Now that the Minister for Agriculture and the Government are satisfied that no alternative markets are available, I think that, in all fairness, the farmer should get a bounty equal to the tariff he is paying to the British Government until such time as the economic war is settled. The exporter is asked to pay 25/- per cwt. for cattle to be shipped to the British market. Take a ten cwt. beast at 25/- a cwt. The tariff will amount to £6, and 18/9 must be put aside for a three-quarter cwt. loss in transit. In all, the cost will come to £21 3s. 9d. That beast would require to fetch in the British market £2 2s. 4½d. per cwt. to cover that sum. Deputy Corry has said that the English farmer cannot rear beef at present-day prices. If he cannot do so, what about the Irish farmer who has to pay a £6 tariff on a two-year-old beast? Surely he is £6 worse off than the North of Ireland or the British farmer. We are asked to grow more corn, especially wheat. We are prepared to grow anything that will pay us. But if we grow more wheat, we have got to stall-feed more cattle or fatten more pigs or we shall not be able to grow it very long. We must have farmyard manure and we must have rotation of crops. For every acre of wheat we sow, we must follow up with an acre of oats or something else. That means that we shall have a bigger surplus of fat cattle and a smaller surplus of store cattle. Until the economic war is over, we would want a bounty equal to the tariff if the Government's policy is not to fall through. One cannot grow wheat for two or three years on the same land. We have heard a great deal about the pig industry. Through the policy of the Government, pigs in the Minister's own constituency fell 7/- a cwt. between last Friday and Monday. On last Friday the price was 40/- and on last Monday it was 33/- live weight. That means 14/- on an average 16-stone pig. There is no protection for the farmer or the labourer. How can he afford to meet a loss of 14/- per pig without any notice? I think that it is up to the Minister or the Government to guarantee a price for so many months ahead so that people will know what they are doing. I know a man who, last Saturday morning, saw by the papers that the price was 40/- a cwt., and made arrangements accordingly, while the wire from the factory on Monday showed that the price was 33/-. Who had to bear that loss? The unfortunate man who fed the pig. To make their policy a success, the Government will have to change the whole system. There is no use in saying that we will make the country prosperous by growing beet at 30/- a ton. That cannot be done. There is no encouragement in the price of 30/- to the man who knows the hardship involved in getting the beet out of the land and sending it to the factory. It is only during the fine seasons of the past two years that wheat could be made a success. It was made a success and I am glad of it, but is there any guarantee that we shall have a continuance of fine weather? On several occasions, I remember seeing wheat getting lodged before it was cut. We have much moisture in this country and if our wheat gets lodged and we have not live stock, what is to become of it? If it is not millable, it will have to be dumped somewhere. If the Government cannot afford to give a bounty equal to the tariff, they must stop the economic war or break the people. The people are fairly well broken at present. We hear that there is a no-rent campaign down the country. What there is in the country is an inability-to-payrent campaign. The people are not able to pay. They have already had collected from them by the British Government £2,000,000 on their produce. Yet, President de Valera says the farmers are so well off, with half their annuities remitted, that they should be thanking God that the British market is gone and gone for ever.
Private Deputies' Business. - Cattle Export Quota—Debate Resumed.
I agree with the last Deputy that the Government should do all they can to help the farmers. I think they should also do all they can to help the farmers to do something else than produce live stock. The extraordinary aspect of this question is that there is not a Deputy on the other side who is not fully aware of the world situation in respect of the live-stock trade.
What about the Minister for Agriculture?
It is most dishonest to try to fool a lot of farmers in this country into depending on something that is now beyond hope of recovery.
On a point of order, is not the Deputy aware that tobacco is a failure and that a farmer cannot grow corn to cover expenses?
I have not heard the point of order yet.
The Deputy says that the farmer cannot depend any longer on live stock, that there is no market for it. What is there a market for if we have surplus corn?
If that be a point of order the Chair cannot rule on it.
The fact I should like everybody to face is that neither President de Valera nor the Fianna Fáil Government has brought about the depression that exists in the live-stock industry. Almost every Deputy will agree, privately at any rate, that that is the case.
We will not agree either publicly or privately.
What is the price in the British market as compared with ours?
I will go on and try to explain. There is really no necessity because my friend knows as well as I do. Of course, a political twist has to be given; that is what all this political propaganda is about. It is just as well we understand one another. People in the country understand the position.
You gave the people promises that you did not fulfil.
Every promise we gave them we will fulfil and we have already fulfilled many; and, in the course of the next three years when we again go to the country, we will have fulfilled every promise we made.
Live horse and you will get grass!
The Deputy tries to persuade the farmers that if the cattle trade goes down the whole country must go down with it. Deputy Dillon stated that we had demoralised the people more in two years than the British Government did in six centuries. I believe we would demoralise the people entirely if we agreed with the views put forward by Deputy O'Higgins and Deputy Dillon that the only thing they could do was to produce cattle. We were told that if the market for cattle was taken away the country would be on the point of collapse.
