Supplementary Estimates. - Vote 52—Agriculture. – Dáil Éireann (8th Dáil) – Wednesday, 17 Jul 1935

Supplementary Estimates. - Vote 52—Agriculture.

An Ceann Comhairle

With regard to Vote 52—Agriculture, I understand it has been agreed that the Minister will be called upon to conclude at 9.45 p.m. I shall call on him accordingly.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £10 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1936, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmhaíochta agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riaradh na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisi-i-gCabhair.

That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1936, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, and of certain services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

As Deputies are aware, this Supplementary Estimate is being moved in order to give the House an opportunity of discussing the administration of the Department of Agriculture during the last 12 months. This was considered to be the most convenient way in which agriculture could be discussed. It is not altogether that we need £10. It is more to give an opportunity for discussion. This £10 added to the original estimate leaves us something like a net expenditure of £998,000. That figure has been commented upon by certain Deputies here as being extraordinarily high. It is, of course, much higher than the normal expenditure under the Department of Agriculture for many years, but there are two large items which account for the increase. These two are the expenditure under the Cereals Act and the expenditure under the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Act. Under the Cereals Act there is an estimate of £300,000, and the net expenditure under the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Act would be £200,000. If we deduct that £500,000, from the amount here, we would get down to something under £500,000, which is about the normal expenditure of the Department over a number of years.

I do not think there is very much use in going through the various sub-heads of the Estimate. If the Estimate had been taken in the normal time I would have been inclined to say something in regard to the sub-heads. I presume that now the debate is going to take a more general turn and agriculture in a wider sense will be discussed. I would like to give Deputies some little help. I would like to tell them what the true position is with regard to prices so that they may not fall into error, as they might be inclined to if I did not give some prices to start off with. I want to take, first of all, the dairying products. The dairying business was a very important branch of the agricultural industry and in 1926-27, when the output of agriculture was taken, it was valued at £13,000,000. The output in 1934 increased considerably in quantity, so that if prices had remained the same in 1934 as they were in 1926 it would be still more valuable in cash than it was in that year. The world price in 1934 was considerably less than half what it was in 1926 yet, through the various measures taken by the Government, the income to farmers on a cash value basis was almost two-thirds what it was in 1926. In that particular branch of agriculture the farmers were not left to the disastrous consequences of world prices.

In 1935 things have been a little better so far as we have gone. In the first quarter, I see in the Irish Trade Journal, farmers' butter was 128/5 per cwt. On an average, compared with 116/4 in the first quarter of 1934. That applies to the whole Free State. Creamery butter was 138/6, as compared with 134/6 in the first quarter of 1934. The price of milk to creameries was 5.3, as compared with 5.2. I am quoting these prices to show that in 1935 the returns from dairy products are somewhat better than they were in 1934, and we managed to return to the farmers two-thirds of the income they had in 1926 although world prices were less than half. This, of course, has been due to many causes, the Stabilisation Act, the various subsidies and also, in some measure, to the development of the manufacture of certain dairy products not manufactured here three or four years ago. The principal one would be cheese. The output this year of cheese will amount to 30,000 cwts. A few years ago the output was only a few thousand cwts.

One of the results of this policy of guaranteeing a certain return for dairy products has been that we have increased the number of cows. A few years ago we had 1,222,000 cows and, in 1934, we had 1,309,000 cows. That was due to the difficulty of getting rid of old cows. We hope, in the course of a week or ten days, to have a factory commencing operations and taking old uneconomic cows for conversion into meat meal. That may have the effect of bringing the number of cows down again to the normal number that we had for some years. As I explained yesterday, the purchase of old cows for the Roscrea factory will be followed by a vigorous campaign for the elimination of tuberculosis.

So far as milk products are concerned, there does not appear any possibility of an improvement in the dairying industry as long as world prices remain as they are and as long as we have a surplus which we must export. If we had more consumption at home or less production, if all our own dairy products would be consumed by our own people, there would be no difficulty whatsoever in getting back to the 1926-29 prices. The largest item in the output of agriculture in 1926 was cattle. That was also worth £13,000,000. Everybody will admit that the price of cattle is very low. The economic war has been blamed, to a great extent, for the reduction in the price of cattle, but it cannot be blamed entirely for that great reduction, because the very most that the economic war can be held responsible for, as regards the reduction in prices, would be a tariff less bounty, and no beast should be reduced, even the best beast in the country, more than £5 a head owing to the economic war, and the majority of the cattle should be reduced only by £2 10s. a head or £4 a head.

Mr. Belton

What about the quota?

Dr. Ryan

Do not be surprised, a Chinn Comhairle, if he is wise sometimes. As I have shown under the other various headings, sheep, pigs, dairy products and so on, the farmer is not suffering any great loss as a result of the economic war. What he will gain in wheat and beet will cover this small loss, and indeed, perhaps, a good lot more. I know the case will be made here by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and others, who quote statistics, touching them in spots where it suits them, that we have not increased our tillage at all as a result of this wheat policy. A few days ago here Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney compared wheat and oats, but, strange to say, he left out barley. Any unprejudiced person would think that if you are going to talk about wheat and oats you should also have a look at barley, but that would not suit Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's argument. For fear he might mislead somebody again, I want to give him figures before he commences, so that he can take a note of them. In 1931 the total tillage, taking cereals, roots and all, was 1,425,000 acres, and in 1934 it was 1,497,000, that is an increase of 72,000 acres. Our wheat crop has been increased by 73,000 acres, so that it does appear that if we have increased our acreage in wheat, as we did in 1934 by 73,000 there is extra tillage to a great extent. It is true that the acreage in oats went down, but the acreage in barley went up. If you take oats and barley together, leaving out wheat, the acreage in 1931 was 739,000, and in 1934, 726,000 acres; that is we went down 13,000 acres in oats and barley together, while we went up 73,000 acres in wheat. That meant that of that 73,000 acres in wheat, 60,000 acres was extra tillage.

Mr. Curran

Will the Minister say what was the average production?

Dr. Ryan

We have not got those figures for 1934 yet. That is the yield?

Mr. Curran

Yes.

Dr. Ryan

I do not think we have yet got those figures for 1934, but I will try and get them for the Deputy if possible. I think these are the only points to which I want to draw attention before Deputies speak on this Estimate. I remember last year, when introducing the Estimate, I asked Deputies for some good suggestions, because the usual speeches they make here on agriculture are not going to do the country any good. If any Deputy would make a good suggestion for the improvement of agriculture, it would do a whole lot more good.

Mr. Morrissey

It would be badly wanted.

Dr. Ryan

Very badly wanted. If any Deputy can make a good suggestion, I will be the first to say it is a good suggestion, and I will have it examined or adopted. But I am three years here, and I have never heard any suggestion from the Opposition that anyone would adopt, even themselves.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

The Minister, as one would expect, has very naturally endeavoured to put the very best face he can upon the administration of his Department. But I do think that it would be better for the country, and especially it would be better for agriculture, and more in the interests of those who live upon the land, if the Minister would take a much broader and deeper view of Irish agriculture than he took in his opening statement; if the Minister would consider where the policy which he has been adopting is leading the country. In a very famous passage Edward Gibbon declared that solitude was the school of genius. I really wish that the Minister for Agriculture would go somewhere into complete and entire solitude for something like a week, bringing no book or anything with him, and having nothing except his own thoughts to rely upon. I wish he would go to some lonely lighthouse, or some place of that nature, and I also wish that he would make the same suggestion to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. When these two gentlemen have spent some little time in a lonely lighthouse meditating upon the condition of this country at present, looking to what the future of this country is, having regard to their policy, I venture to think that the Minister would cease from his present method of living from hand to mouth, of making experiment after experiment, in a desperate endeavour to produce some palliative for the evils which he is bringing upon agriculture by his policy. I am afraid, however, that we have very small hopes of the Minister going back to bedrock. We have very small hopes of the Minister taking a broad view of Irish agriculture, taking a broad and intelligent view of what the future of Irish agriculture must be if his policy is carried out, as it is being carried out, not amended and fundamentally altered.

When one comes to consider the policy of the Government in regard to agriculture, it is perfectly obvious that the Government, detached from Irish affairs and conditions, have worked on a theoretical scheme which they have been determined to put into force. They have been acting entirely as theorists. They have produced certain schemes which would be precisely and identically the same if they were the Executive Council of Kamscathcha or Korea or any other country. They have been working at a theory, and nothing else but a theory.

Take agriculture as it stands at present, and take the Minister's opening statement. How is agriculture situated, how is it living? As far as the butter industry is concerned that industry was most undoubtedly badly hit, and certain measures had to be taken to preserve the industry which was of great importance to this State. As to whether the Minister's methods were the wisest and best, I will not stop to consider. I do not think it necessarily follows that the method adopted by private firms and exporters who control the Australian market was the very best policy which the Minister could imitate. I will grant that to carry the Irish dairying industry over a crisis in its history it most unquestionably was necessary that certain steps should be taken, but I will not stay to examine as to whether those steps and the subsidising of Irish butter could be entirely justified.

When one comes to consider subsidies one must regard a subsidy as a thing which is either to keep a business going over a bad period, or else to keep a business going which is wanted, not for its own self, not for its economic interest, but because of some social interest that it has got. Now, on the ground of carrying a great important industry over what was a temporary crisis, certainly the Government subsidy, direct or indirect—in this case it is indirect—to the butter industry was justified. But when you have a great industry, an important industry, the cattle and sheep industry, what is the Minister's case to the House? That not now, not for any present crisis, but for all time, that industry is to live on a subsidised basis. It is being subsidised at present, and while it is being subsidised with export bounties on the one hand, it is being deliberately killed by the Minister, because when he is slaughtering calves in the senseless fashion in which they were slaughtered, the Minister is killing the live stock trade, because he is killing the things which are necessary to the live stock trade. You have got this main industry, the main source of wealth to the agricultural community, and especially to the smaller farmer, put, as the Minister himself must admit, upon a permanently unsound subsidised basis.

When dealing with the wheat scheme, the Minister did not tell the House that the price that is being paid for wheat is being paid out of a Government subsidy, direct or indirect. He did not tell the House, when talking about the increased area of beet, that the price which is being paid for beet is a subsidised price. He has never held out any hope, and he never could hold out any hope, to this House that wheat will be able to stand upon its own legs as a wealth-producing source in this country. It is impossible for him to contend, that beet can ever stand upon its own legs as a source of wealth in this country.

What is the condition into which you have got agriculture, in all its main features, in everything that goes to constitute its principal source of production? You have got agriculture on an unsound, because subsidised, basis. Where are the subsidies to come from? In other countries, no doubt in very highly industrialised countries, they can afford to subsidise agriculture. They can afford to subsidise various forms of agriculture, but remember that is being done, not because they wish to have agriculture by itself as a real source of wealth to the State, but because for social purposes they wish to have a balance in the State with the agricultural end kept up. That, for instance, is the reason why the British people are subsidising beet, not because they hope that beet in England can stand on its own legs, but because they wish for social purposes to have a certain number of their people engaged on the land. But, turning to this country, our position is quite different. We are not a highly industrialised country. I do not believe we can ever hope to be a highly industrialised country. I do not believe we can ever hope that the product of our industries will ever exceed the product of our land in value. But the Minister is so working agriculture at the present moment that agriculture has to look outside itself in order that it can be kept going at all. It has to look outside itself for a subsidy from some source or another.

Where is that subsidy to come from? It can come from two sources only. After all a nation when it spends has only got two sources to which it can look for the amount which it is going to spend. There is first the annual production of the country, and the main annual production in this country was agriculture. Agriculture has ceased in its main features to be self-supporting. It has become a national loss rather than a source of national gain under the Minister's policy. Where else can it look? The products of industry? Are the products of industry sufficiently large to be able to subsidiwse agriculture at the present moment? It is pretty plain and obvious, I think, that they are not. Certainly anybody who knows this country, could not contend for a moment that they could. Then there remains only the other source of wealth, namely, the accumulated riches of the State, the product of the work of past generations in this country. It is as clear as daylight— at least it seems to me to be as clear as daylight—that in order to keep this policy of subsidies going it is necessary for the Minister to draw upon the capital of the country, upon the accumulated resources of the country, and that can only be done for a short time, a very short time.

That, Sir, brings me to a point to which I have been leading up, a point which I want to emphasise. That point is that there may be a subsidy for beet and a subsidy for wheat to-day, but it is as clear as daylight that it is only as long as the capital of the country remains unexhausted, it is only as long as the Minister can draw upon the capital of the country, that the Minister will be able to keep subsidies for agriculture going. Anybody who comes to the conclusion that for all time this country will be able to maintain subsidies for beet or subsidies for wheat, at the present scale, or will be able to pay bounties on the export of cattle—anybody who thinks that that can be kept up indefinitely must be a person who thinks that the capital of this country is inexhaustible. And it is not inexhaustible. The Executive Council are draining it out in a hundred and one different directions. The whole principle is absolutely and fundamentally unsound, when you consider that what was the great source of wealth, the overwhelmingly great source of wealth, is no longer to be that great source of wealth and is put in a struggling position, helped by other resources and other industries.

Let me take this very simple illustration. Does anybody think that a country can get along permanently, if it has got to keep a huge number of its people on the dole? Does anybody think, on the Government side of the House, that this country could get on if an overwhelmingly large number of its people were put on relief work? But what is the difference? Remember that every penny you pay in subsidy to beet or to wheat, every penny that you pay by way of bounty on the export of cattle, as far as it reaches the farmer at all—I do not accept that it does—is of the nature of money spent on relief works. Your principle now is that the main industry of the country can be kept going by means of relief. It is obvious to my mind that it cannot, as it must be obvious to the mind of anybody who considers the situation. These are not temporary things; this is a permanent policy. The main source of the farmers' income, according to the Minister for Agriculture, is to be derived from wheat and from beet, and these products are going to be a permanent drain upon the resources of the country. That is for all time, not to pass over some temporary crisis, not called for by some world condition. Whether world prices be high or low, for all time Irish farming has to look, not to itself to be self-supporting, but Irish farming has to look elsewhere for help, to other sections of the community. That is obviously in its nature completely and entirely absurd.

While I am talking upon this question of wheat, I want to reply to a remark which the Minister made in reference to a speech which I delivered here the other day. I pointed out that the wheat area did not make up for the fall in the oats area and I stated that the conclusion that ought to be drawn and must be drawn from the figures, as between oats and wheat, was that oats had been knocked out and that wheat was taking its place. But the Minister comes along and says: "Let us take into consideration barley." If barley is driving oats out of the market will the Minister tell us why? If barley is driving oats from the tillage fields of the country will the Minister tell us why? Barley-growing is not substantially in competition with oats growing. Surely the bulk of the barley grown in this country depends upon the state of the brewing industry, so at least I would think. Surely the amount of barley used in home food is small in connection with the amount used in the brewing industry. If the malting industry is absorbing more barley than it did, then the conclusion I would draw from the increased area under barley is that it had nothing whatever to do with oats. I would like to know from the Minister why, in his opinion, unsubsidised barley is driving from the tillage fields unsubsidised oats? What is the reason for that? It seems to me to be perfectly clear that it is subsidised wheat that is driving out unsubsidised oats. The Minister makes a great boast. He says that there has been an increase of 72,000 acres out of his estimated 1½ million acres. Is that an enormous increase? Is that an increase that the country could not have had, and which the country ought to have had. if there never had been a beet or a wheat scheme?

The Deputy's followers or Party did it.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

My followers or Party did it? I deny that absolutely. In the first place, the Minister charges me. Then, that being so absolutely absurd, he says that it was our followers did it. I say that that is absolutely wrong and I say that the shooting of unfortunate animals carried out by anybody—the Minister's Party or anybody else—is wrong, criminal and disgraceful. The Minister may say what he likes on political platforms; he may break away and diverge from the truth as much as he likes on political platforms—we have no control over the Minister's unscrupulous propaganda or the ununscrupulous propaganda of the Party—but I am glad that the Minister has made that ridiculously false charge here where it can be met and answered and where it can be made apparent to the whole country what is the regard for the truth which animates the Minister for Agriculture.

