This motion asks for relief of rates on agricultural land during the continuance of the economic war because of the dire circumstances of the agricultural community. Those who have spoken against the motion on the Government side have been mainly Ministers, the men who, a year or two ago, were themselves advocating this particular principle. Speaking last night, the Minister for Industry and Commerce described the motion as curious, and when he came to explain what was curious about it he said that, if passed, it would mean that derating would become permanent. I could imagine somebody on other benches objecting to a permanent derating proposal, but coming from a member of the Government, it does not seem at all considerate. Remember, it was your baby. In better times than there are now, you took this particular policy to your bosom, nursed it, preached about it on public platforms and put it into your election addresses. If there was a need for it two or three years ago, there is ten times the need for it now. If the circumstances of the farmers were so bad three years ago as to prompt a proposal for total derating, then that necessity is ten times greater now.
One can sympathise with the point of view of the Minister for Local Government. He is mainly concerned with the collection of the rates. He does not profess to have any great knowledge of agriculture. He has honestly admitted that, and I wish that admission were as honestly made by other members of the Government—that they are equally ignorant of the conditions prevailing in the agricultural sphere. The Minister for Local Government honestly admitted that his knowledge of agriculture was second-hand. He is mainly concerned with the collection of rates, and whether or not the people are able to pay them does not concern him very much, although perhaps he might have sympathy with them. I do not accuse him of a lack of sympathy. In the chief city in my constituency the Minister expressed the view that the rates were not high enough, and that he was only actuated by the provision of greater services, irrespective of the expense to the ratepayer. We can all agree with the desire for better services for the people—I do not suppose there would be opposition from any part of the House in that connection, if the people could afford it—but the cost of better services should be equitably borne, and should be distributed amongst all sections of the community.
If one is to accept the view of the Minister for Industry and Commerce that this motion, if passed, would mean permanent derating, the last people who should cavil are the occupants of the Government Benches. A very good case could be made for permanent derating. There is one obvious advantage in derating and that is that whatever measure of relief it offers at the taxpayers' expense, the benefit will go directly to the people for whom it is intended—it will go directly to the farmers. That could not be said of any attempts at relief made by the Government during the last three years. Nobody denies— it has not been denied by the Government Party—that the position of the farmers is a difficult one. It has not been denied that the farmers are in sore financial straits and are unable to pay their commitments. If the farmers are to exist, something more than has been done for them will have to be done. One big step towards aiding the farmers in their difficulties would be the adoption of the principle underlying this motion. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has pointed out what this Government has done for the farmers generally. The Minister for Local Government referred to the hundreds of thousands—in fact the £9,000,000 or £10,000,000—which went directly to the farmers. I felt my teeth watering when I heard the Minister speak of the millions they were bestowing on the unfortunate agriculturists. I wonder where that money has gone? I am not aware that any of it got into my pockets, or into the pockets of my neighbours.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce dealt with the agricultural policy in England and attempted to prove that our market for cattle, in England, was gone. His principal reason for that argument was that the British Government have seen fit, in the last twelve months or so, to make provision so that better prices will be got by British farmers for their agricultural produce. The British Government were perfectly right in that effort, and I hope they will have good results from it. The Minister pointed out that if the British were going to increase the price for beef cattle, that would be to our detriment. I will take up the issue with the Minister there. I submit that the more the British farmer will get for his beef, the better pleased we ought to be. The British farmer will never produce enough beef, no matter how intensely he goes in for the production, to feed the English people. He cannot produce more than a tithe of their requirements and the remainder will have to be found elsewhere. The more the British farmer goes in for beef production, instead of other forms of agriculture, the greater will be his necessity to obtain the raw material, and the best raw material available for the Englishman engaged in the production of beef is the Irish store. The British Government had that in mind when they made arrangements that an Irish store three months in England was to be considered a British-born animal.
If the British decide to treble their production of beef there will be a greater necessity for the exportation of the primest store cattle from this country to Britain. Some Ministers have said that the English market is dead and gone, and they have expressed the hope that it is dead and gone. The fact is that it is not, and we had certain proof of that within the last few months, particularly at the Christmas markets. Despite all the Ministerial statements, they could easily arrange for the British to take another 150,000 cattle under a recent agreement. The extra number being exported to Britain this year forms a very small portion of the British requirements of raw material for the production of beef. Further arrangements of that sort could be, and should be, made so that the British will take not alone an extra 150,000 cattle, but an extra 500,000 cattle. We will soon, I hope, arrive at the day when they will take an extra 500,000 stores every year from this country. The greater price the British farmer gets for beef the more will he be inclined to extend his beef production; the greater will be his requirements for store cattle, and it is to this country he will look for the best stores. The best stores are undoubtedly produced here, and they can be sold in England at beef prices, and even above beef prices, because the price per cwt. for store cattle in this country has often exceeded that of beef cattle. It has often paid a farmer to sell a beast before it was finished rather than to finish the animal. It paid him better to let the British farmer finish it.