The Government is doing everything it can to alleviate a very difficult situation. I believe the British Government is not behind in trying to help their farmers in the great difficulty in which they are. Like us, they proceeded with the rather profitable industry of raising live stock, and that had been the custom owing to their fiscal policy having lasted for 60 or 80 years. Most of them, like the farmers in this country, lived the life that existed before the war. They did not admit that after the war a new world commenced. We find in 1929 and 1930 that the position in the British markets, as far as cattle were concerned, was this: it would take something like 24,000,000 cattle to feed the British people in the year. Ireland, England and Wales combined to supply some 12,000,000; Australia alone could supply the other 12,000,000. The other Colonial countries—Rhodesia and Canada, not including India, and other Protectorates—could supply 37,000,000. Immediately, there was a surplus of live stock. But something added to that surplus, and made it more difficult to operate, and that was the economic depression that touched every single country after the war. Many young people in England, professional men and others, had found occupations after the war in different Colonies. About 1929, passenger ships returning from these countries were full up of young men whose jobs had ceased because of the economic depression. They came back to England to look for something to do. Most of these people decided that they would produce something on the land. Industries had been sinking rapidly and there was no employment to be got in these particular lines. These people were forced eventually to go on the land. The position in England in 1929 and 1930, as far as the importation of foodstuffs was concerned, was this: that the Commonwealth or Dominions could supply England with twice the amount of food she needed. From foreign countries England bought in these years £10,000,000 worth of foodstuffs per week. They paid £17,000,000 a year for imported eggs and £1,000,000 a week for butter—something like 6,000 tons. I want anybody very interested in that to take these figures and compare them with the figures to-day of what England alone produces and what it is imperative for England to produce.
Now apart altogether from the economic war, as it is called, and the political dispute between this country and England, any normally minded person will admit that it is the duty of the British Government to protect British farmers and they will admit that they are in need of protection, and they are taking every step it is possible to take to protect them. And, apart from political issues and other issues, as men we are not entitled to claim the other man's property. The position has gradually come to this that England by herself is able, for instance, to produce all the eggs required in England; and having produced all the eggs required, they are able to produce the normal amount of meat and poultry required. In every other industry, the pig industry and the butter industry, they are making every effort to supply themselves because it must be done. However, strange to relate, it is a fact that the same policy is being preached in England as we are preaching here. A Deputy made some remarks about the growing of wheat. The British Minister of Agriculture advocated very strongly that wheat be grown and less live stock be raised. The real position in England at the moment is this: districts like Wales, and some of the Highlands of Scotland, are as badly off as the districts Deputy McGovern complains about. There is gradually arising in Wales a serious surplus of store cattle. They are a rather inferior type and they are rather difficult for them to cash. One reads in the English newspapers of almost daily protests by Welsh farmers that they cannot sell their store cattle; that every market is crowded with Irish cattle and that owing to the superior quality of the Irish cattle they are unable to sell their cattle. I am informed by dealers who go to the Welsh fairs that these cattle can be bought from £2 10s. to £3 per head.
England has her problem, and there is no use in people here trying to lead the whole country to the opinion that we can force ourselves on the British market when, in reality, that market is needed by British farmers themselves. The sooner we realise that these subsidies and bounties are made to lessen the burden, and to make it easy for our farmers during the transition period, the better. The Argentine alone could put more beef on the British market than the British market would require in two years. They, like other great meat producing countries—even when they signed an agreement, as I heard somebody mention, at Ottawa—signed an agreement with the British Government that the British would allow their meat in without restriction, provided that the Argentine took a certain amount of manufactured goods. When this collapse came in the British market, the British Government appealed to the Argentine in order to see if they could change the agreement and if a quota on meat exports into the British market would be accepted. The Argentine agreed to that, but they agreed to it with respect to chilled meat only and said that if they were to submit to export into the British market under a quota system, the British Government should insist that every meat producing country that was supplying the British market should also submit to a quota.
It is only last week or the week before last that the British Government asked Australia to desist for at least three weeks from exporting meat. One of the peculiar things about this matter of quotas is that the quota is only on the high-class meat and not on low-class meat. Some call it box meat or rolled meat. It is only boned meat rolled up. It looks extremely well and it is sold at 2½d. per lb. So that, even the British farmer does not receive the protection he wants, and it is from that protection we are suffering; and if the live stock industry is not one to follow up, we must turn our attention to something else. If the late Government had recognised those facts we would not have been in the plight in which we are to-day.
You may talk about all the prosperity that existed before the advent of Fianna Fáil, but as far back as 1927 —in the Christmas of 1927—there was a motion put down here which and reference to the activities of the Land Commission in recovering annuities. It was extremely difficult to collect annuities towards the end of 1927. Something serious had happened. Some screw had gone wrong in the machinery and people found themselves unable to meet the land annuities. I, along with other Deputies, made a special appeal asking the Land Commission to desist from putting writs into execution for at least the three weeks of Christmas. When we took over power, there were in County Meath, as far as I remember, 4,000 writs against farmers in the hands of the State Solicitor. That did not indicate the degree of prosperity that some people on the opposite benches would try to lead us to believe existed. I know that many Deputies on the other side knew that there was serious objection to the carrying on of such a system in this country and knew that, nationally, men had protested, and protested strongly, for generations against this system. I notice that none of the men opposite make any mention whatsoever of other difficulties. I may say that they are difficulties we are rather proud of. I refer to the difficulties we have here now in an increase in population. There is no Deputy on the other side but knows very well that at the height of the cattle industry in this country, emigration had reached its greatest height also. The two things went arm in arm with one another. There is no Deputy on the other side but believes that, long before Arthur Griffith or Eamon de Valera spoke about it, people protested against that system and held the belief that as long as it existed emigration would have to continue, and that the people would continue to leave this country.
I maintain that one of our greatest difficulties here to-day is that we have not enough people yet, and that our population is extremely low. I notice Deputies smiling at that statement. Deputies may smile, but I believe that that is the greatest difficulty. There may be Deputies here from Donegal, and I think that they will admit that conacre land in Donegal is worth from £7 to £7 10s. an acre; whereas in County Meath £3 an acre cannot be obtained, because there are no people there to take over the land. If we want value to attach to our land it can only be attached to it when there are people there to take the land. What did the cattle trade leave behind it? Up to 1921 it was a trade that enabled quite a number of people, especially those engaged in production and distribution, to make a living out of it. It was a trade for a few people. It kept those few people going, and that is one of the reasons why, even after all the preaching and propaganda and assistance through newspapers that was given to the other Party, every time they went to the people in the last three years they came back weaker. They came back weaker because the people were intelligent and would not be deceived, and they found that, ultimately, the farmers of this country were men who were capable of making good, and who could make good even under the present conditions. I maintain that a number of farmers in this country are making good already under the present conditions. If there is a surplus of cattle and live stock generally, as there is in other countries, we are doing our best to help them to dispose of that surplus. During the last regime our cattle and our poultry industry deteriorated.
