was due to nothing else but incompetence and maladministration by the county councillors and there is no doubt about that. There is no doubt that the County Council of Laoighis has suffered for years because of the action of that body. We know why Waterford and Kilkenny County Councils have been wiped out. In Kilkenny only 50 per cent. of the rates were collected. That certainly could not be looked upon by anybody as satisfactory. I am surprised that Deputy Mulcahy, who was former Minister for Local Government and Public Health himself, could defend a body like that being kept in existence.

General Mulcahy

They were only £3,000 below last year, while the Ministry were £57,000 below last year.

Mr. Donnelly

The amount of rates collected was only 50 per cent. of the total sum levied. Is not that so? Deputy Cosgrave singled out the chairman of the county council as a butt for his criticism. He said the chairman was mainly the responsible person for the Kilkenny County Council. He said a Deputy of this House is the chairman of that county council. I could not see the point of a remark like that. Take the case of the Tipperary and Waterford County Councils. I say that there is no use in Deputies on the other side of the House disguising the fact that the reason things in these counties are so bad is because there was a conspiracy not to pay rates there. I hope and trust sincerely that the Government will insist on the payment of rates. Take the case of County Mayo. Deputy Mulcahy did not refer to that county. How can the people there have a 99 per cent. clean sheet—practically the whole of the rates paid? Take many other counties. How do those farmers pay the rates? There are not such big farmers in Mayo as in Tipperary and other counties and they have their rates paid. I know that in Laoighis and other places there are farmers who have the money and do not pay their rates. That is my information from these localities. They openly boasted that they would not pay the rates or annuities. As the extern Leader of the Opposition said, coming up to the time of the local elections, they would make life intolerable for the members of the Ministry and make government impossible. That is your local government policy.

Deputy Mulcahy wants to know where is the Minister for Agriculture, and where is the Minister for Local Government and all the rest. He says there is a kind of conspiracy on these benches to lead up to a certain position for the express purpose of scrapping other councils. It is no pleasure to any Deputy to sit here and listen to the wails of woe from the Opposition; to listen to the contributions that come from this alleged Farmers' Party that crept into this House under proportional representation, and would not get one seat in all Ireland if proportional representation were not in existence.

Mr. Keating

Have they not as much right to be here as you have?

Mr. Donnelly

I do not know. That is a very pointed question, and I think I should say that they have not, because they have not the intelligence.

Mr. Keating

It is only you have the right.

Mr. Donnelly

According to a number of Deputies, we ought not to be here. Our Leader, according to your campaign, is a Spaniard, and therefore we should be in Spain.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is miles away from the Estimate.

Mr. Donnelly

After all, one considers that intelligence is a great thing when one hears some of the selfish contributions that come from across there about what they have lost and what they are suffering. Deputy Belton, though he is smiling, is not happy.

Mr. Belton

Perfectly happy.

Mr. Donnelly

He wants to represent the farmers on the Dublin County Council in a week or so. I do not know what particular section of the community he represents on the Corporation. He certainly does not represent a rural constituency in the Dáil. He is the most cosmopolitan Deputy here. I do not know what particular section of the community he really does represent. Every time he stood for an agricultural constituency outside County Dublin—and he was only successful there once—he failed. I think that he lost his deposit in Offaly when he stood there. I was speaking the other day to a big farmer there, and he asked how Deputy Belton was.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What has this to do with the Estimate?

Mr. Donnelly

It has to do with what we are discussing, the state of agriculture at present.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The state of Deputy Belton has nothing to do with the state of agriculture.

Mr. Donnelly

He is the shadow Minister. This man said:—

"We had a great case for agriculture, but we had a very bad leader in Offaly. That is why he was not elected?"

If all this is true about the terrible sufferings of the farmers, how much truer must it be of other sections of the community in Deputy Belton's constituency in Dublin? I read in the paper the other day that for an empty house in Dublin the total contribution in the shape of rent by four families was £249. You would get a fair-sized farm for that, and the annuity would hardly be £249. You have half the annuities wiped out, and bounties and subsidies and every enticement to farmers to carry on. They are the spoiled children, as somebody said, of the whole community—at least any of them that I see in this particular Assembly. We have all these wails of woe about the farmers. That does not apply to the farming community as a whole. What is the explanation of so many big tillage farmers prominently supporting the present policy of the Government?

Mr. Belton

Because they pay nobody.

Mr. Donnelly

I was afraid to say that about the farmers.

Mr. Belton

You knew it.

Mr. Donnelly

I think we had better leave it at that.

Mr. Belton

It is dangerous ground. Is the Minister for Agriculture going to tell us anything?

