Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 21 Apr 1937

Vol. 66 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan):

I move:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £424,900 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1938, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmhaíochta agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riaradh na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisí-i-gCabhair.

That a sum not exceeding £424,900 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, 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.

The Estimate provides for a net increase in payments of £157,209, as compared with the year 1936-37. There is an increase under Appropriations-in-Aid of £185,469, as compared with 1936-37, making a net decrease in this year's Estimate as compared with that of the previous year of £28,260. There are certain increases under some sub-heads on which I would like to say a few words. Under sub-head F (1), Agricultural Schools and Farms, there is an increase of £1,178. This increase is mostly due to normal increments of salaries. That refers to the staffing of the schools under the Department. Under sub-head F (3), Veterinary College, there is an increase of £3,215. Here again there was reorganisation of the veterinary staff last October. The full details of the salaries paid in the last financial year and the salaries that are due to be paid in this financial year will be found in the Estimates. The college is very much better staffed now. There is also an increase in sub-head G (1), Improvement of Milk Production, of £1,536. The increase is due to an increased number of cows, the property of members of the Cow Testing Associations. There is a slight increase in the number of cows coming under the tests of these associations. The big increase was from April and September in 1933, to April and September in 1936. We found that there was an increase from April, 1933, to April, 1936, of over 3,000 cows, and from September, 1933, to September, 1936, of something like 1,000 cows. Under sub-head G (2), Improvement of Live Stock, there is an increase of £39,005. That increased Estimate is to provide for putting into operation certain recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Horse Breeding Industry. I shall deal with that matter more fully at a later stage.

Under sub-head H, Grants to County Committees of Agriculture, there is an increase of £7,419. The normal grant which is payable to committees of agriculture is the equivalent of the agricultural rate raised on the rateable valuation of all the counties in the Saorstát, exclusive of urban districts. The minimum rate the county committees strike is 2d. in the £1. If all committees were to remain on the minimum, the amount which the Department would be called upon to contribute would be £72,918. But some committees have signified their intention of striking a higher rate than the minimum. It is estimated that the normal grants this year will be £84,855. In the 1936-1937 Estimates there was a provision in the sub-head for a special grant to meet the expenses incurred by county committees in connection with the distribution of cattle export licences. The corresponding provision in this Estimate has been transferred to a new sub-head OO (11), and under that sub-head OO (11) there is also included the salaries and expenses of the Department's temporary supervisors and assistant supervisors who are employed on this work.

The special grant to provide lime for agricultural purposes has been reduced from £9,500 to £8,000. That has been reduced from the experience of the administration of the scheme for three years. In the first year, 1934-35, the amount actually spent was £7,229; the following year it was £7,709, and last year it was £8,016. Sub-head K (4) is a new sub-head and it provides £2,520 for the development of the manufacture of milk powder in the Saorstát. This is for the purpose of providing a subsidy to a creamery society in respect of milk powder manufactured by them. This is one of the articles of dairy products that remains on the import list. Considerable difficulty is presented in dealing with the building up of the native industry. The troubles are more psychological than economic. I would not like to take the responsibility of compelling mothers to use an Irish product in this case for their children because they may possibly afterwards say that if they had been permitted to import the old food, whatever it may have been, their child's life would have been saved. Instead, therefore, of taking drastic measures, such as excluding foods which are coming in, in favour of what we expect to be a superior food produced at home, we think the better method is to subsidise the home-produced food and enable the manufacturer to put it on the market at a cheaper rate and in that way to get a considerable share of the market in the course of a few years.

Sub-head M (4) deals with loans and grants for agricultural purposes. There is an increase of £4,000. In one instance there has been an increase of £750 in respect of loans for the purchase of stallions. This will be necessary as a result of the recommendations made by the Commission on the Horse Breeding Industry. A sum of £2,000 is provided for loans for the equipment and repair of existing flax scutch mills. A number of these mills had fallen into disrepair and, as there was some revival of flax-growing, difficulties arose in some districts with regard to mills. This provision is put in here so as to enable the Department to give loans at the rate of five per cent. per annum for the repair and equipment of these mills.

There is an increase of £1,000 in respect of loans and grants for the erection, equipment and repair of corn mills. This scheme has been revised over the last few years. The owner of a small mill willing to grind wheat or oats for farmers for their own use —that is, on commission—could get a loan either for the repair of that mill or, alternatively, to build a new mill, limited of course to a certain maximum sum. Our scheme now is that where the needs of farmers can be met by minor repairs to existing buildings and the installation of a small type of grinding machine and perhaps a power plant, estimated to cost not more than £150, a free grant not exceeding one-third of the cost will be given and a loan will be advanced to cover the remainder. The loan will be repayable over a period of ten years at 5 per cent. In the case of existing mills a free grant not to exceed one-half of the cost of repairs and equipment will be given, together with a loan for the other half. The maximum amount of the grant will be £25.

Sub-head O (7) deals with the Pigs and Bacon Act, 1935. There is an increase on that sub-head of £9,784. Part II of that Act did not come into operation until 1st April, 1937, and that necessitated the appointment of veterinary and lay staffs in the various factories. Sub-head O (9) refers to the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Acts and there is an increase of £73,768. With respect to the purchase, storage and export of butter, there is an increase of £81,000. The increase is due to the fact that in 1937 a greater proportion of the foreign exchange made available in Germany for the importation of Saorstát products will be allocated for the importation of butter. Sub-head O (11) has reference to the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Acts and there is an increase of £43,894. New trade agreements with Germany and Belgium provide for an appreciably larger number of cattle in 1937-38.

Sub-head OO (11) deals with the distribution of cattle and export licences, and there is an increase of £6,479. The increase is in respect of the salaries and expenses of temporary supervisors and assistant supervisors, which the Department find it necessary to employ in order to ensure the best possible results. Sub-head O (14) refers to the Agricultural Wages Act, and there is an increase of £4,700. There is a provision of £5,000 here, but that is only an approximate sum. The Department are not in a position to make a detailed estimate.

There is a decrease under certain other sub-heads. In the case of salaries, wages and allowances, for instance, there is a decrease of £6,942. There is a summary set out in the Estimate of the staff provided for, and on page 205 of the Book of Estimates it will be found that the administrative staff will be reduced from 606 in 1936-37 to 496 in 1937-38. The reduction is mainly due to the discontinuance in part of the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Acts. In the case of sub-head M (5), relating to the improvement of the creamery industry, there is a decrease of £30,800. There are no big schemes for the erection of creameries in contemplation during the year, and the Estimate is consequently smaller this year.

Sub-head O (8) refers to the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Acts. Under that sub-head there is a decrease of £1,300, due to the discontinuance of the advances to seed merchants. In the case of sub-head O (10)—Acquisition of Land (Allotments) (Amendment) Act— there is a decrease of £1,341, principally due to an decrease in the amount provided for implements, as many plotholders have already been supplied with implements. Under the oats and barley purchase scheme there is only a token Vote of £5 for this year. Under sub-head O (15) there is a sum of £250 provided for the purposes of the Noxious Weeds Act. This indicates a reduction also, as under the new Act the administration is carried out to a great extent through the Gárda Síochána.

Coming to the Appropriations-in-Aid, there is indicated there an estimated increase of £185,469. The more important increases are receipts from service fees of stallions, sale of colts, sale and leasing of bulls, etc., and the amount is £3,350. The recoupment from the Dairy Produce Fund in respect of salaries and expenses of inspectors under the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act came to £4,990. As regards the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Acts, there will be an estimated increased income of £101,716. In connection with the administration of the Slaughter of Cattle and Sheep Acts, it is estimated that the income will be increased by £73,640.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister refers to an increase in the Appropriations-in-Aid in respect of the Agricultural Products (Regulation of Export) Acts. Will he say where are we going to sell the eggs?

Dr. Ryan:

I said the principal increase would be in butter, not in eggs. There is, of course, an amount provided for eggs, but there is no appreciable change from last year.

Mr. Dillon:

The Government are selling eggs on the Continent?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, in Germany. Arising out of the report of the Horse Breeding Commission, it has been decided to proceed with the following developments of the horse-breeding industry. In the first place, it was recommended that this country should have at least one first-class stallion of classic standard. It is impossible, of course, to give any estimate of what the cost of that horse would be but, at any rate, if such a horse should come upon the market, we shall make every attempt to secure it for the breeders in this country. There is also the matter of the purchase of two or three thoroughbred stallions, not quite up to the classic standard, perhaps, but which nevertheless might become first-class horses, or, perhaps, even superior horses, because nobody can foretell in those cases. We intend also to purchase such stallions and, in all probability, to lease them out to approved breeders. Then there is the matter of stallions for hunter-breeding. It has become very much more difficult, at the sales both here and in England, to get these stallions and, in fact, it is practically impossible to get them at the prices we have been in the habit of paying for the last few years. Many foreign Governments are now coming in to bid for these horses, and that has contributed to their scarcity and has caused those that are available to become very much dearer. Accordingly, we must make up our minds to increase the price we are prepared to pay, and in that way there will be a bigger cost on the State because, when they are leased out or placed with breeders, I am afraid we cannot pass on the whole of the increased cost. We will have to reduce the selling price when the animals are being placed out.

There is also a subsidy for yearling thoroughbred colts with the object of inducing the owners to retain them entire, keep them well, and offer them for sale to the Department at the fair market price as two-year-olds. However, these will not become payable till 1938-39 and therefore they are not provided here. It is also proposed to purchase a limited number of thoroughbred colts, when presented, or to purchase others, if presented, with a view to having them brought up as stallions. It is not intended to race them, but to keep them as stallions. Then, with regard to the Irish draught stallions, it has been decided to develop the breeding of horses of the Irish draught type, as far as we possibly can, by increasing the number of subsidies from 25 to 30 for the yearling Irish draughts offered for inspection, with a view to inducing owners to keep them entire and keep them well. The subsidies are valued at about £20 each. That is also for the purpose of increasing the price for suitable two-year-old colts which are likely to make Irish draught stallions.

That, at any rate, is an outline of the measures, which are going to cost money, which have been adopted as a result of the recommendations of the Horse Breeding Commission. Now, I want to give some short review—as short a review as possible—of the production and marketing provisions of agriculture in general during the year 1936. First of all, to take the tillage crops, there has been, as everybody is aware, a very big increase in the acreage under wheat in the year 1936 as compared with previous years. In 1932 we had only 21,000 acres under wheat, and that was increased to 254,000 acres in 1936; or, in tonnage, the amount of wheat produced by this country increased in 1936 from 22,000 tons to 210,000 tons. One thing that may be taken from that, and which would be a wrong deduction to make, is that the yield has gone down in 1936 as compared with 1932, and the deduction might be made by certain Deputies that the old argument, which was used against the growing of wheat four or five years ago, is quite true. That argument was to the effect that the more land there was under wheat, the less would be the yield. I do not know if that can be taken in regard to the 1936 figures, but in 1935 there were 163,000 acres under wheat, and yet the tonnage was 179,000 tons. Of course the truth is that 1935 was an extremely good year for wheat, whereas 1936 was an extremely bad year for wheat, and, therefore, neither year should be taken as a basis for argument or comparison.

Our full requirements in regard to flour for human consumption would be about 535,000 tons of wheat. That would give us our full flour requirements at 70 per cent. extraction. This is foreign wheat, which comes in here with about 12 per cent. moisture, and which is conditioned up to about 16 per cent. for milling. If we were to calculate it on the basis of all Irish wheat being used, with moisture at from 18 per cent. to 20 per cent., we should require up to about 555,000 tons, and that would require some 635,000 acres under wheat. I must point out that I am only speaking here of the amount we would require for human consumption. That does not include the acreage required for seed, and it also excludes the acreage required if wheat should be used for any other purposes, such as poultry feeding and so on.

Now, with regard to prices, on the amount purchased, the price was 27/6 per barrel here before Christmas, and those who kept their wheat got 28/6— some of them, perhaps, a little more— as compared with the English farmer, who got 25/- per barrel for his wheat before Christmas and who recently was getting 26/- per barrel. There, again, in dealing with the comparison of the prices got by the Irish farmer, as against the prices received by the English farmer, I should like to draw attention to another point which is very interesting, and that is that while we in this country have 2.2 per cent. of our total pasture land—that is, of our total land which is land—under wheat, the British farmer has 6.1 per cent. of his land under wheat. The argument has been used, fairly frequently and fairly vigorously, by certain Deputies on the opposite side, that if the Irish farmer were allowed to farm in the way they would allow him to farm—that is, so that he could get a good price for his cattle, sheep, pigs, and so on—he would not grow wheat. Now, nobody on the opposite side can ever hope—at least nobody on the opposite side has ever said—with the big surplus of cattle in this country, that we can get a better price for Irish cattle in England than the English farmer can get for his cattle. Yet, even though the English farmer is getting a much better price for his cattle and other stock, he is still, in spite of that, increasing his acreage under wheat, and he is using 6.1 per cent. of his land for the production of wheat as against our 2.2 per cent. I think it will be realised by everybody that, if the English farmer, not through any motive of patriotism so much as of good farming, has increased his acreage under wheat to that extent, it must be a good proposition to the English farmer, apart from any other consideration. If we had reached the same standard here—that is, 6.1 per cent.—we would be more than self-sufficient, as a matter of fact. Taking the price of foreign wheat——

Mr. MacDermot:

Might I interrupt the Minister for a moment? Has he got the figures showing the tendency during the last few years in Britain with regard to wheat? Are they increasing year by year?

Dr. Ryan:

I have only got odd years. There is a slight tendency, a very slight tendency, to increase, but the percentage of increase is nothing as much as in our case. The price of foreign wheat, during this cereal year, landed here in Dublin was, in September, 22/6 per barrel. That is Manitoba wheat. In October and November it was 24/-, and it went on increasing from November up to the present time, when it is 31/6 per barrel. At the present time, Australian wheat is 29/- per barrel. So that at the moment our Irish wheat, at 27/6, or 28/6 even, would be about as valuable to the Irish miller as foreign wheat. As far as consumers in this country are concerned, they are not suffering any disadvantage by having wheat grown at home at the moment. There is only one other thing which might be noticed about wheat, and that is the value of wheat to the farmers last year was about £2,300,000. It is true that to grow wheat the farmer must buy seed.

Mr. Dillon:

How much does the Minister say was the value to the farmer?

Dr. Ryan:

£2,300,000 was the value of the wheat crop. It is true, as I say, that the farmer must buy seed, and we should possibly deduct the price of seed from that sum, although in any production, whether it be cattle, sheep, pigs or poultry, there are expenses to be deducted from the ultimate price realised. Even so, taking the price of seed from that figure, the farmers would be in receipt of almost £2,000,000 per year from wheat.

Now, I come to the maize-meal mixture, which has created quite an amount of public discussion. We want if possible to get at the real cost of this maize-meal mixture as compared with the price of pure maize meal. The price of the maize-meal mixture f.o.r. in Dublin district in January was £8 5s. 0d. per ton; in February, £8 10s. 0d.; in March, £8 15s. 0d., and in April, £9 0s. 0d. per ton. If no mixing scheme had been in operation, and pure maize meal were being sold, the corresponding price would have been £7 7s. 6d. in January and £8 5s. 0d. per ton in April. That would be with the 25 per cent. mixture, but now that the mixture has been reduced to 16? per cent.—that is, to one-sixth instead of one-fourth—the extra cost of the maize-meal mixture over pure maize would be 6/8 per ton at the moment. I am quoting the price for Dublin, but every Deputy, I think, is supplied with these official quotations for feeding-stuffs in various towns in the Free State, and if the prices were taken for any other town, probably the result would be somewhat the same. We must take some particular town, taking the price of pure maize landed, and taking the cost of milling, and so on, to get a comparison between the present cost of the maize-meal mixture and the cost of pure maize meal.

Mr. O'Leary:

Do I understand the Minister to say that the cost of pure maize meal is £9 per ton?

Dr. Ryan:

I say that the price of pure maize meal sold ex-mill would be about £8 13s. 4d. It is almost £8 per ton at the port.

Mr. O'Leary:

According to the Irish Press yesterday the price in Londou was £7 10s. 0d.

Dr. Ryan:

I do not know, but if you question any miller of maize here, you will find that it is almost £8 per ton landed at the port.

Mr. O'Leary:

I can get you the quotation in the Irish Press for yesterday of £7 7s. 6d. and £7 10s. in London.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy may be right. I am not disputing that, but London is a different place. Comparing the price of other feeding-stuffs here and in Northern Ireland—there are official publications which give the price of these various feeding-stuffs—we find that, in the Saorstát, the farmer is getting at present 8/7 per cwt. for his oats and the Northern Ireland farmer is getting 7/9½. On the other hand, the Saorstát farmer is buying red bran here in Dublin at 7/6, while in Northern Ireland it is 9/4½.

Mr. Dillon:

Might I ask the Minister where he can get red bran at the moment? I tried every mill in Ireland and I could not get an ounce of bran at any price.

Dr. Ryan:

I cannot tell the Deputy where he might get bran, but they are turning out bran obviously.

Mr. Dillon:

Well, I cannot get it. I can get German bran, but none other.

Dr. Ryan:

White bran is 8/9 here as against 10/3½ in Northern Ireland. Pollards run from 8/- to 8/9 here as against 9/4 to 10/3½ in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, imported cakes are somewhat dearer here than in Northern Ireland—linseed, 12/- as compared with 11/9½, cotton seed cake 11/3 as compared with 10/4½, and palmnut cake 9/- as against 8/8½. There is one very important feeding-stuff which is becoming more important to farmers who want to use a balanced ration and that is meat meal. I have not succeeded in getting a quotation for Great Britain or Northern Ireland, but I can say that meat meal is very much dearer in Great Britain and Northern Ireland than it is here.

Mr. Dillon:

And it represents only 5 per cent. of the ration.

Dr. Ryan:

Ten per cent. if the Deputy knew how to feed pigs.

Mr. Dillon:

I should not care to give them 10 per cent.

Dr. Ryan:

That is why the Deputy does not make pig-feeding pay. Taking the price of beet, our price is 37/6 per ton with offals free.

Mr. Dillon:

Free on rail?

Dr. Ryan:

This is beet delivered by the farmer.

Mr. Dillon:

Delivered where?

Dr. Ryan:

Delivered to the factory. This is the basic price, 37/- to 37/6 for beet with a 15½ per cent. sugar content. The average price paid in Great Britain last year was 3/6 over the basic price, that is from 40/- to 41/-. Here our farmers are paid 37/6, plus offals free. The growers in England are charged for the offals. The lowest price charged by any factory is £4 5s., and the highest is £4 10s. Our growers get back free threequarters of a cwt. per ton. Of course they pay carriage. On that basis it would be worth something over 3/-, so that our price works out exactly the same as the British farmers for beet.

Mr. Dillon:

Before the Minister leaves that, would he be good enough to say if the British farmer gets paid on the basis of free on rail, or does he have to deliver the beet to the factory?

Dr. Ryan:

The British farmer pays carriage on his beet up to 7/-; the Beet Corporation pays in excess of 7/- a ton. It is true that there is no such concession here, but the number of farmers who are paying higher freight than 7/- here is a comparatively small percentage of the whole. On the whole, the price is practically the same in the two countries. Our farmers here are very anxious to grow beet; there are many applications. It is said by Deputies opposite that when they introduce their programme of good prices for cattle, good prices for sheep, and so on, there will be no more beet grown, but it is grown in Great Britain at the same price by the British farmer who has got all those prices we hear about. I am now going on to dairy produce. The number of milch cows on 1st June, 1936, was approximately 1,350,000. This was an increase of 16,000 over 1935, and it is I believe the highest on record. The statistics go back ten or 12 years, and it is probably the highest on record. The production of creamery butter was also the highest reached—838,000 cwts. The average value of this butter to the creameries was 114/10 per cwt., which was about 7/- better than in 1935. The price paid by the creameries rose from 4.3 pence in 1935 to 4.6 pence in 1936. That is the average price per gallon, of course, separated milk being returned. The total exports of our dairy produce in 1936 amounted in value to £2,243,000 as against £1,922,000 in 1935. The quantity of creamery butter exported was less than in 1935, although our production was greater, which goes to prove an argument which was put up from this side a few days ago that our people —in spite of all that is said about high prices—are consuming more food than they have been consuming.

Mr. Bennett:

Might I ask the Minister the quantity exported?

Dr. Ryan:

460,000 cwts.

Mr. Dillon:

When?

Dr. Ryan:

In 1936, as compared with 473,000 cwts. in 1935. That is the calendar year. The total value of that export was £1,706,000. I am now talking about creamery butter alone. I already gave the figure for dairy produce. That can be compared with a lower figure for 1935, but—more interesting still—it can be compared with a lower figure for 1931, in the good old times, when we realised £1,496,000 for our creamery butter export. In that same year 1931 we imported £176,000 worth of butter, so that if we take that import from what was realised for export in 1931 it will be found that, apart from what creamery suppliers got, the real value of our exports as the English consumer values it, was higher in 1936 than in 1931. In addition to that, when we come to add £720,000 in subsidies and £412,000 in bounties, we have an enormously increased receipt for our dairy produce in 1936 as compared with 1931.