We did not kill any calves.
If you were an intelligent Government you would have killed every bad calf in the country.
You are killing the good ones now.
In all the fairs and markets good cattle can be sold reasonably well at the present time.
That is news to me.
It is quite true, and it would have been the case if there was never an economic war. What happened in this country was that there was sheer neglect of the farmer up to the present time—neglect both as far as the division of his land was concerned and attention to his particular industry. We appealed here for a tariff on oats, but Canadian oats were sold here at 7/- a barrel. The Minister opposed that tariff bitterly, but the next morning he presented us with a tariff on oats. But when? When most of the distributors had got away with the profit. That indicated that he was forced by some circumstances of the depression.
If there are losses to-day on the farmers of Ireland, they can be mainly attributed to the neglect and lethargy of the late Government. It is quite true that the collapse of 1921 finished quite a number of farmers. The result of the collapse of cattle prices then was not apparent immediately afterwards, but gradually; and up to the present day the results are becoming apparent day by day. Accordingly, as I said a few moments ago, the cattle trade has left nothing behind it—neither people nor buildings, nor wealth, nor anything else. It could not have left anything behind it because it was the business of only a few people. That is not saying that we do not want a cattle trade. We do; but we want a cattle trade of a high-class nature. We want to be able to supply our own needs here and to supply whatever country is in a position to take cattle from us. But if you got the country to agree to your principle that there was nothing in this country but the production of cattle——
We do not say that.
I am glad. I know you do not but there are some who do.
A Deputy
Very few.
Quite a number on the opposite benches say that the only thing we are capable of producing is cattle.
A Deputy
Only the big ranchers say that.
Some of them said it anyway.
We never said it.
I do not know what Deputy Dillon meant, but that is what he said.
The Minister for Agriculture said it.
Dr. Ryan
When?
He said that more tillage meant more live stock.
Dr. Ryan
Live stock I said and I shall say it again.
As I said in the beginning, it is time that members on the opposite benches admitted one thing and told the farmers of this country, those of the farmers who only listen to them—and they are not many—that, undoubtedly, there is a serious depression in the price of live stock all over the world.
There is no need to tell them.
They should tell them that the marketing of live stock is extremely difficult. Instead of carping and making foolish sensational speeches such as Deputy Dillon made, they should make constructive speeches and try to help this country out of the difficulty. Remember a weak country will never make a good bargain, and there are bargains to be made.
For weak men.
Dr. Ryan
We are stronger than you are.
We should be prepared to make one.
A Deputy
And why not make one?
What are the preparations that you are making? To make a bargain for political reasons only and not for national reasons. They try to undo all we have done. They try to mislead the people, to raise a spirit of discontent, to destroy credit and the character of the people. One of your followers will go out and cut down numbers of trees and he does not know why.
The bad example of 1922.
Even if it was bad example——
What about the banks you smashed and the bridges you blew up?
These things happened under totally different circumstances.
It was patriotic then.
These things happened under totally different circumstances. There was then another question to be settled, which question was settled, which question left us in a position to tackle what the late Government were afraid to tackle, a thing which they sidetracked and never made any attempt to tackle. They knew as well as we did what was coming and what was happening. Many of my colleagues and I preached to them constantly the necessity for adequate protection for the farmers of the country. We told them that in the near future the time would come when, if they did not get that protection, the farmers would be in an unfortunate position. We found the farmer in that unfortunate position but thank God he is not there to-day, as we took him out of it.
After listening to the speech of Deputy O'Reilly, one would imagine that Deputy O'Reilly would be in a position to work a farm at the present moment to the advantage of himself and his family.
A Deputy
He got out of it.
I have to live on the land and to rear a family on it. I listened to the statement of Deputy O'Reilly very attentively. He made a reference to some farmers, I think, in Donegal, who were in a position to make £7 per acre out of their land. I can tell the Deputy that we have not any farmers in the south who can make 7/- per acre out of their land at the moment. I do not know whether Deputy O'Reilly is a farmer or not, but if he is a farmer and if he comes down to County Kilkenny and instructs us how we shall be able to make £7 out of our land, we shall try to make it.
Ask one of the Deputies for Donegal.
I should like him to do so. I do not know whether the Deputy has attended any fairs or markets for the last year, but I have to attend practically three or four fairs every month. I happened to be at one last Monday and I was at one in Thomastown yesterday in our own county. It is pitiable to see the conditions at these fairs and the position with which the farmers are faced at present. They are selling splendid cattle for 50/- per head, cattle for which they were getting £11 and £12 per head at the time to which Deputy O'Reilly refers, when the last Government were in office. I say that the Government are responsible for the present position. I say that the farmer who breeds his own cattle, keeps a dairy and tills a certain amount of his land, gives more employment than the man who goes in for tillage alone. He is a man who gives more employment than any other class of farmer in the country. If a man does not keep a certain number of cattle, there is no use in his going in for tillage, because after a certain number of years he will have nothing but weeds and dockleaves growing on his land. You cannot have successful tillage without stable manure.