Now, let me return to what I was saying. The Minister for Agriculture, in order that he might be in the swim with other countries, senselessly ordered the destruction of hundreds of thousands of calves. I do not know whether his anxiety for slaughtering calves is still as great but what is the result to be? It is that two years from now, and further on, when these cattle in the ordinary way should come upon the market, when they should be grazing and fattening on Irish fields and in Irish stalls, there are to be no successors and our lands are to lie ungrazed and our tillage is to go down because there are not cattle to feed on the produce of our tillage. The Minister's idea of saneness and sanity is to have understocking of Irish land and, by letting grass go to waste and by leaving turnips uneaten, the farmers of this country are to grow rich.

I do not intend to detain the House any longer, but I do submit to this House that if a fair and a long view is taken by any Deputy he must see that the Minister is leading this country to destruction. He is leading this country to destruction because he is destroying the main industry of this country. We have had other persons before who have destroyed Irish trade and Irish industry. Men have denounced Lord Strafford again and again because he destroyed the woollen trade. The country rang, and rightly rang, with denunciations of the then English Government when it destroyed the beef trade of this country in the 18th century, but precisely the work which was done by Strafford and by the English statesmen who destroyed our beef trade in the 18th century is being done by the Minister for Agriculture now and I sincerely hope that this House will give him no help in so doing.

Mr. Bennett

This is the most important Estimate that comes before this House, and the Minister has realised that by giving the House the opportunity of fully discussing it on a token Vote. If there is any proof needed that on agriculture the general prosperity of this country depends, whether in industry, commerce, or the amount of employment given, it is to be found in one particular way. If one puts to oneself the question which I have often put to constituents of my own: "What was in recent history the most prosperous era in this country?" the answer will immediately jump to one's mind that it was the period of the World War. Why were we particularly prosperous during the World War? Was it that any new industry sprang up; that we exported a tremendous amount of manufactured goods to various parts of the world which we did not hitherto export; or that in some other way we brought wealth into this country? No; it was because, for once, in a number of years, the farmer came into his own.

Mr. Belton

Because he got enough credit.

Mr. Bennett

Because, just for once, the farmer exported his goods at a big profit, exported an increased quantity of goods at a profit, and because of the increased profits of the farmers every other section in the community prospered. The people in the villages, towns and cities prospered equally with the farmers. The retailers, the shopkeepers and the manufacturers prospered, and, above and beyond all, the labouring men prospered. There was work for every man who needed work at higher wages than were paid for years before or since, and all because there was prosperity in agriculture. We have fallen on leaner days, particularly within the last two or three years, because the policy of the Government in relation to agriculture appears to be unsuitable to this country.

In discussing the Government's policy in relation to agriculture, it will be necessary to discuss it from two aspects; first, their general policy in regard to agriculture with a view to the future, and, secondly, their policy in relation to the circumstances in which we have found ourselves owing to the economic war. Proceeding on the first line of their general policy, I would like to argue on the relative merits of the old policy adopted in regard to agriculture of leaving the farmer more or less free to produce those things that suited him best and for which we had an export market. If any encouragement was needed for the agricultural industry it should be given in a monetary way in respect of an item that was likely to prove profitable in succeeding years. The Ministry, apparently with a wild desire for self-sufficiency in this country, adopted cereals as against the existing policy of live stock and dairying. I am not suggesting the Ministry wilfully desired to extinguish the live stock and dairying industry, but even before the economic war started they did advocate an intensive policy of cereals in substitution for the type of live stock farming hitherto pursued.

I will deal with what appears to be the foremost item in the agricultural world which has taken the Minister's attention, and that is the growing of wheat. To be successful in the growing of wheat in this State there must be a continuous subsidy. As Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney pointed out, one can envisage no period in the future when wheat could be produced here without the aid of a subsidy. There will be no world market, indeed no export market, for wheat so far as one can look ahead. The Minister had a particular advantage during the last two or three years because they were notably favourable years for the growing of wheat. In the next 50 years we may not meet three such favourable years in succession again. The Minister was lucky in that particular way in extending the area of wheat-growing here. He was lucky also in that the economic war gave the grower of wheat an advantage that he would not have in normal circumstances, if an economic war was not on. Wheat, even with the subsidy, is not an economic product. Wheat at 23/6 a barrel, the price proposed under recent legislation, would not be a very economic proposition. The margin of profit would in deed be very small. The only reason the acreage under wheat has been extended in the last two or three years is because every other branch of the agricultural industry has been so reduced that it is impossible to make even the production price. For the last three years it was impossible to engage in any other form of agriculture without losing.

Wheat even with the subsidy is barely able to maintain itself. The farmer is just able to get the growing costs and possibly a little profit. To suggest that at 23/6 a barrel wheat could be produced successfully if other agricultural items were not interfered with, is not a reasonable thing. Supposing the Minister, with the aid of the subsidy, was able eventually to induce people to grow the number of acres of wheat necessary to feed our own people, what would be the position? It has been estimated that to meet the needs of our own people we would require the produce of 650,000 to 800,000 acres of wheat. If the subsidy is large enough the Minister will eventually get the farmers to grow that amount of wheat and to substitute wheat for some other item of agriculture in which heretofore they were engaged. But one has to look further than the present when one is beginning a new policy. I would like Deputies to cast their minds eight or ten years ahead when we have reached the Minister's ambition by growing 700,000 to 800,000 acres of wheat with a subsidy. What is going to happen? If wheat is going to be the prosperous crop that the Minister visualises, then when we are producing 600,000 to 800,000 acres of wheat the Government will have to step in and reduce the subsidy or use some other method to restrain people from growing extra wheat: otherwise you will have a surplus, and when you have a surplus, whether you have a subsidy or not, you will have falling prices.

It seems clear that wheat growing, if it is continued even with the aid of a subsidy, will be insecure from the farmers' point of view. If it is successfully grown we will rapidly approach the day when we will be self-sufficient and then there will be a decline. The Minister said that this year we will have 200,000 acres of wheat. That is an enormous advance. At the same rate of progress, in three years from now we will be producing over 600,000 acres of wheat, and if you can get the millers to use Irish wheat only—which, again, is problematical, and I make that statement advisedly—for the manufacture of flour, wheat prices are sure to drop back. If we reach the stage when all our bread will be manufactured from Irish wheat and if we continue the present rate of progress, everything else remaining as it is, we will reach the stage when we will have all our requirements in wheat and prices are sure to decline irrespective of what action the present Minister or any Minister may take.

The Minister, on another Bill in this House, propounded the doctrine that to regulate prices satisfactorily, to keep the prices up, it might be necessary at times to create an uneconomic price. That was debated in the House not many weeks ago. That certainly will happen in relation to the Minister's wheat crops not very many years ahead and it will be necessary for the Minister, temporarily at least, to create uneconomic prices in order to limit the amount of wheat grown. I hope Deputies will take a note of this particular argument in connection with wheat—that a subsidy will make anybody grow it if the subsidy is big enough. If other items of agriculture remain as they are, unprofitable, wheat will be grown to an extent it was never grown before and then we will arrive at a state when wheat will become an uneconomic crop.

Mr. Belton

That will happen any crop.

Mr. Bennett

It will happen any crop except crops the surplus of which you can export. If you have a surplus of wheat here you cannot give it away. In relation to live stock, on the other hand, we have a market. Circumstances have limited the profit on that particular market. We had a market for all the live stock that we could produce for many, many years in this country. Prices fluctuated as they did and as they will in the future, but on the whole farmers had a profit and they were able to survive, while a good many of them were able to provide for their children through following a system of live stock and dairying with a little tillage. I am not advocating, and I hope I never will advocate, that we should have no tillage, but I am advocating the merits of live stock, dairying and tillage—as against tillage extensively. For live stock we have a certain market outside. We are more favourably situated in regard to that market than any other country and we are in a better position to take advantage of that market than any other country. Our transport costs are less, and if we make a favourable agreement with that country—as we did some months ago— we should be able not alone to maintain our present export to that market but to increase it.

In that regard, as a testimony to our live stock producing capacity, I would like to quote an extract from a paper that I do not often read. But a few days ago I was caught by a heading on that paper. The heading was in connection with the Premier of another State, who was predicting a bright future for this country. In that paper, which happens to be the Irish Press, where I expected to see the Government lauded for its cereal policy, its acreage of wheat and other things that were rapidly to advance the country to a state of prosperity, I read something quite different. When I commenced to read the paper I found that, first of all, this Premier of South Australia who visited the President, and who incidentally was greatly taken with the President, I am glad to say, then went on to give an interview to this particular paper. On being invited by the representative of the Irish Press to give his views, he said: “I was immensely struck by the sincerity of your President.” Giving his impressions of the country, he said: “From a stock-raising point of view Ireland was perhaps unrivalled by any country in the world, thanks to the fertility of its soil and its proximity to the world's markets. For that reason,” he proceeded, “there should be a bright future before the country; I am satisfied that Ireland's statesmen are able to solve the difficulties that face them.” His reason for predicting a bright future for the country was that we were the greatest stock raising country in the world, and that we are nearest to a particular market. It was for these reasons that that statesman predicted a bright future for this country. He did not predict a bright future because we were growing acres of wheat and had a great deal of tillage crops. It was not for that reason that he saw prosperity ahead. It was because here in Ireland with her fertile soil he saw a possibility of producing stock the like of which could not be produced in any other country in the world. It was for that reason that he saw that prosperity loomed ahead for us, if we only reached out our hands to grasp it.

The Minister, as I have said, was obsessed with the idea of cereals as against live stock. He was also obsessed with the idea that the British market for our live stock had declined and could not be renewed. He was so sure of that that he embarked on a policy of deliberately restricting our output of live stock. We had in the last two years a policy of the destruction of our young animals—our calves. When the Minister embarked upon that policy some of us warned him of the possible consequences of his action. When discussing the coal-cattle pact some months ago, I pointed out to the Minister that there was the possibility that we, on our side, would not be able to keep our end of the bargain, and export the number of cattle to which we are entitled under that agreement. It now seems that I was right, and that the members of this Party who then warned the Government were giving them good advice. If my information is correct, we are at the present moment unable to ship all the stores we are entitled to ship. The evidence of that is borne out by the withdrawal of the quota on store cattle and the withdrawal of the Orders that made it necessary to issue licences for the shipment of these particular store cattle.

We are now at a stage when we can export all the store cattle we have. But the Minister has this year slaughtered 200,000 calves; last year he did not slaughter quite so many. As a result of the slaughter in the two years, we are going to have a shortage of store cattle this year. Certainly that shortage will be felt more next year and the year after than now, because the 200,000 calves that are slaughtered this year would not be exported next year, but in two or three years from now. Consequently, there will be a shortage of stores in the years to come. The Minister for Agriculture was undoubtedly obsessed with the idea that the British market was gone, and with that idea in his head he set himself out to reduce the number of young cattle in the country. I may tell the Minister that in the next three or four years the farmers of this country will have painful experiences of his slaughter policy.

The Minister, to-day, when opening the debate, gave us some headlines on which to conduct this debate. He himself divided the headlines as between cattle and cereals, I would say, very fairly. The figures will be helpful to Deputies generally when discussing this particular Vote. The Minister said that we exported £13,000,000 worth of cattle in 1926. He said that to-day we were exporting much the same number of cattle at a lesser price. He said the price was not due to the economic war, but to other causes. In our view the price certainly is mainly due to the economic war. The Minister spoke of a tariff of £6, £4 10s. and £2 10s. These figures will perhaps help to clear up matters more than anything else, particularly the statistical figures he gave. I have here the latest statistical returns from 1927 to 1933. Perhaps if I had later returns they would emphasise my arguments more strongly.

I find that the value of our cattle, in 1933, as compared with 1931, had depreciated by something like £18,000,000, and I am taking those figures from the statistical records furnished to Deputies in this House. I have computed the losses as well as I could from the figures given in the book itself and in the appendix thereto. In 1931 we had 4,029,000— cattle, and in 1933 we had 4,136,000— about 100,000 more. Taking the values as well as I could, and segregating the cattle as between young and old, I found that 3,000,000 of the ages mentioned would have lost an average of £5 8s. 0d. per head; 3,000,000 cattle would have dropped £16,000,000, and the other 1,000,000 would have dropped to the extent of £2,000,000. Between 1931 and 1933 the value of cattle alone would have dropped to the extent of £18,000,000.

There were 3,500,000 sheep in 1931, and the number dropped to 100,000 less in 1933. The average loss on all sheep was somewhere about 14/- a head. To make the calculation easier I put it at 13/4. The loss on the number of sheep at that rate is £2,250,000. Those two items are taken from the statistical record. In regard to horses and ponies I was in a difficulty. I found that in 1931 there were somewhere less than 500,000 horses and ponies in the State, and in 1933 the figure was something about the same. To estimate the loss on those would have been difficult, because this particular book did not give figures of prices for the different classes of horses, but as one who is fairly intimate with the horse-breeding trade from ponies to thoroughbreds, I do not think that anybody will contradict me if I put the loss so low as £5 per head. Mind you, that would not be sufficient, taking all classes from the pony to the thoroughbred. Putting it at the low figure of £5 per head, the loss would be £2,500,000 odd on our horses and ponies. The sum total of the loss on live stock reaches the colossal figure of £23,000,000 in the farmers' stock-in-trade in two years, and the value has probably been reduced much more since 1933. That, in itself, is an indication of the pass to which agriculture has been brought owing to the policy of the Ministry, and, to a small extent, owing to the world fall in the prices of the different classes of stock. In the main, the loss is brought about by the circumstances of the economic war, for which the Ministry opposite are responsible.

If the farmers' stock-in-trade has, in a few years, been reduced by £23,000,000, and if his property has been reduced by a number of million pounds which I dare not estimate, and which any other Deputy in this House would not dare to estimate, then the condition of the farmer is beyond words. I do not think any Deputy could paint in words the real position of the farmers in this country. Their stock-in-trade has, as I said, been reduced by £23,000,000, and the loss in their property is incalculable. The 15,000,000 acres of land in this country must certainly have been reduced in value, and the figure I suggested in this House, and at which some of the Deputies opposite shook their heads and raised their eyes in horror, was the colossal sum of £100,000,000. That represents an average fall of £6 per acre in the price of land in a few years, and taking the hills and valleys, the mountain and fertile lands, I do not think there is any Deputy who will not agree with me that land has fallen in value by at least £6 per acre all over this State. The fact that there is £100,000,000 of an estimated capital loss, and £23,000,000 of a stock-in-trade loss, taken from the Minister's own figures, shows the pass to which agriculture has been reduced by a few years of Fianna Fáil policy.

I referred a minute ago to the relative merits of wheat and cattle as a paying proposition for the farmers, but at the moment I forgot to point out what the merits of either were in their relation to the employment of labour. Again, I am indebted to the statistical volume which the Minister produced for aiding me in this particular matter. I find that instead of advancing the employment of labour, an intensive tillage policy—as a substitute for the policy of dairying and live stock generally, which some of us have pursued—would have a very damaging effect on the amount of labour employed. I went to some pains to take figures from the statistical volume as between the largest tillage counties in this country and the ones that had least tillage. I took two different counties, represented appropriately enough by the Minister and myself. The Minister represents one of the most intensive tillage counties in this State, and I, fortunately or unfortunately, represent one of the counties in which I think there is the least amount of tillage. In Limerick, a slightly larger area than Wexford, we have some 36,000 acres under tillage, and in Wexford they have 171,000 acres, or, so that the figures will be more readily understood, I may put it that in Limerick we have 5.45 per cent. of our land tilled, and in Wexford they have very nearly 30 per cent. of their land tilled. Yet I find that in Limerick we employ more labour than they do in Wexford, whatever way you compute it. Whether in numbers generally, or in numbers in relation to a certain acreage, or in numbers in regard to the population, we employ more labour than in Wexford. I find that there is one man employed for every 27 acres in Limerick, and one for every 28 acres in Wexford, notwithstanding the fact that we have very little tillage in Limerick and there is such a tremendous lot in Wexford.

I also found a curious thing in the course of my incursions into this volume of statistics; one would have thought that, if all that the Ministry had been telling us during the last three or four years is true, everything disastrous will fall on a county like Limerick where there was a large proportion of grass land and very little tillage. One would have thought that all the dire consequences that could have fallen on any county would have fallen on Limerick, but yet we find that the population of Limerick is proportionately greater than it is in Wexford, and above all we find that the wages paid to labourers in Limerick greatly exceed the wages paid in Wexford. If anybody wants an argument as to why tillage should certainly not be advanced as an agricultural policy in lieu of a dairying and live stock policy generally, I would recommend him to take up the volume of statistics which the Minister has issued, and study it carefully, particularly in relation to the counties that are intensive tillage counties and the counties that are largely engaged in the grass policy of live stock and live stock products, and horse rearing, if you like. Having said so much on the policy of cereals as against live stock, I hope I have proved to the House in some way that there are no particular merits in the policy of cereals in lieu of live stock. If we pursue the policy of subsidising wheat as we are subsidising it, when we reach the stage of 600,000 acres, the price will drop, no matter what the Minister does.