Mr. Dillon:

Would the Minister mind telling us what did we get per cwt. for butter exported in 1931 as opposed to what we exported in 1936?

Dr. Ryan:

I will give the Deputy the total. He will work it out for himself.

Mr. Dillon:

Is it not as 110/6 is to 74/- per cwt.?

Dr. Ryan:

In 1931 we exported 264,000 odd cwts. of creamery butter and we received £1,496,000.

Mr. Dillon:

Taking all butter?

Dr. Ryan:

That is creamery butter.

Mr. Dillon:

Was it not 376,000 cwts. taking the total?

Dr. Ryan:

We exported 377,000 cwts. and received £2,086,000.

Mr. Dillon:

That is 110/6 per cwt. What is the figure for 1936?

Dr. Ryan:

For all butter? We exported 518,000 cwts. and received £1,917,000.

Mr. Dillon:

That is 74/- per cwt.

Dr. Ryan:

I was talking about creamery butter. Even so, as I pointed out to the Deputy, to that figure of receipts for all butter would be added £1,132,000, which is paid out in subsidies and bounties, and which would bring our total receipts for all dairy produce considerably above what they were in 1931. We are not taking the imports into account, because we had to pay out a certain amount of money for imports in that year 1931, for butter, condensed milk, cheese and other things, which was not paid out in 1936. The net price realised is about 74/-, but our creameries were actually paid 114/10. Prior to the year 1932 there was annually a substantial import of butter, and for the five years 1928 to 1932 the average import was 35,000 cwts. per year, whereas for the four years from 1933 to 1936 the average fell to 3,500 cwts. The greater part of this import took place this year, due to the fact that the very unfavourable weather in the winter and early spring reacted seriously on butter production, which fell 25 per cent. below normal. We had to import butter to meet the normal demand. During the five years 1928 to 1932, there was an average import of cheese of 27,000 cwts. per annum, while the exports averaged about 1,100 cwts. During the four years from 1933 to 1936, the average import fell from 27,000 cwts. to 1,200 cwts. per annum, while the average exports had gone up from 1,100 cwts. to 7,600 cwts. The production of cheese in 1932 was only 2,500 cwts.; the production in 1936 reached almost 36,000 cwts. We had available for export in that year 15,500 cwts., as well as availing of our own market. I now have the figure which the Deputy asked for. The average export value of Saorstát creamery butter in 1936 was 105/- per cwt., that is at the British price. After deducting freight commission and duty, the price realised was 71/6, but by means of payments out of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Fund and the Vote for Export Bounties and Subsidies, the value of exports increased to the extent that the average value of all creamery butter produced reached 114/10 per cwt. We, therefore, paid to creamery producers in excess of world prices as taken from the English market——

Mr. Dillon:

World prices?

Dr. Ryan:

If we take that as the world value.

Mr. Dillon:

We were realising 15/- per cwt. less than the world value. The world price was 89/-, and you were getting only 74/-.

Dr. Ryan:

What period is the Deputy talking about?

Mr. Dillon:

1936.

Dr. Ryan:

If the Deputy would pay some attention to what are called weighted averages, he might be able to follow me. In the first few months the price was very low. The price got good about August or September, but our exports were small. But, taking it week by week, as our butter was going out, we on the whole realised the New Zealand price for it.

Mr. Dillon:

Except that you started to cold store in June when you should have been exporting it.

Dr. Ryan:

We took the experience of the four years previous, when butter always went up in September. Therefore, we cold stored it at the cheapest period. It turned out, however, that last year the previous four years experience was against us. Of course, if I were now in the Deputy's place, I would say that in doing that we made a mistake.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister would not, because he would not get the chance of saying it.

Dr. Ryan:

Well, I think I am safe in saying that the Deputy will never get a chance of saying it over here. Anyway, it is very easy for the Deputy to be wise after the event. I do not think he was ever wise any other way. We were going on the experience of the previous four years. We paid the creamery producers £750,000 more than they would have realised on the open market, without any duties or subsidies or anything else. The Fine Gael Party, under their plan, will give them 5d. a gallon for their milk. That will cost another £1,000,000 in addition to what we are paying, and they tell us that by doing that they are not going to increase taxation.

Mr. Cosgrave:

Is the £750,000 the total sum?

Dr. Ryan:

It is the amount which producers got over the world price. The total amount paid was over £1,100,000.

Mr. Cosgrave:

Then £350,000 is the amount of the tariff?

Dr. Ryan:

I do not know what was collected by way of tariff, but when the world price was about 105/- they were getting about 114/10. By bringing the price of all butter production at home and abroad up by 9/-, it was worth £750,000 to the creamery producers here. I should say the winter prices were also higher.

The quantity of eggs exported in 1936 was 2,966,000 great hundreds. It was somewhat less than the quantity exported in 1935, and in value was a few thousand pounds under the value realised in 1935. The British duty collected on eggs exported in 1936 was approximately £397,000, and towards this a subsidy or bounty was paid of £357,000. That subsidy on the export of eggs is being increased this year, and will probably equate, if it does not exceed, the duty collected by Great Britain on eggs going in there. The rate of the bounty has been increased this month, and is now 3/2 per great hundred for selected and extra selected, as compared with 2/9 on these grades last year. The price paid at fairs and markets for our eggs during the year averaged 8/7 per great hundred, as against 8/5 in 1935. It is true that the Northern Ireland producers of eggs get somewhere between 1/6 and 2/- per great hundred more than we get for our eggs sent to the United Kingdom, but that is due to the regulation with regard to stamping, and it is the price of our separation from the United Kingdom, politically. The price paid for eggs during the month of March—it is the latest return I have got—was 8.32/- per great hundred.

Mr. Dillon:

That is not so. The average price paid last month was about 6/-.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy wants us to believe that he knows more than the people who collect the prices. I am not inclined to accept the figure which he gives. The price paid last March was higher than in March of 1935 or, indeed, during the month of March in any of the last four or five years. In the case of poultry, on the census taken last June there was an increase in the number during the year of almost 1,000,000. The increase was amongst all classes of poultry. The number of live poultry exported increased by 71 per cent. In the case of dead poultry, the quantity exported last year was 104,242 cwts. It was slightly below that of 1935, but the value at £377,000 was higher by over £3,000 than the value of our exports in 1935. The bounty paid on dead poultry, in 1936, was £160,000 which was practically the same as the amount of the British duty.

I now come to pigs and bacon. These are the prices paid for pigs on a deadweight basis delivered at the factories. The top price for the Irish Free State was 73/-. The top price for Northern Ireland was 68/7, and for contracted pigs 72/7. Taking the production of bacon, as compared with 1931, in 1931 we actually imported more bacon to this country than we exported. In that year our net import of bacon and hams was 87,428 cwts. In 1936 we imported none, but we exported 541,000 cwts., so that our balance of trade, our net exports, from being a minus quantity of £74,000 in 1931—I am speaking now of bacon and hams alone—came to be a plus quantity of £1,683,000 in 1936.

Mr. Dillon:

What were the gross exports of pigs and bacon in that period?

Dr. Ryan:

I will give the value. The value of net exports of live pigs, in 1931, was £2,187,000 and in 1936, £492,000.

Mr. Dillon:

Or a difference of roughly £1,700,000.

Dr. Ryan:

On the other hand, the total value of exports of pig products, that is bacon, hams, pork, sausage casings, and everything else, after deducting the amount paid for imports in 1931, was £1,169,000, and in 1936, £2,111,000. Again, when we add to these figures something over £600,000 paid by way of bounties on exports, we have a figure that almost equates that for 1931. But it is not so much that, because no matter how things go here in future with regard to pigs, the price must be regulated. The present system of contracted pigs in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the present system of restriction of imports owing to their pig production scheme, will always necessitate, if there is no other reason for it, at any rate the regulation of pig production and the regulation of price here. Whether the factories exporting bacon get their price by way of subsidy or otherwise, it makes no great difference to the pig producer who is trying to find out whether it pays him to produce pigs here as compared with the producer in Northern Ireland or Great Britain. As we see, he is paid a higher price for his pigs than the Northern Ireland producer at present, and I think at times during the year that was the case; at other times, perhaps, the case was the other way round. On the whole, prices were as good here as in Northern Ireland, and, therefore, the pig producer here has done as well as what is referred to here sometimes as the world market.

Mr. Cosgrave:

Could we check these figures: £2,178,000, £1,169,000, £429,000, £2,111,000 and £600,000, a difference of £200,000?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, a difference of about £200,000 lower than that realised in 1931. The number of sheep has been increasing for the last few years. There was a cycle in regard to the number of sheep in this country. It was down fairly low in 1927; it began getting higher up to about 1930 or 1931; then it began going down, until it reached the lowest level in 1934; it is now on the up-grade again, and is somewhere about the 1927 figure. The numbers and value of the exports have been increasing during the last few years, and also the consumption of sheep here at home, as far as that figure can be got, has been increasing. According to the Irish Trade Journal, the average price of fat sheep realised in 1933 was 33/-; 1934, 39/3; 1935, 40/-; 1936, 42/-, and for the three months to date of 1937, from 45/- to 48/-. There is a per-head tariff on sheep going into Great Britain, and there is no bounty or subsidy. It might be claimed, therefore, that farmers exporting sheep— and the price would be reflected here at home—are losing 5/- per head as a result of the penal tariffs put on by Great Britain. That would amount to about £225,000 in the year.

With regard to cattle, the number in 1936 was almost the same as in 1935. The number of milch cows increased considerably, and, as I have already said, it is the highest figure for many years. Deputies are aware that there has been an improvement in the price realised by farmers for cattle. In the last week of March—I have not got any report since then—the average price for fat cattle in Dublin market was 29/6 per cwt. That has been very much exceeded, as a matter of fact, during the last few markets. Taking the price at 29/6 in the last week in March, I want to see what effect the penal tariffs are having on the price of cattle here. In March, 1932, the average price was 40/6, and the average in Great Britain—that is, England and Wales—during the same month was 42/6, so that there was a difference of 2/- per cwt., which would, I take it, be the cost of having them exported to Great Britain, with an allowance for a reduction in weight, and so on. Applying that same test to the last week in March here, our farmers were getting 29/6, and for the same week in England the price was 37/4. Taking off the 2/-, which would be the normal difference, there is almost 6/- of a difference, due to the penal tariffs. There is, of course, a tariff of £4 5s. 0d. per head on cattle over two years old. Another way of estimating it is to take the amount of the tariffs collected on our cattle going into Great Britain, which was within £100,000 of £2,000,000 in 1936. Four-fifths of our cattle are exported, and one-fifth, or perhaps nearer one-fourth now, are consumed at home. So that, if we add on one-fourth to the £2,000,000, we get £2,500,000 as being the probable loss sustained by the farmers owing to the penal tariffs on our cattle.

I want to come back and make a summary of the various gains and losses of the farmers as against world prices in this country. I said in the beginning that the farmers had realised about £2,000,000 for wheat in 1936 which, I may take it from the utterances of Deputies on the other side, would never have been realised were it not that a Fianna Fáil Government was in power. As a matter of fact, the Leader of the Opposition made a very fine distinction between our policy and his with regard to wheat growing. As far as I can understand, he means to do exactly what we are doing, to give guaranteed prices for wheat and other things, while he says that he will not encourage them. We have given these fixed prices in order to encourage the growing of wheat. How Deputies on the opposite benches can give these prices without encouraging the growing of such crops I do not know. Perhaps Deputy Cosgrave can explain.

Mr. Fagan:

To compensate for the losses.

Dr. Ryan:

That is all right, to compensate for the losses, but there is evidently a certain amount of disapproval of wheat growing on the opposite benches yet, while they disapprove of it, they say they are going to continue it. That is a very fine distinction. Then there is beet growing which is looked upon as——

Mr. Dillon:

A white elephant.

Dr. Ryan:

About 40,000 extra acres were under beet, and taking ten tons to the acre at £2 a ton, that would represent £800,000 as compensation, as the Deputy says, for beet growing.

Mr. Dillon:

What is the total acreage under beet?

Dr. Ryan:

Fifty-four thousand acres.

Mr. Dillon:

And 60,000 acres would supply all that is required?

Dr. Ryan:

There are 54,000 acres now. Under dairy produce £750,000 was given to the producers to produce over and above what the world prices were, so that in these three items, as a result of Fianna Fáil policy, which had not any great support on the opposite side, the farmers were in receipt of £3,550,000, in addition to what they would have got if they had the misfortune to keep Fine Gael in power.

Mr. Cosgrave:

In addition?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, so far. I will do the whole sum before I am finished.

Mr. Cosgrave:

In addition?

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister has not started on subtraction yet.

Dr. Ryan:

When I have the whole sum done the Deputies will be mortified.

Mr. Cosgrave:

We will be astonished.

Dr. Ryan:

I am glad the Deputy said that. I do not want any Deputy on the other side to say that I said the farmers are well off. I say definitely they are not well off.

Mr. Brennan:

They must be well off.

Dr. Ryan:

I never said they were well off, but I am telling the farmers how well off they would be if Fine Gael was here! They would not be there at all.

Mr. Fagan:

Whose fault is it if the farmers are not well off?

Dr. Ryan:

It is the fault of the world. It is not our fault. I have told you what we are doing for them, as against world conditions. In the case of eggs we got about £40,000 less on the world price, but we made that good by way of subsidy, so that there would be no loss as regards eggs. I am talking of the free world markets that we are to get when Fine Gael comes back. The producer of eggs here has as good prices as in the world market. The same applies to poultry, because the subsidies were equal to the tariffs collected on them. The same applies to pigs and bacon because that is not a case where we can talk about the world market and limited production. We are paying producers here as good a price for pigs as countries where prices are good. Taking England and Northern Ireland as my guide, I say that we are paying as good a price for pigs as they are paying. There is no duty on horses, so that there is no difference as far as horses go. The only two items of agricultural produce where our prices are not as good as if we had the free world market spoken of are sheep and cattle. Sheep are down by 5/- a head as a result of tariffs. The total number of sheep exported and consumed here is 900,000 or a loss of about £225,000. The loss on cattle is £2,500,000. Say that the losses are £2,725,000 against £3,550,000, which gives a balance for Fianna Fáil policy on agriculture as against Fine Gael policy.

Mr. Brennan:

So that the farmers are better off?

Dr. Ryan:

I am saying that they are not well off, but I say that they are better off than if Fine Gael was in power. The farmers know that. If I went to farmers and got 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. or whatever percentage of votes Fine Gael is able to get, these farmers know this, that they are better off than if Fine Gael were here.

Mr. Bennett:

Are they better off than when Fine Gael was in power?

Dr. Ryan:

It shows the opinion they have of the Opposition Party when they would not trust them at any price. When the duty was put on against cattle, one of the benefits which we as a Government sought to give the farmers against that loss on cattle, was to halve the land annuities. At that time, in 1933, we took off half the annuities and gave the farmers the benefit of £2,000,000.

Mr. Dillon:

I thought that was against derating.

Dr. Ryan:

I was going to say, if the Deputy had not interrupted me, that I recognise that that is part of the programme of the Party on the opposite benches now. It became part of their programme rather suddenly and unexpectedly, after Deputy Cosgrave had to call a meeting of the shadow Cabinet in Naas about a week before the 1933 election, to get his Party to do one better than we could do, by halving the annuities, as he put it. It does not matter to the farmers whether Deputy Cosgrave did that in Naas or in Dublin, because the farmers have got the advantage of that £2,000,000 yearly. That is the position. I do not want to say that the farmers are well-off. I do not think they are. They are very badly off, as we know, all over the world, but I should like to ask farmers—I hardly think it is necessary to do so—whatever complaints they may have about their conditions now, what would their condition have been if Fine Gael had been in power; if Fine Gael had not allowed them to grow wheat or beet, or given that encouragement to the dairying industry that we gave it, and thereby tried to alleviate the great suffering there would have been if these things had not been done?

Mr. Dillon:

I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. It took the Minister one and a half hours to explain his balance sheet, and the purpose of his explanation was to show that the depression that is keeping farmers depressed is due to world depression. So astute an observer as Deputy O'Reilly will remember that the Minister began his observations by telling us that the price of wheat and the price of maize is rising so high on the world market at the present time, that if we were not growing wheat we would be all bankrupt, and that the rise in the maize-meal mixture was owing to the immense rise in the price of agricultural produce in countries that produce wheat and maize. That was the introduction to the Minister's speech. He wanted to warn us that prices of primary agricultural produce all over the world were going sky high, and he wound up by saying that the reason farmers are badly off was because world prices are unsatisfactory, the truth being that the world is booming, and that this country, alone amongst the nations, is still trailing along at the bottom of the depression. That depression was created by Fianna Fáil, and we are having the pleasure and the privilege of selling at depression prices and buying at boom prices.

The sad part of this situation is that if we had a rational administration we could approach Great Britain and make a bargain as hard as we are in a position to drive—a fairly hard bargain— at the present time. We have never closed our eyes to the fact that if Great Britain attempted to dominate the economic life of this country, it would be the duty of whatever political Party was responsible for Government here, to come back and tell our people that they had to reorient their lives and, if needs be, go back to the present standard rather than submit to the control of our economic life by any outside power. I believe there are weapons in the hands of an Irish Government, rationally controlled, which would make it worth England's while to make a very satisfactory trade agreement with this country, because, by deliberately turning our backs upon the British market, while our people would have to face very material hardships, we could seriously dislocate, and, indeed, gravely injure, the entire agricultural industry of Great Britain, and substantially jeopardise certain essential food supplies of that country. I do not believe it would be ever necessary to do that, but it is wise to bear that fact in mind, if, and when, negotiations have to be entered into with the British Government for a comprehensive trade agreement.

The tragedy of it is that we have not in this country at present, nor have we had during the last three years, a Government with the competence, moral courage and common-sense to go and make an agreement with Great Britain on that basis. Our Government, throughout these four disastrous years, instead of facing issues squarely, calling whatever bluff Great Britain might properly make in the course of negotiation, and getting, as I am quite satisfied they could have got, and could now get, a sound business arrangement with that country, have wobbled like jellies, protesting in Galway that we are marching towards the Republic and trembling at Westminster as shamefaced members of the Commonwealth of Nations, having none of the advantages of membership and all the disadvantages. It is a very sad thing that our trade relations, which are so vital to the welfare of our people, should be so complicated by political folly of that kind, but we ought to face the fact that they are, and we ought to realise that a great deal of the misery in this country at present exists because the Government of this country is mixing politics with economics with disastrous results for 80 per cent. of our people.

Before I go into the general question of agricultural policy in this country, I want to say a word about pigs and bacon because I want to throw into relief the shameless ramp going on in connection with pigs and bacon at present. The export of live pigs from this country has, in the last five years, been reduced from £2,178,000 to £429,000. In fact, it has been practically wiped out. The exports of bacon have increased from £1,169,000 to £2,111,000, and at the present time, we have a situation in which our people are being charged, wholesale, 132/- per cwt. for green middles, 142/- per cwt. for smoked middles, 118/- per cwt. for lean long sides, and 120/- for lean long clears. The farmers of the country were being paid a maximum price of 69/- per cwt., dead weight, for pigs delivered to the factory of class A.1. They are now getting 73/- per cwt. for the same quality pig delivered to the factory. In fact, the farmers are getting an average price for all pigs delivered to the factory now of about 69/- per cwt., and the consumer in this country is being charged as high as 142/- per cwt.— 142/- for smoked middles, and 69/- per cwt. for pork delivered at the factory. Many Deputies are almost incredulous when these figures are brought under their notice. I am now quoting from invoices on the foot of which bacon has been delivered in the course of the last week.

What is the explanation of it? Everybody is looking for somebody who is to be the whipping boy of this scandalous ramp. You need not look far. The person entirely responsible for this whole ramp is the Minister for Agriculture in Saorstát Eireann, and I will challenge him to deny the exposé which I now propose to make of his activities in connection with bacon. The facts are that, under the British quota regulations, the British Government allocates to this country a quota for bacon, and at present are prepared to give us any quota we want. Having accepted the quota from Great Britain, the Minister apportions it out under the Pigs and Bacon Act between the various curers, and he fixes them with notice that if each curer accepts liability for a certain portion of the British quota, he must fill that amount, and that if he does not, when the next quota period comes along, he will reduce his export quota by so much as he fell short of the quota which he at present enjoys. The duty levied by the British Government for the purpose of collecting the land annuities on bacon is substantial. The Minister wants to maintain exports of bacon to the British market because he must have those exports in order to maintain the demand for pigs in this country. The curers who are sending bacon to the British market would lose very substantially if they had to pay the entire duty themselves. Ordinarily, they would pass that loss on to the pig producer and if that happened, the pig producer would give up producing altogether, because he could not produce pigs at the price the curers would be able to pay if they had to pay all the duty themselves, seeing the price which the producer has to pay for feeding stuffs. So the Minister gives a bounty on exports, but he will not give a bounty sufficient to compensate the curers for their loss on the exports.