The Minister tells us that we have no market for beef. There is a grave danger that we might lose our market for store cattle in Great Britain. It is not that Great Britain will not require our cattle or will not have need for the extra stores that we can offer them of high quality, but it will be due to the policy of the Government. Perhaps some people are rather impressed by what one might call the contradictory policy of the Government when they read in the papers of buyers on behalf of the Department of Agriculture giving £500, £600 and sometimes £1,000 for a bull, and in the same paper read an announcement that a bounty of 10/- or 12/6 is to be given on calf skins, so that they are spending the taxpayers' money on the production of cattle on the one hand, and, on the other, for the extermination of them.
What is going to be the result of this policy? The result is inevitably going to be that the farmers will be tempted to get rid of their calves and there will be a diminished supply of cattle. There is a serious danger that, the price of calves being so low—calves being only worth the value of the skin—those who do feed their calves will not feed them in the future. It will not pay them to feed them. No farmer is going to raise a beast and sell it at eight months old for 25/- or 30/-. He is going to allow the calf to take its chance of living or dying. We are inevitably going to arrive at the period, in two years time, when the next generation of cattle are going to be inferior because of being underfed at the time they ought to be fed—inferior in quality and perhaps delicate in constitution. There is a danger that other countries may step into the market for store cattle in Great Britain that we have held so firmly—a market that Canada or any other part of the Commonwealth could not drive us out of. Our store cattle are worth pounds more than any other stores in the British market and the Government are setting out to destroy the advantage which we have there.
Minister and Deputies on the other side have pointed out the advantages of the home market. Nobody denies that we ought to collar the home market, and we are collaring it. At present we have practically all the home market in beef, butter, potatoes and everything else, bar one or two articles. We have had an increasing amount of it every day for the last two years and are we one whit better off? We have collared practically the whole of the market and we are not one whit better off because of the attempts of the Government to give us a greater proportion of that market. Rather are we worse off. Even if we can collar the little percentage of the home market to which the foreigner still holds on there will not be any appreciable improvement in our position if we lose the benefit of the export market we had.
Even if the farmer was not altogether as badly off financially as he is at present he still could make a very good case for the remission of rates, because the policy of the Government during the last three years has been to increase central taxation to a great extent and the farmer has borne an increasing burden of taxation, outside his rates, for the last three years. Take the one item of tariffs. Possibly the farmer has borne a bigger share of the millions derived from tariffs than any other member of the community. The President himself, speaking a couple of years ago on this very question of the relief of rates, referred to tariffs and said it should be remembered that the tariffs bore more heavily on the smaller farmer than anybody else. That in itself was a good argument made by the President in favour of derating.
Nobody could make a better case for this motion than Ministers, and a good case could be made for this motion outside the economic condition of the farmers. If the poor and the needy and the unemployed and everybody else are to have the benefits that they ought to have; if the local social services are to be improved as perhaps they ought to be improved; if the sanitation and improvement of towns are to be undertaken on the lines that they ought to be undertaken then there should be an equitable distribution of the burden. Even if these circumstances had not arisen a very good case could be made for derating. A more equitable distribution of the burden should and ought to be made.
I, for one, am willing to take the Minister for Industry and Commerce at his word, that if this motion is passed it is going to be a permanent matter. If it is to be a permanent matter, I shall vote for it, just as I shall vote for the temporary remission of rates which has been made necessary by the present conditions. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in endeavouring to make a case last night, adopted his usual tactics by throwing the onus on the Opposition. The Minister is an adept at that kind of performance. When he is at a loss for a good case he throws the taunt at us: "What would you do; what is your policy?" The Minister should not seek for our policy. He ought to have a policy of his own to help in these matters and stand by it, rather than look for it from Deputies on this side.
The Minister said that the policy of the Opposition was to give relief in hard times and hope that something would turn up in the future. Even if they only did that it would be something, if the relief reached the people that it was intended to reach. The policy of Fianna Fáil, as far as the farmer is concerned, seems to be to perpetuate the bad times, because we have had bad times in farming since they came into office, and there does not seem to be any prospect of the times becoming better. Unless they are put out, or unless they mend their ways, we shall certainly have a perpetuation of the miserable circumstances in which we are at present. We have had bounties and subsidies and other aids for the great home market that was going to make us glorious, happy and prosperous, and with all of them we have gone down and down in the financial scale until we are practically beggared. The few who are not will soon be.
The case that could be made for this motion was made in this House by the members of the Front Bench two or three years ago. It was followed by an appeal in their election addresses to the farmers of this country, in which they asked them to put Fianna Fáil into office and they would have complete derating, having previously proved what a blessing it would be. There might have been differences of opinion amongst some members, other than those of the Fianna Fáil Party, at that time as to the propriety of total derating, but if there were, God knows enough had happened to change the mind of any doubter that derating is certainly necessary now, and other reliefs also if we could get them. I have no qualms of conscience in supporting this motion. If there is any danger of derating becoming a permanent necessity, I am prepared to stand by it and to back it in this House and outside it.