Mr. Belton

How would Limerick fare if butter was not subsidised?

Mr. Bennett

I am coming to butter. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

Mr. Belton

And you are getting it now.

Mr. Bennett

I am not getting it at all. I am coming to it, and perhaps you will get it when I come to it. I am speaking of the relative merits of wheat-growing and live stock and I want to have that once and for all threshed out here so as to see the possibilities of them. One thing is clear, that if a subsidy is big enough we are going to get all the wheat we want. When we have got all we want, whatever the Minister does there will be a collapse and a drop in prices. That is the one thing that is facing every wheat grower. On the other hand, we have the live-stock trade on which the people existed. The people were even able to put by and save money on it. It is still there, despite the action the Ministry took to destroy it.

If the farmer gets the cost of production he asks nothing more, except that he should be allowed a free market for the other end of the industry, namely, the live stock end. He will then be fairly well satisfied. But he does not want to live either in the dairying industry, or in any other part of the agricultural industry, on perpetual charity. That is what is being forced upon us by the Government, perpetual subsidies and perpetual bounties, so that we are being driven always to live on the charity of the rest of the community. As I have said, I personally am not tremendously in favour of artificial aid for the agricultural industry or any other industry, but if there is an item in the agricultural industry which in a time of deep depression needs relief and if there is a prospect that, with some temporary financial aid, that particular item will be kept in production until it can eventually bring a profit and stand on its own legs, then by all means subsidise it, and keep it going during the period of depression until a time of prosperity comes. That, however, is not the policy that the Government is pursuing. They want to give subsidies and bounties to articles which cannot stand on their own legs; in other words, perpetual subsidies. That is a policy which I could not support in this House or outside of it.

The Minister is imputing motives to me that I would not impute to him. We are both interested in the success of agriculture. To suggest that anybody who has an interest in agriculture would like to see the farmers beaten in that fight is to suggest something that is viler than anything I would like to have to reply to. I should not like to cast an aspersion on any Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches in that way, or to suggest that he would like to see the farmers whom he represents beaten in this fight. At any rate, the price of pigs has fallen within the last few weeks. Might I suggest to the Minister that the 10/- levy has something to do with this? I understand that there has been a levy of 10/- collected off the pigs, that the farmer has been more or less mulcted to the extent of 10/- a cwt. That has been a financial asset to the Minister. The farmers generally do not see why they should have to suffer by this levy of 10/-, and they think that there should be some means of relief afforded to them. I hope the Minister will put his new Bill into operation as soon as possible. I hope that it will not be deferred for many months, because if pig prices collapse and the collapse continues for many weeks the Bill will not be able to set them on their feet very rapidly.

I have, I think, fairly well covered the main items of the agricultural programme. If we never had an economic war, as I have said previously, I think the policy which the Government has pursued would be harmful to the agricultural industry generally, that is, the policy of artificially stimulating the production of cereals as against the policy hitherto pursued by the farmers, thus upsetting the whole economy of the country. That policy would have been sufficiently injurious if it had not been aggravated by the losses which farmers have suffered owing to the economic war and the manner in which the Government has handled the economic war. As I say, the butter question could have been handled in a better manner than it was. I think portion of the subsidies might have been more advantageously expended in maintaining the profitable end of the dairy industry, namely the calf, than in spending it in other directions where it is not likely to have the same beneficial effect. We had proof that the market for store cattle is not exhausted, that it can be extended, and the policy of the Minister should be to extend it so as to develop that end of the industry for which we are certain to have an export market that is profitable, to carry out for the State during the temporary process of the economic war which we all hope some day will be ended. We all hope that, if not before this Government goes out, then, very soon after the next comes in, that war will be ended. We should concentrate in my opinion on a policy for the future which can be successfully carried out. It seems to me that the only branch of our agricultural industry for which we have a fair prospect of success is live stock, and any monetary aid we are able to advance to agriculture should be in that direction.

There is no outlook for the export of cereals from this country and there is no hope they would ever be able to stand upon their own legs. In God's name, let us give up visionary policies and have the sense to concentrate upon the British market for our live stock. We should be able to get it. It is a market the world is facing. Let us produce the goods. The British market wants our live stock. If there is financial aid necessary the House will not grudge it. This is a suggestion which I make to the Minister. Let us concentrate on the development of live stock instead of the slaughtering of calves. Hundreds of thousands of calves have been slaughtered. Let us instead of pursuing that policy induce the farmers to raise them and produce honest to God stores. We have a market for them and will continue to have a market for them. In the course of a few years the British market which is ready to take them all now will be crying out for more. We are the country that ought to be able to supply them, and we should be in a position to do so as we always were.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

I listened with a good deal of attention to the last two speeches which have been delivered. I expected to hear something new, or at least some indication as to what the future policy of the Opposition would be as far as our agriculture is concerned. But I think I am not wrong in coming to the conclusion that so far as they are concerned there is to be no change whatsoever, and that the policy they pursued during the late Government time is to be their policy for the future. Deputy Bennett disagreed almost entirely with subsidies of any description. The only subsidy he would agree to, and that only to a small extent, I understood, was a subsidy for butter and dairying. He emphasised the great importance of dairying, which emphasis to a large extent perhaps was superfluous. At the same time he led us to believe that if we only gave a subsidy to butter and dairying, the policy that his Party had hitherto adopted, all would be well.

I think such a day as this ought to be welcomed by everybody. We have the whole day long to discuss in a friendly atmosphere this important industry of agriculture. I think the Opposition will agree with me that the conditions which obtain in agriculture at the moment — world agriculture and international agriculture — are by no means normal. Things have gradually developed to such a point that world conditions in agriculture are quite abnormal. This state of things has been brought about by various causes. That being the case, I think it would be well, at this moment, if we did not try to show that it was the economic war that destroyed agriculture not only in this country, but all over the world. We are supposed to believe that the economic war with the Twenty-Six Counties, upset the conditions prevailing in Canada. We are to believe that in the Argentine the meat industry has gone all wrong because the President of the Executive Council in this country interfered in some way or another; and we are asked to believe that this country never did anything else but to produce cattle and that at the moment it went off producing cattle for something else, a terrible catastrophe took place.

It was not until 1850 that cattle were really of any value at all. It was only after the Crimean War that cattle went up to about £5 a head. After that they increased in value. At the same time the United States of America and Canada were going definitely into wheat production. They believed that wheat production suited them. Machines were invented to help industry, and in the United States of America new districts and provinces were conquered, brought under the plough and put into wheat production. Huge quantities of flour began to reach the English market. It was peculiarly white. White flour was unknown up to that time. Not only did that flour get into the British market but it got into this market as well. We heard of a practical monopoly of the British market. Up to a certain period the Argentine and Canada had not entered into competition, and the moment this country came into competition with them we hear the first sign of difficulty. Inmediately after that the wheat production in the United States of America got into difficulties and they turned to cattle, and the result was that up to 10 or 15 years ago owing to the low price for wheat all these countries went into cattle. As a consequence there is a surplus of cattle, and so long as the surplus is there, subsidies will have to be brought into action to assist the producer.

The question is, will the subsidies go to the producer? It is questionable whether in some cases subsidies should be employed at all. It may be another menace, in this line of production which may not be possible to revive or keep going. The next change may be to the production of other classes of meat and not the production of beef at all. It may even happen that the 5/- per cwt. subsidy which the English are giving, may not be able to keep up the price of beef in the British market. I do not think that anybody will argue that these two or three latter years have been the most prosperous for British farmers engaged in beef production. If they continue to give a subsidy to the production of beef we would get an advantage in the sale of our store cattle. There is hardly a question about that and I am prepared to admit it. The idea at present is that we are short of store cattle. I hope we have not too many, but the next fortnight or three weeks we will find out how that matter stands. It is quite possible, if we had too many cattle here, that the free export of cattle will do us an injury again and still further reduce the price. We have no definite knowledge of that. There are, I suppose, statistics in the Department of Agriculture. They may be properly collected or they may not, but it is the opinion of many that we have a lot more cattle in this country than is generally known, and movements I have noticed in the last week or so indicate quite clearly that there will be a slump in store cattle in this coming week. There will be too many cattle there and prices will fall. If prices fall, it is not at all likely that the Englishman will allow them up again.

Other things have happened to agriculture besides this. There has been a great change in agriculture in England since the advent of free trade there. As everybody knows, once free trade was introduced and these factories set up all over England, the people fled from the land. They were herded into these rotten towns and villages and jammed into all classes of rooms and they lived and worked in those sweated industries even up to the present day. Since the war, some little effort has been made to relieve them, but, up to the period of the war, they were herded in Manchester, Liverpool and almost all the big manufacturing cities. They lived their whole day opposite a machine, pushing one button in and pulling out another, uneducated, and they became complete slaves of the niggers and foreigners for whom they made these things. The owner of the land, the baron and the duke, fled with their capital from the land and put their money into these industries, and the result is that, up to a few years ago, there was no respect whatever for land in Great Britain. All they wanted they imported and imported far more cheaply than they could produce in England. There is not a single item we need here but we could import it far more cheaply than we could produce it. We can import the very best of beef and the very best of lamb at half what it costs us.

Mr. O'Leary

It would be a bit tough, I think.

Mr. O'Reilly

It may be, but it is eaten, and largely eaten, and it is quite good stuff. Butter is the same, and eggs the same. There is nothing we could dream of producing here but could be produced more cheaply abroad. For instance, in regard to vegetables alone, before our advent to power, at least two ship-loads of vegetables reached the port of Dublin every day and you had far cheaper vegetables than you have to-day. Whether they were better or not is another question. They were certainly clean and well packed. Each evening, the different vegetable stores in Dublin telephoned their orders to Covent Garden and they were landed next morning by the boat. We then became the villains of the piece. We changed all that and said we would start industries. The late Government said the same thing, but they took every possible step to ensure that they would not do it, or, at least, that no result would be forthcoming.

We started them because we believed it was the right thing to do, and one of our main considerations in starting them was that we found that we were dealing with human beings here. We found that, while the port was open, boats were carrying 30,000 of our young people away. "Let them make mischief in other countries," it was said; "let them work for other countries and let them get their living from other countries"— and what was worse: "Let them keep the annuities and rates paid here by sending home their earnings." For good or ill, that was stopped. What were we faced with here? We were faced with lands in many counties wilder than the plains of South America or Australia, without people and with no indications whatever of civilisation. We were faced with those young people helpless here and we had to find employment for them. It was essential. We found hundreds here who had not a house to live in. There were no houses built here for years; there was not a single labourer's cottage built for years. The City of Dublin was rotten with slums. What did we find the position of the farmer in those glorious years of prosperity, the result of what Deputy Bennett calls the great war period — the acme of success? We found that practically 80 per cent. of the farmers were bankrupt; that for the three years before the late Government left office the rates were paid out of overdrafts; and that, in few cases, were farmers solvent. Do you think that was a system which we were going to continue? Not at all. We decided: Cost what it may, we will put the country right. That is the position, and we did succeed in putting the country right and the country knew it well. We were elected in 1932, and in 1933 we went back again to see if there was any doubt about it, and there was not the slightest doubt about it.

Mr. O'Reilly

Oh, yes. It happened in Westmeath and Meath at least. I remember in the year 1927, coming on to Christmas and shortly after we entered the Dáil, Deputy Kennedy had a motion down requesting the then Parliamentary Secretary to have mercy on the tenant farmers during the following Christmas.

People for years were accustomed to sell all the cattle they had, every class of cattle, at any price, but there was hardly a doubt about it that prices were falling rapidly, whether they were falling because there was no organised method of selling or because there were too many cattle all over the world, is immaterial. The real reason, to my mind, was because there were too many cattle produced all over the world. The indications of the collapse in that trade were intercepted by the opening of the economic war. The butter trade showed signs of distress and then the co-operative system was introduced. What was the cause of the co-operative system being introduced in the creameries? Was it not definitely introduced to increase prices? Huge sums of money were spent to do that, and that did not do it because world conditions had so changed and world production was at such a low rate that no matter what was done it was not possible to compete against it. The only method of competing against foreign butter production was by total exclusion. No other system would have done any good. Every country in the world is satisfied that there is extreme difficulty in marketing produce, whether industrial or agricultural. There is nobody on the opposite benches going to deny that cattle and beef producing countries have a great difficulty in marketing their produce, that they are subject to tariffs and quotas and other restrictions. They are, and that is the case all over the world. I would like to have from the Opposition some policy that will indicate that the people who are left here, who cannot get out of the country, who must find employment here will get that employment, that we can continue on a free trade basis and export our cattle to England as we like, and not put tariffs on British goods coming here. If they can tell us how that difficulty could be got over the day would be well spent here. As I see it, looking at it apart from the question of the economic war, the moment we impose those tariffs on British goods to establish industries here the British Government is entitled to impose a tariff on our agricultural products. That really happened and that was partly the cause of the imposition of tariffs. The other reason they imposed tariffs was because they thought this country would collapse the moment they put a tariff on our cattle. They got a little surprise there. That did not happen and there is no indication that this country will collapse. Bank dividends are as good as when the late Government were in power, or even better. The price of land is going up, definitely going up.

Mr. McGovern

Will the Land Commission pay more?

Mr. O'Reilly

They are giving more. The price of meadows in Country Meath went as much as £4 10s. an acre.

Mr. O'Leary

The ranchers are doing well down there. They are buying the land from the poor people for practically nothing.

Mr. O'Reilly

I do not know what the wail is about. On every side there are indications of the difficulties being surmounted. The sales of insurance stamps and other things indicate that we are making headway. On the Opposition Benches they really try to make the people believe that if by to-morrow morning we did something, such as to hand in our guns, to collapse, go on our knees and say we have sinned — the usual thing — that there would be a paradise here.

I want anybody on the other side to prove here to-day that there was a paradise in this country, as far as agriculture was concerned, while they were in office, and that the agricultural community had no difficulties. As long as I remember — and I remember as long as anybody in this House — there were difficulties in agriculture and those difficulties were growing year by year. These difficulties are not going to become easier in the near future; world conditions do not indicate that it is going to be easier. What would make the position easier in a country like this, in which there is so much to be done, would be more co-operation from Deputies on the opposite benches.

Mr. McGovern

I am sorry I cannot congratulate the Minister on his agricultural policy or on his judgment on agricultural matters, though I must say that there never has been a Minister who worked harder or who spent more money on agriculture. The Vote is increased by 100 per cent.; expenditure has been doubled and the profits have been wiped out. The value of our exports has been reduced by 50 per cent. since 1931. The principal part of our exports are agricultural products, and as no other industry has been as much affected in its exports I would venture to say that the value of our agricultural exports has been reduced by more than half in the three years. Looking over this Estimate I see that there is a very large increase in the direction where less might be expected, having regard to the promises of the Government before they were elected, that their policy was to cut down expenditure, to reduce the number of officials and all that sort of thing. Salaries, wages and allowances have been increased by £23,000 even since last year; travelling expenses of £12,700 for last year have been increased by £600, and there has been an increase in telegrams and telephones of £550 and increases under other heads.

It would be interesting to know why we have these increases in travelling expenses; if we are moving towards self-sufficiency there should be less travelling, seeing that we are living on ourselves. I wonder has this travelling expenditure been caused in the search for the alternative markets? I would say that the officials of the Department are an excellent body of men and if the policy of the Government were right they would be worth their money. As a matter of fact, I myself have a motion down to give them a chance. I need not go into that now; I hope we will get a day for it soon, but if the officials did get a chance of running some farms on their own either of two results would follow: either they would teach the farmer how to make farming a success — how to make a profit out of his land — or otherwise they would teach the Minister or somebody else what the position on the farm is. I would be satisfied if the officials could show the farmer at the present time how to make his land pay. Even if they failed in doing that they would show the Minister the error of his ways. In any case this would be a good move, but the Minister does not want to learn or he does not want the farmer to learn. That is why he will not act on my suggestion.