Mr. McMenamin

I did not attempt to take part in this debate prior to your taking the Chair, but I was interrupting the Minister for Industry and Commerce with regard to a statement he made about the county councils. I tried to get the name of a particular county council but, in respect to the Chair, I desisted. I do not know whether I was wrong or not, but if I had persisted as a matter of protest I might have been removed from the House. However, that is over now. The Minister for Industry and Commerce told the House that through the incompetency of the county councils the rates have been increased. That was his contribution to the debate. He told us that these men were incapable of carrying on the business and that it was through their incompetency the rates had risen. There have been many slanders uttered in this House but that is one of the foulest ever uttered. It is quite easy for the Minister, who draws a salary of £1,000 with a free motor car, to slander a body of men, some of them the ablest men in this country, who voluntarily give their services in the administration of their respective counties. I think it is a scandalous thing that the Minister should, under the protection of this House, make a statement of that kind.

How did the rates increase? Was it through the incompetency of the county councils? Anybody who knows anything about the state of the country and what has happened knows that the Government are responsible owing to the state into which they have brought the agricultural community and the working classes in the agricultural parts of the country. They have so reduced them and put them out of employment that outdoor relief has had to be given wholesale up and down the country. The principal business of the county councils in administering the affairs of the counties has been the giving of outdoor relief as a result of this. Then the Minister has the audacity to slander this body of men. That position of affairs was brought about not through any fault of theirs but through the fault of the Government. Deputy Donnelly speaks about a body of men who crept into this House under proportional representation. That is what we hear from this great democrat, this paragon of democracy, who represents a constituency whose basic industry is agriculture. He says that half-a-dozen of the representatives of that industry crept into this House.

Mr. Donnelly

They do not represent it at all.

Mr. McMenamin

What a tragedy! They have no right to be here. I wonder does this House ever deal with the administration of agricultural affairs? It does not. Hence there should be no representative of agriculture here. The Deputy spoke of the wails of woe from the farmers because they cannot pay their rates and their rents. It is obvious that Deputy Donnelly knows nothing about the basis of rent and rates when he makes that statement. What is the basis for rents on land in this country? How were rents fixed? I think Deputy Donnelly is not doing himself justice when he dabbles in this thing, more particularly when he represents an agricultural county. Rents were fixed under the Land Acts by the Judicial Courts on the value of the prices brought in by what was produced on the farms. These courts sat from 1880 to 1886. I have the report of the time, but, unfortunately, not here. I wish I had it here for the edification of Deputy Donnelly. One of the Commissioners submitted a report in 1886, and stated that if he had then to fix the rents that he fixed in 1881, he would have halved them.

Mr. Donnelly

We have.

Mr. McMenamin

On what basis are the annuities now payable? What are they based on?

Mr. Jordan

Is this in order—the question of the annuities?

Mr. Curran

Everything is in order, judging by what Deputies on the opposite side have said.

Mr. McMenamin

I am dealing with the Agricultural Grant.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I was waiting to see the relevancy of the Deputy's remarks to the Agricultural Grant.

Mr. McMenamin

I do not know, but you permitted Deputy Donnelly to introduce it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I did not permit Deputy Donnelly to introduce the basis of the calculation of rents or annuities. I am giving the Deputy an opportunity to relate it to the matter under discussion.

Mr. McMenamin

The Deputy made the charge that the farmers were able to pay and would not pay. The farmers cannot pay either rents or rates except out of the profits they make on the land.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is going as far back as 1880 to 1886. I am giving him an opportunity to relate what he is saying to the Vote under discussion.

Mr. McMenamin

Deputy Donnelly made a charge against the farmers. I am taking this opportunity to disprove what he said. If you do not permit me to do so, well and good.

Mr. Donnelly

Deputy Belton said they would pay nothing.

Mr. Curran

It was you who said that.

Mr. Belton

And you meant the fellows who are supporting you.

Mr. McMenamin

The Minister for Industry and Commerce said the reason they did not derate land last year was because the land annuities were halved. The Minister takes absolutely no interest in the general conditions in the country and he has little knowledge of what is happening. All he does is to come in here and make reckless statements and then clear out. What are the liabilities of the farmers with regard to annuities? They come to £3,000,000. A sum of £4,552,000 was collected in tariffs and £2,000,000 was collected off the farmers by way of land annuities. In addition, there was a sum of £448,000 deducted from the Agricultural Grant. That makes a total of £6,900,000. The Minister for Industry and Commerce tells us the farmers are well able to pay their rates because the land annuities are halved. If this were a debating society, some academic society, it would be interesting and one could smile, but here we are dealing with realities and, in the present conditions of the country, the whole contention of the Government is absolutely ridiculous. I wish to join in the general protest against the reduction of this Vote.

