This is a serious matter. The Deputies who rush into this House when something funny is on—something that is not serious—are absent just now. If there is any substance whatever in the Minister's claim that his policy is the best policy for the farmers and the workers—for the farmers, from the point of view of the profit to be derived from farming, and for the workers from the point of view of the amount of employment given—then surely the suggestion offered to him is the best possible way to prove it. I certainly should like to see the idea expressed in Deputy McGovern's motion put into practice. I dare say that it might have to be modified, but there is no joke whatsoever in it, and if the Minister is satisfied with the idea he can quite easily and readily find means to put it into operation. We may be met with the retort that the functions of the Department are purely instructional. That might be so at ordinary times. I am as ready as any Deputy in this House to admit that much of the demonstration given by the Department of Agriculture in the past and even at the present, is useful and will always be useful, but we are passing through a period just now when farmers generally are faced with circumstances which they never expected to meet. It certainly is a time at which they need something more than eloquent words or theories to prove to them the reality of much that is recommended to them from the Government Benches. I do not say there should be as many demonstration farms as some Deputies suggest, but there might be a few farms set up in this country to demonstrate the policy of the Government, apart from the theory of their policy, and to demonstrate to the ordinary farmer that there is really something in the policy advocated by the Minister for Agriculture and the Government at the present time.
I do not want to embark on an argument as to the relative merits of beet or wheat or any other item about which we sometimes argue here. I want to confine myself as closely as I can to the idea set out in the resolution, the idea of a farm worked as an average, good farm should be worked, with accounts kept and everything else arranged so that the public would have easily proved to them what was the eventual profit or loss on that farm. Something like that is needed if there is going to be any faith amongst the people as to the future prospects of agriculture in this country if the present methods recommended by the Minister and his Government are followed. I should like to see a farm set up in this country on which was omitted much of the demonstration that is ordinarily given by the Department of Agriculture, and which, though good in its way, is not practical generally.
I do not want to be ruled out of order by the Ceann Comhairle for referring to some of the things that happened here the other day when Deputies spoke about the Dublin Show. I do not want to go into that argument, but I do say that demonstrations such as the Department of Agriculture has given at various places as to the production of what you might call thoroughbred stock, or stock which, while not thoroughbred, would be of a very excellent type and which are produced at an excessive cost, are not demonstrations that should be put before farmers at the present time. I should like to see a farm set up and conducted with particular attention to those items which could be most economically produced and which would hold out the greatest prospect of profit for the farmer— above all, such items as could be produced without a subsidy or, as we must have subsidies at the present moment, with the least amount of subsidy. I should like to see demonstrated the production of items which could be profitably produced without any subsidy in future. I should like, for instance, to see a dairy farm set up. I do not say that it should be exclusively confined to dairying. The farm that I visualise would be a combined dairying and tillage farm on which various items of agricultural production could be turned out. It should be demonstrated clearly on that farm what profit the various forms of farming would produce and also the amount of employment they would afford.
I should not like to see a dairy farm such as Deputy Corry and some other Deputies here recommended. I know that in the past there were Government farms which were conducted at a loss, but they were never meant to be conducted at a profit. They were purely educational, and while they might be valuable enough in their way, they would be utterly useless at a time like this. The farm which Deputy O'Donovan, Deputy McGovern and other Deputies contemplate is a farm run economically. We quite realise that to run a farm economically it could not be run on the lines on which the old Government farms were run. I should like to see a dairy farm run with stock purchased in the open market, in the same way as the ordinary farmer has to purchase his stock, not stock purchased at the Dublin Show at prices which the ordinary farmer could not afford to pay. I should like to see it stocked with cattle purchased at a reasonable price which the ordinary farmer could pay. The farm should be run on the same lines as those on which the ordinary farmer would run it—on better lines, if the Minister thinks that the better lines would pay the farmer better. Until the Minister is assured that these better lines would yield a better profit, I think the farm should be conducted in the same manner as the ordinary dairy farmer conducts his business.
The Minister might furnish instructions, for instance, as to the rearing of calves, not again on the extremely expensive system on which they were produced on some of the demonstration farms. Every farmer knows that he can produce a five or six months old calf, an excellent beast, weighing so much, but when you tot up the et ceteras and the expenses, you find that the beast could not be produced except at a loss. Deputy Corry talked a good deal about demonstration farms, but they are of no value because they have never proved to be economical or never will, to my mind.