I see that there is an increase also in the sub-head for the improvement of live stock. Why should live stock be improved? What is the improvement for, seeing that when the calves are dropped what is done with them is to hand away 10/- with their skin. Is it not absurd to be spending money improving live stock when that is the use that is made of the calves. I remember once standing for a while looking at a man selling watches in the street, wrapping up 2/- with the watch and handing it over for 6d. When I saw that I never thought I would see a Minister for Agriculture taking a calf skin, wrapping up 10/- with it, and then giving it away for 1/-. Unless the Minister changes his policy I think it is ridiculous for him to aim at improving our live stock. The Minister's policy should be directed towards improving the markets so as to enable the people of this State to make something of their live stock. The Minister is spending a great deal of money on bounties and subsidies.

There is a difference of opinion between the members of this House as to what particular commodity should be subsidised. I am not opposed to subsidies. I was one of the first to advocate the payment of bounties and subsidies on agricultural exports. I believe if these bounties and subsidies were used properly they would serve a very useful purpose. Apart from the economic war altogether, my view about bounties and subsidies is that the money that is raised by protective tariffs to protect home manufactures should go towards subsidising the export of our agricultural produce. That would merely compensate the agricultural community for the increased price which they pay for the manufactured article. The Minister would there have a remedy against the tariffs that are now imposed by Great Britain because of the dispute between the two countries. It is ridiculous and quite absurd to say that the bounties and subsidies now paid compensate the farmer for the tariffs he has to pay on his exports to Great Britain. It is simply the same as if the Minister had a mill worked by water and if somebody turned off half the stream that fed the mill-dam. If he continued to keep the mill grinding, the water in the mill-dam would become too low. Would it not be very absurd if the Minister were to employ men to pump the water from the side back into the mill-dam? If somebody were to call attention to the water escaping here and there in the mill-dam and he were then to say: "Get a man here to pump up that water," would it not be regarded as absurd? Half the national income of the State is being cut off and it is impossible to make up the loss by bounties and subsidies. It is just as absurd as if one were to try to make up the loss of the water turned off from the mill-dam by pumping water from one part of the dam to the other.

I am afraid the Minister has been in the wrong school. He has been listening to Senator Connolly speaking about self-sufficiency, and he has gone out of his way in that direction, but I am afraid he is not reaching his goal. He reminds me of the medical man who believed that he had discovered the panacea for all ills of the human flesh. He believed that he had found the preventive of all disease. He was convinced that all disease was due to the consumption of food, and that in reality food was not necessary. He believed that the stomach was merely an unnecessary appendage, and all the difficulty he had was to get somebody to submit to his treatment, so that he could prove his theory to the world. He did get one woman foolish enough to submit herself for the experiment. She was captivated by the promise he held out. She was thinking of the fine time she would have, the fine dresses she could wear, and the holidays she could afford, if she could save what was being spent on food, so she put herself under the treatment of this doctor. He put her on half rations for the first week. She felt better, and he was delighted. The next week he cut the rations down to a quarter, and she began to complain that she was a little bit weary. "Well," he said, "I told you so. You must understand that you do not achieve a great object without making some sacrifice. You are in a transition stage, but you are on the road to self-sufficiency anyhow." In the third week he put her off all food, and she complained of a lot of troubles. She had a pain in her head, and her arms were getting feeble. He said he had a plan. He told her: "You have varicose veins. I am going to make a levy on them, and transfuse the blood into your arms." He did that, and she felt a little improved for the moment. The next thing that happened was she began to complain of her feet. He said: "That is a great dilemma; you have to walk about on your feet. But you have a red nose, and I will make a levy there." So there was another transfusion. To make the story short, the next operation was carried out by the undertaker. That was the finish of the case so far as that woman was concerned. He next turned his attention to the husband, and sent him a bill for 50 guineas for curing his wife.

In this case, I might congratulate the Minister in that he did not wait to collect the fee until the patient died. One thing he has proved anyhow, and that is that it costs more to keep a person who is ill than to keep a person who is in good health, because there is twice as much spent on the Department of Agriculture now as when agriculture was in a good position. I think this policy should be discontinued, and that the Minister should direct his efforts in future towards finding a market for agricultural produce. The value of our exports in 1931 was £36,276,118. In 1934, it had been reduced to £18,604,531 — a decrease of almost 50 per cent. Let us look then at the other side of the account, and see the value of the imports. We find that our adverse trade balance was £14,184,762 in 1931, and that it was increased in 1934 to £20,461,318. We are told from the other side that this is a general thing all over the world; that this was due to the depreciation in agriculture all over the world, and that before 1931 this tendency existed. I admit that up to 1931 there was a decrease in the value of our exports. For instance, in 1927, the value of our exports was £44,168,118, and it was reduced in 1931 to £36,276,118 — a reduction of about 10 per cent. In the four years from 1927 to 1931, the value of our exports was decreased by 10 per cent. It will be remembered that 1931 was the most depressed time for agriculture in every part of the world, and that there has been a recovery since. There certainly has been a recovery in Great Britain, and we should have benefited by that recovery. We should at least have got back to the same position which we occupied in 1931 with regard to the value of our exports. Instead of being back to that position we find that the decrease has continued to an alarming extent. Whereas, for the four years from 1927 to 1931, there was a reduction of 10 per cent in the value of our exports, there has been a reduction of practically 50 per cent. within the last three years. Again, between 1927 and 1931, our adverse trade balance was reduced by 16 per cent.; so that, although the value of our exports was decreased by 10 per cent., our adverse trade balance was decreased by 16 per cent. Since 1931, our adverse trade balance has been increased by 44 per cent. If the decrease in our adverse trade balance had continued at the same rate as between 1927 and 1931, it would have been reduced by 80 per cent. since 1931. That would practically have wiped it out.

I refer the Minister to the statistics, which will prove that this is correct. The Department of Industry and Commerce have published the statistics from which I take these figures. It will be impossible for any section in this country to continue if the national income is to be reduced at such an alarming rate, while the adverse trade balance increases. In four years, there has been a decrease of 50 per cent. in the value of our exports— that is a decrease in national income —and an increase of 44 per cent. in the adverse trade balance. That is certainly a state of things which cannot go on indefinitely. I would appeal to the Minister to make an effort, even now, to find a way out of the impasse in which he finds himself. We know that the Minister and the Government have got themselves into difficulties. The Opposition are quite anxious to help them out if we were only allowed to do so, but when the Opposition point out the only way in which those difficulties can be overcome, they are jeered from that side. I hope that the farmer Deputies on that side of the House will try to induce the Minister to save agriculture, because, after all, it is the principal industry of this State. If agriculture goes down, the State goes down. All the other industries are being fostered on agriculture. If the agricultural community are not able to buy the products of the other industries, what is to keep them going? It is out of the question that they could contine to exist.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce—I am sorry he is not in the House—when speaking on his own Vote defended his own position all right. He admitted that there was an increase in unemployment, but said that it was in agriculture the increase existed. He said there were 75,000 farmers unemployed. The Minister for Agriculture was not present, and I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not play the game fairly in throwing all the responsibility for unemployment upon the Minister for Agriculture.

There is no doubt that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is right. There are 75,000 farmers unemployed and there are 400,000 farmers as good as unemployed, because they are working for nothing. They might as well sit idle as work. The Minister for Industry and Commerce may boast of starting some few hundred factories, but here we have 400,000 factories, because every farm is a little factory giving employment. They are on their last legs and, unless the policy of the Government is changed, down they will go. There is no question that they would be closed now if they were in the same position as other factories; every farmer would close down and turn his attention to something else. But the position is that they cannot close down; they have to keep going and try to exist. They cannot run away from the land; therefore they have to live there. They are in a position of white slavery. They certainly cannot balance their accounts and have anything like a decent living. I think the Minister knows that. He must be aware that the farmers are not complaining without very good reason.

I heard Deputy O'Reilly say that they were very prosperous. I do not know what made them prosperous. He told us that if there was a little depression here other countries were in the same position. He mentioned Canada and Northern Ireland. He did not tell us that Canada and other Commonwealth countries, like Australia and New Zealand, have increased the value of their exports to the British market since 1931 at a time when our exports decreased by 50 per cent. The figures show that the average increase for these countries is over 30 per cent. for the three years for exports to the British market. Does that show that there is world depression? It shows instead that they have taken our place in the British market. At the present time, Canada has not any cattle to export, because it has a good market in America and prices there have improved.

Up to two years ago we were in exactly the same position as Northern Ireland. There was no difference North or South until the economic war started. But since then the position has very much altered. The Minister takes great pride out of what he is doing for the dairying industry. I shall give some simple facts about the dairying industry. The position is that they are getting 5d. per gallon for milk in Northern Ireland. The parish in which I live is partly in Northern Ireland and partly in the Free State. In the Free State portion we are getting 3.6d. per gallon for milk or 1.4d. less than in the other part of the parish in Northern Ireland. Yet we are told that the dairying industry is prosperous and that farmers are prosperous because of the dairying industry. We are getting 1.4d. per gallon less than they are getting in the other end of the parish. That is a very big difference.

With regard to pigs, the Minister admits that there is a little bit of difficulty about pigs; that the curers are organising and giving the farmers a bad deal. I do not know exactly what is the price of bacon pigs at present, but I do know that about ten days ago the price in the Free State was 50/- per cwt. for lean and 46/- for fat. These figures are taken from the Farmers' Gazette.” On the same date the standard price in the Six Counties was 60/6. It was 63/6 for Grade A and something less for Grade B, but the average price was 60/6. That price still stands in Northern Ireland. The price is still 63/6 for the same class of pigs as are being sold in the Free State at about 40/- or something over at present. I do not now know exactly what the price is at present, but we are losing on pigs at least 30 per cent. We are also losing on our milk. As to calves, there is no use talking about them.

Taking yearlings and other cattle, I should like to give a few examples. The Minister told us to-day that the only loss is £5 per head. £5 per head would be a big loss on an animal that would be worth, say, £6. On inferior classes of cattle you lost not merely £5 out of £15, but £5 out of £6 in some cases, so that there are some classes of cattle practically worthless. I shall read a few quotations from the Farmers' Gazette as to prices in Antrim, Carlow, and Drogheda. It is generally known that Antrim cattle are not to be compared with cattle from Carlow or Drogheda. In Antrim the price for yearlings was: first class, £8 10/- to £9 10/-; liveweight average, 31/- per cwt.; second class, £7 10/- to £8; liveweight average, 30/- per cwt.; six-quarter old, first class, £10 10/- to £11 10/-; liveweight average, 30/-. The prices in Carlow were: store cattle, 12 to 15 months, first class, £3 10/- to £4 10/-; liveweight average, 19/-; that is a loss of 11/- per cwt.; 15 months to two years, first class, £4 10/- to £7; liveweight average, 19/-; second class, £3 2/6 to £4 10/-; liveweight average, 16/-. Then we come to springers and milch cows. If the dairying industry was so prosperous, and if the country was as prosperous as Deputy O'Reilly told us, would not one imagine that milch cows would be worth as much as in Northern Ireland? Yet what do we find? We find that the prices of springing cows in Antrim are returned as: first class, £24 to £26; second class, £18 to £20; third class, £13 to £16; while in Carlow the prices were: springing cows and heifers, first class, £8 10/- to £11; second class, £6 to £8 5/-. In Drogheda the prices were: springing cows and heifers, second class, £6 10/- to £9 5/-.

It is the same with every other class of stock you take—calves, pigs, sheep and lambs. If the people of Dublin have to pay 6d. more per lb. for their butter, what advantage is it if the farmers do not get any more for their milk? They have a loss of 1.4d. on every gallon they sell. The fact that other people have to pay so much extra for their butter is of no advantage to the farmers. That is how it works; the people are paying this levy out of one pocket and they are getting it in nominally in the other in the price paid for milk. The net benefit of the whole scheme is summed up in the price of milk at the creamery. That is the fairest way to calculate the net benefit to be derived from the Minister's policy, although I admit that, were it not for the bounty, butter would be worth nothing at all and milk would be of very little value. Where there is no economic war you can get a much higher price for your milk even without the bounty. In addition, there is a bounty paid by the Government in Northern Ireland. The general price paid in the month of March by the creameries in Northern Ireland was 4.12d., and the Ministry of Agriculture, by means of the equalisation process, brought the average price up to 6d. That price has been reduced for the summer months to 5d., which is the fixed price.

There is also a fixed price for pigs, which, like the price of milk, is based upon the cost of production. A commission inquired into these matters in the North, and they based the price of these commodities on the cost of production. If they are getting only the cost of production, and we are selling at 30 or 40 per cent. lower than the price they are receiving, is it not apparent that farmers in the Free State are producing at a price much less than the cost of production?

We are told about wheat and beet. Beet may be a paying crop, but the production of beet is confined to certain areas only. I believe that farmers growing beet do not consider that they are getting such a great price at all, and that the other commodities which farmers had been previously producing paid them much better. The production of live stock, the growing of food-stuffs for pigs and cattle, and the rearing of calves and things like that always paid them in the past, because they suited our climate and we had an excellent market for selling these products. We have no market for selling beet and wheat except the home market, and then we are limited in the amount which we can grow. I think the Minister has stated that 700,000 acres of wheat would supply all our needs. To pay a high bounty on that would impose a very heavy burden on the taxpayers. I am sure the Minister could tell us, if he wished, how many millions it would cost. When that area is occupied with wheat, what will be done with the remainder of the land? We have 16,000,000 acres of arable land. If we utilise 2,000,000 for producing all the cereals and all the food we need for home consumption, what is to be done with the balance unless we go in for the production of live stock? We want not merely to get all the land utilised, but we want to get it utilised to the best advantage and to produce more of these things than we have been producing at the same time as we have an increased production of wheat and beet. If we want to find employment for our increasing population, it is necessary that we should grow more of everything and to export more as well as grow more for our own needs.

The policy pursued by the Government at the moment in agriculture is leading to more and more unemployment, and everybody who can get away from the land is getting away from it. I know men each of whom used to employ three or four men when times were prosperous and they are now out looking for jobs themselves while their land is going wild. That is the condition to which they have been reduced. I heard Deputy Dr. O'Higgins here one day challenge the Minister to name one industry in the State that was on a paying basis and that was able to pay its way. I think I could name one myself—Guinness's. I do not know of any others. It is significant that that industry is about to establish itself elsewhere so that it will not be altogether dependent on this country. Apart from that industry, I do not think there is any other industry worth while that is on a paying basis at the present time. They are in the position in which one is leaning on another. Previously they were leaning on agriculture, but now agriculture has to lean on other industries. What has it to lean on? It is difficult to know. While all industries are leaning one on the other, how long can that continue?

General MacEoin

One man could not do it.

Dr. Ryan

I often did it.

Mr. Curran

I am quoting from the Annual Report of the County Cork Committee of Agriculture——

Dr. Ryan

If I did not stack three acres a day, I would not consider myself any good.

Mr. Curran

I have shown that the cost of production of one acre of wheat is £7 10s. plus 7/- interest on capital at 5 per cent., making in all £7 17s. as the cost per statute acre. Now for the return. The average return of 7 barrels of wheat at £1 3s. 6d. makes £8 4s. 6d, and 25 cwt. of straw at 1/-, £1 5s., give the total return as £9 9s. 6d., which, less cost of production £7 17s., leaves a net return of £1 12s. 6d. I make the Minister a present of these figures. But even if the growing of wheat was more profitable than it is, it is not going to solve the problem of the country at all.

I turn now to beet. I understand that there are 45,000 acres of land under beet, and that there are 30,000 registered growers. That makes an average of 1½ acres per registered grower. If this Government, or any Government, can only succeed in getting a cultivation of 1½ acres for every registered grower of beet, even if they can make it profitable, it is clear that such results are not going to be of any material benefit to the farmers. Deputy McGovern said that there were 16,000,000 acres of arable land in this country. I thought there were 12,000,000 but, even so, supposing that out of that there were 500,000 acres producing wheat and 45,000 acres producing beet, what is to be done with the rest? I listened many times to advocates of the beet industry, and they said that there was no great advantage in it, beyond the fact that it was a cash crop. I know, as far as beet is concerned, that while we are growing a little it is not going to revolutionise the agricultural industry as the present time.