The destruction of the cattle trade in this country destroyed the best branch of our industry, the one upon which we most depended. We grew corn and roots, we tilled our land and fed our cattle. It was principally from what we received for our cattle that we paid for our tillage. I look upon the present position as a disgraceful position and I hold the Government, and nobody else, responsible for it. If they want to settle the economic dispute we are with them. If they do no want to settle it, let them compensate us for the losses which we have suffered. We cannot continue to live under the present conditions. I say it is a disgrace to any country to see the sheriffs and the bailiffs confiscating the property of the farmers. In Castlemorris, in our county, they have erected a new pound at a gentleman's residence. They have there four or five lorries with a number of Broy Harriers for confiscating cattle and other property of the people.
The Deputy said he was able to pay his rates and would not pay them.
You know the position in County Kilkenny as well as I do.
What would you do, if you had not £30 a month coming in to you?
Deputy Gibbons is a farmer and he should be over here supporting us.
That is why I am here.
Dr. Ryan
If he supported you, he would not be over there.
The position is such that it cannot continue. We have to export our surplus cattle and bounties and subsidies are of no remedy while the economic war lasts. We shall support the Minister in the new order, providing for a minimum of 25/- per cwt., but even 25/- per cwt. is not an economic price. Here we are up against the winter with a lot of surplus cattle on our hands and with no market for them. Even if we are able to sell them at 25/- a cwt., they cannot be reared and fattened at that price. The Minister knows it cannot be done. It is his duty to get a market for the surplus cattle we have on hands. I blame the Government and nobody else for the whole position and let the Minister take the responsibility on his shoulders.
Dr. Ryan rose.
This is not to conclude the debate?
Dr. Ryan
This is not my motion. I do not want to curtail the debate but somebody has been complaining that I did not speak on the last day. It is very hard to please the opposite party.
We will be delighted to hear you.
Dr. Ryan
I will tell you some truths. There was a debate to-day on export bounties. This is on export quotas. What I have to say can be taken as a reply to either debate, because I think those who spoke from the opposite side did not make any distinction in their speeches. They dealt with both subjects. Deputy Dillon asked me two specific questions. I am sorry that he is not here. I am sure if he were and heard my answer to him he would, as Deputy O'Reilly said, go on making the same old assertions over and over again. The Deputies opposite must give a political twist to what they say here. They do not come here to try and settle these problems at all, they make no attempt to do that, but rather talk politics so that they may be able to go down the country and repeat at a Blueshirt meeting or at cross-cut parades all the smart things that they tell the people they said here. Deputy Dillon asked me whether Senator Connolly is a fool or a knave, and what is the policy of the Government with regard to cattle. Senator Connolly is neither a fool nor a knave. I am quite certain about that. The Deputy also asked me my opinion of the person who would say that we can go on here with increased tillage without increasing our live stock. I am supposed to have said on some occasion or other that the person who made the statement that this Government were out against live stock was either a fool or a knave. I probably did say—I do not deny the correctness of the report —that the Deputies opposite said that we were trying to kill the live-stock business of this country. If Deputy Dillon said it I would not have any hesitation in telling whether he is a fool or a knave. I have told the Party opposite over and over again that, as far as this Government is concerned, we never went out to kill the live-stock industry.
We were up against it in certain cases and we tried to do the best we could. When we were up against it we did not get much help from the Deputies opposite. They took every possible advantage of the situation we were faced with to make political propaganda out of it. I remember that when these quotas came on first, we advised the farmers not to rush their cattle on to the market, but the people on the other side said that we would have 58 per cent. of a surplus and that if the farmers did not sell then they would never be able to sell. They advised the farmers to throw all their cattle on the market at the one time so that we would have here a bad market or, as they call it, a de Valera market. They did not care what ruin they brought on the farmers and the country. All that they were concerned about was to make political propaganda out of the position, and they advised the farmers to throw all their cattle on the market at the one time, thereby bringing down prices. In giving that advice they thought they were doing a good thing for their Party, and they did not mind what injury they were doing to the country. I said on that occasion that we could get rid of all the stall-fed cattle in this country if people would only take their time, and we did. We had an idea of the number of stall-fed cattle that we had in the country at that time and of what the home consumption would be. We knew exactly from the number of licences what our exports would be. We knew that the number of stall-feeders in the country could be got rid of by the end of May. In consequence, we advised the farmers not to rush their cattle immediately on to the market but to try and hold them. If they had done that and followed our advice they would have got a better price for their stall-fed cattle last spring, but, of course, that would not suit the Party opposite. If the farmers had taken our advice the Party opposite could have made no political capital out of the quotas, and, of course, that was all that they were concerned with.
Deputy Dillon asked what is the policy of the Government with regard to cattle. I repeat what Deputy O'Reilly said: let us produce good cattle and let us produce as many cattle as we can get sold. That is our policy. Let us produce as many cattle as we can absorb on the home market and as many as we can export. That is our policy and, I suppose, would be the policy of any Government that would take control in this country. Surely that is simple enough. Deputy Dillon asked me to be explicit in regard to our policy. What I have said should be explicit enough for Deputy Dillon to understand, and if I can get him to understand it I am sure I could get any fool of a farmer in the country to understand it.
I do not want to interrupt the Minister, but may I ask him a question? The Minister admits that we have an exportable surplus of cattle. I am not going to talk about our exportable surplus of men and women, but in the matter of cattle, having satisfied the requirements of the home market, the Minister says it will then be time enough to look to our exportable surplus and see what we are going to do?
Dr. Ryan
No.
Does not the Minister think that the position with regard to the payment of the bounty on this exportable surplus during the continuance of the economic dispute, is one that ought to be cleared up? If he has to continue paying a bounty on this exportable surplus, then the payment must be measured by the length of the time that the country can hold out. Is that so or is it not?
Dr. Ryan
I do not think the Deputy understood what I said. I did not say that we would satisfy the home market first and then look for an export market. We will look for an export market as far as we can.
At a price?