The curers say to the Minister: "We are losing an immense amount of money on this English trade because you will not pay us a bounty sufficient to meet the full amount of the duty." The bacon curers, however, have to pay for pigs the price fixed by the Pigs Marketing Board and, as a result of an amendment put in by the Opposition on the Committee Stage of the Pigs and Bacon Act, the Pigs Board must have regard to the cost of production when fixing a price for pigs. Therefore, the bacon curers have to pay at present 73/- per cwt. for grade 1 pigs. They have to sell the bacon in England, pay the tariff on it, and get back from the Department of Finance whatever bounty the Exchequer is prepared to pay. That bounty does not bridge the gap between the cost of the pork to the curer and the price he receives for bacon in England, and he goes to the Minister and asks him what will he do in face of that situation. The Minister first says: "I will go to the hypothetical price fund and I will permit the Pigs Marketing Board to give you back, out of the hypothetical price fund, a large sum of money to compensate you for whatever loss you suffered on the British market." The hypothetical price fund was made up under the Pigs Marketing Act in this way: The curers were authorised to pay to pig producers in the autumn a price less than the economic price. When they were paying the producers less than a fair price in the autumn, they paid the difference between what they actually paid the producer and what would be a fair price into the hypothetical price fund. The plan was that, in the spring, when it is desired to encourage people to produce more pigs, the curers were to pay the producers more than an economic price for their pigs and compensate themselves for that extra payment by refunds out of the hypothetical price fund. In short, the money was to be taken from the producers in the autumn and given back to the producers in the spring. In fact, what has happened is that the money was taken from the producers in the autumn and, when the spring came round, the money was taken out of that fund and given to the curers to compensate them for part of the loss which the Minister ought to have made up by payment of bounties out of the Exchequer. When they got that, the curers were still at a loss on their sales of bacon in Great Britain, and I now allege that they went to the Minister and said: "We are still at a loss," and that the Minister caused it to be known to the bacon curers—I cannot prove and I do not know that he sent any personal message to them, but he caused it to be known—that if they would form a ring to force up the price of bacon in Saorstát Eireann, they could knock out of the Irish consumer a price sufficiently high to yield them not only a profit on what they sold here, but a very large additional sum which would more than compensate them for any loss they had made on their sales on the British market even after they received the Minister's bounty and the special grant from the hypothetical price fund.

Accordingly, the curers have put on to the bacon consumed by the people here from 2d. to 3½d. per lb. over and above the profit they might reasonably take. Each curer has put that 2d. to 3½d. into a fund to compensate himself for his loss on the British market. So, instead of having an item appearing in the revenue accounts in the Budget showing bounties for bacon £500,000 greater than they now are and, on the other side of the Budget account, an item of revenue or an item of deficit corresponding to that £500,000, the whole of that sum is taken out of the Budget and passed on to the consumers of bacon in this country without any authority by statute, without the knowledge of this House, without the consent of this House and, in my opinion, by a fraudulent and scandalous understanding between the curers and the Minister for Agriculture.

Dr. Ryan:

There was no understanding between me and the bacon curers, and certainly, the word "fraudulent" does not arise.

Mr. Dillon:

I say that this is a very undesirable state of affairs. If it is the intention of any Government in this country to levy taxes on the food of the people, it is the duty of that Government to come to this House, declare their purpose, and submit their decision for the approval of Oireachtas Eireann. This devious method of clandestine negotiation between the Minister or his representatives and certain trade interests, whereby revenue is raised without any statutory authority, is a menace not only to the people's welfare, but to Government institutions. We have, at last, succeeded in forcing this issue to the Prices Commission. That is a futile and helpless body. They will probably flounder about on this question for the next six months. I have no doubt the curers will succeed in pulling the wool over their eyes, as the millers succeeded in pulling the wool over their eyes. In the meantime, I have no doubt the bacon curers will plunder the people of this country just as the millers have plundered them during the last four years. I have no doubt that the bacon curers will be able to say, if they are allowed to continue as they are at present doing, at the end of four years what the millers are in a position to say now—that they have knocked out of the Irish people sufficient in surplus profits to make each miller indifferent as to whether the Government takes over his mill, confiscates his mill, or exiles him; that he has succeeded in knocking out of the people in superfluous profits, over and above a legitimate return on capital, such a sum in the last four years as gives him reserves equal to the entire capital value of his premises and goodwill. I say that if the present scandal is allowed to continue, every bacon curer will be able to say the same thing, and when these two bodies have plundered and sacrificed the consuming public, it will be the policy of the intelligentsia on the Government Front Bench to take over their business, in the belief that they will be able to do the same thing. Of course, they will not be able to do the same thing, because just about the time that the intelligentsia will be thinking of doing that, the people will rise against them, and, if they do not burn the mills and blow up the curing stations, they will, at least, secure that food will be supplied to them at a price which they are in a position to pay. There is a far graver issue involved in this matter than the question of imposing on the people an extra tax. It is a damnable principle that Ministers are conniving at the imposition of taxation without the consent of the Oireachtas.

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy has raised matters which had been already discussed in the Budget debate. He has also introduced matters which would properly arise on the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce. Obviously, these matters cannot be relevantly debated on three different Estimates. The Deputy used the word "fraudulent" in reference to certain Ministerial action. The use of that word is not Parliamentary. The word of a Minister or other member as to his personal actions must be accepted. The Minister has made a statement——

Mr. Dillon:

What statement?

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy heard the statement as did the House generally.

Mr. Dillon:

I do not know what the Minister said and I do not believe the Minister is in a position to deny that he caused it to be known to the curers that a certain course of action would meet with his approval.

Dr. Ryan:

I was waiting to deny everything the Deputy said.

Mr. Dillon:

It would not be the first time that the Minister denied what I said, and that it subsequently emerged that the Minister was mistaken and that I was correct.

Dr. Ryan:

I should be surprised if you were ever correct on anything.

Mr. Dillon:

If this thing continues, it is going to give rise to a position in which a legitimate Irish industry is going to be aspersed by conduct which is not characteristic of the Free State as a whole and which would never become manifest except as a result of the wholly abnormal situation which is being created by the Executive's political interference in the normal trend of trade. The Minister spoke of comparative prices. I want to refer in a few details to his observations. He spoke of the prices of pollard and bran and said that they were available in this country. The Minister knows that that is not so.

Dr. Ryan:

I want to say the Deputy is entirely wrong.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister spoke for one and a half hours and he will have the chance of winding up.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy is making statements that are all wrong. I will deal with them when I wind up.

Mr. Dillon:

Does the Minister want to intervene now?

Dr. Ryan:

No, go ahead.

Mr. Dillon:

What I was pointing out is the fact that there is no bran or pollard available in this country. It is very nice to quote prices for bran but there is not any bran to be got by the shopkeeper. It is very nice to quote prices for pollard but there is not any pollard to be got. The Minister knows that himself. He has been issuing permits for the importation of German pollard and bran.

Dr. Ryan:

Because there is not enough here. There is a whole lot of bran and pollard turned out every day here.

Mr. Dillon:

All I can say is that representations have been made to the Minister by merchants asking for permits to import German bran and pollard.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, about 1 per cent. of their requirements.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister knows nothing about the business. I take it that all these interests are deliberately trying to deceive him. You go to your miller at present and you find that the miller has considerable difficulty in selling his output of flour because the demand for flour has fallen off considerably. Ask the millers for bran or pollard and they ask you immediately what amount of flour you require. You say you want no flour but that you want bran and they tell you that they cannot sell you the bran or pollard unless you take an equivalent quantity of flour. The yield from wheat is 70 per cent. flour and 30 per cent. bran and offals. Many millers will tell you that if you take seven tons of flour they will give you a mixed lot of three tons of bran and pollard. The average country merchant would sell 40 tons of bran and pollard while he would sell seven tons of flour. If the average merchant had to buy flour equivalent to the amount of offals he needed for his customers he would have to build a large warehouse to store his flour but he would never be able to sell it. The miller will tell the merchant that he will supply any order for bran and pollard provided that order carries with it an order for an equivalent quantity of flour—that is to say seven tons of flour for every three tons of bran and pollard. Deputies will see from that that the real fact is that the country merchant cannot get bran and pollard. I know this, that there is not a single mill in the country that is not prepared to say to the Department's inspectors: "Here is the bran; we are prepared to accept orders for bran and pollard." But when you get down to it you cannot get the bran unless you take a comparable quantity of flour. This is true of pollard but not in such a large measure as it is of bran.

Now, in the matter of linseed cake it takes three weeks or a month to get delivery of oil-cake or linseed cake meal. If you ask the reason why, you are told that licences have to be got and that without a licence you cannot import that particular type of linseed cake which cannot be supplied from Saorstát sources. You will be told, or you will find out that Saorstát sources cannot supply linseed cake because they have been disappointed in shipments of linseed. Some of the Irish firms will say that the same situation obtains in Great Britain. That is not so. You can get all the linseed cake meal you want there. The fact is that not only is oil-cake dearer here than in Great Britain but it cannot be got. The Minister spoke of allowing millers to sell Manitoba No. 1 wheat for seed. In the name of common sense, this is the 21st of April and we know what sort of a season it has been. Is it sane or sound on the part of the Minister to suggest to farmers that they can get Manitoba No. 1 wheat for seed?

Dr. Ryan:

I do not think I said anything about that.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister said to-day that he had asked the millers to sell Manitoba wheat as seed.

Dr. Ryan:

It was not to-day I asked them.

Mr. Dillon:

To be urging small men to invest their labour and their land in Manitoba No. 1 wheat at this season of the year is reckless and almost insane. The chances are seven to one against wheat planted now coming to maturity. There may be one or two varieties of wheat which have a remote chance of reaching maturity, but I do not think there is any seed of either of those varieties in the country at the present time. One of these varieties is the Diamond and the other is April something. Outside of these two varieties which may come to maturity, the Minister ought to make it clear before he winds up to-day that he does not encourage anyone to whom it represents a considerable investment to start planting spring wheat now.

The net result of five years' Fianna Fáil agricultural policy has been that the agricultural output of this country is down from £64,000,000 in 1931 to £40,000,000 now. There is no doubt whatever that part of that fall is due to the fall in world prices. But the greater part is due to the fall in prices in this country. We might as well face up to that. The figures are much more readily available to the Minister for Agriculture than they are to me. Any Deputy who refers to them will find that the output per 100 acres of land in this country has fallen from £528 in 1931 to £346 in 1935-36. I take the prices ruling in Great Britain as approximating world prices. If one takes up the agricultural statistics, one finds that the agricultural price index for Ireland as a whole between 1931 and 1935 fell from 110 to 83. The movement in agricultural prices in Great Britain over the same period has been not a fall but a rise of three points. If you include wheat and beet subsidy payments—and for the purpose of comparison here you have got to do that because a large part of our production now is subsidised production—you will see what these figures mean to the country. Beet and wheat and other items are now receiving subsidies from the Government here, and one realises the fact that while agricultural prices in Great Britain have risen by three points, agricultural prices in this country have fallen by 27 points. That would be bad enough if the whole of that fall resulted directly in the payments of tariffs to Great Britain, but it does not.

I asked the Minister recently to give me figures about the shipments of cattle to Germany and Belgium, and the Minister had the amazing audacity to say that he thought that when those figures came to be published the people would realise that it was a very profitable business. The fact is that the Minister received in respect of the shipment of bullocks and heifers to Germany 27/9 a cwt., and in respect of his shipments of bullocks and heifers to Belgium 22/7 per cwt. Admittedly, the stuff going to Belgium was not of as high a quality as that going to Germany. The corresponding prices for cattle of a similar quality in the British market at the same time were about 37/3 for the cattle he was selling for 27/9 and 34/3 for the second quality fat cattle, which would correspond with the cattle for which he was getting 22/7 in Belgium. It is to be borne in mind that the two British prices I have quoted do not include the British fat stock subsidy. They would be substantially higher if they did.

If the Minister imagines that exports of that kind are going to help this country, I do not know what he is thinking of. The fact of it is that this country has got to make up its mind as to what attitude it shall adopt, and the Minister has to make up his mind whether he wants to be in the Commonwealth or out of it. If he wants to be in the Commonwealth, he has got to use the advantages available to him in the Commonwealth for the benefit of our people; he has got to remember that tariffs on our live-stock industry do not only constitute a direct burden on the people of a monetary character, but they have a dislocating effect on trade in general out of all proportion to the monetary burden they constitute. That is notable in regard to the horse business. The monetary relief derived from the removal of the tariff on horses may be comparatively small, but the benefit on the trade as a whole by the removal of barriers will be immense.

We have to face the fact that the alternative markets of Belgium, Germany and Spain are a complete farce, and a disastrous farce. The Minister has told us that he has made agreements whereunder he is going to send to Spain and Belgium increased quantities of fat cattle for which he has been getting 27/9 and 22/7 at a time when he has not enough fat cattle to give to the poor of this country or to fill the quota allocated to our farmers in the British market, where we are able to get about 35/- a cwt. That seems to me to be extravagant insanity. The Minister has said that the price of live stock is rising. That is quite true. The boom is on all over the world. If we were not engaged in this imbecile wrangle with Great Britain, this country would be enjoying a greater boom than has been experienced in Ireland since 1921. Even at this moment when, despite the tariffs, the prices are rising for live stock, what is the position? The vast majority of our farmers have not got the cattle to sell, because the cattle we ought to be putting out now as two- or three-years-old animals are rotting in the graves dug for them as calves two and a half years ago by the Minister for Agriculture. It was then supposed to be the acme of economic foresight to slaughter the young animals and bury them. Had they been allowed to live, these animals would now be selling to an eager buyer at 34/- to 35/- a cwt. and pay the tariff; and if the tariff were off these cattle would now be selling to an eager buyer at 42/- a cwt.

We are all going round congratulating ourselves that we slaughtered and buried them two and a half years ago, and we have now entered into an unalterable engagement with Belgium and Germany to send them butter and beef in increasing quantities at 27/9 and 22/7 per cwt. for beef. It is extremely difficult to confine oneself to Parliamentary language in the presence of a situation of that kind. Nowhere outside of Grangegorman could a policy of that kind be found. If you took any inmate out of Grangegorman lunatic asylum and planted him in Upper Merrion Street, he would evolve a more comprehensive and a more sane policy than the policy which is at present being sponsored by the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister surely must know that he is allowing himself to be used as the whipping boy and the footstool of every political crank in the Party to which he belongs and that he is being used as an instrument to clap down on the backs of our people the political insanity of the man who is leading them.

We were told that wheat and beet are going to revive the falling fortunes of our people. The entire capacity of the Irish people to consume sugar and wheat would account for 760,000 acres of arable land. That is what it would mean if we were to produce all the wheat and beet that our people could consume. We have got to provide for the produce of 12,000,000 acres of arable land. Suppose we do grow all the wheat and beet we need and suppose we grow everything else that the Irish people are in a position to consume, if you pack every Irish stomach as full as a bed tick, you could only employ 5,000,000 acres of arable land and you would have to find a profitable market for the remaining 7,000,000 acres. There is no use bleating about beet and wheat and peat and tobacco. It does not matter a thraneen whether you grow them or not. You may waste money every year, but it can make no permanent difference to the economic welfare of our people unless you can provide a profitable occupation for the 12,000,000 acres of arable land which constitute the only natural resource of this country. It does not matter what subsidies you pay, because the agricultural industry will not be working to the limit of its capacity and will not be fit to maintain the population which has to live upon the land and will not yield the income which it must yield if the economic life of this country is to be maintained.

The Minister expresses some surprise that we are determined to let these two schemes work themselves out, to continue paying the guaranteed price for wheat and beet. There has been a sum of £250,000 spent by way of high-power propaganda—posters, leaflets, grants and encouragements of every kind-to persuade the people that they owe the country some lofty patriotic duty and that they should grow wheat, and they are bewildered into the belief that it is in their own interests to do so. We do not believe in having a revolution every time you change a government in this country. Our point is that we should let the wheat and beet schemes be worked out side by side with the mixed farming, which constitutes the only economic hope of our agricultural industry, and then let the people choose between them. It is vitally necessary that this kind of codology should not be manifesting itself every ten or 20 years. Every time someone escapes from Grangegorman we are likely to have the whole gamut of the wheat and beet policy started off again. It should be allowed to work itself out for good and all. Tell the people that they can grow wheat and beet at the guaranteed price; tell them that they are to keep on doing it until they are as old as Methuselah, but at the same time afford them an opportunity of being able to use their land in an economic way, and I have not the slightest doubt that 95 per cent. of our farmers will avail of the markets provided for them and will use their land to the best advantage, and will extract from it a very much better living than any of them can hope to get out of wheat and beet at present prices, without costing the Exchequer or the consumer one penny by way of subsidy or contribution of any kind.

Some Deputies may say: "Why do you pay for what you do not believe in?" The answer is simple. We pay it because we believe it is worth any money to try out wheat and beet to the bitter end: to let them be tried out on their merits now, once and for all, so that the most obscurantist and insignificant member of the Fianna Fáil Party may see for himself in practice, under his own eyes, the measure of the folly of the policy he has been deluded into promoting for the past five years in this country. I think, Sir, I have come almost within your stricture with regard to repetition in reference to the reasons I have given as to why we have deemed it expedient to allow these grotesque experiments to be worked out to their logical end. The reason, Sir, that I have reiterated these reasons is that, although I have pointed the facts out to the Minister for Agriculture, not once or twice, but many times, I have completely failed to penetrate to his attention. I have, therefore, deliberately chosen words of one of two syllables to make it clear, and I cannot imagine that there now remains a single member of the Fianna Fáil Party that does not really understand the position in regard to those two grotesque undertakings.

I have here some figures, Sir, to which I think the attention of the House should be drawn. Members of the House are as well aware as I am that prices have fallen in the agricultural industry; they know, as well as I do, that output has fallen in the agricultural industry; they are aware that agricultural wages have fallen in the agricultural industry since the Minister came into office. They may not be aware that employment on the land has fallen as substantially as it has since Fianna Fáil came into office.

I remember that, at one time, Deputy Victory fondly believed that planting wheat and beet would result in an immense increase in employment on the land. That used to be one of the reasons that was advanced for those two policies. I want now to direct the attention of the House to the facts. Recently, some provisional figures were published with regard to the number of male workers employed on farm work up to 1st June, 1936. In 1935, the number of persons employed in agricultural labour was 573,351— that is, the total number of male persons. In 1936, that figure had fallen by 13,000 persons, to 560,371. Now, we may leave out of our reckoning persons between 14 and 18 years of age, because I do not think it is a matter of very great economic consequence to this country whether they are employed or not. The people who matter are the males over 18 years of age who are employed, temporarily or permanently, in agriculture. The figures are: Members of families, over 18 years, employed, 377,143; males permanently employed, 85,875; males temporarily employed, 57,642.

I ask the House to remember that over the last few years there has been a special concession made in regard to rates in respect of every male whom you had permanently employed on your land in agricultural labour, and that has resulted, in many cases, in the father of the family giving his son 2/6 or 3/- a week, and his keep, as wages as a permanent agricultural employee on his land, and claiming in respect of that son the rates rebate to which he is entitled in respect of an agricultural labourer employed on the land. That has resulted in a reduction in the numbers of the members of a family employed on the land and in a proportionate increase in the number of persons returned as being permanently employed on the land, but over the five years in which Fianna Fáil has been in office, the number of members of a family employed on the land has increased by about 2,000; the number of permanents has increased by about 1,000, and the number of temporaries has increased, according to this return, by 2,000. However, the total number of persons employed on the land has decreased, over these five years, by about 2,000 persons. The net result is that for the five years no increase in employment is apparent at all, but during the last 12 months there has developed a very marked tendency towards decrease in employment on the land, which suggests, as we have already submitted, that intensive cereal growing, in fact, makes no contribution to increased employment on the land at all, but that mixed farming, such as dairy farming, or any kind of mixed farming such as is carried on in Limerick, South Tipperary and places of that kind, probably gives more employment than any other form of agriculture that has ever been carried on in this country.