It may be of interest now to turn to the other side of the picture. It certainly should be the duty of the Minister for Agriculture to do the best he can for the agricultural industry. The cattle population of this country is over 4,000,000. Let Deputies just consider what that 4,000,000 cattle population means to the Free State, and let them ask themselves honestly what the loss has been to the farming community as a result of the Government policy in connection with that 4,000,000 cattle population. Would not a very ordinary calculation show that it represents £4 per head? Does anyone in his senses say that there is not a big loss in connection with the cattle population owing to the Government policy and to the economic war? Would not anyone in his senses, if he wanted to do something for agriculture, and make it prosperous, do everything in his power to save that great loss? That is the case of cattle.

Let us now take the case of sheep. I remember not so long ago listening to a man, who happened to be a T.D., talking about the sheep industry. He was speaking at a fair in a certain country town, and he said it was 40 years before that he was in that particular town. On that occasion, he said, he was doing much the same business as to-day: "I was buying lambs." Then he went on to say that 40 years ago he bought lambs for 16/- apiece. The cost of marketing them and sending them to Birkenhead and Bristol was 3/6. That made the total cost 19/6. He was there on that occasion paying the same price for lambs, but he had to make 33/- before he could get out. There was 10/- tariff and 7/- expenses. That was the difference. What other industry in this country is asking to go back to 40 years and take the same price? Is there anybody doing it? But that is the situation we have to face at the present time. It is idle for Deputies opposite to try and gloss over all this. It is a very serious position. Is there not a tariff of £6 per head on Irish cattle entering the British market? Again, is there not a levy on home consumed beef of £1, and 5/- on sheep, and is there not a tariff of 10/- on sheep going into England? If the Minister thinks he can minimise all this by growing wheat, he is wrong.

We hear very little talk to day about the growing of tobacco. In the early days of Fianna Fáil tobacco-growing was to do a lot. Now, all that appears to have gone by the board. There is very little talk about tobacco-growing and the benefits that were to result from it. I will turn now to the dairy industry. Deputy McGovern said the price was 3d. per gallon for milk. I got a little more than that. The Minister for Agriculture tells me that I am associated with a bad creamery, but the Government last year collected from that creamery, and from the district which supplied it, £7,600 in levy, and yet Fianna Fáil Deputies will speak of what they are doing for the dairying industry. What are they doing? I agree that world prices are bad and that something should be done, but it is no compliment to anybody to charge 29/- a cwt. of a levy. That is the position and, so far as I can see, dairying in itself was never a profitable proposition without the rearing of young stock.

I previously gave the case of a farmer with 15 cows. He would be a fairly good-sized farmer, and I took an average of 4d. per gallon for milk. It might be a little over, but I think a fair average for 15 cows would be 480 gallons. I know that in Deputy Hogan's time he aimed at the 800 gallon cow and I suppose the Minister for Agriculture is doing the same now, but it is easier to talk about it than to get it realised. I think that anything from 480 to 500 gallons would be fair average. Tot it up if you like. £8 a cow for 15 cows is £120 and I know men working with a horse and cart for a local council who have a better income than the farmer with 15 cows. Is it not idle to think that you can make agriculture prosperous unless live-stock are a profitable proposition? It is all very fine for the Minister to boast about guaranteeing 15/- a barrel for barley. What is going to become of it at the finish? Is it not fed to live-stock for the production of beef, bacon, mutton and so on?

Those are a few points I should like to put to the Minister. I would like him to take cognisance of them because I think we are going along a road which may have very serious consequences for the farmers. There is a good deal of talk about Cork and the lawlessness that is taking place in Cork at present. The cattle population in Cork is over 500,000—526,000 to be accurate—and would not a fair estimate be that they are losing on these cattle round about £4 or £5 a head? This Government will send men down, not alone to Cork but to practically every county in the Free State, to collect annuities from the farmers. They have destroyed the only means by which they could pay them and then they take them from them afterwards. I think it is about time the Government took a serious view of the situation so far as the annuities are concerned. As has been said many a time, and probably will be said many more times before this debate finishes, the British Government have succeeded in collecting them from the farmers. Undoubtedly, they have and much more. It is not a thing I boast about or like. I do not, but the fact is that it is so. I will not delay the House further as other Deputies wish to say a few words in connection with this Vote.

Mr. Belton

Ask the fruit merchants and then you will know what you are talking about.

Mr. Moore

There should be an attempt to give both sides of this question. If Deputies opposite are going to be realistic in this debate they might at least take into account to some extent the changed position in England. It is ridiculous and it is very unfair to the farming community to have responsible Deputies telling them that if only the present Government were out of power they would get a wonderful price for their cattle in England and have a market for an unlimited trade. When you have the English Minister of Agriculture apparently determined to encourage beef production and determined to make farming there a paying proposition as far as he can go, surely Deputies here should consider that in connection with our problem and they might take cognisance of the fact that England has definitely gone protectionist. There are in England people like Lloyd George who differ substantially from the present Government there and yet are prepared to accept protection and actually propose to increase the population on the land by 500,000 people. There is also the fact that in the period between 1926 and 1933 they increased the cattle population in England by 500,000, sheep population by 2,000,000 and pig population by 1,000,000. In view of that tendency surely it is not fair to be asserting that all the grievances of the farmers of this country arise from the failure of the Government to appreciate that there is an unlimited market in England and that there always will be a market there for our goods, and that it is only the stupidity and incompetence of the Government in power that is standing between them and that advantageous position.

There is one matter that I want to put to the Minister before I finish. He is probably aware that there is a very bad position in Wicklow and the other counties that supply milk to Dublin and that the slump in milk prices in the present year is disastrous. The Minister is probably aware that those in the milk producing industry are facing a state of things which obviously will mean ruin to them unless there is a remedy. At present they are selling milk at 4d per gallon. Obviously that price would not be sufficient to enable them to pay their way.

Mr. Curran

Deputy McGovern is selling it at less.

Mr. Moore

When one realises that that milk is retailed in Dublin at 2/- a gallon, there is surely room for some interference there so that the two prices would be brought more closely in relation to each other. I do not like to suggest that the State should take on more duties than it has but that looks like a duty that I think the Government will have to face. I would be glad if the Minister, when replying, would say whether his Department has considered the question and whether they have any proposals to make in conection with it. Generally, Sir, I think the Minister need not be frightened at the result of this debate. So far as it has gone at all events it has merely brought into prominence the fact that the Government has a policy for agriculture and that its critics are altogether lacking in a policy for agriculture.

Of course not. Deputy Moore does not believe that at all. Deputy Moore also thinks that a scheme of general subsidisation is quite all right. I agree with Deputy Moore as far as auxiliary industries are concerned, or any kind of side show. But if Deputy Moore is in business himself, and if the main lines which he is pursuing, and upon which rests his entire income, are not paying, is he going to continue? Let him ask himself that question. First and foremost I think there is one thing upon which we all agree, and that is that agriculture is the main industry of the country. Is it or is it not? If Deputy Moore agrees with that, we know where we are. If Deputy Moore thinks that the building of motor bodies is the main industry I do not agree. If he thinks that the manufacture of some other articles in this country is the main industry of this country I do not agree at all. I maintain that agriculture is the main industry, and it must pay or get out. There is no use in Deputy Moore thinking that the industry of building motor bodies or anything else can afford to pay a subsidy to the main industry. It cannot be done. What I want to know is: What is really the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture in this country? Has it a responsibility? If it has a responsibility is it acting up to that responsibility? And what is the Minister's responsibility? Is he responsible to the Department, and is the Department responsible to the country? Let us then have an examination of the whole policy which is being pursued at the present time in the country and see where it is leading to.

I do not want to find fault with the tillage policy. I have always been an advocate of tillage. My advocacy always went this far and no further, that there ought to be a tillage policy in this country; that there ought to be cereal production in this country for the feeding of live stock, which is the only thing we can sell with profit and advantage. Let Deputy Moore take his wheat policy, his beet policy, or his tobacco policy. Let him compare them with his own business, whatever it is. Here are the main lines of business which the present Government propose to follow. Those three or four lines have got to be subsidised. They have got to be paid for in some way. What is it being paid out of? If agriculture is the main industry, then all that is happening is that we are creating a mortgage on the future of agriculture. We are paying out of resources; it does not matter what they are at the present time, or where they are coming from. Those are the resources of the main industry. It cannot be done. You may do it for a year. You may do it for two years. If we are as progressive, and if we are as successful as Deputy Moore in his innocence thinks we are, was it not an extraordinary Budget we had this year? Was it not an extraordinary thing that we had to put on all that taxation? Is it not an extraordinary thing that with all the money which is being invested in the new industries in this country there does not seem to be any hope of getting more money by way of income tax out of the new investments. Is not that an extraordinary thing? We had to fall back upon the absolute necessaries of life in order to get the money which is required.

There is another matter which I think Fianna Fáil has never really considered at all. If they have, I am afraid they have been guilty of gross neglect in not taking it into account. Does the Government think any kind of policy which is pursued in this country, as far as agriculture is concerned, is good enough for the country; that the land can bear any strain that is put upon it, and that there is in the land an inexhaustible supply of plant food, either for tillage, live stock, or anything else? Do they think that? Apparently, they do. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce advising us to study his statistics. Of course he runs away from them himself. He ran away from them very badly here the other day in regard to pig production. I have the figures here now, and I am sorry that the Minister is not here so that I could read them for him. He should turn to those statistics which he himself has published, and see the amount of artificial manure which is used at the present time in this country, as against what was used three years ago before Fianna Fáil came into power. He is not, of course, as good a man at stacking wheat as the Minister for Agriculture, but if he read those things and settles down to think of them—or if the Minister for Agriculture thought of them—he will see where we are drifting.

Coupled with that there is the destruction of live stock, and we have the Minister for Industry and Commerce boasting that we have now no surplus cattle. The first thing that will tell upon is the land. I do not know if there are any farmers opposite to me at the present time, but if there are any farmers on the Fianna Fáil Benches who are accustomed to mixed farming as I have been, or if they have been accustomed to the reclamation of land, they will know what I am talking about. They will know that the land of this country has not an inexhaustible supply of plant food by any means. It has got to be supplemented both by artificial manure and particularly by animal manure. We can get land into perfectly good heart for tillage by manuring it. Once we get it into that, we can continue it in pasture, if we keep enough live stock on it. If we till that year after year and have not animal manure for it then the land is finished. As a friend of mine said quite recently, before Fianna Fáil came into power they burned practically everything that was in the country, and now they are killing the very soil of the country. That is what is happening; they are killing the very soil of the country.

Of course it is very hard to know where one is when dealing with the Minister for Agriculture. His views are constantly shifting; he has constantly shifted values even for his own policy. Two years ago he drew attention to a statement I made in the House and said: "Deputy Brennan appears to think that I do not know that an increase of tillage means an increase of live stock." Some time afterwards he said that he did not see any reason why there should be an increase of live stock with an increase of tillage. Now, apparently, the latest we have from the Minister, of course we had it from some of the backbenchers before with regard to pig production, is that we must produce less if we are going to get a price for it. So that our new policy is going to be: the less you produce, the better off you will be. Of course that is entirely compatible with statements made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who told us that the less surplus cattle we have the better off we are.

If we are going to be richer people by growing wheat, we have to be very careful about the soil and how we are going to manure it if we are going to continue growing it. But it is an extraordinary thing that in 1929 the present Minister for Agriculture, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, President de Valera and others, put up certain proposals with regard to wheat-growing in this country. One of the things the proposals contained was, that no man in this country should be asked to grow wheat at a lower price than 31/6 per barrel. That is published in the report of the Economic Committee which is to be found in the Library. There was no economic war at that time; there was not £6 per head or £5 or £4 being collected by Great Britain on our live stock. We had a good price for everything we were selling, although Deputy O'Reilly tells us that the rates were paid at that time out of overdrafts. They are not paid at all now, which is worse. Apparently the overdraft accommodation is not available now. Was it not a peculiar thing that in 1929, when we were comparatively rich as compared with the present time, President de Valera, or the Minister for Agriculture, would not ask us to grow wheat at a lower price than 31/6 per barrel? Now we can become rich on growing wheat at 23/6.

What is really the responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture? I am very often at a loss to know what his responsibility is, because he does not appear to take any responsibility for anything that happens in this country. After all, we are an agricultural community and the Minister ought to be the watchdog of agriculture. He ought to be the man on the Executive Council to watch the interests of the farmers. That ought to be his job. Is he doing that? Have we any evidence that he has done it; or have we evidence that he is neglecting to do it? I maintain that we have ample evidence that he has neglected to do it. It is quite possible that the Minister is well-meaning; but I do not believe that he is as innocent about agricultural conditions in this country as he pretends to be. I do not believe that any man reared on a farm here, as he was, is as innocent or as ignorant of the conditions obtaining in this country at present as he pretends to be.

We had recently a coal-cattle pact in which, to my mind, the Minister for Agriculture ought to have been very interested. I do not know to what extent he interested himself at the time. I do say that the interests of the agricultural community were very badly looked after as far as that coal-cattle pact was concerned. Quite recently somebody said in this House by way of interruption: "But you voted for it." We did vote for it; we had no option but to vote for it. You might as well have asked a starving man would he or would he not take half a loaf rather than none. Of course, he would take half a loaf; he had to take it. Deputy Moore and Deputy O'Reilly said that it was manifestly unfair to the farmers for members of the Opposition to be trotting out that if the present Government were out of the way we could get in any quantity of produce we liked into Great Britain at any price we liked. The Opposition will admit one thing, that we would get whatever price was going in any case.

Let us see exactly how far the Minister for Agriculture has been watching our interests in this matter. A statement was made in April, 1935, by Mr. Thomas on the coal-cattle pact. That statement does not tally with the expressions we heard from the Government Benches at one time or another. Mr. Thomas, as reported in the Irish Independent of April 3rd, 1935, said: “The restriction with regard to the Irish Free State is a restriction due to political reasons, and if, happily, as I hope some day, a settlement is arrived at, there will be an entirely different figure.” That was something at least for the Minister for Agriculture to hang his hat upon, and something that other Fianna Fáil members ought to remember when speaking in this House. If there were an agreement on a better basis than the coal-cattle agreement, and if the penal tariffs were removed, there is evidence that it is quite possible that we would have a very different figure with regard to our cattle.

Quite recently Commonwealth countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa have been endeavouring to make better bargains for their agricultural produce in the British market, which is at our back door. What have we been doing? What has the Minister been doing? Every slice of that market taken by somebody else means a loss to us. Has the Minister been looking after our interests? All that time we have been listening to the President telling us that he was going to alter the Constitution. That is what we are getting out of it. Of course, it is a great solace to us to know that the Governor-General, even though he is at present a kind of figurehead, is also to go. That is the extent to which agriculture is being looked after.

We are fighting this economic war and boasting that we fired the first shot. Let us see how we are getting on with it and what the reactions are on the conditions in our own country. From figures given in this House by the Minister for Finance we find that up to 31st March last £14,576,435 was withheld by us from Great Britain. At the same time, figures were given in the British House of Commons which showed that the British Government collected during the same period £11,757,000. We withheld £14,000,000 and they collected £11,000,000. It may be said that we gained £3,000,000 by the transaction; but we did not. During that period we paid £6,323,000 to get our cattle into the British market, and over £2,000,000 to get our butter into that market. That is £8,000,000 it costs us to get into the British market, all of which is paid by the taxpayers. In addition £11,000,000 have been paid by the farmers off their stock, giving us a total of £19,000,000 to save £14,000,000. Is that good business? Is that the type of business that Deputy O'Reilly would like to engage in on his own? Yet he thinks it is good enough for the nation and for the farmers of the country.

What is the reaction of that? We have in this country at present a very deplorable state of affairs, and if the Government think they can boast out of it or if they think they can make Party capital out of it, I wish them luck of it. The state of affairs existing in the South of Ireland with regard to the non-payment of annuities makes very sad reading for anybody who takes up the daily papers. Mind you, when these people take up the daily papers and when they read that the British have collected £11,750,000 off the farmers of this country in respect of annuities which the present Government have not transmitted to Britain—when they read that and when they find their stocks depleted, find that they are not able to support their families or sell the live stock that they have, is it any wonder at all that they would regard a demand for another annuity as exorbitant?

An Ceann Comhairle

Was not all that debated on the Estimate for the Minister for Lands?