Dr. Ryan
With regard to the export bounties, they will have to be paid as long as present conditions exist and until prices improve, and I suppose I should add, as long as we can continue to pay them. Our ability in that respect is not diminishing in any way. I do not know if it is plain now what our policy is with regard to cattle.
No.
Dr. Ryan
I do not think Deputy Brennan is as simple as he pretends.
There are a lot of simple men in this country.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Brennan is not one of them. Surely to goodness any person can understand what I have stated to be the policy of the Government. That policy is to produce and rear good cattle to satisfy the market as far as we can get a market. Is not that policy plain to anyone?
Agreed.
Dr. Ryan
If that is understood, then I can go on. There are some other points that I want to deal with. I will probably come back to the cattle again as that is the big subject. I was asked about the bounties which arise with regard to cattle and turkeys. Deputy Keating, I think, said that unless we pay the full bounty, that is a bounty equivalent to the tariff, we are not being fair to the farmers.
Is it not true that if we got that we would only be getting the world price?
Dr. Ryan
I will not say whether it is right or wrong, but that is what the Deputy said. Deputy McGovern, on the other hand, finds fault with us for paying the full bounty on turkeys to cover the tariff at the other side. I know that there are serious splits and differences in the other Party. It is very difficult to deal with a Party which says things like that; where one of them censures the Government for not paying a bounty equal to the tariff, and where another censures the Government for paying a bounty equal to the tariff.
We are only getting 1d. a lb. over the bounty.
Dr. Ryan
The bounty here is 5d.; the people are getting 6d. If they are getting a bounty to pay the tariff on the other side they are getting 6d. as if there were no economic war. Is not that the position?
We are paying for it.
Dr. Ryan
I do not think the Deputy is paying for it. That point will come too if he will allow me. Deputy McGovern said that we profess to be the Government of small farmers. We profess to be the Government of all classes in this country, but especially we are the Government of small farmers. The small farmers have made it quite plain, every chance they got for the last three years, that we are the Government of the small farmers. They have not left any doubt about it at all. Not only the small farmers but, as I have said here before, every genuine farmer in this country is behind the Government. Every genuine farmer who is working his farm in the proper way, and trying to make a decent living instead of felling trees, is behind the Government, otherwise we could not be here after three successive elections. Every genuine farmer in the country is behind us. The ballot boxes tell that. When the people go to the poll they confirm what I say. Deputy McGovern said the people left cattle along the road in the west of Ireland —that they turned them out on the road because they could not sell them. That reminds me of what Deputy Bennett said at one time—that they were drowning young pigs down in Limerick.
I suppose they did not slaughter the calves either?
Dr. Ryan
They did, but not enough of them. If we had given sufficient encouragement—probably we did not —to the farmers to slaughter more calves, and consume veal instead of beef, we would not have the same problem here, because we would be getting more into the position of Continental countries who have enough cows to supply their own wants in dairy produce, and not too many cattle to supply them with beef. That is the trouble here. After all we have 1,200,000 cows in this country. If we did not export any butter or milk product we would require 900,000 cows for our own use in this country. Supposing we did get our cows down to 900,000; if we were to go on with the present system of rearing calves we would have too many cattle. The way they deal with that problem in Continental countries is they consume more veal and less beef. If we could go even a small bit in that direction here we would be much better off. As Deputy O'Reilly says also, we would be very much better off if bad and inferior calves were slaughtered so that the quality of the cattle left behind would be improved.
Deputy McGovern complained about the efforts we were making to get the foreign markets. He compared me to a pedlar. I would almost want Deputy Smith to deal with that. He would have dealt with it, judging from the speech he made here in the House some time ago. I do not think Deputy O'Higgins contributed a great deal, except those very peculiar mathematics which are worked out on the opposite benches. He says we pay £3,000,000 in bounties and that we pay £5,000,000 in tariffs on the other side. He counts that up to be £8,000,000 which it is costing us to send our cattle to England. I find it very difficult to understand that. I find it very difficult to understand why those two items should be put in and added together, because surely no matter how you look at it—from the point of view of the Irish farmer, from the point of view of the shipper, from the point of view of the British purchaser, from the point of view of the Irish Government or from the point of view of the English Government—the two should be on the opposite side of the ledger. If the Irish farmer here claims that he is paying the full tariff going into Great Britain, surely the bounties come off that, and they should not be added together. We are told that is what it is costing the country to export our stuff to Great Britain—the £5,000,000 and £3,000,000. They are added together. That gives an idea of the mathematics on the other side.
What is wrong with that sum?
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Bennett looks at it in a different way——
What is wrong with it?
Dr. Ryan
What is wrong with it? It should be substracted instead of added, and surely nothing could be more wrong than that.
Why?
Dr. Ryan
Because it is the very opposite.
Is that your argument?
Dr. Ryan
It is.
Very well. That is very clear.
Which is subtracted—the £5,000,000 from the £3,000,000 or the £3,000,000 from the £5,000,000?
Dr. Ryan
Unless the Deputy wants a vulgar fraction he will have to subtract the smaller from the larger. Deputy Bennett, on the other hand, says that we brought in a Bill here this evening which is going to put tariffs on things coming into the country, and we bring in an Estimate for £3,000,000 for things going out of the country; he adds the two of those together as the cost of trade and he makes it, I think, £4,000,000. Again I would say that this is the difficulty in dealing with the arguments which come from the people opposite. They all seem to have their own view about everything—not only about who should follow one leader or the other, but even on the matter of bounties and subsidies they all have their own view as to how to make calculations. If it were true that the British were collecting £5,000,000 on the other side—which they are not—if they collected that money at that side instead of getting it across from this side, so far as the country is concerned, I cannot see that it makes very much difference. Those who speak on behalf of agriculture may say it makes a big difference—and so it does—because they may say that part of it would come out of general taxation if paid across by the Government, like, say, the R.I.C. pensions, instead of being levied off agricultural products. It is true that it would make a big difference to agricultural exports, but to the country in general I do not see what difference it makes whether it is levied off goods that go into the British market, or whether it is see across in cash from one Government another.