Now, I direct the attention of the House to this. The price realised for fat cattle in 1931 was £12,500,000, whereas the price realised for fat cattle in 1936 was £6,500,000—a reduction of £6,000,000. The price realised for sheep in 1931 was £1,900,000, and in 1936 the price was £1,200,000—a reduction of £700,000. The price realised for eggs in 1931 was £2,227,000, and the price for eggs in 1936 was £992,000. We had reduced our export of eggs by £1,200,000. The numbers of eggs exported were 4,609,000 great hundreds in 1931, and in 1936 the numbers were 2,966,000 great hundreds. We had reduced our export of eggs by 1,700,000 great hundreds. In 1931, the value of our exports of butter was £2,086,000. In 1936, it had fallen to £1,917,000 in value. This interesting fact emerges, however, that in 1931, for every cwt. of butter we exported we got 110/6, or £5 10s. 6d., where as in 1936 we got 74/-. Now, in 1931, we were getting, approximately, the world price, I suppose, for butter, because we were then exporting to the British market almost entirely, where the world price was ruling. It had fallen in 1936 to 74/-, and many of the more gullible Fianna Fáil T.D.s believed that that was as a result of a fall in world prices; but the facts are that, when you look to the statistics, you find that the basic price for butter in 1931 was 111/—the world price—and it had fallen to 89/- in 1936.

Now, if we assume—and I think we may—that the price of butter in 1931 was, in fact, 110/6, the interesting fact emerges that about one point in the Statistical Abstract corresponds to 1/- per cwt. in the price of butter, and therefore, while the world price fell from about 111/- in 1931 to 89/- in 1936, the Irish price, or the price Ireland was getting for her exports of butter, fell from 111/- to 74/-. We had dropped 15/- below the world price, and in 1935, two years ago, we were getting 62/5 for our exports of butter while the world was getting 87/- a cwt.—that is, we were getting 23/- less than the world price. I do not not know how the Minister will commend his trade agreements to us in the light of those facts. Remember those prices were partially got as a result of the tariffs levied by Great Britain on our butter going in there and partially as a result of the prices realised on our butter sold on the Continent, but the net result of it was that our butter was getting it in the neck, when this country was using immense sums of money and when our people were paying 1/5 per lb. for butter in order to have the privilege of selling it for 7d. per lb. to people in Great Britain, in Germany and in Belgium. Again I appeal to Deputy Victory; does he agree with me that an agricultural policy which can produce that kind of situation is more reminiscent of Grangegorman——

Mr. Victory:

When you are able to see conditions in this country from the point of view of self-sufficiency, I shall discuss it with you, but not otherwise.

Mr. Dillon:

I do not know if Deputy Victory has become a convert to the fallacy of economic self-sufficiency, but if he has I would not advise him to criticise any occupant of Grangegorman, because if he follows that line of thought far enough he may attain to a place in Grangegorman before long.

Mr. Victory:

We will not have to do without sugar for our tea as we had during the Great War, at any rate.

Mr. Dillon:

If the Deputy believes in economic self-sufficiency, it is not without sugar only that he will have to do. Even his resources will scarcely grow tea in this country, and though he may drink light beer, as was suggested by the President on one occasion, I do not know whether he will be able to convert his constituents in Longford to that course. The Deputy may return to a wooden plough. He will look very well behind it.

Mr. Victory:

I did more of it than you did, at any rate.

Mr. Dillon:

With the wooden plough, I am sure you did. The Deputy may return to a bicycle with wooden wheels, unless he can grow rubber in this country. These are the little things the Deputy forgets. These are the things the Deputy is never asked to think about by his own colleagues or by his own leader. I would suggest that he should ask himself if the policy of economic self-sufficiency, into which he has allowed the Minister to lead him by the nose, is not the greatest nonsense. If he applies his mind impartially to that investigation he will come to the amazing discovery that what he really wants to be doing is supporting Fine Gael and the United Ireland Party, and that it is through the merest misapprehension on his part that he is in the ranks of Fianna Fáil. If he would only think this matter out for himself he would discover the incredible folly into which the country has been driven.

Mr. Victory:

I asked you one question before and you refused to answer it.

Mr. Dillon:

What was that?

Mr. Victory:

Do you agree with the policy of John Redmond and your late father regarding the financial relations between this country and Britain? That is the root cause of the economic war.

Mr. Dillon:

I would say to the Deputy that I am a great believer in concentrating on the future and in not brooding on the past.

Mr. Victory:

There you are.

Mr. Dillon:

As I understand the gospel of the Fianna Fáil Party, with regard to the past, it is that our taxable capacity as compared with that of the British is 66 to 1. If the Deputy wants to start multiplying all the figures I have read out by 66, I should be glad to know of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Better not.

Mr. Dillon:

If I could do anything in that way to illuminate the mind of Deputy Victory, I should be glad to do so, but I doubt if even that would do it. I do not believe that any useful purpose can at this stage be served by criticising the Minister for Agriculture without making a few suggestions to the House as to how the immense damage that he has done to the country during the last few years may be repaired. Fortunately it is not too late to undo the immense damage he has done. The first thing we have got to do is to make a trade agreement with Great Britain. A number of people in this House do not realise what our failure to do that at Ottawa involved us in. It must be said to the credit of the present Minister that he did make a trade agreement at Ottawa.

Dr. Ryan:

I denied that here before. I say it is absolutely wrong.

Mr. Dillon:

A slander?

Dr. Ryan:

Not a slander.

Mr. Dillon:

I say that the Minister entered into some kind of understanding——

Dr. Ryan:

No.

Mr. Dillon:

——about something——

Dr. Ryan:

Not even that.

Mr. Dillon:

——which may or may not have been relevant to the trade relations of this country but which certainly left the other party under the impression that it was.

Dr. Ryan:

No.

Mr. Dillon:

When he came back to this country and submitted its terms to the head of the Government——

Dr. Ryan:

I submitted no terms.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Does this not refer to something that happened four or five years ago? We are concerned here with this year's Estimate.

Dr. Ryan:

He has not the decency to withdraw it.

Mr. Dillon:

These terms were turned down, and the result of the turning down of these terms has been the disaster into which we have been led and which I propose shortly to describe.

Dr. Ryan:

If he had any decency he would not say that.

Mr. Dillon:

Say what?

Dr. Ryan:

You have said it three times. I made no agreement, not even any sort of understanding, with British Ministers. I brought no agreement or understanding home with me.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister came home then.

Dr. Ryan:

I did.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister came home and the Minister was accompanied by another Minister there.

Dr. Ryan:

Where?

Mr. Dillon:

At Ottawa.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, by two others.

Mr. Dillon:

One of them, in any case, had something in the shape of an agreement or a quasi-agreement or an imaginary agreement or a hoped-for agreement which was submitted to the Executive Council, or at least to the President thereof.

Dr. Ryan:

That is a hope!

Mr. Dillon:

That something was brought home and it was turned down.

Dr. Ryan:

There was nothing turned down.

Mr. Dillon:

It may have been turned up, but in any case it was not accepted.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy has not the decency to withdraw. He is just trying to wriggle away from it.

Mr. Dillon:

In 1931 the trade of the other members of the Commonwealth of Nations with Great Britain had been declining. In 1932 the Ottawa Conference was held and the result was dramatic. In 1931-32 exports from Canada to Great Britain had fallen to £30,000,000. The Ottawa Conference took place, and since then the exports from Canada to Great Britain have risen to £75,000,000.

Dr. Ryan:

In what year?

Mr. Dillon:

In 1936. That is the figure taken from the Economist. The last official figure from the British Trade Statistics was about £54,000,000 for 1935. The Economist figure is £75,000,000 for 1936. The Australian trade in 1931 had fallen to £40,000,000. In 1936 it had gone up to £62,000,000. New Zealand trade in 1931 had fallen to about £33,000,000. In 1936 it had gone up to about £43,000,000. The Trade of the Irish Free State with Great Britain had fallen to about £36,000,000 in 1931. It was then higher than the trade of New Zealand or Canada. By 1934 the trade of the Irish Free State had fallen to £17,000,000, and from that up to end of 1936 it had increased to about £20,000,000. But another nation, a member of the Commonwealth, which was doing less trade with Great Britain than we were doing in 1931, is now selling about £75,000,000 worth of stuff to Great Britain every year, while we are selling £20,000,000 worth. Still another country which was doing less trade than we were doing with Great Britain in 1931 is now selling Great Britain about £62,000,000 worth, while we are selling her £20,000,000 worth.

This interesting fact emerges, that if you take the countries outside the Commonwealth of Nations you find that as from the date of the Ottawa Conference our trade dropped in the same proportion as did the trade of France and Holland, two countries which not only did not enjoy the advantage of being members of the Commonwealth, but had both elected to remain on the gold standard and pursue a vigorous deflationary policy, while England had gone off the gold standard and was pursuing an inflationary policy, so the economic war has proved to us as disastrous, as shattering in our foreign trade as the gold policy has proved to France. Since then France, having pledged herself in every conceivable way to remain on gold, has discovered that it is quite impossible to do so without sacrificing her people in such a way as no sane Government would attempt. Holland has learned the same lesson and has abandoned gold. This is the only country which has been hoisted with its petard to the gold of the President's conceit. You can go off the gold standard but you cannot go off the standard of President de Valera's conceit. He wants to show the world that he is right, and was always right, and that everybody else is wrong. Because the world has got to learn that lesson, every unfortunate person down the country has to lower his standard of living and sink lower than he ever has been before. The only purpose being served is the pious one of demonstrating that President de Valera was right and that everybody else was wrong.

If we get that trade agreement, we have an unprecedented opportunity of capturing for this country a wealthier market than has ever been offered us before, and for two reasons; one, because the British Government is now committeed to a policy in conformity with the recommendations of the Commission on nutrition, presided over by Sir John Orr, and that Commission recommends that if the health of the British people is to be maintained, and their physique developed, greatly increased quantities of butter, eggs, milk products, and proteins in the form of fresh meat or bacon must be made available to the masses of the people. Before I pass from that, let me remind Deputies that those are the four commodities which we are most concerned to sell. Secondly, at the same time as the Government has adopted that policy, the Government is spending £1,500,000,000 on armaments, which is going to increase enormously the purchasing capacity of the working people of Great Britain. We can get our share of that market. We can get our share of that immense expenditure for the benefit of our people. I warn the Deputies of this House that if you do not get it by making a trade agreement with the British, producing foodstuffs here and selling them in England, the people will go over to England and will get it for themselves. You will force them into emigration. You are not going to get people to live like paupers in this country, when, by crossing to Liverpool, they can live in comparative prosperity. If the President thinks that he can consecrate the whole populace of this country to the important task of holding up his personal pride and conceit——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The President is not responsible for the administration of this Vote.

Mr. Dillon:

Indeed he is, Sir.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The President?

Mr. Dillon:

Certainly. That poor man there has no responsibility for this.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The Minister for Agriculture is responsible for the administration of this Vote. If the Deputy wants to make any charges or any statements in regard to the President, there is an appropriate Vote on which they can be made; this is not it.

Dr. Ryan:

He cannot help being personal and scurrilous.

Mr. Dillon:

I say that the whole agricultural policy in this country is being pursued at the dictation of the Executive Council for the purpose of carrying on a political vendetta.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

That may be the Deputy's view, but the person responsible to this House for the administration of this money is the Minister for Agriculture. He is the only person whom this House can hold responsible.

Mr. Dillon:

In any case, Sir, it is very easy to make the case that the Minister is subordinating the interests of the people to those of the political purposes which I have just mentioned, but the matter is not worth pursuing. It is essential, however, for our people to realise that they have got to make their choice. It is essential to realise that we have either got to get that market for our people or our people will fly out of the country and get it for themselves. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see this country made a success of, and I am perfectly certain that if we pursue our present course we will become a bankrupt and contemptible appendix of Great Britain; our people, before the whole world, will emigrate in hundreds of thousands to Great Britain; we will be left clamouring before the world that England is in a conspiracy to undo us, and the world will simply laugh at us in the knowledge that the vast majority of our people are going to England, getting work in England and sending the money that they earn there home to their people in this country. If any Deputy in this House considers that is a dignified international position for this country to take up, I shall be glad to hear him. To me, it is a grotesque and horrible humiliation. There is only one sane way out, and that is to restore the prosperity that can be got for our people in this country. The most effective way to do that is to recover that market for our people, and let the people exploit it themselves.

Assuming that that is done, there are some detailed matters about which I wish to ask the Minister a few categorical questions. He spoke of horse-breeding and of an extra expenditure under that head. He spoke of purchasing certain stallions to be put in a classic category. What type of stallions are they to be? Surely it is not suggested that stallions of the racehorse type should be hired out to the farmers of the country. I cannot believe that that is going to do the horse-breeding industry any real service at all. I would like to know is it the intention of the Department definitely to condemn as a sire any horse with faulty breeding—with broken wind. There are people who take the view that if a man has a licensed horse it will be condemned if it has broken wind, but that if there is a Department sire in a farmer's possession that he will be allowed to go on using that sire even though it is broken-winded.

Dr. Ryan:

No.

Mr. Dillon:

Now, it would be well if the Minister would definitely say whether he accepts as certainly right the view that broken-windedness is a hereditary taint, and that therefore the Department has made up its mind to prohibit the use of such sires altogether. I understand that there is a bona fide difference of opinion on that question, and that it has never been definitely ascertained whether broken-windedness is a hereditary taint or not. But, whatever the objective truth in that question may be, it would be well if the Department would let it be known very explicitly what their view is, the view on which they propose to act in the future. The Minister spoke of a special bounty of £50 which was to be paid to farmers to induce them to keep as whole horses colts bred under certain circumstances. I would like to know will the colts eligible for that bounty be exclusively the progeny of Department sires, or can any farmer submitting a colt for examination to the Department claim that bounty?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, provided he is qualified.

Mr. Dillon:

I am glad to see in the Estimate this year that increased money is being provided for the Veterinary College. I would very strongly urge on the Minister the desirability of considering a very much more comprehensive departure in respect of veterinary medicine in this country. Ten or 11 years ago we lost the opportunity of having established in this country a Roman bureau of agricultural statistics. I think it would have been a matter of great consequence in this country if we had succeeded in getting it established here. I believe it would be of material advantage to the country if Ireland came to be known as an international centre of veterinary research. I believe that our farmers would benefit directly from that by having the peculiar problems of this country considered and examined by a very highly competent body of international scientists. I would, therefore, suggest to the Minister that we should have in this country as fine a veterinary teaching and research college as money can provide. I suggest the Government should provide for that college endowments adequate to attract to it the most distinguished veterinarians in the world, and that we should regard it not only as a school for our own farmers and veterinary students, but as an advertisement and a source of information to assist the Department of Agriculture in combating certain problems that beset the live-stock industry in this country at the present time.

There are three such difficulties. One is contagious abortion. I do not want to dwell on that because I know that the Minister is as much concerned about the solution of that problem as anybody else can be. I know the immense difficulties in the way. A great deal of work remains to be done before it is satisfactorily disposed of. But I do want to sound this note of warning. There has been brought under my attention recently a circular that has been sent around by some kind of chemical firm in London alleging that it has discovered specific cures for contagious abortion and endeavouring, by implication, to connect them with certain work that has been done in London on streptococci infections there. It is an extremely specious document and steps ought to be taken to prevent its being widely circulated in this country, or else follow it up and expose its wholly fraudulent character because, as far as I can find out, the so-called specific cure has no merit and no scientific foundation whatever.

Cartarrhal vaginitis in cattle is becoming an immense plague in the West of Ireland. It is resulting in not less than 50 per cent. of the cattle failing to become pregnant in the Province of Connacht. Now, the loss that that situation involves in the case of a small farmer who depends for his income on three or four cows is immense. The problem is formidable. I believe that one cure, which is almost specific, has been discovered, but unfortunately it requires the intervention of a veterinary surgeon to administer it. I urge on the Minister the necessity of research in regard to this matter, because the losses in which people are being involved by a continuation of this trouble amongst cattle must be immense.

I would like the Minister to requisition information from our Veterinary College as to whether any practical use can be made of recent discoveries in connection with drugs in Great Britain which have been found there to be a specific for strepticoccus haemolyticus. I am informed that strepticoccus, which is usually responsible for mammitis in cows, results very frequently in material injury to good cows and, as the Minister knows, it is the best milker that is most likely to get a sore udder. Not only does it result in very grave injury to cows, but I should not be at all surprised if many of the infections arising from unsatisfactory milk come from cows who are in the initial stages of this streptococci mammitis. If it were discovered that this drug which has been used for streptococci infections in human beings and rats with immense success in the last 12 months could be adapted for use with cattle, its value could not be exaggerated. The remarkable thing about this preparation, so far as the literature issued in connection with it goes, is that its administration seems to be very easy to standardise, and is quite possible of application by an ordinary farmer without calling in a veterinary surgeon on every occasion when it is necessary to treat a beast.

I suggest to the Minister that the development of plant breeding is very backward in the country at the present time and that we ought to press forward in that matter with a view to adapting certain crops to the climate of this country which are at present ungrowable here. When we do that I want to ask him if he would not consider the desirability of trying out the conclusions come to as a result of experiments under practical working conditions on demonstration farms. It is a terrible pity that so much of the work done in Glasnevin and in the scientific laboratories of the Department of Agriculture is never reported to the farmers at all. There is plenty of information to be had in the Department of Agriculture that the average farmer never hears about. The only way you can get the information out to the average farmer is by having demonstration farms in rural Ireland, carried on and operated under conditions to which the small farmer is himself accustomed.

There is no use telling the small farmer that it is profitable to grow onions commercially in Glasnevin, because he believes that it may be profitable in Glasnevin but it is not going to pay a profit in Lanesboro' or Strokestown. If you, however, establish a farm in or about Elphin and show farmers there that you can grow onions and sell them profitably to the neighbouring shopkeepers, you will have farmers coming from all parts of Roscommon to see that being done and to copy it themselves, if they are once convinced it can be successfully done in conditions under which they themselves have to work. I know that, because I have seen it. I have experienced myself the reluctance to venture on plans or schemes suggested in the Department of Agriculture's circulars. I had the additional difficulty of persuading men working for me on the land to believe a single word in these leaflets. It is almost enough in some cases that a certain course of conduct should be recommended in a Department leaflet to get a countryman to say: "That must be wrong," and to do the other thing. That is a difficulty against which the Department cannot labour except through the instrumentality of the demonstration farm.

For instance, I should like the potentialities of the soya bean to be investigated. At present, so far as I know, no variety of the soya bean tried out in Glasnevin or elsewhere will come to maturity here. In the State of Vermont in the United States the whole population are going in for the cultivation of the soya bean and the uses to which that product can be turned are perfectly astonishing. They are too many to recite here, but the soya bean, if it could be made to grow in this country, would be an immense source of wealth to our people. I should be glad to know from the Minister whether any recent developments have taken place in connection with that matter.

I am sorry the cheese business has been developed so far almost entirely along the line of the factory production. I do not believe we will ever get anywhere with factory cheese. The kind of stuff produced in factories is not the best for Ireland—it never can be. No person who likes cheese will ever eat it. I do not by any means say that the factories ought to be discouraged, but they are not the most important end of the business. I should like to see cheese produced in this country on the same lines as farmers' butter. Then you will get characteristic cheeses; you will get cheeses that will stand on their own merits anywhere, and which will build up for themselves the same kind of a trading reputation as the special cheeses of England, Italy, France and Holland in the world over at the present time.

I suggest to the Minister that the journal of the Department of Agriculture should be published monthly instead of annually. I doubt if many people see it. The journal of the British Department of Agriculture is published every month and is a most useful and interesting periodical. The journal of our Department is an extremely interesting document, too, but, to tell the honest truth, until recently I did not know it existed. I suggest to the Minister that at least he ought to secure that it should be circulated to Deputies, which it is not at present. A great many less interesting and less valuable documents are so circulated.

The last matter to which I want to refer is to make a further reference to the demonstration farms which I have already mentioned. I believe that they could be made invaluable, (1) for communicating to farmers the knowledge that the Department has; (2) that they should be used as centres to which farmers could send their children as apprentices. At present, if a farmer wants his child trained and cannot afford to send him to the university or to the technical school, he binds him as an apprentice to some tradesman or shopkeeper or something of that sort. When the boy has finished his apprenticeship, he has to look for a job. If he has been in a good house he may find little difficulty in getting a job, but if he has not, he may find it very hard, indeed. Why should not we, if we had demonstration farms of this kind, allow farmers to bind their children to the agricultural instructor or the man in charge of the farm? If a boy serves three years on such a farm under a practical farmer, learning under the conditions obtaining on his own father's place the art of husbandry and farming, would he not be a very valuable man? I think he would. I think that as he grows older, having been accustomed to the Department of Agriculture's ways and made familiar with the Department of Agriculture's sources of information, he will be a very much better farmer than you can hope to make him at the present time.