Mr. Brennan

I agree, Sir, but we are waging an economic war to which I maintain the Minister for Agriculture ought to have put an end. That is his job. If he is not the watch-dog for agriculture, if he is not there in the interests of the farmers of this country, he should not be there at all. That is his job. We have at the present time the most law-abiding and the most conservative people in the world driven to violence in this country. I do not condone it, but I understand it. We have a tradition in this country that demands of that kind have been met with physical violence before, demands for payments that are not due. If people do rise out against it, the Government ought to inquire what the real reason for that is. There is no use in saying that the people on the Opposition Benches have put them up to it. That kind of thing will not wash. He may get away with it to-day or to-morrow, for a month or for a year, but history will record it in black and white, and the blame will be laid at the proper doors.

There is another matter regarding which I should like to ask whether the Minister for Agriculture has interested himself or not. If he is the watch-dog of agriculture, as he ought to be, he should be able to tell us in this House why he permitted the farmers of this country to be denied of what was their right in the Agricultural Grant last year and this year. It was not enough to withhold £750,000 from the local authorities or from the farmers of this country last year, until, as evidence of the prosperity in which they are wallowing, agricultural land was docked of another £100,000 this year. Yet we have the Minister for Agriculture getting up and saying that everything is all right, and Deputy O'Reilly feels that the country is flourishing. There is even worse than that. There is still the worst feature of the whole Government policy. You may pauperise people; you may bring even decent people to violence, people who have always paid their way and who have always wanted to pay their way. But you have also demoralised them. You have demoralised the people of this country so that we have small farmers, some of them not so very small, put in the position that they must go and look for doles and free meat— for anything but an honest day's work, because they cannot get it. Once you did that, you destroyed the biggest asset we had in this country.

I do not know whether the Government realise what they have been doing in that respect. If the Government think that by this patching up of the situation, by giving free beef and giving doles, by endeavouring to patch up what cannot be patched up, they are improving matters, they are making the biggest mistake they ever could make. If agriculture is going to be our main industry it must pay. If it does not, it is going to die out and it is no use endeavouring to build up other industries on the ruins of the main industry. It cannot be done. Agriculture is going to provide the purchasing power of the people if it is the main industry. Will it be helped by such a thing as the slaughter of 250,000 calves, such as was carried out last year? According to the figures given by the Minister for Finance, a sum of over £135,000, at 12s. 6d. per skin, was paid out by way of bounty on the skins of slaughtered calves. That means there are 250,000 cattle less in the country this year, and we are better off and richer for it, according to Fianna Fáil. Again, we are told that we have 100,000 cows this year more than previously, and that is given as evidence of prosperity. How did they become cows? By bringing calves. Why have the people got into cows? They have gone into them because the dairying industry is being subsidised at the present time. Butter is being sold at an artificial price. Everything at the moment is at an artificial price. It does not matter whether you are buying or selling, the value of everything in this country at present is hidden.

These are the conditions that apply in the whole country at the present time, irrespective of what the Minister for Agriculture may endeavour to make the House think he feels but which he cannot feel. He must pay some attention, even to his own constituency, where they demanded quite recently free beef for the agricultural workers as they were paid such a bad wage. The appalling conditions into which agriculture has been driven in this country have got to be put right very soon. There are only two things that would justify the present Government policy as far as agriculture is concerned. One would be increased employment, and the other would be increased prosperity. Nobody has claimed increased prosperity for agriculture, and according to the figures given in the Agricultural Statistics from 1927 to 1933, agricultural employment has decreased from 1931 to 1933. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce endeavouring to tell the House here the other day that there was prosperity in the pig industry since the present Government came into office. He told us in the same speech before to read the productions from his office and to study them. As a matter of fact he warned Deputy Dr. O'Higgins that he was taking the wrong meaning out of these productions, that he was not reading the right figures. Now with regard to pigs, we find on page 22 of the Agricultural Statistics publication for 1933 that the total number of pigs was 1,177,000 in 1927 and 1,227,000 in 1931— the highest number recorded from 1871. Then followed the decline to 930,934 in 1933, and that is the progress of the pig industry.

In addition to what Deputy Moore said, that the farmers in this country are not able to save anything and put it by, we have the fact that their credit is broken down. If there are some members of the Fianna Fáil Party who do not believe that the credit of the farmer is broken down, let them go into a bank or let them go to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, and try to obtain money, and they will find out the facts. Not only are the farmers in this country mulcted, so that up to £11,000,000 was collected from them in March last, but I find that their credit is completely gone at home. They have suffered by the de-valuation of every head of their stock in this country in the same manner as if these were exported to Britain.

We are being asked for a new policy. We do not propose to give you any new policy. The old one was very much better than the Fianna Fáil policy. People who started raising live stock in this country did not do it by accident. It was not an accident, nor was it designed by Britain for John Bull. We have the best live stock in the world, and Britain knows that. Since the Fianna Fáil Party sent their Ministers to say that they would kill the cattle trade, they took the fatal step. They have got to get back from that, and to remember that this country is principally a live stock country. Let them advocate more tillage and greater tillage; let them divide farms into smaller farms, compatible with economic conditions, and let them say there is live stock on the land and we want to feed them and make them pay.

Talk about wheat? What is the labour content of wheat? I am a grower of wheat, and if I could produce men in connection with that scheme as wonderful as the Minister for Agriculture, and if they could stack three acres of wheat in a single day, as the Minister said he could, the labour content of wheat would, indeed, be very little. But even allowing that there are very few supermen like the Minister for Agriculture, what is the labour content of wheat? Suppose a man was to sow ten acres of wheat, reap it, stack it, thresh it, and send it to the market, that is all he could do. But suppose he had ten acres of oats, which he fed to his live stock, and got rid of his oats in that way, and got rid of his live stock, in which of these operations would there be greater labour content? Fianna Fáil Deputies who have been engaged in farming should get after the Minister for Agriculture and not let him be pulled by the nose by anyone else. They should impress upon him what his job is, and get him to do his job.

Mr. Hales

There are certain factors in regard to agricultural policy which have not been mentioned so far. There were facts which we have all forgotten. We ought to get back to the years 1904 or 1905 and see what was happening. Take any rural district such, for example, as Bandon or Clonakilty. What was the position then? I remember at that time when 12 splendid yearlings were sold for £3 15s. apiece. I remember my father taking five tons of hay to Cork and getting £8 for first crop hay. I remember when 60 or 70 horses were engaged for the carting of hay to the market in Bandon. That is one of the facts not mentioned. It was the big change brought about by the use of oil as machine fuel, and the use of motor cars that finished agriculture in this country. That is the position beyond the control of this Government or any other Government. It is the position beyond the control or solution of any Government. Even if we had a Republic for the whole of Ireland, these facts would have to be faced. Deputy Brennan told us that the cattle trade did not develop in Ireland by accident, and he mentioned that the British had not designed it for us. I challenge him to go back to 1883.

An Ceann Comhairle

Not in this debate.

Mr. Hales

The historical records show that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in opening the Horse Show in Cork that year repeated the self-same words that were used by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney in opening this debate. There is no doubt that John Bull has got us at the weakest point of our armour, because they were able to control the market to which our cattle were exported. Admitting that, and if the Opposition had admitted it, and if as men they put their heads together, and stood with us, the financial victory would have been achieved. That would have enabled the country to win through. I admit there is suffering. I know that the farmer is the one man in this country who has never been properly recompensed for the work he has done. But apart from that fact, if independent, he has a life equal to anyone in this country. Personally if I were independent, I would not exchange my life as a farmer for that of any other. The farmer may not have thousands of pounds in the bank but he has the great blessing of leading an open air life in the country.

The Minister wants practical suggestions. We ought to realise not merely for ourselves, but for the whole country, there are great issues at stake. Deputy Brennan may say that our trials were brought about by this Government. They may have made mistakes. Were it not for mistakes that were made by the first people who were put into this world we would all be able to fly up to heaven at will. If we are suffering to-day we are suffering for the mistakes and for the sins of the past. The question is how to get out of it with the least possible suffering. The atmosphere during this debate to-day has been improved and has been very friendly, and there have been suggestions made from many angles. If that continues we will be at least attracted to one point where the issue at stake would be more exposed and men could reason and finally come to the point at issue, namely, that all our troubles, difficulties and confusions are not created within this country but without.

Deputy Bennett spoke about the war period and I remember during the war period getting a cheque for £42 for three Shropshire sheep. But what happened? I can prove that there are more old debts hanging over since the war period than will ever be cleared off. It is an extraordinary thing that it was in those times which were considered prosperous and glorious that the farmers went into debt. How did that happen? The position was that each farmer's son—I and the rest of us—sold our stock and invested in land. The great financier said "You are getting £40 to-day for your sow; to-morrow she will be worth only £7 or £8 but you have to pay me back pound for pound." That is a very important factor which I would put to the Minister as a member of the Executive Council. One of the big things we should insist upon is that the claims of these banks and these debt contractors should be based on the values of the present day. Another factor which controls us now is that in those days, and up to, and beyond, 1928, there was accommodation given in the shape of overdrafts by banks. To-day that has ceased completely. There was no earthly difficulty then in getting money, even by farmers who were pretty well stuck beforehand, but, at present, if you take half the country with you, you have no earthly hope of getting money unless you have some money on deposit. That is another serious factor which the Minister should consider.

My suggestion is that, where humanly possible, we should go back again to horse transport in this country. Men will tell me that you cannot put back the clock, that it is a human impossibility. The self same thing was said, I expect, before the Dark Ages, until the Great Man above said: "Thus far shalt thou go and no further," and at present, from the way the world is going, man is going to invent something again that will destroy himself, and he will have to go back to the old order of things and to the horse transport that will be there for all time. There are various other things affecting agriculture, and we farmers are a bit selfish in our own way. I will give an instance from West Cork. We have co-operative societies all over West Cork, and, at the rate they are going, they will have the grass growing around the doors of every little shopkeeper in the towns and villages in West Cork. I maintain that that is wrong and morally wrong. Not alone are they selling manures and stuffs of that character, which I agree they are entitled to do in a reasonable way, but they are selling boot-laces, pennyworths of mustard, snuff, tobacco and everything else, even to the Southern Star on a Sunday. I honestly think it would be the duty of the Minister for Agriculture to bring in legislation to stop that, because those shopkeepers are there anyhow for generations, and at the rate things are going they are going to be wiped out. I realise that the Minister does not appreciate the gravity of the situation, and I ask other Deputies from West Cork to give their views on the subject. I think it is only fair to these poor shopkeepers in the small towns and villages that they should be helped.

There are other factors, too, which I am sure Deputy Belton will reveal to the House and with which I would be very much in agreement. Before the Truce, England might have said: "This is all a mistake; I am wasting men and wasting ammunition; I will try different tactics altogether; I will withdraw every one of them and I will beat you with finance and the curtailment of finance." Of course, I will be told that there are not five or ten people in the world who understand finance. I agree that there are not five or ten people who understand the ingenuity, the brains or the devices that brought about the present position of finance and created a position in which it is scarce, for the good of the classes at the expense of the masses. That is one thing we do know. In Emerson's essays, which I read as a young fellow, it is stated that man is only man for the thought within, and that man is only man while he expresses that thing that ticks within the soul of man. If, as he said, artificial learning and everything else departs from the original thing, he is man no longer. He will often find that the thoughts he first put forth, and which he rejected in scorn, afterwards assert themselves. In that regard, you have to-day the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I believe it is not worth three rows of pins so far as the farmers are concerned, and if, to-morrow, I had power, as a Minister or a dictator, I would do away with it, because it is useless, for the reasons that they are giving money at six per cent. and they will give it only to special persons. There are times when a £10 or a £20 note would be a wonderful advantage to a small farmer, but so far as that place over in 2 Merrion Square is concerned, it is simply there, in my opinion, to help bankers to recover some other debts from the farmers.

So far as the great national issue is concerned, I would personally lose the last cow I had and the last roof over my head before I would surrender one principle to an outside power, because I believe that she has staked her cards on the will of one people against the will and endurance of another. If we have the patience and power to endure, we are going to win, and, in my opinion, win very shortly and decisively. If we can once get united on the main issue, we can each of us put up constructive ideas and healthy criticism, but the unfortunate thing in this House is that there is a barrier which one or the other side cannot cross. I might attack the Minister by putting forward healthy criticism, but I will not do it, because I am, as it were, giving way to the Opposition, and if a member of the Opposition like Deputy McGovern puts forward a helpful suggestion, he is hauled over the coals and he will not do it. There was one thing which Deputy McGovern said to-day which I appreciate and about which I believe he was honest. I think that in his own heart he believes that if there is one man can bring this country over its difficulties to ultimate success it is Eamon de Valera.

Deputy Brennan referred to wheat and the manuring of wheat. Here is one fact worthy of consideration which was given in Professor Baldwin's little school book—a little book worth reading but which cannot be got now. From 1841 to 1847 you had double the population in Ireland that you have now, and you had only half the amount of cattle to make the manure. How did they manure the land?

Mr. Belton

By burning the soil.

Mr. Hales

I admit the burning was done all right on part of it. The old art of manure making is also gone out of this country. Take, for instance, the sandhills. In reply to Deputy Belton, I would like to point out that there is a place called Inishannon, 12 miles in from Kinsale Harbour. There was sand brought there from Kinsale Harbour; 100 men were employed to draw sand from it. I got it analysed, and it was found to contain nitrogenous matter and 50 per cent. pure lime.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy now come from 1840 to 1935?

Mr. Hales

I was merely explaining how the land was manured. Deputy Brennan used the argument that we cannot grow the wheat if we cannot manure the land; in other words, we will not have the cattle and, therefore, we will not have the manure. The extraordinary thing is that in the period to which I have referred they did it. I do not intend to delay the House very much longer. I only wish to be helpful in this debate. I, at any rate, am definitely convinced that there is no other policy than that advocated by the Government. So far as withdrawing our line in the national struggle is concerned, as long as I live I will oppose that to the end. If we could get together as a whole House and try to do what we can for agriculture we might agree on one fundamental issue, the fundamental issue that things come to an end. And so will this come to an end. The question is whether you are going to come to a triumphant end or meet with defeat. On the policy of agriculture hangs the whole position, because our line has been attacked in its weakest point, and if we do not rally and barricade and strengthen that, we must suffer. If we leave the line open we are bound to end in defeat, with the evil consequences that follow.

Mr. Belton

The last speaker is a brave man. He made the suggestion here to cross certain barriers, but I was surprised that a man of his bravery funked a certain fence when he came to it. He suggests accommodation between Parties here on one fundamental issue and that is, in effect, no surrender on the economic war. I would like to ask the Deputy if he would not support a condition precedent to that stand. Is it not time that the Government should concede what they have been requested to concede and what, I think, the Deputy would agree with? That is, that the time has come for a survey as to the proper distribution of the burden of the economic war. I am sure the Deputy agrees with that. Recently I heard the Minister for Agriculture flinging a query at the Opposition that if they put down a motion concerning agriculture there would be time given to debate it. I suggest to Deputy Hales that the motion in my name and in the name of Deputy Kent on the Order Paper should have been taken months ago; not now but many months ago the Government should have given time for a discussion of that motion. If after a proper, fair and impartial inquiry it is found that agriculture in this country is only bearing its fair share of the burden of the economic war, I would be one of the first to say that no farmer has any cause for grumbling. The Government have consistently refused to set up this tribunal to investigate as to the distribution of the economic war burden, and I take it they are afraid to face the issue. I would be glad if Deputy Hales would add his name to this motion.

Mr. Hales

The point is, could we agree on the tribunal?

Mr. Belton

I suggest to the Minister that we should be at least as big a Dominion or nation in the Commonwealth as Australia or New Zealand. If we were, we could have depreciated our currency without any trouble by 25 per cent., and we would be getting at present 106/- per cwt. for our butter without any levy on the creameries. Why is it not done? How does the Minister think that agriculture is going to survive here? I will take it first as if the economic war was settled and we were waving the flags that we would wave. I will take it that way in one case and I will also take it in the other way, that the economic war was on and we were winning or losing, if you like. There is no use in talking about winning or losing because we have lost it long ago. We will take it first that there is no economic war. We send our butter to the British market and get 85/- per cwt. That 85/-, without any British tariff, is only worth 85/- when we bring it back here. The Australian sends his butter to the British market and gets 87/-, which is worth 109/- when he takes it to Australia. The New Zealander gets from 90/- to 92/-, and that is worth 112/- when he takes it home. Immediately Great Britain went off the gold standard, Denmark also depreciated her currency by 25 per cent. The Dane gets from 100/- to 105/- for his butter in the British market, and that is worth 125/- to him when he takes it to Denmark. I would ask the Minister when replying to tell the House and the country how we can compete in the British market with Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia in butter when they have an exchange advantage over us of 25 per cent.