It is just the same!
Dr. Ryan
If it amounted to the same, but it does not amount to the same.
You promised to keep it, you know.
Dr. Ryan
Perhaps it does make a difference to agriculture. Of course it naturally does, if that whole amount were to be collected off agricultural produce instead of having the greater part of it sent across out of general taxation.
I would not have risen to object to some slight divergence from the text of the motion on the part of the Minister, but the whole of his speech for a considerable time past has been absolutely irrelevant to the motion before the House. I put it to you, a Leas-Chinn Comhairle, as a point of order, that the Minister should get back to the motion itself.
Dr. Ryan
Very well. We had better get back to one of the speeches——
Oh, keep on!
Dr. Ryan
I do not want to start another rift on the front bench opposite.
The biggest rift you have made yet is in your own figures. Keep on at those, please.
Dr. Ryan
Will I be allowed?
Certainly.
Dr. Ryan
What do we do to compensate the farmer on this side? We take £2,000,000 off his annuities, which surely everybody will admit is an advantage, and we pay the other £3,000,000 in export bounties, so he gets the whole £5,000,000 back again.
They did not say that in Kerry. Read the reports in to-day's newspapers of the meeting of Kerry Co. Committee of Agriculture.
Deputy Corry does not agree that the farmers got it.
Dr. Ryan
I cannot understand Deputy O'Leary's point.
Will I say it in Irish? If the Minister reads the report of a meeting of Kerry Co. Committee of Agriculture he will see that the Committee did not agree that the farmers got the bounties. The Minister cannot say that the Committee is opposed to him.
Dr. Ryan
Perhaps by taking a few other points out of Deputy Dillon's speech I may claim to be in order.
It might be safer ground.
Dr. Ryan
No, not a bit, as far as I am concerned. Deputy Dillon made a very long speech, occupying I think twenty-nine columns of the Official Debates. There are just a few points that I was able to make a little sense of, with which I should like to deal. There is not much sense in the rest. The Deputy talked about the price of cattle going to Germany. In one column he said the price of cattle was 18/- or 16/- a cwt., and a few lines further on he said that they were 14/- or 12/- a cwt.; while, in another column, he said that they went for the price of their skins. That is Deputy Dillon's regard for facts on which to base arguments. It did not make the slightest difference to him whether cattle were selling for 18/- or for the price of their skins, as long as he could throw dirt on the German buyer who came to the market here. I will give the House an idea of how little Deputy Dillon knows about agriculture or agricultural schemes, and how little interest he has in the farmers in his own constituency, or in any other part of the country. The Deputy, in the course of two columns, talked about the guaranteed price of wheat being 27/6 a barrel, which it is not. Deputy Dillon did not know that. The big argument used by Deputy Dillon, as well as by many other Deputies this evening, is that by lessening the number of cattle we cannot have any tillage.
Deputies
No, no!
Dr. Ryan
Less tillage.
That we cannot increase our tillage.
Dr. Ryan
I will take it at that. I am supposed to have stated on some famous occasion——
It was not a bit famous.
Dr. Ryan
It was made famous here in connection with the United Farmers' Association.
The United Farmers' Protection Association. They are different bodies. They generally collide in Elgin Road.
Dr. Ryan
I do not understand that remark. I take it that that is smart.
The Chairman, before you made him a temporary Judge, used to live in Clyde Road?
Dr. Ryan
Is there any objection to living in Clyde Road?
You would have serious objections at the crossroads, before you got where you are.
Come to the motion.
As a matter of fact the Chairman does not live in Clyde Road.
I am sorry, Elgin Road. It is a better neighbourhood.
Dr. Ryan
It does not matter to Deputy Dillon whether it is or is not. I am supposed to have said that the person who accused the Government of being in favour of tillage and of being out for the destruction of the live stock industry was either a knave or a fool. I was talking of tillage on that occasion. I am now told that we cannot increase tillage unless we increase live stock. I am told further that unless we keep cattle we cannot increase tillage, because cattle are supposed to be very important in a tillage country. Of course, they are very important, but they are not all important. The British quota for fat cattle, with which we are dealing in this motion, was reduced by 50 per cent. —I do not remember the exact figure—for January, February, March, April and May. These five months covered the stall-feeding period. Our quota did not amount to more than 40,000 cattle. Therefore, we were cut by 40,000, and if there was no quota we would have exported the same number of cattle in the first five months of 1933 as 1934, as I believe there were not quite as many stall-fed cattle. Supposing we had an extra market for the extra stall-feds, and supposing that we had produced them for an expanding market in Great Britain what would it amount to in the way of tillage? What would this great British market amount to if we got it back without any quota? Deputy Dillon gave the impression the other night that it ruined our whole tillage policy —the loss of the British market. Deputy Keating dealt with cattle and tillage. What would any practical farmer say during these five months?
He would say that he could not grow wheat without roots.
Dr. Ryan
How much roots would it take to feed 40,000 cattle?
Roots have to be grown after wheat. I am a practical farmer and the Minister is a doctor.
Dr. Ryan
If I am a doctor, I grow wheat.
With £1,200 a year behind it.
Dr. Ryan
I sold 90 barrels of wheat.
You could afford to lose.
Dr. Ryan
I am a small farmer, with 25 acres, and I sold 90 barrels of wheat.
The Minister must be allowed to make his speech.
But I must answer the Minister when he asks a question.
The Deputy must not interrupt the Minister. That is final.