He would learn the practical methods of abating the nuisances that manifested themselves on the holding where he was brought up and would, in addition to learning a great deal himself from his apprenticeship, serve to teach the Department of Agriculture a good deal by communicating to the instructors, under whom he would be working on these farms, the kind of difficulties he often heard his father complain of on the holding where he was born and bred. You have to remember that one of the greatest difficulties of agricultural instructors is that the farmer will not believe the instructor, and the instructors, very frequently, do not know what the farmer's troubles are. I believe strongly in bringing the farmers and the Department closer together. I believe that both have a great deal to give to one another; and I think the demonstration farms, to which I have referred, might play no small part in producing that very desirable alliance.

Mr. Brennan:

As Deputy Dillon made a very complete survey of the position of agriculture, what remains can be said very briefly. Farmers will read with amazement the speech made by the Minister for Agriculture this evening. If the Minister is able to convince them, even his own followers, that they are prosperous, I will be amazed. The Minister did not exactly say that they were prosperous. He said the farmers were badly off.

Dr. Ryan:

I knew you would say that.

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister said that they were better off than they would be under Fine Gael.

Dr. Ryan:

Than they would be.

Mr. Brennan:

That is a prophecy. I am sure they will be amazed when they read it. The farmers are not all as thick as the Minister thinks. There are farmers, even amongst the Minister's Party, who are amazed at the way he has neglected them. They thought that, at least, the Minister for Agriculture would interest himself in some settlements which would be favourable to them, so that they would not be kept always in the front line trenches. Even those who were amongst the Minister's supporters— and some of them may be supporters of his yet—thought when the Coal-Cattle Pact and the horse-sugar pact was being arranged that the Minister should have appeared in person, to see that these pacts were properly made in the interests of the people. Farmers will be amazed when they read the Minister's speech pointing out how well off they are. Of course, he qualified his remarks by saying that he knew they were not well off. According to the figures the Minister gave, they must be well off. When he gives figures, the Minister always takes care to add the bounties and the subsidies. Is not that a rather sad state of affairs? I do not think many people believe that the full benefit of subsidies and bounties is given to the producers. The Minister has to add these figures to balance what has already been taken from the people in some shape or form. They believe in the country that what he gives by way of subsidies and bounties has been already extracted from them by way of taxation, customs duties and other things.

Every single item people have to buy is taxed, so that the Minister may have the money to recoup the losses sustained because of the so-called economic war. I do not generally read the Irish Press, but a supporter of the Minister called my attention to a speech that he delivered recently at Wynn's Hotel, in which he dealt with agriculture. This man told me it was evident the Minister was making a speech on agriculture to non-agricultural people, in other words, to city people. That man was quite right. He was a supporter of the Minister, but I am afraid he is not a supporter of his to-day. To my mind that speech was the most damning indictment of the Fianna Fáil policy that could possibly be made. Speaking to a Dublin audience, he told them of the things that Fianna Fáil had done for agriculture. He told them about wheat growing. It is evident he was not speaking to people who are engaged in agriculture, because he said:

"He did not believe there was any single industry that could be nearly as good, and he doubted if there was any industry that could employ even 25 per cent. of the number, as in the growing of their own wheat."

That speech was made to a city audience. The Minister would not go to the country and make it, because the growing of wheat does not give employment except to a limited extent. Any other crop, even turnips or mangolds, provided for fattening live stock, or grain ground up for live stock, gives five times as much employment as wheat-growing. The Minister knows that.

Dr. Ryan:

Indeed I do not.

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister thinks that putting in a crop of wheat, taking it out, and having it threshed, gives as much employment as crops grown for fattening live stock. Of course it does not. But this is part of the Fianna Fáil political humbug, and the farce must be kept up.

Dr. Ryan:

It gives more employment than is provided by a bag of flour from Canada.

Mr. Brennan:

I agree. The Minister did not say that it gave more employment, but that he did not believe there was any single industry that could employ even 25 per cent. of the number engaged in the growing of wheat.

Dr. Ryan:

Over £6,000,000.

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister said that no other Irish industry could employ even 25 per cent. of the number engaged in the growing of wheat.

Dr. Ryan:

That is true.

Mr. Brennan:

Nonsense! Here is the real condemnation of the Fianna Fáil policy, where the Minister, when referring to wheat growing, said:

"England, in pursuance of her policy of free trade and of building up her industrial exports, abolished the corn laws, thereby withdrawing the protection from corn growers afforded within the United Kingdom as it then was. In face of open competition from resources abroad, it was absolutely uneconomic for the Irish farmer to produce grain, and he had to turn to the production of cattle and live-stock products as items that could be produced in competition."

It is a pity the Minister would not let it go on.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy quoted that during another debate the other day, and I asked him to give the whole history.

Mr. Brennan:

The whole history of what?

Dr. Ryan:

The whole history.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

In reality we can only discuss at present what the Minister said in the House.

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister was referring to the year 1847, the year of the famine.

Dr. Ryan:

That is a long time ago.

Mr. Brennan:

At that time, in the Minister's own words, the people found that it was absolutely uneconomic to grow wheat. Transport communications have been brought up to date since then. In 1840 it took months to bring a cargo of grain from other countries. Notwithstanding the undeveloped resources of the world at that time, the people found it uneconomic to produce grain. As the Minister said, they found that it was live stock, and live-stock products, they could produce in competition. I say "Hear, hear" to that.

Dr. Ryan:

Can they do it now?

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister was quite right there.

Dr. Ryan:

Can they do it to-day?

Mr. Brennan:

They can. They can produce live stock and live-stock products better than any other part.

Dr. Ryan:

Is butter economic?

Mr. Brennan:

I am talking of live stock and live-stock products. The Minister can single out any item and say that on the whole it does not pay. The Minister knows that this is an agricultural country.

Dr. Ryan:

Every country is.

Mr. Brennan:

This is the live stock country. We are favoured by God and by nature for the production of live stock. No live stock in the world can compare with the Irish live stock, and the Minister knows that. Other items in the Minister's speech show that when he goes to a city audience he tells them what suits them regarding agriculture. He would not go down the country and make that speech.

Dr. Ryan:

Why not?

Mr. Brennan:

Not at all. He gets his own supporters and tells them all this humbug.

Dr. Ryan:

That is a good word.

Mr. Brennan:

He told them the same with regard to bacon. It is interesting to see the figures that were given regarding pigs and bacon. It was interesting to see the manner in which the Minister gave the figures, and how hard it was to get the real figures from him. Although he represented that we were getting a much better export trade for bacon, he did not tell us, until it was dragged out of him, that we were £200,000 down compared with 1931, on bacon production.

Dr. Ryan:

We are not losing on it.

Mr. Brennan:

We are not making on it compared with 1931. The last figures from the statistical abstract for 1936 show that we have 100,000 less pigs than we had in 1931. At this meeting at which he spoke the Minister boasted of the fact that he had stopped the importation of bacon.

Dr. Ryan:

Is not that right?

Mr. Brennan:

Yes. There is only one test as to whether the recent export of Irish bacon has been a success, and that test is the live pigs that are being reared. If we were importing bacon, and if at the same time we reared a larger number of pigs than was represented by the imported bacon, then it was better to let the imported bacon come in. There is only one good result to be gained from stopping the imports of bacon, and that is to increase pig production. We have not done that. We have decreased production. It is an extraordinary situation. Bacon value for over £1,000,000 was formerly imported, and one would imagine that in order to fill that gap, and seeing that we have increased our exports, we would be rearing more pigs. We are not. What has happened, I wonder?

Mr. Victory:

If you allow a free market for imported bacon here, how are you going to guarantee the farmers a fixed price for their bacon?

Mr. Brennan:

I am not advocating any such thing. I am putting it to the test of success, to the test of criticism—that is all. If we reared in this country 1,227,000 pigs in 1931 and if, at the same time, we imported over £1,000,000 worth of bacon, and if to-day, between what we are using in this country without any importation, plus our increased export, we have only 1,087,000 pigs, there is only one conclusion to be drawn and that is that the people of this country cannot afford bacon.

Dr. Ryan:

Will the Deputy take the years 1929 and 1930?

Mr. Brennan:

I cannot.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy has taken the peak year of pig production in this country.

Mr. Brennan:

I took 1931, when Fianna Fáil came into power.

Dr. Ryan:

That is the highest year of pig production.

Mr. Brennan:

Perhaps, but I took that year and the figure for the last year I got in the statistical abstract.

Dr. Ryan:

It is the peak year.

Mr. Brennan:

Let it be anything it likes. I should like the Minister to make the case I am trying to make now and to explain to the House how it is that, although we have increased our export of bacon and cut out the importation of bacon, we have not increased our pigs.

Dr. Ryan:

We have, though, except for that peak year.

Mr. Brennan:

Not to any extent. If we take our increased exports of bacon out of it, it will be found that we have not increased our pigs to that extent.

Dr. Ryan:

Our consumption.

Mr. Brennan:

And our consumption has apparently gone down, and gone down considerably.

Dr. Ryan:

That is true.

Mr. Brennan:

I am afraid that is so. The Minister in this lecture also told us, and it seems an extraordinarily contradictory thing that Fianna Fáil did not advocate that people should keep less cattle in this country.

Dr. Ryan:

Did they?

Mr. Brennan:

They did not, then. Let us say that they did not, and the Minister thinks to-day that we are able to maintain the cattle we have. Is that right?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, and we have maintained them.

Mr. Brennan:

And you think it good business?

Dr. Ryan:

We have as many cattle as ever we had.

Mr. Brennan:

I do not want to accuse the Minister of saying that they wanted to cut down the number of cattle although, if I did say that, I believe I could very easily prove it; but I should like to hear the Minister saying that, in his opinion, the cattle trade is good for this country, because he has said here that they never asked the people to cut the cattle down. The Minister says here to-day that four-fifths of that cattle trade must be exported.

Dr. Ryan:

That is true.

Mr. Brennan:

And yet the Minister for Agriculture does not think it worth his while to endeavour to have a settlement of this idiotic economic war for the sake of that four-fifths.

Dr. Ryan:

Of course I would, if I got a good settlement.

Mr. Brennan:

I was amazed that the Minister should have even attempted to deny what Deputy Dillon accused him of to-day, that is, of bringing home some kind of a settlement from Ottawa.

Dr. Ryan:

Because there was no truth in it.

Mr. Brennan:

It is a pity that the President and the Vice-President did not deny it when it was ripe for denial.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy is trying to insinuate that there was something in it?

Mr. Brennan:

I believe there was something in it because I think the Minister had some interest in this country. I think the Minister, after all, had the interests of the farmers at heart, if he had been allowed to go on with it. I give him credit for that, but I think that if he comes back here to this House and reads out what has happened to the Canadian, the Australian, the New Zealand and the South African trade with Britain since the Ottawa agreement, he ought to be ashamed of his life to say that he did not bring back some kind of a settlement.

Dr. Ryan:

How can I bring back a settlement if the other party does not agree?

Mr. Brennan:

I do not know, but I say that the Minister for Agriculture, representing the agriculturists of this country and supposed to be our watchdog in this House and outside it, ought to be ashamed to say that he did not attempt to bring home some settlement.

Dr. Ryan:

Suppose I did?

Mr. Brennan:

Now the Minister is coming back.

Dr. Ryan:

I did not get a settlement, though.

Mr. Brennan:

The Minister is wobbling now.

Dr. Ryan:

It is not wobbling. I object to that. I have all the time maintained that I brought back no settlement. There is no wobbling.

Mr. Brennan:

Does the Minister deny that there was any semblance of a settlement, a quasi-settlement, or suggested terms?

Dr. Ryan:

Or no understanding, either.

Mr. Brennan:

I say the Minister ought to be ashamed.

Dr. Ryan:

That I did not come back?

Mr. Brennan:

No.

Dr. Ryan:

What else then?

Mr. Brennan:

That he ought to have been able to put some arrangement up and bring back something, and to say to the Irish farmers, "We were prepared to do that, but Britain would not do it." Is the Minister afraid of that?

Dr. Ryan:

We could have given in?

Mr. Brennan:

No.

Dr. Ryan:

The Irish people knew what we were prepared to do.

Mr. Brennan:

The Irish farmer deserves more from an Irish Minister for Agriculture than to be left for ever in the front line trenches. I cannot help wondering if the Minister for Agriculture is allowing himself to be swayed by people like the Minister for Finance. I mentioned here recently something which that Minister said, and I was asked to quote it. I will quote it now for the Minister for Agriculture. The farmers in this country are being dictated to by people who sit in armchairs in Dublin, and I am afraid I will have to include the Minister in that. We find the Minister for Finance coming out, in volume 61, column 2,092 of the Official Debates, and speaking of the British market——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The Minister for Agriculture is not responsible for what the Minister for Finance says in this House.

Mr. Brennan:

I am not suggesting that he is.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

What the Minister for Agriculture is responsible for is the administration of this Vote.

Mr. Brennan:

I agree, but I maintain that there is collective responsibility in this as in every other matter.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

If we were to accept that, it would mean that we could discuss all the Estimates of every Minister on one Minister's Vote. The Minister for Agriculture is responsible only for his own Vote.

Mr. Brennan:

Immediately I get outside the domain of agriculture I shall sit down. I am certainly not outside it now. Am I not entitled to quote what a Deputy said from those benches with regard to agriculture last year? Is that not my prerogative?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The Deputy is entitled to discuss what is said within this House by any Minister or Deputy on the particular matter under discussion at the time. The Minister for Finance, so far as I am aware, has not made any contribution to the discussion on this Vote.

Mr. Brennan:

Am I not entitled to quote from what the Minister for Finance said on agriculture in this House in 1936? Am I so entitled or am I not? It has been done here frequently and not alone that, but we have quoted other Deputies and they have quoted us.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

If the Minister for Finance made a contribution to this debate, the Deputy would be entitled to refer to it and discuss it, but the Minister for Finance did not make any contribution to this debate, and the Deputy is not entitled to go back and to quote what the Minister said on some other occasion.

Mr. Brennan:

I submit that that is an entirely new departure, in my opinion, and if it is to be taken as a precedent in this House it is rushing us into rather a peculiar position. Every Deputy has been in the habit of quoting from official records of statements made in this House on this particular matter.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Does the Deputy suggest that he should be entitled to go back and refer to whatever was said by every Deputy on an Estimate discussed last year or the year before?

Mr. Brennan:

I do not.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The Minister for Finance is not entitled to any greater responsibility.

Mr. Brennan:

I claim nothing that has not been claimed and admitted in this House since I came into it, and that is, to quote from what a former Deputy of any Party said on that matter.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

On this Vote, on this occasion?

Mr. Brennan:

No, Sir, not on this occasion. Does the Chair then insist on ruling that we cannot go back to last year's debate and quote what a Minister or anybody else said?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

I am ruling that the Deputy cannot go back to what the Minister for Finance said last year on this particular Estimate.

Mr. Brennan:

The Chair is ruling that?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Yes.

Mr. Brennan:

Well, then, Sir, I sit down. To my mind, it is a completely new ruling.

Mr. M. O'Reilly:

I am sorry that Deputy Brennan did not continue his remarks. I wonder was it that he discovered that it was not the Chair who held him up——

Mr. Brennan:

No, I did not discover it.

Mr. O'Reilly:

——but that he found it impossible to carry on with the subject he was pursuing. In examining this question of our agricultural exports and trade agreements, we have to be definitely influenced by what we can sell in the markets of the country with which we are about to make these agreements. Deputy Brennan places all his trust and confidence for the future in the production of live stock and live-stock products. It is my opinion—and I keep an ocasional eye on world conditions and world figures —that even in England it is not maintained that live stock and live-stock products are increasing in value. Statistics published about January last indicate quite clearly that, of meat products, the only thing that increased in England was Argentine frozen meat. That increased by about 11.4 per cent. while chilled beef, which is a higher class production, decreased by 5.3 per cent. Ordinarily, one would infer from that that the British people are not able to purchase the higher-class commodity. If you compare that with the cereal side—wheat, maize, barley and oats—you find that, at that particular period, wheat had increased in price by 45 per cent. and Indian corn by 40 per cent., while all the other cereals had also increased.

The Minister indicated that, even in England, the tendency of the farmers was to grow more cereals and pay more attention to that side of their industry. That is another figure which should impress one with the change that has taken place practically since the Great War, and which should also impress those who argue that we ought, without any examination whatsoever, walk into the British Commonwealth of Nations. Seventy-five per cent. of the meat, bacon and pork consumed in Great Britain comes from foreign countries, leaving 25 per cent. for this country, England, Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa to produce. The total market for all these countries, known as colonies—members of the Commonwealth of Nations—is 25 per cent., while outside countries enjoy the full 75 per cent. The Argentine enjoys practically the full 75 per cent. of meat exports. Denmark enjoys a very big percentage of bacon, butter and other exports. One would imagine that the trade between Denmark and Great Britain would increase but that does not seem to be the case. Denmark is rapidly pushing into Germany as her markets decrease in England and she is, no doubt, receiving money of less value. That indicates quite clearly that, if Deputy Brennan and his Party had their way and if the people were foolish enough to agree with them, they would find, after they had come to an agreement with Great Britain—possibly, on the terms Britain would want to exact—that the whole thing would turn out to be a complete deception and that the hill that appeared green would, when they got there, be barren. It is quite obvious that if the price of frozen meat has gone up to that extent and the price of chilled meat has gone down, what is wanted in Great Britain is cheap 4½d. or 5½d. meat. It is quite obvious that there is not a demand, to any extent, for any other class of meat. It is also quite obvious that England has no great hopes to hold out for the meat products of Canada, Australia or any of these other countries known as Commonwealth countries because, if she had, their combined trade at this period could, certainly, be more than 25 per cent. I know that Deputy Brennan and the members of his Party are hard pushed to get out of the difficulties they got into and, not alone on the agricultural side but on other sides, they have had to take our policy.

Our policy was not decided upon because we were antagonistic to Great Britain. Our policy was decided upon because of necessity, coupled with the situation that arose through the Great War. The best authorities hold that the production of cereals for the future is going to be much more profitable than the production of live stock or live-stock products. We have at the present time an increase in the price of live stock. There seems to be a demand for live stock at the moment. That demand is encouraged by the fact that home feeders require stock, as well as feeders in Great Britain. That, however, is simply seasonal. One can throw one's mind back to periods during the past year when stock were yielding very little profit. It is quite obvious to anybody who looks over these figures that, if there is increased consumption of frozen meat in Great Britain, neither the farmer here who is producing live stock nor the farmer in Great Britain who is doing so can entertain any great hopes of an increased price. Therefore, the Government, when they decided to try to produce their own wheat and to make their own flour, did a very wise thing, because there is not any indication that the prices of wheat are going to go down. Wheat may, of course, occasionally go down a little but the price will come back again. Of course, the obvious reason for that is that the wheat-growing areas up to 1930 had gone through a very depressed time and had produced a surplus of wheat. It was the same with the cattle position, a surplus was being produced.

Up to 1925 or 1926 there was still a reasonable demand for live stock, and farmers all over the world produced stock in excess of their requirements. The result to-day is that we are faced with a considerable surplus of live stock. At the same time Irish farmers are faced with a very cheap meat production, not inferior in any way, reasonably good and healthy to eat, and nothing wrong at all with it except that it is frozen instead of being chilled. The problem of live-stock production has become acute in many markets. Accordingly the cattle production in foreign countries, with the exception of Canada and Australia, has now been brought down to a science. The cattle have been graded and standardised to such an extent that they can be marketed at the minimum of cost. I do not myself see any great hope for any future in live-stock production either in Great Britain or in this country.

If the present price of wheat continues it is certainly obvious that Great Britain will be forced to produce more wheat than she has been producing, and it is also obvious that we in this country will have to do the same. At the same time I must say that from the point of view of this country it would be a great calamity if we went out of live stock, because it is part and parcel of our whole system, and in an especial way it is part and parcel of our tillage. The acreage we till is naturally controlled by the quantity of manure we have. Then, again, the amount of manure we have is controlled by the number of live stock we feed. If there is one thing that is going to help in this matter it is the paying of a good deal more attention to the breeding of live stock than has been given to it up to the present. If we produced less live stock and better live stock I am satisfied we would be better off. One of our great drawbacks here was that our live stock, notwithstanding the Live Stock Breeding Act, was not up to a high standard. Anyone who knows anything about the live stock in Great Britain would be satisfied that the standard there is not the standard required to-day. Our standard is higher than the standard of Great Britain, but my candid opinion is that still it is not high enough. Everything that is produced on the farm to-day, including meat, of course, if it is to compete with the product of other countries, is dominated by a standard. There are standard gas cookers and standard electric cookers, and the joints have to be produced of a standard size to fit these. The methods of the world are being completely changed. We were being gradually ousted out of the world's markets, and that would be the case even if there had been no economic dispute with England.

Mr. Dillon:

Utter nonsense.