Let us take another item—meat, which the Minister told us something about to-day. The price of Argentine meat in Smithfield market is about 3/6 per 8 lbs. or 5¼d. per lb. I think that is a bit higher than the minimum price fixed by the Minister of 25/- per cwt. live weight. I am not quite sure of the ratio of live to dead weight, but I think it would be 1½d. per lb. better than we are getting for our meat—the minimum price fixed by Act of Parliament here which the Minister blames the farmers for not securing and which they did not secure. I should like the Minister to consider that the Argentine producer and exporter of meat to the British market has nearly 70 per cent. of a currency advantage over us owing to the working of the depreciated currency. I am afraid that all this talk about currency is bewildering to the Republicans.

Mr. T. Kelly

No wonder.

Mr. Belton

Not a bit of wonder. They have been shouting for a republic for 10 or 15 years, but they did not know what they were talking about. I should like the Minister to explain how, without any economic war on, our farmers could compete in the British or any market against countries working on a currency depreciated relatively to ours. We were sending cattle to Belgium, and the Minister told us we were getting a satisfactory price. The reason was obvious. At that time Belgium was in the gold block. We were off it, and we had an exchange advantage. Although we got a small price, we won on the exchange. But the moment Belgium went off the gold standard, we lost that market. If Germany went off the gold standard to-morrow, we would lose the German market. It only holds while Germany is on the gold standard. The Minister referred to the new market which he discovered in Spain. I had some samples of Spanish oranges which I meant to bring in, and I am sorry I did not.

Mr. T. Kelly

You could suck them.

Mr. Belton

That is the trouble. You could not suck them; not even Deputy Kelly could suck them, because there was not a suck left in them; they are like old timber. The quota given to Spain for these old timber oranges is two-thirds. If the Minister wants to get information on that I will take him round to-morrow morning to the fruit merchants in Dublin, who will import them and who are making their living by them. Then, if he is not afraid, we will get a few addresses from them and we shall go, not to Grafton Street, but to the back streets of Dublin, in which live the old women who have to make a living selling these oranges. God help the Minister if they knew that he was the Minister responsible for bringing in Spanish oranges here. He would get a warm reception around Gloucester Diamond.

I said before the Minister came in, and I repeat it now, that I appreciated the way in which he introduced this Vote. The Minister knows that I am not an antagonistic critic of his wheat policy. But the Minister must decide, and I, as one who believes in the development of wheat growing in this country, would like to see him consider it, not to proceed too quickly in developing this wheat policy because he may over-reach himself. At the present time it is very easy for him to do that. There is a surplus of 200,000,000 bushels of Canadian wheat on hands, and it is estimated that from the prairies alone there are 400,000,000 bushels of wheat of a new crop. There is every indication that will be sold at about 12/- or 13/- a barrel. It is very important to bear in mind the world price of a commodity that you are trying to develop and which you are developing at a loss. Such rapid development may sour people against producing it. Though in favour of wheat growing, I quite see the danger of the arguments that have been used against it to-day. I quite see that when normal conditions, if we ever have normal conditions, are restored in this country, the greatest problem the Minister for Agriculture will have will be to get beet provided for the beet factories. Wheat, too, will have to be much dearer than it is now. The only thing that popularises these crops at the present time is that there is no other agricultural crop that can be grown, I will not say at a profit, but without a loss.

The Minister knows that beet cannot be grown at 37/6, the flat rate which is paid now. He knows that that is a very bad business arrangement. What was visualised in the Sugar Act was 35/- for beet, with 17 per cent. sugar content. Now the growers do not know very well what they are growing. Another fault which I have to find with the Minister is that I do not think that any grower of beet in this country knows what breed or strain of beet he is growing. I should like if I could be corrected on that, if what I am saying is not a fact. From any sources which I have been able to tap, I have been informed that the seed is provided by foreigners and that we do not know what strain of seed is being put into the ground. Certainly no attempt is being made to breed a strain of seed here.

It was said in the discussion here to-day that wheat is only increasing at the expense of oats. My opinion is that in this discussion extreme views on agriculture were developed too much. On one side the position was taken up of extensive tillage and on the other of grass products. No matter to what side any member of this House may be inclined, there is one thing, if he has any practical knowledge of the matter, he must know, and that is that there cannot be such a thing as all tillage and no stock. Of course we could have all stock and no tillage. If an intermediate course were developed, it would probably meet the case much better. It is the only course that in the long run could survive. The Minister for Agriculture has shifted his ground on many occasions here. As Deputy Brennan said he did admit some time ago that more tillage meant more live stock. He contradicted that afterwards but he kind of agreed to it again.

The growing of wheat at the present time is an entirely uneconomic proposition. I think the Minister for Agriculture ought not be responsible for a policy that will destroy the fertility of the soil. He knows that most of the increased wheat production in this country is carried out by a method of farming that would not be called good husbandry. He knows that in many parts of the country a third crop of wheat has been taken from lea. That is not farming. To keep land, as it is described, "in heart," you must have six or seven years in which you will not sow wheat in it. There is quite a lot of wheat land in this country, sufficient to meet our requirements by growing wheat on that land only every six or seven years. I put it to the Minister that if he asks his technical advisers in the grain world they will tell him that the intensive growing of wheat, especially soft wheat—the only wheat that is being grown here—there is great danger that the soil will become impregnated with disease. The Minister will not contradict that. He cannot contradict it because I am only repeating what I got years ago from the very experts the Minister has to consult to get expert knowledge here. But unless these experts have changed their minds, with the change of Government they must give him that view. They cannot have changed their minds with the change of Government because I have got these expert views also from other sources. There is the danger that good wheat lands that are being cropped with wheat too frequently now, without any help in the way of farmyard manure, will become impregnated with disease. As regards farmyard manure, I do not see where it can come from.

The Minister said that fault was found with the Department of Agriculture for the manner in which they distributed fat cattle licences; but now he said they were giving them to committees of agriculture to see what they could do. The Minister has been distributing licences from the 1st January last. Surely, his Department must have acquired some knowledge as to some method of distributing these licences. But it is strange to relate that the Department of Agriculture, with over one and a half year's experience of distributing these licences, have now sent down a circular to the committees of agriculture, without any prior notice, saying that as from the 1st July the committees of agriculture would distribute those licences. After a few days, another circular followed, to say as the committees of agriculture had not called meetings the Minister would not be in a position to allocate the licences until the middle of July. Why did not the Department of Agriculture send to these committees in order to get the value of their experience over a year and a half? The Department has been groping in the dark for over a year and a half and they failed and could not advise us or the committees of agriculture as to what should be done. It is most extraordinary to find that we have here a public Department for the upkeep of which almost a £1,000,000 has to be paid by the tax-payer, and that after distributing cattle licences for over a year and a half they have shown that they have failed, and that the distribution of licences is to be done by committees of agriculture composed of old farmers, and that these people are to do the distribution in their own time. The Department of Agriculture which requires nearly £1,000,000 for its upkeep could not do that work.

And what would the new legislation be for?—to establish a central bank here. That is the only possible thing the legislation could be for, because you could not touch your currency without the central bank and you had to establish that. That is admitting that we have not got it here, and, therefore, the central bank of our banking system must be somewhere else, and, of course, it is in the Bank of England. The Bank of England is controlled by its Governor and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in consultation with the British Prime Minister. When we declared war on these Britishers and were going to squeeze them into starvation, imagine how Montagu Norman and the British Prime Minister and Chancellor must have smiled at the big brains over here. The Minister for Industry and Commerce then comes in here and, thumping the table, says "We must win," with the British holding all our arms, all our ammunition and all our food. How can we fire a shot? The President was right when he denied that he fired the first shot. Of course, he did not fire the first shot, because he had not got a shot left to fire. The British had all the shots, and they have been pumping lead into us for the last three years.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce says we cannot afford to lose. I agree that it will be a terrible humiliation and loss to lose, but the blame for losing can rest only on certain shoulders. It can rest only on the shoulders of those who challenged England to an economic conflict before we in this country had full control of the economic and financial resources of this country.

The Minister has brought Bills in here, no doubt with the best intention in the world, fixing prices for cereals. In addition to the monetary advantages that our competitors have in the British markets, they have other advantages. Let us take the Argentine. Its maize crop this year shows 8,000,000 tons of an exportable surplus. That will be sold at scrap prices. That is going to produce beef somewhere, eggs, poultry, pork for sale in the British market, and there it is going to compete with our produce. Whether or not we use any of that maize does not matter. From the Danube States it is estimated 11,000,000 tons of maize will be dumped on the European markets this year, also at scrap prices. The Minister fixes the price of oats and barley. By the way, I am afraid a Deputy to-day fell into a trap when he said barley was grown in this country only for malting. It is principally grown here for feeding. How can the Minister fix an economic price for barley or oats when they have not reached their ultimate destination, their ultimate destination being the finished article in pork, beef, etc., as the case may be?

Our grain will have to compete with scrap price maize producing similar finished agricultural produce. That is really the price that will count and, if it is not counted during the development of the finished article, it will be counted finally in smaller returns to the feeder of stock in this country. Perhaps his stock may show a loss while his competitor feeding on cheap maize can show a big profit. It is an utter impossibility, absolute foolishness, to try to fix a price for cereals when those cereals have to be fed to animals which will find a market outside this country, where they have to compete with animals fed on maize and other cereals from other countries. The little conditions which exist here will not govern the market; the world conditions will establish the real price.

The Minister said here to-day that he will have to bring in a Bill soon to compel the butcher to give the minimum price of 25/- a cwt. fixed by an Act last year. There is no use in the Minister trying to shift on that matter. I told him when he was introducing the Bill that it was futile to try to get a minimum price for beef when we were not able to consume all the beef we had. Take the 411 licences for fat stock that he gave to us to distribute to the farmers of Dublin who claim to have 5,000 fat beasts for sale. Those 411 licences will ship 411 beasts at the minimum price of 22/- or 25/-, whatever it is. What are the people to do with the others? Supposing a butcher says "I will give you £1 a cwt. for ten cattle that are finished and are only wasted by being left any longer." Supposing I had those ten cattle, would the Minister say I was wrong in accepting £1 per cwt. when I could not get an offer from anybody else? Was I to be obliged to keep them there wasting and pining? Of course not. I would take £1 and then how will I evade the law? I told the Minister how, and that is the way it has been evaded every day since. Nobody can stop it until there is a sufficient demand for all we produce.

If the butcher asks me to give him a receipt for 22/- or 25/- a cwt., do you think I would not give it to him? Of course I would, and it is done every day in the market. It is futile and absurd for the Minister to try to fix a minimum price for an article when you have twice as much of that article on your hands as you have consumption for. I will be interested to see what sort of Bill the Minister will bring in to catch people who, through necessity, must evade the Act. I think we should hear something from the Minister about the position with regard to the economic war. Not only is the economic war responsible for £6 per head on the older cattle, but I am convinced, and everybody who speaks his mind here or outside is convinced, that the economic war is responsible for the quotas as well.

If there is to be any chance of industrial revival here you must have agriculture flourishing. The famous dictum of Arthur Griffith to make this a two-armed nation cannot be achieved by cutting off the one arm that the nation has; so far from making this a two-armed nation the present Government has only succeeded in partially severing the arm it already had. I would like to know from the Minister what is the position of the economic war? Is there anything being done towards a settlement or is the thing to go on indefinitely with one side sitting by the other and the agricultural population here having to pay?

Mr. Anthony

And keep on enduring.

Mr. Belton

Yes, keep on enduring with the arms and the ammunition and everything else in charge of the British and we are going to fight on. Before we can take control of our own house, the Minister says we must pass an Act of Parliament. Surely it is a humiliating position for this country to be in. Surely it is a humiliating position for any Irishman outside this country who reflects on the situation that the Government of this country that claims to be Republican, that claims to stand for Irish independence and Irish separation from the British Commonwealth of Nations, has been so stupid, has been so negligent of national dignity or independence as not to do what every small State has done. All the small States, the product of the Great War, all the secession States of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, all the secession States of the Russian Empire, and even the Free State of Dantzig, have set up their own independent financial position. And our Republican Government did not do it and yet they declared war on the British Empire, that Empire that is actually in control of our money. Surely outside Bedlam you would not meet such madness. There is no parallel for it in history. They are continuing to fight, filling up gaps here and there with taxes and more taxes.

Surely the Minister for Agriculture ought to redeem the promise he made here last week that if any member of the Opposition put up a motion for discussion on agriculture that it would be accepted and time given. Will the Minister give Government time for the motion already on the Order Paper, the motion to ascertain who is bearing the burden of the economic war? That is the whole crux of the situation. Personally I admit that the Government has got a mandate for it. Of course they did a good deal of cajolery and misrepresentation, but nevertheless the people should have sense enough to see through that if they did not believe in the economic war. Now it is up to the Government to reassure the country that the burden of the economic war is equally distributed. And if the burden of the economic war were equally distributed, Deputies like Deputy Kelly here, who are paying nothing for it but making money out of it, would not smile. With these few remarks I leave the matter to the Minister's consideration.

Mr. Hogan (Galway):

It is an extraordinary thing in the year 1935 to be discussing truisms of this sort. I have been told to-night that you cannot have live stock without tillage, and you cannot have tillage without live stock— a lot of things that I heard from my grandmother about fifty years ago. The real trouble about the present situation is that this policy that we have been hearing about, this agricultural policy, is not Fianna Fáil policy at all. The Minister asked what is our agricultural policy. The trouble about the Minister's and the Government's policy is this, that it is not their own policy really. They came into office, and as a result of their past they were forced to do two things: one was to make trouble with England. That had to be done right or wrong, but some excuse had to be found for it; the other was to do something different in the matter of agriculture from that which we did. That is all that the Fianna Fáil agricultural policy comes to—there is really no use dignifying it with the name of a policy at all. It is simply the case of certain people who do not know much about agriculture, people who are not very competent, having to do, rightly or wrongly, something different from what we did. We encouraged the production of live stock and live-stock products while in office. The Government Party, when in opposition, talked about tillage and grain crops, wheat and beet and the sort of thing I used to hear from my grandmother. They talked a lot about these things. They had to do something different from us afterwards. There was no possible agricultural policy in this country but the policy we pursued, and I venture to say there is hardly an agriculturist, a practical farmer on the Government Benches who does not realise that. It is positively humiliating to be pointing out what everybody in the country knows—that a two-year-old beast which the farmer raises and which fetches £16 in a couple of years would pay just as well as an acre of beet or an acre of wheat with all this subsidising. Every farmer knows that. Nobody can deny that a well-bred Hereford heifer one-and-a-half years old will pay three times as much as an acre of beet; five or six ewes with their lambs at the price they were fetching three years ago in the open market would pay three or four times as much as an acre of wheat. Everybody knows that; if they could only get down to the finances of it, nobody on the opposite benches would deny it. But here we are seriously discussing as an alternative to the policy of the production of live stock and live-stock products, the production of beet and wheat. I ask the Minister himself to say is that a serious alternative? Is there a single person on the benches opposite who believes it is a serious alternative? I do not want to go into figures too much, but let us take this figure for a moment. Between 1931 and 1934 there was a fall of £8,000,411 in the value of cattle exports. I repeat it—£8,000,411.

Mr. T. Kelly

We heard you.

Mr. Hogan

Does it convey anything to Deputy Kelly? I am rather glad Deputy Kelly made that interruption. The Deputy professes to be an old standing Sinn Feiner who wants to find work for everybody in the country, who wants to keep money in the country. He talks of all that and he uses all these phrases and all these shibboleths without understanding them. That is his run of country. Now look at this figure again—there is £8,000,411 gone out of the country. Does that convey anything to Deputy Kelly? There is £8,000,411 worth of employment gone out of the country. There are opportunities there for increasing taxation; there are opportunities for an increase in population and there are opportunities for increasing employment to the extent of £8,000,411. As against that, in the Dáil, after 12 years of self-government, someone will talk of other things. I am only dealing with one item. Someone will talk of sugar beet. Are we really serious? Or are we only playacting, or is it all humbug? Go down along the figures. On sheep £732,000 was lost. This is all in one year, remember. On pigs there is a loss of £1,814,927. They are only the exports. Tot them all up and you will get a total of £11,000,000. And you talk of keeping the money in the country; you talk of not sending out for foreign goods; you talk of more employment and progress and a bigger population, but there is the loss on three items in one year on exports alone.