Mr. Belton

The Minister for Industry and Commerce made a speech here that he would not dare make at any cross-roads in Ireland. He accused county councils of incompetency in running local administration. Deputy Donnelly followed him and said the Leix County Council was not competent. Go and ask the Fianna Fáil Chairman of the Leix County Council; go and ask the combination of Labour and Fianna Fáil that ran the Leix County Council on the rocks.

Mr. Donnelly

That is all nonsense; you are all wrong.

Mr. Belton

I am not, and well you know it. Let us take the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I have no desire to be personal, but if he comes here to insult local administrators, some of whom are members of this House, he should stand his ground and take a blow back for the blow he has given. He is going to get it.

Mr. Jordan

That is the stuff.

Mr. Belton

He is going to get it and why should he not? Let us take the South Tipperary County Council that was dissolved. The chairman of that body, in addition to having built up a huge business of his own, has built up probably the most efficient and the largest co-operative creamery in the world. I am referring to Mr. P.L. Ryan. And then a comparative youngster, like the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who never presided over a business of any size in his life, comes in here and insults men like that. He is going to get it when he asks for it. I put up a case here and nobody from the Government Benches has answered it. Deputy Donnelly talked up in the air. Let him come down to the ground and talk.

Mr. Donnelly

I will give you the figures.

Mr. Belton

What figures? Do you mean the £4,500,000 collected? The Minister said they halved the land annuities, and because the farmers got the benefit of that the Government reduced the Agricultural Grant by £448,000. There was a saying in my part of the country when I was a youngster going to school: "If you said that to a donkey he would knock your brains out." The land annuities were reduced by half and then what was the position? The Government said to John Bull—I beg your pardon, to the British Government—"We will not pay you the £5,000,000 a year." The British Government, speaking through their Ministers, said, "We will get it." Is there a man over there who can deny that the British have got it?

Mr. Donnelly

I deny it, for one.

Mr. Belton

What about the £4,552,000 that Mr. Neville Chamberlain two months ago said they had collected in tariffs? What about the amount President de Valera quoted a few days ago? He said that the British, through their special duties, had collected £4,482,000. I will debate this with the Deputy for a month, if he likes. We are going to have the truth out and no lies or misrepresentations are going to be shoved down our necks.

Mr. Donnelly

I want to tell you the truth, but you will not listen to it.

Mr. Belton

I have quoted what Mr. Neville Chamberlain said in the House of Commons and it has not been contradicted.

Mr. Donnelly

Is that last Monday night's statement?

Mr. Belton

I will also quote you the statement from the President where he admits the British have collected it.

Mr. Donnelly

Is it last Monday night's statement?

Mr. Belton

I am now in possession and there is nobody I would rather give way to, but I would like my friend, even if he is over there, not to walk in where angels fear to tread. Deputy Donnelly can talk of some things, but if he takes a friend's advice he will keep off agriculture.

Mr. Donnelly

Give us Monday night's figures.

Mr. Belton

Mr. Chamberlain said the British collected £4,500,000, every penny piece that the Free State Government defaulted in.

Mr. Jordan

Up to what date?

Mr. Belton

Up to the 31st March last.

Mr. Jordan

1933 or 1934?

Mr. Belton

1934.

Mr. Jordan

Right—that is what I wanted to know.

Mr. Belton

The Chancellor said that every penny piece in which the Free State Government had defaulted, and that would fall as a burden on the British taxpayer, had been collected by the British Government.

Mr. Donnelly

Nonsense!

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

He did not say that.

Mr. Donnelly

It is utter nonsense. He said nothing of the sort.

Mr. Belton

I will give way for a moment to any Deputy opposite who will produce any authentic proof that that is not the statement made by Mr. Neville Chamberlain. Who will give the proof?

Mr. J.P. Kelly rose.

Mr. Belton

I hope that this Deputy knows something of what he is going to talk about.

Mr. J.P. Kelly

The statement made in the House of Commons by Mr. Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on Monday last was this, as reported in the Press:—

"In 1932-33 the deficiency, owing to the failure of the Free State to pay, was £4,773,850, but they recouped £3,438,700. Last year the deficiency was £4,900,000, and they recouped £3,623,000.

"Mr. Logan asked Mr. Chamberlain what would be the net balance. The Chancellor replied that it was estimated that up to March 31 next the deficiency would be £14,512,000, out of which they expected to have recovered by the duty something over £10,000,000."

Mr. Donnelly

Read them the rest of it—where the Chancellor said that even if they got the cash they would not settle. Deputy Belton forgot that. He has been in dreamland for the last two or three days.