Mr. M. O'Reilly:

If criticism from the other side of the House was along those lines I have indicated it would do some good to the country. Deputy Dillon tried to make a strong point out of the fact that when he wanted bran the miller asked him to buy flour. In other words, the miller refused to sell a wagon load of bran if Deputy Dillon did not buy from him a commensurate quantity of flour. I do not wonder at the miller having to do that. The miller's position is that he would get only 30 units of bran while he would be turning out 70 units of flour. That is the ratio according to Deputy Dillon's figures, and I presume these are correct. If you take the average small farmer with a family of four or five, he will want only four or five sacks of flour each year. He may want a great deal more than four or five sacks of bran. But he gets his bran here at a reasonable figure. Supposing he had to purchase his bran abroad, what would he have to pay for it in comparison to what he is at present paying for it? Personally I have not very much to do with these things, but I am aware that Deputy Dillon is constantly purchasing feeding stuffs and he can tell us all about that. It is my impression that there is a vast difference between the price of bran produced here and the price of imported bran.

I want to refer now to another point which is of much importance. That is the question of horse breeding. Coming from a county like Meath, one would imagine that I would be glad of the effort made in the matter of the production of thoroughbred horses. So I am. Still counties change as times go on. Farmers want to produce what they can easily sell. We have heard a great deal about the Irish draft horse. Most of the type of Irish draft horses that I have seen knocking about resemble very much the French horse, the Percheron. I do not know how that type of horse got here. But he is here, and I do not see the old type of draft horse at all now, the type of draft horses that I knew long ago. I do not know a horse of that type now. I want to say that there is a very considerable demand in my county for the Clydesdale type of horse. There is about that horse a handiness and a utility and a quietness which has to be taken into consideration. The old Irish draft horse was a rather light type of horse somewhat hot in the temper. It was necessary that he be always kept at work. The farmer who worked such a horse during the week would use him for driving to Mass on Sunday and for going to market and other places during the week. To-day, because of the slippery condition of the roads, he cannot be used so much as he was. Bicycles and motors are replacing the draft horse. The result is that the old Irish draft horse is not suitable now. The people find that the Clydesdale is a much more peaceable and a quieter animal than the Irish draft horse. That may be one of the reasons why there is such a very strong demand in Meath for the Clydesdale horse. It may seem strange that that is the case, but it is, and I hope the Minister will give that demand strong and favourable consideration.

As far as the agricultural position generally is concerned, I may say this much, that I see nothing seriously amiss with it, only that there is quite a number of the larger type of farmer who are suffering from the results of 1921 and the years after that date. That is not the fault of the present Government or of any Government. It is owing to the huge gamble in land that went on during the war period. As a result of what happened in those years quite a number of substantial farmers, industrious men, are now left high and dry. Many of them are shouting from the housetops and others of them are suffering in silence. All their work and energy finds its way into an endeavour to fill up a bag that might be said to be bottomless. With the exception of those farmers who unfortunately contracted heavy debts in the war days, all other classes of farmers are reasonably well off, taking into consideration world conditions and world costs.

Mr. Dillon:

This is really good.

Mr. O'Reilly:

There is only one thing more that might be spoken about and that is a thing that we are unable to bring about—a change in the weather. I hope that Deputy Dillon and a few more of the Opposition with the energy to knock us out will not be too inclined to over-emphasise that point—that if they come to an agreement with Great Britain a change in the weather will immediately follow.

Mr. Fagan:

I listened with interest to Deputy O'Reilly. Indeed, I hope that the Deputy will next week publish his speech in his constituency in Meath and that the Meath farmers will realise that his advice to them is not to go into the cattle business. It was interesting to hear him say that no farmers in Meath are badly off except a few who contracted debts in the war period. I maintain that nearly all the farmers are badly off, from the small farmer to the big farmer. I suggest they are badly off because of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government.

It was the year 1934 that broke the farmers of this country. Our Government were not minding their business then, and it was largely because of the policy they adopted that the farming industry in 1934 was left in such a bad condition. When Ministers were in Ottawa they should have seen to it that we would get a good quota in 1934. Other countries in the Commonwealth, and indeed countries outside it, were permitted to send in large quantities of live stock and other agricultural produce into England, and if our Government were alive to the interests of the people here, we would have been permitted to send increased quantities of agricultural produce and increased numbers of live stock to the British market. Other members of the Commonwealth were allowed to increase their cattle exports to England by as many as 50,000 and 100,000 animals. That had its reactions on us in 1934.

The Minister admitted to-day that our farmers are badly off. I am glad to hear him making that admission at last.

Dr. Ryan:

I am admitting it all my life.

Mr. Fagan:

I did not hear the Minister making that admission before. I did hear him stating that the farmers were doing well under the Fianna Fáil policy. I suggest that this Government are not looking after the interests of Free State farmers. If you go to a fair, where possibly there are good cattle offered for sale, certain men may each buy as many as 100 to 150, but the prices bear no comparison with what we were accustomed to get. Imagine the position of a poor countryman who has to meet a debt in a local shop of £30 or £40. In other years he had the sure knowledge that three or four of his cattle would pay off that debt. But he cannot get any such prices now. He is lucky if he gets £5 or £6 for each beast. The result is that he is not in a position to pay his shop debts and indeed he has very little, if any, ready money. What applies to the small man applies equally to the big man. The big farmers may have debts running up to £700 or £800, while the small man has his debt of £40 or £50 with the local shopkeeper. They cannot pay anything, and it is all due to the foolish policy that the Government have adopted.

There is no doubt that the price of cattle is improving, but it is through no effort on the part of our Government. It is all because there is a good market in Great Britain.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy blamed us when the price of cattle went down. Why not give us credit if the price is going up now?

Mr. Fagan:

I blamed you for not getting us a proper quota in 1934.

Dr. Ryan:

The Deputy will not give us any credit when cattle prices go up.

Mr. Fagan:

I am blaming you for not getting us a proper cattle quota. Deputy O'Reilly told us that the people in England wanted nothing but frozen beef. He finished up his speech by saying that what the English people required was a standard beast. First of all, England wanted nothing but rough cattle, and then the Deputy told us she wanted only standard cattle. He appeared to mix up things considerably. One thing I should like to emphasise is that our breeds of cattle are not improving. That is my own experience. What the cause of it is I do not know, but I am aware, going through the fairs, that we have not as good cattle as we had some years ago. Whoever is at fault I am not going to say; I am not blaming anyone now.

In regard to horse breeding, I am glad that the Minister is interesting himself in this matter. I suggest that his Department might consider advancing a certain amount of money towards the purchase of good sires. At present all over the world other countries are buying good sires. If we want to get a sound breed of horses in this country we should not allow money to stop us from purchasing really good sires. I hope the Department will take up that matter seriously. I am prepared to back Deputy O'Reilly's suggestion in regard to the need of some shire horses. Horses of that type are badly required in many areas.

There is another matter to which I would like to draw attention, and that is the way the licences for cattle are being given out. At present in County Westmeath there is a notice issued to the farmers to the effect that if they want licences for June and July they must apply before 1st June. How could I indicate on the 1st June the number of cattle I will have fit at the end of June and July? If I put in a wrong number, then the Department's inspector will query the matter. If I have not the specified number of cattle fit, he will tell me that I am looking for more licences than I really want, with the result that I am blacklisted and possibly I get no licence at all. The system should be such that, say, in April I apply for my licences for cattle that will be ready in May. In that way a farmer would have a better chance of knowing what cattle he will have ready for market. If the Department would devise some other scheme for giving out licences, breeders of cattle would be more satisfied.

Last year we had not enough cattle to fill the quota. There is a great difficulty in the matter of giving out licences. I suggested before that they should be given at the ports. The present method is not too suitable and I think it might be easier if the whole transaction was carried out at the ports. It would save a lot of bother to those who have to apply for licences and it might put an end to the cornering in licences that exists at the present time. The Department should consider giving the licences at the ports. I think it would be much better than to have their officials going around the country. I will conclude by saying that I was very glad to hear the Minister at last admitting that the farmers are in a bad position.

Mr. Brodrick:

The Minister has told us that agriculture is in a bad way. He said the live-stock trade is in a bad way, but it could be worse. He also told us that if Fine Gael got into power, the conditions would be much more unsatisfactory. I happen to have a copy of a local paper, the Connaught Sentinel, a recent publication, which contains the following headings:—“Poverty in Aran”; “Priest's Fears for the Poor”; “Families Living on Potatoes.” Under those headings the following is printed:—

"‘If things continue as at present, I fear for the poor people of this island,' wrote Very Rev. T. Killeen, P.P., Aran, in a letter to the Irish Save the Children Fund. The letter was read at the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, last week, at a meeting in aid of the fund. Father Killeen said that several families on the island were living on potatoes. He appealed to the society to come to the aid of the children of the West, particularly of Aran, by providing them with clothing and food. He said the children got their school meal, which was really very good, but, unfortunately, for the most of them it was the only meal they got in the day. Families with as many as six and seven children were living on potatoes and were in pressing need."

The Minister tells us that the people of this country could be much worse. Could they be very much worse than as described by the parish priest of the Aran Islands? I think the Government should be ashamed of themselves. They have every reason to be ashamed for allowing such conditions to exist. The cause of all the distress in this country is the policy pursued by the Minister for Agriculture during the last four years.

We are supposed to have increased tillage, but if you look at the West of Ireland and take my own county for an example, where we have 14,000 acres under beet at the present time and where we are also growing wheat, what is the position in regard to tillage? In County Galway, the number of horses in tillage is smaller by hundreds than in previous years. What is the cause of it? The cause of it is that the policy of the Government has dislocated or, as one might say, completely turned upside down, the mixed farming that had gone on there for years past. Down there in County Galway you have the farmers losing, on their sheep production alone, at least £50,000 per annum since Fianna Fáil came into office—£50,000 lost on sheep production alone. The Minister for Agriculture will tell us that there is stock in the country. If there is stock in the country, how is it that in every fair in the country—in every spring fair this year—you can see nothing but young stock that would not be fit for sale for months to come, or probably for another year? I believe that in a very short time there will be very little cattle or sheep in this country at the rate agriculture is going at present, for the reason that the people who do dispose of their young stock, even if they are getting a fairly decent price at the present time, will not be able to replace them. I know that the farmers in the West of Ireland are not able to replace them.

If they are not able to replace them, what is going to be the position there? What is going to be the position with regard to tillage? How are the lands to be manured if you have not got the live stock? Can the Minister say that, in the West of Ireland, you can continue, year in and year out, for five or six years, working tillage and growing beet on artificial manure? That has not been the case in County Galway in the past. We were always used to using farmyard manure, and that is not possible now, because you have not got the live stock in the country. We hear a lot of talk about increased tillage, or what is supposed to be increased tillage, because I do not believe there is increased tillage. What is being done is that the growing of beet and wheat is replacing other crops which, certainly, in my mind, were much more profitable to the farmer himself; but I believe that you have not got increased tillage, because if you had increased work on the land, you would certainly have to have increased numbers employed on the land. As far as the West of Ireland is concerned— and I mention Galway particularly on account of the beet factory there—I say that there were never so many men seen leaving that county than have been leaving it during the past year and a half. Is that prosperity? Does that quotation that I have just given indicate prosperity — where children have to depend on one meal a day, and where there are families of six and seven in the Island of Aran living on potatoes, and where they have to beg the society for funds to clothe their children? Does that show prosperity? I ask the Minister for Agriculture is that fair? Is it justice, or is it right that the people in the country should be deprived of their livelihood in the manner in which they have been deprived by the present Government? The present Government certainly has done that, because they have taken away from these people the livelihood they had.

There is another matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister for Agriculture. Some four years ago a little industry was started in County Galway. It was an industry for the export of seed potatoes to foreign countries. It was started by a small number of farmers and exporters, and they got very little help. In the first year they exported 136 tons of seed potatoes, and that increased up to the present day until, in 1936, they exported 4,690 tons. This is a business in which, before the seed is put into the ground, a contract has to be got from the exporters. Up to this year, a bounty of £1 was given by the Government. The contracts were signed this year on the supposition that that bounty was to be given again. The growers believed, evidently from some intimation that they got, that it would be paid. The position to-day is that, after the contracts being signed by 350 growers, the Minister comes along and says that he can no longer give a bounty of £1 and that he has got to reduce it to 15/-. The Minister may say that they got a good price last year, but no matter what price they got, the seed potatoes were contracted for at £3 5s. per ton. In some cases they may have got a better price, but those who contracted before the seed went down had to put up with that. Now, instead of the bounty they have been expecting, it is to be reduced to 15/-. The Minister will probably say that at £3 5s. they could make money, and he probably also will mention the alcohol factories for which they want potatoes—the alcohol factories in Mayo, where some of the surplus potatoes of Galway have to be sent in order to keep the population going there—but the Minister should also consider how the price of manures has gone up. He should consider how the price of machinery has gone up, and how the price of everything that is used on the land has gone up. Even the copper sulphate which is used for spraying has gone up by more than double this year.

I think it is a terrible injustice that these 350 growers, who grow up to 638 acres of those potatoes, should be treated in that manner, and I ask the Minister to reconsider this case. The Minister may answer me by saying that it may affect the growing of beet, but I do not think it has affected the growing of beet in Galway one iota in the last two or three years. Certainly, however, if he continues going on in the way he is going on now, by reducing that bounty year after year, he will put land out of tillage altogether in the West of Ireland, because this crop, to which I have referred, is something out of which a little may be got by the farmers. As I said, they started this bit of an organisation and it now includes 350 growers. They started by exporting 136 tons in 1931, and they exported 4,690 tons in 1936. The great trouble with those potatoes is that they have to be packed, weighed and sealed and many foreign countries take them. They are taken from us by the Argentine, Venezuela, the Barbadoes, Jamaica, Newfoundland, Nigeria, French and Spanish Morocco, Palestine, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Portugal and other countries. All those countries take them, and I think it is a great injustice to the farmers in the West of Ireland to be treated in such a manner, seeing that for the past two or three years the prices of machinery, of manures and of sulphate of copper now, which they use for spraying, have gone up. If the Minister does continue to reduce the bounty, well, all I can say is that, although he has done bad enough work for the past few years, he will be crowning it if he starts dealing with the potato industry in that way.

Mr. Holohan:

In reference to this Vote before the House, Sir, I was listening to Deputy O'Reilly, who was speaking when I came into the House, when he referred to the standard of cattle in this country. I know that the standard of cattle we have in this country is as high a standard as there is in any other country. Deputy O'Reilly also suggested that something could be done to improve that standard. I should like to know what does he think he or the Minister for Agriculture, or their Party, have done to improve the standard of cattle in this country? They have done nothing whatever, and I say that the good standard of cattle you have here in this country can be attributed mostly to our late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan, and to the Acts that he had passed through this House. He made every effort to improve the standard of cattle in this country and, little did he think, when he was putting those Acts through the House here, that the time would come when an Act would be passed through this House to have some of these cattle slaughtered when they were calved and a bounty of 10/- paid for their skins.

The standard of our cattle can be compared to the standard of cattle in any other country. Our cattle can be shipped to the British market, and they can stand there against any cattle bred in England or elsewhere, and as good a price can be obtained for them. The drawback lies in the fact that the cattle which we have to send to England are taxed to the extent of £4 5s. per head by the British Government. That has a serious effect on the cattle trade in this country. But £4 5s. per head means a good deal to Irish farmers. For the last five years, since this Government came into office, we have been selling our cattle on the British market at a price much less than the cost of production. If the Government is going to continue that policy, it is going to ruin the cattle breeding industry of this country. At the moment, as has been stated, there is a great demand in the English market for our young cattle, and even though we are receiving £4 5s. per head less than we should receive, the price represents a big improvement on that which we have received for the last four or five years. The price we get on the British market will always rule the price in the home market. If any improvement can be brought about in the cattle producing industry, I should be glad to see that improvement. The one improvement that can be effected lies in the hands of the Government, and that is to secure for us the £4 5s. per head that we have at present to pay on cattle going to England. It is true that there is a scarcity of heifers here, young heifers that are required as dairy cows. Bad as it is to have that scarcity, even the farmers who have them cannot afford to keep them, as they have to try to get a few pounds to meet their debts.

Another matter on which I should like to say a few words has reference to the Irish draft or shire horse for working purposes. The Irish draft horse that we have been breeding for some years past is quite a useful animal, but at times we require a horse of a heavier type. I would suggest to the Minister that it would be useful, and indeed I think it is necessary, that horses of a heavier type should be allowed to be registered here and that he should give a little more attention to the heavier type of horse for a few years to come. Most of the horses bred in recent years are a little bit too light for heavy farm work. We should like horses of a heavier type for certain farm work. It is very hard to beat the Irish draft horse for general farm work or even for breeding purposes, but, as I say, for certain work we want horses of the heavier type.

Another item to which I should like to refer deals with the killing of calves. The Minister has included in this Estimate a certain sum as a bounty on calf-skins. I looked upon the killing of calves from the beginning as a shame and a disgrace. It is a scheme that has done much harm to this country. The fact that from year to year we have to provide money for the slaughter of calves is something that will not commend itself to anyone who has any experience of farming conditions. It is a thing that should not happen. We have a market at the moment for twice the number of cattle that we are able to produce, and this scheme of killing calves is doing much damage.

As far as wheat and beet are concerned, I grow a certain amount of wheat every year and a good deal of barley and oats as well, but anyone who had not the good fortune to get down some winter wheat this year will find it very difficult to get down spring wheat. I do not know whether the weather in other counties was like that which we had in Kilkenny, but we certainly could not get down wheat or barley this year. If this country had to depend on the wheat policy of the Government, the farmers would certainly have a very poor prospect for this year at any rate. However, we only have to hope for the best. There may be a chance of getting down a few acres of corn later on, and I hope there will. If this Government had anything to do with the weather, in so far as agriculture is concerned, bad and all as the Government is, I do not believe that the weather could be much worse.

Mr. Bennett:

I am rather sorry that the Minister for Agriculture is not here. I was hoping to pursue with him that somewhat elusive agricultural prosperity which he assures us exists. One wonders where it is hidden. In my opinion it is one of the Government Party's will-o'-the-wisps. The Minister, when he was speaking an hour or so ago, said that there was some £3,000,000 given to the farmers over and above what would be given to them if Fine Gael were handling matters. I shall leave that £3,000,000 or so for the moment whilst I say that, even if it were a fact that £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 was put into the farmers' pockets by this Government, which nobody else could possibly put into them, it would be poor compensation to the farmers for the difficulty in which they have been placed owing to a certain dispute which has resulted in their paying directly out of their produce £33,000,000 where they should have paid only £12,000,000. That difference of £21,000,000 will take a lot of getting over by the Minister for Agriculture or any other member of the Government Party. The Minister quoted a lot of statistics when he was speaking. You cannot beat statistics sometimes. We have it beyond yea or nay that the British collected £22,000,000 within the last four or five years, and at the same time the Government here collected £11,000,000 from the farmers, whilst they only paid them back something less than £3,000,000 annually. We have, as I stated, the farmers paying £33,000,000 where they should have paid only £12,000,000. And that is called prosperity by the Minister!

I shall go back to the £3,500,000 which he actually specified as being given to the farmers over and above what could possibly come to them under a Fine Gael Government, and I shall take just one item he mentioned, namely, wheat. Wheat would be responsible for £2,000,000 of the gross sum of £3,500,000. He told us that it was responsible, as a matter of fact, for £2,300,000, but he was liberal enough to allow £300,000 for seed, so that he was only claiming a net sum of £2,000,000 for wheat. The Minister makes a different speech on nearly every occasion on which he gets up. I remember that the Minister addressed a gathering recently in Dublin, and he assured the people to whom he was speaking that wheat in the way of usefulness to the farmer and the worker generally was more valuable than any industry the Minister for Industry and Commerce could set up.

In fact he could not conceive any industry that was so valuable as wheat-growing in regard to employment. Now we are going to see where this £2,000,000 comes from. There were 200,000 acres of wheat last year, the Minister tells us, and there was a clear £2,000,000 to the farmers out of that wheat. If I calculate it correctly, I think £2,000,000 is the sale price of the wheat which they produced. This most valuable industry which the Minister pointed out to us was, according to himself, going to employ 60,000 permanent workers when the full amount of wheat was being grown in this country—600,000 acres. But we had 200,000 acres of wheat; I would say that a little more than one-third of the full lot has been grown already, so we must have about 20,000 people permanently employed on it. I will come back to that later.