Dr. Ryan
If we had produced 40,000 cattle, in addition to what we produced as stall-feds last spring, what difference would it have made to tillage here? What would these cattle consume? Probably not more than 10,000 acres of grain, and 10,000 acres of roots. As far as the quota for fat cattle goes, about which there is all the trouble, and which this motion deals with, if we cannot do extra tillage, because we have lost a market which amounts to only 20,000 acres of tillage, we have grown this year about 30,000 extra acres of beet and about 45,000 extra acres of wheat, making 75,000 acres, or almost four times as much as we lost by the cattle quota.
It cannot be that the Minister is going to tell us now that he is a knave or a fool.
Dr. Ryan
The Deputy was absent from the House when I spoke, but, if he puts a question to me about himself, I will have no hesitation in telling him what he is.
Have you some difficulty in deciding about yourself?
Dr. Ryan
Not the slightest, because I know I could never be accused of either. Deputy Dillon made his speech and walked out as usual, fearing that anyone would say anything.
Say it now.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Dillon asked me two questions. I answered them, and I asked Deputies on the opposite benches three or four times if I had made the position clear.
Ask the Chairman about it. He had to ask that you should be allowed to proceed.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy McGilligan was not here and does not know what I was talking about. It happened before Deputy McGilligan came in.
Does the Minister mean that there was an earlier riot before I came in?
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Dillon, speaking the other night—and I think he was supported by Deputy Keating this evening—said that you could not grow beet at 30/- a ton.
Without paying slave wages to the farm labourers.
Dr. Ryan
You said you could not do it and pay labour a living wage. Deputy Keating corroborated that this evening. I wonder did Deputy Keating get as many requests from the people in South Wexford to be allowed to grow beet this year as I did? Did he get as many pressing letters as I did from the farmers asking to be allowed to grow beet at 30/- a ton? I believe that there were 4,000 extra acres put under cultivation in that area.
Why does the Minister not direct his attention to the motion before the House?
Dr. Ryan
I am anxious to quote certain remarks made by Deputy Dillon. For instance, he said:
"Will the Minister for Agriculture have the bare-baced audacity"—that is a very Dillonesque phrase—"to suggest that any farmer can pay a labourer a living wage and produce sugar beet at 30/- a ton, less freight to the factory, plus whatever sugar beet pulp he can get back?"
We have worked out costings in our Department with regard to the growing of beet.
We would like to hear them.
Dr. Ryan
We have worked out what seeds and manure cost; the number of hours of labour for man and horse; what the rent and rates cost; what freight and all that sort of thing would cost; what would be the value of the offals and the tops, and we make out that there is a very good profit after paying a man a living wage.
What is the amount of the living wage?
Dr. Ryan
We have made it out and I think it came to 6d. an hour.
For how many hours a week?
Dr. Ryan
The agricultural week is usually a 54-hour week.
That would amount to 27/-.
Dr. Ryan
That is what it was.
And the agricultural labourers are to live on 27/- for a 54-hour week?
Dr. Ryan
It was based on what the agricultural labourers are getting.
As a result of the destitution that your policy has brought on the country.
And you are calling that a living wage?
Does Deputy Corish agree with that?
Dr. Ryan
I think it was 6d. an hour. It does not matter for the purposes of calculation whether it is a 54-hour or a 64-hour week.
You say you made out detailed costings. Wages would obviously be an important item.
Dr. Ryan
Wages per hour would be a necessary item, it is true, but it does not matter about how many hours a week.
It does matter from the point of view of your standard of a living wage.
Dr. Ryan
Perhaps it does. This was based on the wage paid by the majority of the farmers.
Just 27/- a week for a 54-hour week?
There seems to be an idea amongst some Deputies that the Minister for Agriculture should not be heard. He will be heard.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Dillon was anxious to know what we are going to do with the pulp. He wants to know are we going to eat it ourselves. For the number of cattle, pigs and sheep that we have, without increasing them at all, we are importing a very large quantity of feeding stuffs. We can replace the bulk of that by growing more oats, barley or sugar beet.
Are we going to be allowed to increase our cattle stocks?
Dr. Ryan
If we can do it, we will, but we must get a market. Deputy Dillon told us here how I went down and the only astonishing thing I did was to open my mouth in the backwoods of Kerry. What is wrong with Kerry for the Deputy to talk about it like that? Are the people of Kerry to be looked down upon by Deputy Dillon and those who sit on the benches beside him? Why should he speak in such a way about my going down to the backwoods of Kerry? That sort of talk shows the mentality of the Deputy. Apparently, unless a person comes from what Deputy McGilligan would refer to as the Clyde Road area or North Great George's Street, he is to be looked down upon in this House. The people in the backwoods of Kerry are very intelligent people and I can assure the Deputy I got on quite well with them. I can also assure him that he would not get on nearly as well if he went there. They probably would not agree with many of the things he says. I was not in the Dingle Peninsula, but I was in South Kerry. However, that does not make much difference.
None at all.
Dr. Ryan
I do not see why Deputy Dillon should refer to them as the backwoods of Kerry.
Tell us something about the cattle quota.
Dr. Ryan
Deputy Dillon says that he is a farmer and a shopkeeper and he claims to be in a position to say that goods of Irish manufacture are going down in consumption. As a shopkeeper he says he knows that. As statistics go, that is not true. The only conclusion we can draw from that is that Deputy Dillon is as great a failure as a shopkeeper as he is as a politician.
You say that certain statistics prove the Deputy is wrong. Where are the statistics?
Dr. Ryan
I must produce them.
The Minister is not in the witness-box.
Lucky Minister.