Does the Minister for Agriculture seriously tell us that the alternative to those is sugar beet and wheat? If I had the time and if I thought I was talking to children I would explain that, of course, you cannot possibly till for wheat more than a very small proportion of your land, and only a very small proportion of the land is fit for wheat growing. Everybody knows that, but no one seems to advert to it or realise it. Equally, if I had time, I should like to ask the Minister for Agriculture what is the real profit out of an acre of sugar beet, and what is the subsidy that is being paid? I do not know. But I do know that when we were setting up the Carlow factory and when we were paying about 48/- per ton for beet, the subsidy was close on £70 an acre. What is it now? It must be at least £35 to £40. I make an allowance for the fact that there is no 5 per cent. dividend to be paid, and that the price of the beet is a lot lower, but it certainly must be £35 to £40 per acre. This is what the whole Fianna Fáil agricultural policy has come to—the growing of wheat and of sugar beet, and the killing of the live-stock industry and the live-stock products industry of the country.

Mr. O'Donovan

And the distribution of free meat.

Mr. Hogan

How can there be progress? If Deputy T. Kelly is serious, if it is not merely politics with him, if he wants to see an increase in the population of the country, if he wants to see increased production and increased labour, I would ask him seriously to take the trouble to analyse those figures, and then ask himself is he doing what he professes to have near his heart in allowing this to go on? Is not bankruptcy clearly written on those figures, and is not that all about it? Can anybody deny it? Do you think you are going to stave off bankruptcy by producing, we will say, perhaps, 50,000 acres of sugar beet and feeding it with a subsidy of £40 to £50 per acre? Do you think you are going to stave off bankruptcy in that way? Is not that what we are coming to? Is not that the policy? You have killed the live stock industry; you have killed the live-stock products industry; you have substituted two small items of production kept alive by the most extravagant subsidies, and while all that is happening what have you done? You have increased taxation—I am speaking of direct taxation—from about £22,000,000 to, I suppose, close on £30,000,000. At a time when practically no branch of non-subsidised farming is paying, when bankruptcy is staring every hard-working farmer in the face, you have increased taxation by close on £8,000,000 or £9,000,000. Where is it going to lead to? What is the use of talking of currency? What is the use in debating small points about the price of butter, the price of eggs, or interesting little academic discussions such as Deputy O'Reilly treated us to, when he told us all about what happened in 1888, with a little bit of anti-Imperialism thrown in? Why not get down to the real problem? Is not this country going bankrupt agriculturally?

I hear a lot of propaganda at the expense of the unfortunate farmers in Cork at the present moment. The President is very fond of making use of them as an example of our supporters who really do not believe in democracy, and who are quite willing to resort to force if it pays them. He uses that particular example to show that we are as bad as they are. He thinks it proves that. The economic system in this country was very powerful, and very well laid. It could stand a lot of shocks, but you have strained it almost to breaking point. The democratic sense, I think, was also fairly deeply rooted in this country, but you have strained it almost to breaking point. Consider those farmers, and the strain you have put upon them. If we were the most highly civilised people in the world, if we had the most highly developed sense of law and order, it would be very hard for them to stand what is going on at the present moment. Look at their position. The people in the district where you have the most of the trouble are amongst the very best farmers in Ireland. They were the people who always got the prizes in the Show. They produced more wealth per acre out of their land than the Meath men, with far better land. Wherever there was improvement, they were in the van. Wherever sound new methods had to be adopted, they adopted them first. It was a pride with them to pay their way, to put a bit aside, and to have a fairly decent standard of life. In other words they were the cream of the country as a class. Now look at their position. I heard Deputy Belton say there was a mandate for the economic war. I think they got a mandate to settle it. It is a small point, and I will not go into it, but I think they got a mandate to settle it. This is the point: where did you get your mandate? Where would your mandate be only for the doles? Some of them are necessary. Where would the mandate be only for the free this, the free that, and the free the other thing; only for the bribery of one kind or another? I do not use the word "bribery" in any objectionable sense. Where would the mandate be for the economic war or Republicanism or anything else you like?

Those people whom I speak of get no old age pensions. Their valuations are too high. They get no dole of any kind. They get none of the benefits, good, bad or indifferent, of the £8,000,000 that is being raised. Do they get one penny out of it in any way, direct or indirect? They get none of the social services, because they worked hard in the past. I am not saying that many persons who worked hard in the past do not need social services, and are not entitled to social services. Of course they are. Taking those people as a class, they get none of that £8,000,000. They have to suffer all the disadvantages of the economic war. They have to face all the losses. They have to pay their way. They have not even the temporary and transitory advantages that other people have in the way of doles, subsidies and other grants coming out of that increased taxation. Was there ever any tyranny like that? Here are people producing cattle. They all have cows. They have to rear calves. They are worth £1 at six months old; at two years old they are worth £3 10s. Here are people producing pigs. The best they can expect for them is 40/- per cwt. live weight. Remember they have to employ labour. The man who feeds one or two pigs around the house can make a bit of profit on 40/- per cwt., but for the man who has 20, 30 or 40 pigs and has to employ labour, there is no profit; it is a dead loss. Look at the price of their eggs and the price of everything else they sell.

On the other hand, they buy Indian meal—another part of the Fianna Fáil policy—at £8 10s. per ton, at a time when the world price was never lower. Their raw materials are taxed; at every hand's turn the position is made absolutely impossible for them. Then they must pay their way. They must pay their rates, they must pay their annuities, they must pay the shopkeepers; and if they do not, the full rigour of the law is used against them. You talk of landlordism. There was no landlordism in the history of this country as great a tyranny as what is going on to-day with regard to the farmers. It was the pride of these people to pay their way. They were a class of people who put up the money, if you like, for Sinn Féin, for the Nationalist Party, for every forward movement. It was their pride to pay their way and they always had a bit over for any good cause.

Look at the position they are in now —these decent people who are entitled to a fair standard of living. It is all very fine for us here to say "You have to cut your cloth according to your measure; someone must make the sacrifice." But, remember that people who worked hard to put a bit aside and were able to afford a decent standard of life are entitled to it; and it is the last thing in tyranny for the Government to take it from them. It is not good enough to expect these people to remain strictly within the law. I would not encourage lawlessness under any circumstances. But do you not think that you are putting too great a strain upon them? Do you not think it is unfair to make the strain so heavy that they are bound to break, and then to penalise them when it happens and take full advantage of it? I remember the Minister for Agriculture saying on one occasion "Of course, if you do not make your land pay we have a lot of young fellows who will." Just imagine these farmers listening to that sort of thing, with all their money gone, all their stock gone, all their means gone, and no hope for them after all their work. That is what you have reduced the best farmers in the country to.

Where is your policy leading to, apart from the fact that it is leading to a financial crash? I will tell you. You can go on as you are going on, and you will have to go back to the 1848 conditions. There is going to be an increased population in this country but not because of the little employment you give in half a dozen, a dozen, or 30 highly subsidised factories. It is not worth a snap of the fingers. The slightest increase in the prosperity of agriculture would mean three times as much. There is going to be an increase of population because emigration is stopped. How are these people going to exist? Surely it is an elementary economic truism that cannot be denied that people must live out of production. But is not production going down? How are those people going to be employed? You lost that £8,000,000 worth of production on cattle alone. Where are you going to make it up?

What is the future for the young men that you think so much about, and who are going to make something of this country? There is no future for the great bulk of the young men of this country except to reduce the holdings in this country from £10 holdings to £5 holdings and put them on them. That is where you are going. That will not deal with half of them, but it will bring you back to 1848 conditions; back to a country where you will have a very large number of peasants with a very low standard of life. That may not be your idea of progress, but that is where your policy is leading. There is no doubt about that. That is where this policy is leading, if it lasts long enough.

I really do not believe that the present Government had any choice in the matter. Having regard to all they said and did, they had to make a quarrel with the British. If it was not on the annuities, there would have to be some quarrel with the British. What is more, it seems to me that that quarrel was made for quite irrelevant reasons, for political reasons. It must be kept on for the same reasons. That is what is happening. It seems to me that the Government and Fianna Fáil Deputies believe that if the economic war was finished they would lose a very valuable political advantage over the Opposition. If that is the position, is it not a shocking state of affairs? Is it not a terrible state of affairs that the main industry in the country, the agricultural industry, should be allowed to drift into the paths into which it has drifted merely because of certain political considerations which a certain political Party regard as important for themselves?

There is no doubt that the economic war could be settled. It could be settled on terms. You may ask: "What are the terms?" That is a big question. There is no doubt that no genuine or real attempt has been made to settle that economic war. Unless it is settled, where is all this going to end? What agricultural policy can you successfully carry out unless it is settled? Surely even the Minister for Industry and Commerce does not think that by producing all the wheat you require and all the sugar you require—I will leave out tobacco—you are finding some approximate substitute for a prosperous live-stock industry? How can you have a prosperous live-stock industry unless the economic war is settled? It must be settled at once if the country is to progress. I believe firmly that it could be settled without any loss of national dignity, and that it would be settled if the Government only took their courage in their hands and forgot politics.

If anything further were necessary to make the position of the farmers impossible, anything added to high taxation and low prices, there is the extraordinary policy that the Minister has adopted of taxing one by one their raw materials. That is a thing he need not have done. We would have been thankful for small mercies. But just imagine that at present there is a tax on Indian meal, a tax on fertilisers, a tax on everything the farmer buys to produce, at a time when the bottom has gone out of all prices. How does the Minister justify that? Can it be justified? There is no use going into the matter in detail, because these figures speak for themselves. The condition of the country at present, the condition of the producers, the people who expect to live by their produce, speaks for itself. These conditions must be changed at once, and this Rakes' Progress must be stopped or this country goes bankrupt.

Mr. T. Kelly

It was arranged that the Minister should be allowed to reply very soon.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has just five minutes, as I will call on the Minister to reply at 9.45 p.m.

Mr. T. Kelly

I can scarcely answer the last Deputy in five minutes. It could not be done. He has arrived as the star-turn from Galway, after having been absent for two years, I think. He is the star-turn to-night.

Mr. O'Leary

It could not be done in five years.

Mr. T. Kelly

I would not mind having a try if I had the time. The greatest economist who ever lived in this country wrote these words: "The real riches of a nation are its people, not its bulls or its cows or its pigs." The greatest economist who ever wrote regarding Ireland wrote these words.

Mr. Hogan

What will people live on?

Mr. Kelly

Every man and woman born into this world are producers, and if they cannot produce in one way, they will get opportunities of producing in another. These are two economic axioms you did not expect to hear. It is needless for me to say that I am not a farmer, but I have been listening here to debates about farmers' grievances every day that this Dáil sat, session after session—no one but the farmers. Are there not any other people following any other callings living in this country? Have not thousands of people to earn their bread at other work? Yet nothing is ever said about anybody but the farmers. It is time that was stopped.

General MacEoin

Choke them off.

Mr. Kelly

I cannot choke them off. I am speaking as a man who, although not engaged in farming, has a great respect for farmers because I believe they are a hard-working community and I would very much wish to see the grievances under which they are labouring removed. I say that quite sincerely, but the question is how are we to do it with honour and decency? That question has been put here several times and there should be an answer to it from somebody on the opposite benches who can speak with authority. President de Valera has declared over and over again that he is willing to submit the quarrel between England and Ireland to a fair arbitration. What is the fair arbitration suggested? That there should be a neutral chairman to preside over it. I remember that I referred in this House previously to the grave fact that once, and not so long ago, an arbitration was set up in connection with the boundary question presided over by a man named Feetham. We know what was the result of that. Do you want a reproduction of that result? Is it fair to ask President de Valera or the Executive Council to submit to the arbitration of a chairman who would follow on the same lines as Mr. Feetham?

Mr. O'Leary

To whom did he submit the coal-cattle pact?

Mr. Kelly

Mr. O'Donovan

It might be sound advice.

Dr. Ryan

It might be something like the advice the Deputy has been giving to some of his followers. With regard to the Deputy's question about surplus oats, it is hoped that the new percentage of maize meal mixture will absorb all the oats in the country. I must say that I have not been disappointed with the debate, because I did say at the beginning that I did not expect to get any useful suggestion from it. I did expect that the full day would be taken up with the usual speeches on the economic war. We got no suggestion that would in any way seem to benefit agriculture in this country. There was no suggestion, as a matter of fact, that anything could be done, except from Deputy Belton, to improve agriculture provided the economic war goes on and that the quotas go on.

I have to take the position as it is. There is an economic war and there are quotas. Therefore, I have dealt with the position as I find it and as the Government has dealt with it. There has not been the slightest suggestion, in a full day's debate, from the Opposition as to how they would deal with that position. Are we to take it that we are dealing with it in the best possible way and that no one could deal with it better in the position that we find ourselves in? Am I to take it that the Opposition preferred to base themselves on the economic war, rather than get down to the things that matter in existing circumstances? They did not do it anyway. I do not know whether they were not able to do it or whether they did not want to do it. It is absolutely ridiculous for any Deputy to say that we could get unrestricted imports into Britain whether there is an economic war or not. It is held, because we appear to be on unfriendly terms with the British, that on that account we are not getting unrestricted imports. That is absolutely untrue. Anyone who reads the newspapers will see that New Zealand and Australia for the last two quarters of the year were permitted only to import a certain amount of beef into Great Britain. There is no case of their being on unfriendly terms with the British Government. But, nevertheless, they are restricted in their beef imports. In the same way Canada and New Zealand are restricted in other products and Canada is also limited in her imports of bacon.

Mr. Nally

Were they always restricted?

Dr. Ryan

They are restricted now under the quota system, but never until the quota system came. If Deputies opposite had any sense or decency they would admit that whatever Government is here will have to put up with a certain amount of restriction on their imports into the British market. On that basis we had a number of speeches from the Opposition, but no criticism was levelled against the Department of Agriculture, or made to meet the set of circumstances that are existing, except indeed the criticism of Deputy Belton. No one else offered any criticism as to how we were dealing with that position.

We heard the usual talk of the country going into bankruptcy. We heard all that three years ago. This time three years ago we were told that we would be in bankruptcy before Christmas. Then we were told we might last until the following spring, when, Deputy Belton said, the bad harvest would kill us. Deputy Hogan said we were walking straight into bankruptcy for the last three years.

Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):

Who are we?

Dr. Ryan

Mr. Belton

It is not a closed market for County Dublin.

Dr. Ryan

I know it is not, but it is a much bigger market than the English market for County Dublin.

Have there been seizures on them?

General MacEoin

Yes, their cattle and farm animals have been seized.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 60; Níl, 44.

Tá

Aiken, Frank.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Daniel.
Brady, Brian.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Daly, Denis.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Doherty, Hugh.
Dowdall, Thomas P.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Geoghegan, James.
Gibbons, Seán.
Goulding, John.
Hales, Thomas.
Harris, Thomas.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Jordan, Stephen.
Keely, Séamus P.
Kehoe, Patrick.
Kelly, James Patrick.
Kelly, Thomas.
Keyes, Michael.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, Michael.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Briscoe, Robert.
Browne, William Frazer.
Concannon, Helena.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Corish, Richard.
Corkery, Daniel.
Crowley, Timothy.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick John.
Lynch, James B.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moane, Edward.
Moore, Séamus.
Norton, William.
O Briain, Donnchadh.
O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
O'Doherty, Joseph.
O'Dowd, Patrick.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pattison, James P.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Rice, Edward.
Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
Ryan, James.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Victory, James.
Walsh, Richard.

Níl

Alton, Ernest Henry.
Anthony, Richard.
Beckett, James Walter.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Bourke, Séamus.
Brennan, Michael.
Broderick, William Joseph.
Brodrick, Seán.
Coburn, James.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John Aloysius.
Daly, Patrick.
Davitt, Robert Emmet.
Desmond, William.
Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
Fagan, Charles.
Finlay, John.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Haslett, Alexander.
Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
Holohan, Richard.
Keating, John.
Lavery, Cecil.
MacEoin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGovern, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Morrisroe, James.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Murphy, James Edward.
Nally, Martin.
O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Mahony, The.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Rice, Vincent.
Rogers, Patrick James.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.

Motion declared carried.

Resolution ordered to be reported.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.35 p.m. until 3 o'clock on Thursday, 18th July, 1935.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 17 Jul 1935