Mr. Belton

I am quoting the Chancellor's Budget statement.

Mr. J.P. Kelly

That is too old.

Mr. Donnelly

Deputy Belton is out of touch.

Mr. Belton

I am not out of touch. I am quoting the Chancellor's Budget statement.

Mr. Jordan

You are offiside!

Mr. Belton

That £4,500,000 included all except the Land Purchase Sinking Fund. By eliminating that, it included everything that would fall on the British taxpayer. So that, we paid to Britain £4,500,000 in a year, when our land annuity liability, without the Sinking Fund, would be only £2,250,000. Add to that the £1,000,000 for the 1923 Act, and that leaves £3,250,000—and we paid £4,500,000. Now, is it not the limit of audacity for any Minister to come in here and say that we got relief last year because the land annuities were halved, when in reality we paid the British £1,500,000 more than the land annuities and we were sued for our annuities, and the annuities were collected by our own Government as well to the extent of one-half? Is not that the position? Is not that what every man and woman on the land of this country, of years of understanding, knows to be the position? And still we have Ministers getting up here and saying: "We reduced the agricultural grant last year because we halved the annuities"—entirely ignoring what the British got. We have it even in the words of the President, where he said: "It has nothing to do with our Government what an outside Government is collecting from the people; we must get the annuities."

Mr. Donnelly

Perhaps the Deputy would allow me to intervene for a moment. I do not want to interrupt him but, assuming that his argument is right, what does he suggest should be done to rectify all these matters? Can he put up some constructive suggestion to rectify these things, more particularly in view of the fact that Mr. J.H. Thomas insists on recognition of that document which the Deputy saw produced in this House— that thing of shreds and patches?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing what Mr. Thomas said on political or economic issues. I know that I allowed Deputy Belton to ramble a good deal from the point at issue, simply because he stated that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had suggested that the annuities were halved and Deputy Belton wanted to demonstrate that we were paying more than half. I allowed him to demonstrate that, but now we have got to get back to this Vote and not pursue that question of the land annuities any more or the question of whether or not we are paying them to Britain.

Mr. Belton

When I was speaking on this matter before, Sir, I kept right on top of this Supplementary Agricultural Grant, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce came in and religiously kept away from that matter and talked about other things. He wound up by a political appeal for the local elections that are coming off next week, when he said that the people would have an opportunity next week of changing their councils. That is what he was leading up to all the time. The point he endeavoured to make was that we got relieved of half the annuities and, consequently, we could afford a reduction of £448,000 in the agricultural grant last year. Now, when we had to pay the land annuities nearly twice to Britain, that should have liquidated the land annuities at least. But no!—we have to pay half to our own Government and, in addition——

The Attorney-General

On a point of order, Sir, have you not ruled this out?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have ruled it out already.

Mr. Belton

Yes, I know, Sir, and I bow to your ruling, but I just want to put up that as a reply to the Minister for Industry and Commerce who came in here and, so to speak, fired a shot here and then ran out. Of course, he threw over his insults across here, that what was wrong with the county councils was the incompetent people who manned them.

Mr. Donnelly

Ward-heelers!

Mr. Belton

Yes, ward-heelers was the expression. What is he putting up in County Dublin? Bookmakers and shoemakers!

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not going to have the question of candidates for the local elections discussed here. We are here to discuss the Vote and the Vote only.

Mr. Belton

Well, I hope that Deputies, and Ministers in particular, when they come in here, will be more restrained in their language and will speak to what is before the House. Again, I challenge any of the Ministers opposite, or any member of the Party opposite, to meet the case I have put up, which is the only case in connection with this matter. Firstly, when you took office—leaving the whole economic issue out of it or whether we are paying the land annuities at all, once, twice, or three times, and taking the Agricultural Grant alone and talking within its limits—had we not, as part of our title to our lands inherited from our fathers, the right to a remission of half the rates that were payable in 1898? If equity had it, we had a right to a remission of half the actual rates, but we will leave it that our claim to the original Agricultural Grant was £600,000. The Cosgrave Administration gave double that out of profits which they found in their hands in the form of surplus arising out of tariffs.