Somewhere about £10 an acre, on a rough calculation, was got from wheat last year—£2,000,000. Every ten acres gave us £100. According to the Minister, this was the most valuable form of industry for this country, and was going to employ more than any industry that could be conceived. I am not quite sure whether those were the Minister's actual words, but that was the suggestion. Let us take one permanent man to every ten acres of wheat. We have it that there was £100 from every ten acres of wheat, and there was one man employed. I do not know what wage the Minister wanted to give the one man. Let us suppose it was 30/- a week or £78 a year, or let us say £1 a week or £52 a year, or split the difference and make it £65 a year. If the man is to get 25/- a week or £65 a year, there is £35 left out of the £100 from the ten acres, to buy seed, manures and provide the necessary equipment. I assume the Minister did not intend the man to dig the ground, so there would have to be horses and ploughs. The horses have to be fed. The ten acres would not feed them if it was growing wheat: they would have to be fed on some other bit of land. There would then be the cost of equipment and horses, seeds, manures, rent, rates and taxes to be met out of the remaining £35. When all that is paid I will make the Minister a present of the profit.

A Deputy:

What is the loss?

Mr. Bennett:

I am not mentioning loss. The Minister has been talking about the profit. I am taking the Minister's own figure of £100 receipts from ten acres, and £65 for wages, on my own calculation of 25/- per week. I am not calculating what the Minister would suggest would be a good wage, or what will eventually be decided to be a good wage, but I am taking the illiberal wage of 25/- per week. I have enumerated the expenses which have to be met out of the balance— £35. It cannot be done. The Minister's £2,000,000 clear profit to the farmers last year disappears like all the other elusive profits, in the existence of which intelligent people are expected to believe. Bang goes the biggest part of this £3,500,000; bang goes £2,000,000 in one sum. While we are on the subject of wheat, the Minister is continually telling us that if we came in we would continue the wheat policy. We are going to continue the wheat policy; we never discontinued it. We never told the people, when we were the Government, that they should not grow wheat. We always believed that the best agricultural policy was to allow the farmer to grow what he wished in his own way, and go in for his own measure of agriculture—mixed farming. We never asked him not to grow wheat. But the one solid fact remains—he did not grow it, although at one time the price was 30/- a barrel, which is more than the Minister is guaranteeing him. The Minister comes in with a subsidy to persuade the people to grow wheat They were easily persuaded because every other conceivable avenue that they could pursue meant a loss. They were grasping for anything that would produce money out of the taxpayers' pocket, out of the consumers' pocket, out of anybody's pocket.

As Deputy Dillon has said, we do not believe in revolutionary changes in policy. One can see the havoc which Fianna Fáil created by a sudden revolution in the ordinary economy of agriculture. We do not want to see the same thing occur again through any sudden and revolutionary changes either in industry or in agriculture. The things that one Government does in the way of drastic changes must be continued by the next Government if it is a sane Government, and if chaos is to be avoided. If any farmer likes to grow wheat, we believe that he is entitled to grow it and that he is entitled to the benefits of the persuasions which the present Government offer him until something else turns up which is more attractive. I believe that if Fine Gael replaces the present Ministry the attractions of other items of agriculture will be so great that the incentive to grow wheat will be yearly less and less, and that we will rapidly get back somewhat to the position we were in ten years ago.

There is one other matter to which I should like to refer; it probably comes in best when talking about wheat. One of the things that we were really promised, one of the great things that were going to accrue from wheat growing, and the milling of our own wheat, was that we were going to have a plentiful and cheap supply of offals. I remember that we were promised here in the House by the Minister for Agriculture and other Ministers that the farmer was going to have a plentiful and cheap supply of offals. In the county which I come from—Deputy Dillon says that the position is the same in his county and every other county—which is a dairying county, bran is an absolute necescity at this season of the year to farmers with freshly calved cows. I have here three or four resolutions from big agricultural societies, calling attention to the fact that they cannot get bran at any price. The Minister denied that. I have here one resolution from a society in Mitchelstown, County Cork, which has 1,635 members. They wish to direct the attention of the Government to the impossibility of obtaining bran in the Free State, and they respectfully suggest that a sufficient quantity be imported, particularly for the purpose of feeding freshly calved cows at this season of the year. I have here two or three similar resolutions. But I do not need resolutions; I have my own experience as a dairy farmer, and as one engaged in other forms of agriculture. Bran is a necessity to the farmers. It is also a necessity to horse breeders. I know one stud farm that used to order bran in five ton lots. Last week they were told that they were lucky to get a cwt. Another manager of one of the biggest studs in the south, who was listening to this man telling his story, said: "You are lucky to get a cwt. I had to borrow a stone of bran from a farmer for a foaling mare." Where is the plentiful supply of offals which we were assured we were going to get? A sufficient supply of bran cannot be got, and as regards price it has gone up 55 or 60 per cent. since last year. A year ago bran and pollard could be bought at from £6 to £6 10s. a ton. The price to-day is £9 10s. a ton, and within the last week I myself paid 10/- per cwt. for bran, and was lucky to get it at that price. The position, therefore, is that the price of bran and pollard has gone up by 55 per cent. in one year.

Having said so much about wheat, I think I can now get away from it. I am sure that I have spoken at least 100 times on wheat growing in this House. If, at the general election, we replace the Government, as perhaps we will, then those who want to grow wheat can rest assured that we will continue to pay them the subsidy. We are not going to make revolutionary changes, or leave people under the impression that at every change of Government in the country things are to be turned upside down. We want to make it quite clear that if we are returned as the Government we will pay the piper, and will not ask the consumer to pay.

Coming to pigs and bacon, the Minister assured us that the production of pigs was one of the activities which put some of this £3,500,000 into the farmer's pocket. When the Pigs and Bacon Marketing Act was going through the Dáil, although I voted for it I never had any great opinion of it. I voted for it because I did not wish to hamper the Minister in his attempt to benefit the farmers. I believe his intention was to benefit the farmers by that particular measure, but, at the same time, I never had any faith in it. I think it was on the Second Reading of the measure that I described it as "a bacon curer's measure," and so it has turned out to be. Any advantages that have accrued under it have accrued to the bacon curers. I have not seen any benefit accruing from it to the pig producers. It is hard to get accurate information about bacon prices, but there is no doubt that they have advanced considerably within the past 12 months. I have before me an invoice which shows that on the 18th of April of last year, long clear sides were quoted at 80/-; the quotation for them to-day is 113/-, an increase of 33/- per cwt. In the same period the farmer has only got an increase of 5/- per cwt. in the pig that he had to sell. There is the contrast: an increase of 5/- per cwt. for the farmer, the pig producer, and 33/- per cwt. of an increase for the bacon curers. I think the public will demand an explanation with regard to these figures.

Some extraordinary things appear in this wholesale list that I have before me. I see that some parts of the bacon offered by curers are selling at under 60/-. No part, however, has been sold at under 44/-. That is the price quoted for pigs' heads. The top price quoted for some of the choice parts is 146/- per cwt. I cannot find that any part of the pig is sold for nothing. The lard even is worth 70/- per cwt. It is beyond me, I confess, to relate the high price charged by the curers for bacon to the price which the farmer gets for his fat pig, or to the price which, eventually, the unfortunate consumer in Dublin and elsewhere has to pay for bacon. I think it is absolutely necessary that an inquiry should be held into that matter.

With regard to dairying I am willing to admit, and always have admitted, that the present Minister for Agriculture has done as much as could conceivably be expected from any Minister in his position for the dairying industry.

Mr. Curran:

I do not agree with that.

Mr. Bennett:

The Deputy and myself may disagree on that, but that is what I believe, and I desire to pay that tribute to the Minister. I think that he has done as much as could conceivably be expected from him, remembering all the time that he is Minister for Agriculture administering the policy of a Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Curran:

And who is responsible for the creation of that?

Mr. Bennett:

I am now speaking of the Minister for Agriculture in his personal capacity, handicapped as he is with all the hindrances that unfortunately the Executive Council, by their general policy, have put on him as a Minister for Agriculture. I think that he has discharged his duties with a will to do good to the farmer.

Mr. Curran:

Is not that good Minister?

Mr. Bennett:

At the same time I have always said here that it would be impossible for any man in the position of the present Minister for Agriculture, administering the policy of the present Government, to so arrange matters that profit would result to farmers in any branch of their business. That applies to dairying, but at the same time I must say the Minister for Agriculture has succeeded in keeping up the price of butter to a reasonable figure. I give him credit for that. The price of 4.6d. per gallon for milk, which the farmer is receiving, is a fairly reasonable figure, but there the apparent prosperity of the dairy farmer begins and ends. Deputy Holohan, a short time ago, referred to our breed of cattle. What has happened there is that the best heifers have gone out of the country. The result of that is that we are left with inferior dairy cows. People had to sell their best heifers for the simple reason that they could not sell the bad ones. Dairy farmers have sustained their biggest losses in the live stock end.

I have always stated that it is putting a wrong construction on the dairying industry to talk of butter alone. One cannot break up the dairying industry into different parts, select one of them and say, because that is fairly well off, that the whole industry is fairly well off. The butter end of the industry is only one end, and to many people not the most important end. To many people the live-stock end of it is the most important—to myself for one. Up to four or five years ago what I got out of my cattle, after breeding and feeding them, was more important than what I got from the milk. What I got from the milk was useful. It about paid my overhead expenses. The milk just about paid for the labour. Then you looked to something else to get a profit and you got that out of the calves. If you managed them well, you got a certain income from the dairying industry. But that was destroyed. It is beginning to revive now. That is not due to any efforts of the Government, but because world prices have gone up. The Minister said that the world was down on us a short time ago. Perhaps the world has taken compassion on us and is now helping the lame dog over the stile a little bit.

One of the greatest losses to the dairy farmer, no matter what the price of milk may be, is in the replacement of his stock. For some years it has been a most expensive thing to keep a dairy going. A dairy farmer would be tremendously lucky if he did not lose one or two cows out of five or six every year through one cause or another—one from abortion, perhaps, and one from old age. The average might not be as much as two in six, but it would certainly be two in seven or eight, and these would have to be replaced. At one time the replacement cost little or nothing. We were able to fatten a cow and sell it and buy a heifer at a reasonable price. The replacement of dairy stock has become one of the heaviest items to the farmer —it is practically the heaviest item he has. If something happens to a first-year cow the loss is big enough; but if it is an older cow it is bigger still. The loss on replacement is enormous, perhaps so big that it counteracts any benefit we get from the price of milk, which I admit the Minister has maintained to the best of his ability. There is certainly no great profit in dairying. If there is, those of us who carry on dairying must be mismanaging our business or neglecting it. As one dairy farmer, I fail to see any profit in it. I can produce my accounts for some years. In most years there was a loss. This year I think I will about toe the line. I cannot see any profit accruing to myself out of the dairying business. Unless they were fairly lucky, and I was fairly lucky this year, a great number of people must have suffered a loss on it.

With regard to cattle in general, there is no need for me to say anything. The Minister has admitted that between cattle and sheep we lost £3,000,000 during the year. Whether that figure is right or wrong, does not matter. It has been admitted that in one year there has been a loss of £3,000,000 on our live stock. I believe that the loss is much more, but the admission that there has been any loss is something. I am glad that the Minister is accepting some of the findings of the Horse Breeding Commission, and that at an early date he is going to put into operation some of the recommendations, notably, the provision of a certain number of high-grade stallions and, more important still, that he is going to give help, which is needed, to other branches of the industry besides the thoroughbred end of it. The Minister is to be congratulated on taking up that matter.

On the question of beet, Deputy Dillon and others, who are better able to speak on that matter, have already dealt with it. There is not a great lot of beet grown in my county. Whether it is that we are not near enough to a market, or that the farmers do not find it a sufficiently attractive proposition, I do not know, but there is very little grown there. Some farmers who did grow beet are not at all pleased with the return. I expect the marketing of it is too expensive. Certain farmers, possibly, have got as much return out of beet in the last few years as out of anything else, as the question of cash payment arises. Possibly farmers were induced to grow beet when the ordinary items of agriculture broke down.

There has been an increase even in dairying, as the Minister stated, and dairying is not as profitable as some people seem to think. There are more dairy cows than there were. That is due to the same inducement which made the people go in for the growing of beet and wheat. There was a certain cash return from a dairy cow. You got your cheque once a month and you had something to spend. Even if you had to let it go as soon as you got it, you had the satisfaction of getting hold of something. That was an inducement in bad times and people put in an extra cow. They did that for the same reason as they went in for wheat. It was one of the subsidised industries. There was possibly more reason for subsidising the dairy industry than any other branch of agriculture, because the Minister realised, as every Deputy realised, that it could not be allowed to break down. The Government or any other Party could not allow that to happen, because they all know that if they let the dairying industry break down the whole fabric of agriculture would go with it. For that reason this Government or any Government which may follow it cannot afford to let the dairying industry decline.

In conclusion, I should like to say that I have tried to discover the whereabouts of the prosperity to which the Minister alluded. The Minister was good enough to say that he did not believe the farmers were wealthy or very well off. I agree with the Minister there. I never said that they were. I am coming to the happy state lately, I suppose in my serene old age I am getting more genial, that I am able to agree with many Ministers. The Minister for Finance and myself had an agreeable interlude the other day— we did not lose our tempers. I agreed with him in many things. I agree with the Minister for Agriculture, as he never stated that there was great prosperity in farming in this country. I never said there was either. I believe the farmers never got a fair crack of the whip from this or any other Government; but that they got the whip in a more painful way from this Government than from any other Government, and that their position has been worse under this Government than it has been within living memory. I do not think anything could be proved to the contrary. Certainly the Minister did not convince me of the existence of that prosperity which he would make us believe was there. I attempted to prove that the £3,000,000 or £3,500,000 that he said came into our pockets last year did not get there. I believe that it was proved to the satisfaction of the House that these millions did not reach the farmers' pockets.

I do not believe that the farmers' conditions have been in any way improved. I do not think any Deputy seriously believes that there has been any improvement whatever under the Fianna Fáil régime. The statistics prove that there was little change. Deputy Dillon read out statistics showing that there was a little difference in the numbers of those employed. I do not believe very much in statistics. I have a horrid suspicion of statistics. I believe you can prove anything by statistics, and that you could even balance the Budget by a little manoeuvring of statistics. The Minister could prove a profit or a loss by statistics. We could pursue the same argument in relation to the farmers' prosperity. They are either prosperous or they are not prosperous. The Minister says they are prosperous, while we say they are not. The number of workers in the agricultural world has not increased, and conditions, I am sorry to say, have not improved. I am ready to admit that the condition of agricultural workers has not been a happy one for the last five or six years. Farmers are not able to employ them or to pay the wages they would like to give them. The workers got all the wages that the farmers could afford to give. Many farmers tried to keep men when it was difficult to pay them.

If there is any answer to the Minister's contention, that wheat is one of the crops that gives the greatest amount of employment, it is to be found in the number of workers engaged on the land. We know that numbers of them are fleeing from this country. If wheat was going to do what it is supposed to do, there must have been put into permanent employment last year about 20,000 workers. In the name of goodness where are they? If that was so, it must be reflected in the numbers employed on the land. Every week-end we know that numbers of workers are fleeing to England, to get away from the land and to forget all about it. They are not happy on the land. Conditions on the farm are not sufficiently attractive to keep men there. We have arrived at the paradoxical position that while the numbers at the employment exchanges run into thousands, in many places it is difficult for farmers to get men for farm work, for milking and other occupations. That is the astounding situation, that farmers find great difficulty in getting workers. The reason is that conditions in agriculture are unattractive, and that wages are not as big as they ought to be. Conditions generally on the farms are gloomy, and neither the worker nor the owner is happy. The labourer is fleeing from the land and the farmer will follow. Most of us would follow the labourers somewhere to grasp some happiness if we could. Unfortunately the ordinary farmer is tied here by circumstances. His capital is sunk in the land, and he cannot get out in a minute. Many farmers, if they could get out, would follow the labourers in an attempt to get away from the gloomy prospects that are before them.

Mr. Desmond:

Before the Minister left I heard him asking Deputy Fagan if the Government was responsible for the low prices of cattle three or four years ago, when farmers were getting practically nothing for their stock. I wonder who else is to blame but the Government for the low prices that were being paid for cattle, seeing that £4 or £5 a head had to be paid on stock going to England to meet the tariffs. That was at a time when trade was not good. Since then trade has improved and the tariffs have gone down, so that things have brightened up a good deal. I would like to see the tariffs taken off altogether, because that would mean an improvement of £3, £4 or £5 in the price of every beast exported. Beef and mutton are now very scarce in different parts of the country. Beef has gone to a very high price. At a recent fair I saw cattle sold for 36/- a cwt., while sheep were making 1/2 per lb. on foot. Surely the Minister need not ask the reason why food is dear in the cities and towns. I asked a question in this House a year ago, and I was told that 480,000 calves had been slaughtered. I have not calculated what the loss of these calves meant to the country. I am sure it would run into millions. The farmers were tempted to sell their calves when they got 10/- for each skin. When travelling through the country I saw carcases of calves thrown into by-ways and lanes. I am glad to hear that the Minister is going to send some good sires through the country. I gave evidence about cart horses before the Horse Breeding Commission. Irish draft horses are not suitable for heavy tillage. When they are taken to fairs they are not worth very much. What we call a good cart horse is called a van horse or a shire horse in England, and would sell well. I gave £52 for one at a fair last August. It would be much better for farmers, especially in a tillage country, if they got a chance of bringing in a heavy horse, either a Shire or a Suffolk Punch with some weight, because when mated with our mares they produce good cart horses weighing about 14 cwt. I am pleased to know that the Minister intends to send horses of this type to some districts.

Mr. O'Leary:

My principal reason for standing up is to ask the Minister if he received a communication some time ago from Ballyvourney complaining of the hardship which his admixture policy has imposed on the people there. I understand that he acknowledged the receipt of the correspondence, but, further than that, they have heard nothing so far. The people down there are feeling the results of this policy very much, and I have appealed to the Minister on several occasions to send somebody into the district to make inquiries as to the truth or otherwise of that complaint. I think there is nothing unreasonable about that demand. At present you have inspectors scattering money up and down the country for relief schemes, while you are creating a problem there. I appeal to the Minister to make a statement, when replying, as to his attitude towards this demand by the people of Ballyvourney and, also, I should say, of Ballingeary, which is in the Gaeltacht. It is not a question for laughing for any Deputy. This is a very serious problem. There is nothing to sneer at in it, because I am speaking for people who are the most industrious people in this country. They want no doles, or subsidies, or anything else from the Government, if they are allowed to carry on with the markets they had before this Government came in.

We were told by the Minister to-day that cattle had gone up in price. We admit that cattle have gone up, probably to some extent as a result of the Minister's policy in destroying, as Deputy Dillon said, 480,000 calves in three years. There was a time when two and three years old cattle in West Cork and Kerry were costing 25/- and 30/- apiece, and they have gone up, I admit, but not to the extent to which they should go up. These people are still losing £4 5s. apiece, as Deputy Holohan said a moment ago, and there is no use in the Government trying to cover it, or in Fianna Fáil Deputies smiling at it. It is a fact, and I believe there is no hope for this country until some settlement is made that will give the people back their market and give them some encouragement to work.

At present you have people flying out of this country. The Minister for Agriculture told us last week that the wages of agricultural labourers have gone up and, as Deputy Bennett said, it is very hard to get people to work on the farms at present. No doubt the wages will go up, and if the people continue flying to England at the rate at which they are now going, very soon you will find nobody to work on a farm. What, then, is going to become of the Minister's wheat and beet schemes?

There is an increase in the price of cattle. What brought about that increase? Is it not brought about as a result of the increased demand in that market which we were told "was gone, and gone for ever, thank God"? Now, the Government has to admit that there is no other market in which the people can sell their cattle at a profit but that market. The Minister knows that at present there is not sufficient beef in this country to supply the demand, and this admixture scheme is imposing a hardship on poor people down the country, who are not able to grow wheat, beet, oats or potatoes except on a very small scale. Why cannot he allow the people who produce oats and barley to produce beef and to feed it themselves, to take off their coats and get to work instead of asking others to do the work for them? Deputy Desmond has said that beef is making 36/- a cwt. at present. I ask the Minister to answer this question: Would it not pay the farmer to feed mangolds and turnips, which are not subsidised, to the cattle in order to produce beef at that price, rather than to produce beet at the price at which they are compelled to grow it, and I say compelled to grow it, because they are simply driven into it by the Government's economic policy?

Deputy O'Reilly a while ago told us that he saw, nothing wrong with the position of the country. He comes from County Meath, one of the richest counties in the Free State. To-day I put down a question to the Minister for Lands:

"To ask the Minister for Lands if he will state (1) whether the holdings allotted to Gaeltacht migrants in County Meath are deemed to be economic holdings; (2) what is the average all-in cost of each holding to the Land Commission; (3) what is (a) the average acreage of each holding, (b) the average valuation per acre, and (c) the average annuity per acre."

The reply was:

"The holdings allotted to migrants under the Gaeltacht colony schemes are deemed to be economic. As regards the completed colony No. 1 at Rathcarn, the average all-in cost to the Land Commission of each holding is approximately £1,051, exclusive of the price of the land, £398 per holding, which is being repaid under the provisions of the 1933 Land Act, half by the migrants and half borne by the State.