Dr. Ryan
The importance of the cattle trade has been stressed. Deputy Dillon expressed the belief that the cattle trade was of supreme importance to the country. He asked the Government to realise that the cattle industry is the lynch-pin of the country's commerce and every other branch of industry is interlocked with it. He said that if you destroy the cattle trade you are throwing the whole economy of the country out of gear, with the result that the whole structure will come toppling down about your ears. Surely Deputy Dillon has sufficiently emphasised that the cattle industry is the all-important industry. Yet that was denied by some Deputies opposite this evening. We have the usual statements from prominent Deputies on the opposite benches. They say that they do not approve of the movement not to pay rates or taxes. They do not approve of the cutting of trees and they advise the people to pay rates. But having done so, apparently they do not want to lose the support altogether of that element in the country, and they come back and say: "Of course, if you are hard-up and not able to pay, that is a different thing. Do not think I am condemning you altogether for doing these things. If you are hard-up, we will stand by you." The Deputy says: "If the Government, in the name of the law, attempts to break up a man's family and exacts a demand the result of which may throw him and his family into the poorhouse, I say that that man would be a fool if he did not stand on his own threshold and defend his home."
And does the Minister not agree with me?
Dr. Ryan
This, I take it, is an occasion on which Deputy Dillon would take up the rifle and cross-cut. He said he would take them up if required, but Deputy Dillon last Sunday qualified that statement also. He said that there had been a civil war before and one was enough and although he was prepared to take up the rifle and cross-cut, he qualified that statement by saying that he could not see any circumstances in which he would take them up because he does not want to see another civil war again.
Would the Minister quote what I said?
Dr. Ryan
The Deputy, as far as I remember, said that if the occasion arose, he would take up his rifle or take up his cross-cut.
Quote me.
Tell us about the cattle; that is what we are interested in. We heard too much about guns in our time.
Dr. Ryan
That ends Deputy Dillon's twenty-seven columns on this motion. The two big matters that arise are, I suppose, firstly, that we are being censured because we failed to secure a quota sufficient for the needs of the country, and secondly, that in the arguments that are put forward in support of this motion, it has been suggested by practically every Deputy on the opposite side that not only do we lose the cattle industry by losing that export quota, but that practically every branch of agriculture goes down as well. The argument is made that if we have any lesser number of cattle, our tillage policy goes completely. The motion says:
That the Dáil condemns the Executive Council for its neglect to secure a quota for the export of cattle to Great Britain adequate to the needs of our agricultural industry. —(Deputies P. Hogan and R. Curran).
And do you not agree with it?
Dr. Ryan
I do not agree with condemning this Government, because this Government is not responsible for it, and that is what I have been trying to impress on the Deputy all the time. I have been trying, for, I suppose, practically three years now, to impress on all the Deputies opposite that this Government is not responsible for that state of affairs. I have been trying to get the Deputies opposite to take the view that the British Government are, at any rate, also responsible, and I think they might go that far.
With Senator Connolly.
Dr. Ryan
They must, of course, for political reasons, and for political purposes, hold this Government responsible, to a certain extent.
And because of what the President and Senator Connolly said.
Dr. Ryan
They have to take this view for political reasons, and now they are in difficulties politically in trying to keep the greater section of the Blueshirts on their side. For political reasons, we will let them blame this Government, to a certain extent, so that they may keep their dwindling following together, if that is possible, but they ought sometimes at any rate to admit, for the sake of the country and for the sake of getting a bigger quota, if you like, that the British Government is also responsible. It would be better for this country, even if they took only that low view of it, if you like.
We have said it.
Dr. Ryan
It must have been in the privacy of your own drawingroom you said it. I have never seen it stated in public by Deputy Curran.
Between you both, you have us all ruined, and we have told you that.
Dr. Ryan
And mind you, when Deputy Curran and some of the Deputies opposite say that the farmers are all broken, it speaks frightfully badly for the Party opposite, because if the farmers are as bad as they say they are and if the position of the country is as bad as they say it is, must the people not think them a very bad Government when they would vote for this Government again rather than for them, as they did?
They were a bit gullible, I admit.
Dr. Ryan
That is true.
They are wiser now.
You fooled them once and you fooled them twice, but you will not fool them the third time.
Dr. Ryan
We have not fooled them at any time.
This manifesto is the reason they voted for you.
Dr. Ryan
We did not fool them. Is there anything wrong with that manifesto?
We will read that out for you at a later stage.
Dr. Ryan
All through 1932 we had the people opposite saying that Fianna Fáil had been elected all right at the beginning of 1932, but that when they went to the people again they would hear what the people had to say. We went to the people at the beginning of 1933 and all through 1933 we were told that when the local elections came along we would see what the people thought about us and now only a few months after the third vote we have the same thing again— they are beginning to see through us now. That is absolutely ridiculous. The followers of the Party opposite are beginning to see through you and they are splitting into new parties. Deputy Belton was the first to go, and he is usually the first to go.
Look at the responsibility there is on Deputy Belton for bringing you in here! I will meet you at that crossroads next week.
Dr. Ryan
We will fight the common enemy now.
God protect us from our friends, Deputy Belton!
Time flies and death approaches.
Dr. Ryan
What I have been trying for the last three years to do is to get the Deputies opposite to look at this from a national point of view rather than from a Party point of view. And a little piece of political advice, the national point of view is often the best political point of view if you could only see it, but I admit you are a bit shortsighted. Let them not put all the blame on this Government for what has happened.
You do not call it a national war; you call it an economic war.
Dr. Ryan
I do not care what you call it, but whatever it is—tariffs, economic war, or whatever you like to call it—I do not think it is sensible for people in this country to put all the blame on this Government for it. It is neither sensible nor advisable if you want to have an end to it.
Nor patriotic.
Dr. Ryan
I am purposely leaving out that word because I want to be as kind as possible. The second big question that arose on this debate which I want to deal with was this question of whether the reduction in the number of cattle we can export is going to have a very adverse effect on all our other agricultural lines, as some of the Deputies opposite would lead one to believe. I can deal with that to-morrow.