They doubled that Agricultural Grant. A policy was adopted by the predecessors of this Government of returning to agriculture some of the charges that were placed upon it by the development of industry. Recognising that agriculture was entitled to something out of tariffs they gave £500,000 a year from 1924. This Government inherited taxation that produced a revenue of £600,000, in addition to another £600,000, making £1,200,000. There was also other taxation that produced over £1,000,000 for the relief of rates on agricultural land. The revenue produced for that purpose was, at least, £2,200,000. The case then was that agriculture wanted more money. I am not going to refer now to what happened to agriculture, to the depression caused by the economic war, or the paying of the annuities. I challenge Ministers opposite to refute that case. Let us not have any more of the camouflage that was tried on by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and then running off. The Minister for Agriculture and the Attorney-General are here. I challenge them to refute that case. In addition to that tariffs have been imposed in the last two years and there has been an increase in Customs revenue by £1,500,000. Remember, the policy adopted by your predecessors gave agriculture £600,000 from 1924. Adopt the same policy to-day with your revenue from Customs of £1,500,000 over what it was when you came into office, which agriculture has to bear. If that £1,500,000 extra was thrown into agriculture it would more than derate all agricultural land. I do not want to deal with anything arising out of the economic war, beyond what was produced from taxation for the relief of rates on agricultural land, the tariffs imposed for the development of industry, and the increase in those tariffs.

Your predecessors adopted the principle that agriculture should be recouped something, if not all, of the extra burden that industrial tariffs put upon it. What case has been made by the Party opposite? They are offering £1,970,000 for the relief of rates on agricultural land. Against what? Against machinery for producing a revenue of £2,200,000 when they took office, in addition to the industrial tariffs which agriculture has to bear, which increased Customs duties by £1,500,000, or by a total of £3,700,000. Against that you give something back, claiming that you are giving the Agricultural Grant that your predecessors gave. That is the case I am putting up. The Minister for Agriculture was an absentee until now, but I challenge him to refute it. No more will be heard from these benches about it if there is no wandering from that case. We do not want to talk about the economic war just now. We will have other opportunities of doing so, and if it is relevant we will make suggestions as to what should be done. It is the Agricultural Grant purely and simply that we want to deal with now. I put the case to show what was the position when the present Government came into office. They have not helped agriculture. They have cut down the grant. They are collecting money, but they are not using it for the purpose for which it was collected. In passing, I might say that if the Minister for Industry and Commerce had any experience of local government he would know that local authorities cannot spend money for any purpose except the one for which it was collected. If the Minister had a little experience of local government, or had a little teaching at the hands of local administrators, he would know that they cannot spend money for any purpose except that for which it was collected. They would not be allowed to use the produce of taxation except for the purpose for which it was struck. Let the Minister for Agriculture refute the case I made. The Minister goes down the country and says: "I said so and so in the Dáil, and I was not answered." No. He waits for the winding-up speech when no one else can speak.

Mr. Donnelly

Quite right.

Mr. Belton

The Minister tells the people that he said so and so here and that no one could answer him. The country people do not understand that debate here is governed by certain rules.

Dr. Ryan

They understand you.

Mr. Belton

They do. They understand you and the first opportunity they get you will understand them.

Dr. Ryan

Wait until you see.

Mr. Belton

I was very sorry I was not able to accede to a request to speak in your native place the other day. That is a pleasure in store for me.

Dr. Ryan

I am sorry, too.

Mr. Belton

I hope to meet you there. I do not want this question to descend to anything personal. I put up that case and I ask the Minister to refute it if he can. I suggest to him that he should not be flinging his weight about when he goes down the country, saying: "I said so and so in the Dáil and no one could answer me." Of course not.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy had two days to answer, and he spoke for two and a half hours.

Mr. Belton

The Minister pointed that out and produced a little extract from the Official Debates saying: "There is what I said, and there was no reply." He did not tell the people that the rules of the House precluded anyone from answering. The rules of the House do not preclude him from replying now.

Dr. Ryan

I made a statement in my opening speech. Deputy Belton spoke for two and a half hours and did not contradict anything I said.

Mr. Belton

I will not say the Minister is stating an untruth; but it is a bit removed from the truth.

Dr. Ryan

You are getting diplomatic.

Mr. Belton

I am giving the Minister an opportunity now to refute the case I put up. After all, the Minister for Agriculture knows agriculture, and when he makes a statement on an agricultural question there must be credit and respect given to it.

Dr. Ryan

I knew you were getting respect for me.

Mr. Belton

No, for your office. I will have more respect for the Minister when he gets up and tackles the case I have made, or when he does his best to refute it. He has his chance now and I will give him the opportunity. Get into the ring.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Belton has, on at least five occasions, put up these arguments, and I have amply refuted every one of them. I would refer the Deputy to the Official Debates if he wants refutation.

Mr. Belton

Would the Minister not reply to the case I put up, or is he not able?

Dr. Ryan

I will get the Official Debates and read them for the Deputy.

Mr. Belton

I can read them. I understand the English language. We have put up the case that the farmers are entitled to £1,800,000. Will the Minister deny that? I challenge him to do so.

Question put and agreed to.