The average acreage of each holding in colony No. 1 is 21a. 3r. 5p., and the average Poor Law Valuation per acre is £1 2s. 8d. The annuity per acre is 17/4, revised to 8/8 under the provisions of the Land Act, 1933."

I want to point out that, in addition to the sum of £1,051, the State contributes half of the £398, or £199, making a total of £1,250, to create a holding of 21 acres. If, as the Minister said to-day, the holdings are economic, I should like to read for the Minister a statement with regard to the position in County Meath from the Labour News, dated 3rd April, 1937. I am sorry Deputy O'Reilly or Deputy Kelly is not in the House, as they could perhaps enlighten the House on the matter. The article is headed “Half-way House to England. 23 per cent. Leave Rathcarn Gaelic Colony,” and is as follows:—

"Rathcarn, Athboy, Fianna Fáil's colonisation of Connemara folk on the plains of Meath—first laboratory of the Gaelic revival—is in disintegration after two years. Its people are perplexed, unhappy. From end to end of the 27-farm settlement discontent ekes itself out in emigration, in a Back-to-Connemara movement, in meetings of protest. Conditions that agitate the people could not have been foreseen by them; they could have been foreseen and prevented by the Government. So say the Gaels. The local Fianna Fáil Cumann (almost wholly Gaelic) has revolted, resigned en bloc, and appealed to the Labour Party for admission (names of members in next column). Of the 27 families settled there from the West, two families of 31 persons have withdrawn to Connemara (names below)."

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy to-day put a question to the Minister for Lands. The matter he is now reading refers to the Minister for Lands. The Minister for Agriculture has nothing to do with land division of Gaelic colonies in Meath.

Mr. O'Leary:

Am I not justified in showing that there is some reason for those people leaving this colony? Did the Minister for Lands not tell us that those holdings were economic?

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Chair is not under cross-examination. The Deputy put a question to the Minister for Lands and he is now replying to the answer he got. It has nothing to do with the Estimate before the House, but it might possibly be relevant on the Vote for Lands.

Mr. O'Leary:

My point is that when the Minister for Lands states that the holdings are economic, I maintain that the policy of the Government is responsible for putting these people into the position that they are not able to live.

An Ceann Comhairle:

The policy of the Government is not under review. The policy under review is the agricultural policy as shown in the Estimate before the House.

Mr. O'Leary:

That is why I am reading this statement, because these people are flying from the land. The article continues:—

"Of about 290 originally settled in the colony 36 persons under 30 years of age——"

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Chair is not yet satisfied as to the relevancy of that matter and would like the Deputy to show its relevancy.

Mr. O'Leary:

These people have been given economic holdings. Now they are leaving because they cannot live upon them. I maintain that the policy of the Government is responsible for that. I ask a ruling on that question.

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy is in order in that statement, but I cannot see the relevancy of the article he is reading.

Mr. O'Leary:

I want to show that these people are leaving their holdings after an expenditure of £150 in setting them up. There must be some reason for that, and I am trying to show that the policy of the Minister for Agriculture is responsible for it. This article goes on:

"Of about 290 originally settled in the colony, 36 persons under 30 years of age—36 of the flower of manhood and womanhood, or 12 per cent. of the population—since January I have either gone or are now due to go to ‘Perfidious Albion' in search of work. They believe they will do well there. They may be disillusioned, as at Rathcarn, but the distance powerfully enchants them. ‘There's nothing in Rathcarn for them,' said Micheal MacCraith, chairman of the cumann and father of four emigrants, ‘they'll only return if England fails them.'‘It was like a funeral when the last 15 went off together,' said another as by him stood two men in their twenties due to emigrate next week. In two years there have been only two marriages, instead of 20 marriages, for which there were eligibles. Between returns to Connemara and migration to England, the retreat from Rathcarn will by next week have been 67 persons, or 23 per cent. of the population. These facts, capable of being checked any day by the Government if it is sufficiently interested, or the Land Commission if it can find the time, cry aloud for rectification of the complex troubles of these settlers. Over the well-tilled fields of the promised land of Rathcarn came representatives of 15 families—more than half of the families in the settlement—to a meeting-place on one of the 20 statute-acre farms carved out of the Heffernan-Feisler absentee estate. There they gave their opinion of the experiment being made on, with and through them. They left the impression that they will smash their way through any officialdom that ignores their terms or smash the colony. This is going to pieces as it is. Speaking for the meeting of Gaels who invited ‘Labour News' to hear the facts, Micheal MacCraith, chairman of the cumann that abandoned Fianna Fáil and appealed to Labour, said the basic trouble was that farms were too small. Twenty statute acres did not allow for tillage and pasture——"

An Ceann Comhairle:

I must ask the Deputy to cease reading. He is now dealing with the acreage of these farms—a matter with which the Minister for Agriculture has no responsibility. The Deputy must make his point without quoting further from the paper.

Mr. O'Leary:

I shall have another opportunity of bringing this matter up, but I shall now only quote the experience of these colonists of wheat growing.

"Last year I got 20 barrels of wheat at £1 per barrel from the land, and only one acre of potatoes——"

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy must not quote further from that paper.

Mr. O'Leary:

I shall not quote further from the paper, but here is a sentence from it——

An Ceann Comhairle:

The Deputy may not read it out.

Mr. O'Leary:

In any event, they say they did not get as much out of wheat as they put in in seed. I think I am justified in saying that. The Minister told us that the farmers are all more prosperous than they were. Here we have the experience of a colony set up in one of the richest counties in the Free State. The colonists maintain that their holdings are uneconomic. The people for whom I am speaking have been trying to impress on the Minister the hardship they are suffering in regard to the admixture policy. Most of these people have not even 20 acres of arable land. The facts I have adduced and the fact that these people, who have been placed in County Meath at a cost to the Government of about £150 each, must now clear out of it are justification for saying that the policy of the Government is disastrous to the people of the Free State.

Mr. Hogan:

I am very glad that Deputy O'Leary is finding consolation in the Labour News. I hope he will become a constant reader and that he will find much that will interest and inform him on agriculture and other matters.

Dr. O'Higgins:

It is ruled out of order.

Mr. Hogan:

The few matters I wish to raise with the Minister for Agriculture are, if I may say so, peculiarly parochial. I am not at all in disagreement with the Minister's policy with reference to that which has been, aptly or inaptly, described as self-sufficiency. In the changing conditions of the world, that is a policy which anybody might seriously commend. The time might come when we would find ourselves very badly in need of food. The time might come when Europe would become a slaughterhouse again and food supplies might not be so easily got into the country. It would be a very good thing then that we should be able to supply ourselves from within our own shores. It is something to be grateful for that a beginning has been made in this connection before the shambles are created.

While the Minister continues his self-sufficiency policy, I should like him to give somewhat greater consideration to the counties that do not come within the ambit or purview of the policy he has been operating and administering for some years. Take, for instance, the case of my own county. It is not a county in which you can profitably grow beet or wheat. In a great many parts of it, wheat would not ripen sufficiently well to make it an economic proposition. Neither would the production of beet be profitable because of the distance of the factories. Therefore, these two portions of the Minister's policy do not beneficially affect us to any extent. I suggest to the Minister that he should consider some extension of his policy in other directions for the benefit of those counties which cannot avail fully of his wheat-growing and beet-growing policy. We know that in some parts of these counties-there are other counties affected as well as my own— the loss of a cow or two represents the margin between capacity to meet demands and incapacity to meet demands. Therefore, the loss of one or two of these animals will, in a great many cases, put a farmer out of commission. Unfortunately, these things are happening in a great many cases. Fluke has not ceased to take its toll in Clare and, at present, it is taking a heavier toll than it has taken for some years in that county. It might be possible to arrange that farmers of a certain valuation would get cheap money to replace the stock which they might lose or to put some more of their land into commission in some way other than the production of beet or wheat. I hope the Minister will give that side of the matter in relation to these counties—I refer particularly to Clare, because it is the county I know most about—full consideration. In many cases, the farmers there are not capable of replacing animals lost in this way and are, therefore, unable to keep up the economy of their farms. When these animals are missing, the farms are not being worked to the best advantage. These beasts do drop off periodically and at the present time they are dropping off oftener than during previous outbreaks of this disease. I would strongly commend that matter to the consideration of the Minister with a view to its eradication.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer; that is, the personnel of the Agricultural Wages Board. I would like to know where the Minister got some of the people he put on this board, who are they, or why they were recommended? A great many of them know as much about agriculture as we do about the mountains of the moon. In my opinion, some of them who are put down as representatives of the workers were never agricultural labourers. As for the farmers, some of them are urban dwellers who probably never saw land except on the occasion of an excursion to the country. That may be a bit of a bull but it certainly is true. I suggest that the Minister ought to review and re-examine these appointments and see whether he could not put in as representatives of the workers people who would represent the workers more adequately, people whose names were sent to him by those who know the workers well. I would ask the Minister to see that the workers are represented by agricultural workers on these boards.

Dr. O'Higgins:

I have a little bit more hope in calling the attention of the Minister now to the urgent requirements of agriculture than anyone speaking from these benches had four or five years ago. Within the last twelve months we have noticed more than once that hard times and responsibilities are gradually bringing the Party opposite around to common-sense and sanity. A lot of the political nonsense that was uttered on the Government Benches five years ago is rarely heard nowadays. Some five years ago, if we were to have a debate here, in which we discussed the importance of an outside market for agricultural produce, we would be met by a lot of silly, nonsensical arguments about the advisability of cutting adrift from the Commonwealth and that cheap type of nonsense that was uttered here at that time. Within recent months outside happenings and inside poverty have forced one Minister after another to face up to a situation that is difficult and undesirable. We had one prominent Minister, more candid and blunt than his colleagues, going down to his constituents and saying: "We are in the British Commonwealth because it is good business to belong to that association, and for no other reason." I am not using that quotation against the Minister in question. I welcome the return to common-sense. I welcome an appreciation of the fact that the day has long gone by when any nation can stand alone, a great nation even, not to speak of a little nation.

I welcomed the statement which I heard from the lips of the Minister for Agriculture within recent months, to the effect that if we lost the British market three-fourths of the land of Ireland would go out of cultivation. Compare or contrast that with the type of nonsense we had to listen to four or five years ago when we had, I will not say responsible Ministers, but Ministers in responsible positions, proclaiming their desire that the day would quickly come when that market would be gone and out of our reach; and when we had others hoping for the day when there would be no association or connection between us and that market. It is because I see gleams of common-sense in a group that I looked on as hopeless fanatics that I am encouraged once again to raise my voice so that those gleams of common-sense will act as a kind of guiding star that Ministers will follow and pursue, and that perhaps at the end they will find a clear and easy solution for the depression which hangs over agriculture at the present moment.

I am not one who is given to condemning individuals for the sins and crimes of the many. The Minister is only just a cog in the Executive wheel. If I have any fault to find with him it is the fact that he has been rather a weak cog. I am certain that the things that interfered with the agricultural industry and the circumstances that have jeopardised its future were brought about or introduced against his decision, desire and advice. I am sorry that he was so weakly acquiescent. If he were more conscious of his responsibilities and more widely awake to the miseries of those who can only look to him, he would have asserted himself more strongly within the Executive Council. I do not think I could picture any other Minister but the present occupant of that office tacitly submitting to the whole industry of which he is the political head being trampled and crushed by the past foolish political utterances of his colleagues. Because that is what it amounts to.

It was because something had to be done to save the faces of politicians. Their past utterances were there like ghosts. Some type of trouble had got to be started between this country and Great Britain, and they foolishly selected the type of trouble which was most painful to us and the type of trouble in which we were least calculated to hold our own or to win out. Any type of challenge between countries is, in 99 cases out of 100, foolish. But to challenge a country in the particular field where we were weakest and they strongest requires stronger language than mine to find a name for it. But there is one good thing that has come out of the past five years' foolishness and that is that this country and the people in it, young and old, have received a useful, though a gruelling, education, and that we will never again hear the type of speech that the Minister for Defence made five years ago——

An Ceann Comhairle:

The speech that the Minister for Defence made five years ago is not relevant now.

Dr. O'Higgins:

Well, the particular speech to which I am referring had got to do with the Executive policy with regard to agriculture.

An Ceann Comhairle:

Even if it were made last year by that Minister, and in reference to agriculture, it would be irrelevant in this debate. There must be some finality in debate. If any Minister intervenes in this debate any Deputy is entitled to answer him, but a speech made last year by a Minister, even on his own Vote, may not be replied to now.

Dr. O'Higgins:

I submit, Sir, that if anybody, Minister, Deputy or outsider, made a speech last year or five years ago enunciating a policy which has been followed by the Minister for Agriculture within the past year and is being continued in the present year, then that speech is distinctly relevant when we are asked to vote £1,000,000 to carry out that policy now in the coming year.

An Ceann Comhairle:

I differ radically with the Deputy. No speech made by any Deputy on last year's Estimates for Agriculture, unless perhaps the speech of the Minister for Agriculture himself, may be referred to now. The Estimate is for the current year. If every Deputy were allowed to comment on everything said on agriculture during the last five years, a lengthy debate would surely ensue.

Dr. O'Higgins:

Perhaps the debate is going to be more lengthy if a Deputy is going to be pulled up at every point.

An Ceann Comhairle:

I wonder does the Deputy realise the implication of his remark? The Chair has ruled that what a Minister said five years ago is not relevant.

Dr. O'Higgins:

And it is accepted as a ruling. Might I point out that I had not quoted, and was not even proceeding to quote, the speech of the Minister for Defence? Be that as it may, the policy of the Department of Agriculture appears to be a policy with regard to details rather than a policy of a comprehensive nature, embracing all the various phases of agriculture. I would regard the managing director or the owner of any business, great or small, as being absolutely unfitted for the post of managing that business if his policy for the management of the business was a policy for only a portion or a small fraction of the whole concern. If he had no policy for the greater part of his business, and if he had no market or made no provision for a market for the greater portion of the wares he had to sell, I would regard such a man as absolutely unfitted for the position he held.

We had the statement made by the Minister for Agriculture that, if we lost the British market, three-quarters of the land would go out of cultivation. I believe it would be a disaster, not only to the farmers but to the whole of Ireland, if three-quarters of the land went out of cultivation. I believe that any political doctrine which would make even possible such a grave situation, would be a doctrine of a disastrous and suicidal kind. Yet, it seems still to be the policy of the Department of Agriculture to attempt, by any and every means within their power, gradually or rapidly to vacate or lose their grip on that particular market.

I believe that the most criminally foolish policy that ever was enunciated by any Minister or any Department in any country in the world was the policy of inducing Irish farmers to slaughter calves. The wealth of this country has always come from the land. To-day it must come from the land and in the future it must come from the land. We do not dig diamonds or gold in this country. What the land produces is what we must all live on. If we heard, three or four years ago, that the Government of South Africa had destroyed, by blasting or otherwise, but deliberately destroyed, the diamonds or the gold of Africa, and that they were to-day experiencing poverty, we would naturally say that they brought it on themselves by their own foolishness. And yet here we are asked to vote money for a Department headed by a Minister who, three years ago, brought about the slaughter of more than 500,000 calves.

We talk to-day about better prices for cattle. What good are better prices to us if we have not the goods to sell? We hear of better prices for cattle when our cattle population has been deliberately reduced by over 500,000. These cattle, had they been allowed to live, would be two and three years old to-day. Let any mathematician reckon up the price of two and three year old cattle to-day and multiply that by 500,000 or 600,000, and he will ascertain the direct loss to agriculture by reason of the silly policy that the Government followed at that time. I consider that the destruction of wealth for any purpose, and particularly for a foolish political purpose, is very, very hard to forgive.

We have a situation, after five years of that kind of nonsense, where unquestionably we have farmers gradually sinking to a state of desperate poverty. We have agricultural workers working for a wage that no human being should be asked to work for. We have the young men of the country leaving either for the towns or for England. We have traders complaining throughout rural Ireland that it is getting more and more difficult to collect accounts. We may quote against that situation official figures. A nation is made up of the human beings who walk and live in that nation, and not figures that are hurled about the place and used one day in support of one argument and the next day in exactly the opposite way. We have got to accept that picture of the situation except we are prepared to state that there is the greatest wave of dishonesty throughout this country such as was never known in any land.

All the people are not liars, and that picture is drawn not only by the opponents of the Government, but by the supporters of the Government, and it is admitted by every Government Minister when he is talking in rural Ireland. I have listened to each and every one of them in turn, and when speaking in rural Ireland they will always admit that conditions are painfully hard, that farmers are facing losses, that profits are not what they used to be or should be. If that is so, is it not just about time that we asked the Minister what he proposes to do about the whole thing? Three, four and five years ago, those on the Government benches looked on this miserable situation that exists between this country and Great Britain as a passing thing, as a thing that possibly would be rectified the next month. We hoped we had Ministers big enough to make a little bit of a sacrifice on behalf of the people dependent on them.

Any thoughts we had such as those must have been very effectively dashed to the ground by the statement of the President here within the last month that any compromise would mean surrender. If any and every compromise meant surrender, then this world would be in a state of chronic war; there would never be a settlement of anything. There was never a bullock sold at a fair, never a bargain made, whether it is a man buying a pair of boot laces or a man buying a bullock, at which there was not a compromise. Every agreement arrived at is a compromise between two or more persons. The man selling the bullock wants the maximum price, and the man buying it wants it at the cheapest price. The deal is done eventually, and that deal is a compromise. No bargain can be made or no compromise can be made except by sensible men, and it is only fools and fanatics that would brand every buyer, every seller, and every peace-maker as a surrendering coward.

There is sanity along that bench in spots, or a return to sanity. There is a gleam of common-sense here and there at intervals in that Front Bench, but, as regards the top, I have lost hope. There is no glimmering of common-sense there, and as long as the Minister for Agriculture follows the particular light that compromise is surrender, then I think the outlook is fairly hopeless. Wheat, beet, grain, roots, tobacco—that is all just portion of an agricultural policy. That would cover from 20 to 25 per cent. or 30 per cent. of the field of agriculture, but what about the other 70 per cent? Are we to continue the slaughter of calves? Are we to organise hunting parties to shoot or pickaxe heifers and bullocks in the field? Are we to have that continuing destruction so that, some time, speakers will be justified in saying: "There are no annuities being collected from us now, because we have nothing to sell"?

Now, we have faced up to this situation for five years. Let us make the Minister a present of the fact that, no matter how we may have differed, he started sincerely to withhold the annuities. Five years' experience, however, has shown that we have paid 100 per cent. of the moneys previously due, plus £60,000 or £70,000 to cover the British cost of collection, and we have reached the point where we pay through that channel rather than through this channel. All the time, however, we have a serious interruption of trade and we have that slaughter behind the lines, that destruction of wealth lest we might find ourselves, through indirect channels, paying more, and we have no replacement for the slaughter, no substitute for what is destroyed. When a boom comes in the world and when other nations, unlike us, get more prosperous, and when commodity prices are rising, we find ourselves without the wherewithal to avail of the world boom and to secure the rising prices.

I am not a close student of statistics. I do not pride myself as a mathematician. I regard myself as being as ignorant of both as the average person is, but I take it that our full requirements in this country, with regard to wheat, beet and tobacco, and all these side-lines that we hear being magnified as of central importance, could be very thoroughly met inside a field of 500,000 acres. It could be very amply met, in my opinion, well inside the four corners of that particular area. I reckon that in this country there are about 500,000 land annuitants and that if each one of them merely devoted one acre of his holding to wheat we could have a surplus of wheat. If each one of them devoted only one acre in every holding to wheat, we would have a surplus of wheat, and either we would be scrambling to export that wheat or we would be destroying it, like the calves. About a corner of a field, of about two or three square yards in extent, devoted to beet on every farmstead, would supply us with all the sugar that is required in the country; and if an odd annuitant, or an odd farmer, here and there, happened to lay down ten square yards under beet, we would have too much sugar for our requirements and would be trying to sell it elsewhere or destroying it like the calves. Similarly, I suppose that a square foot on each holding would supply us with tobacco, and the rest of the holding is idle. Now, I do not claim to be speaking with mathematical accuracy. It may be that you would require twice as much or one and a half times as much as the amounts I have given, merely for the sake of drawing a picture. In any case, however, the balance of each holding is there and something has got to be done with it, and if you grow grain or beet or tobacco on the balance of each holding, then it is surplus and has got to be sold abroad. Where are you going to sell it, and where is the country that wants to buy it?

No matter how extensively you meet the requirements of the home market, no matter how favourably you get springs and harvests, only a fraction of your land will be required for home consumption, and the bulk of your land will produce surplus commodities, either by way of grain or live stock, that have got either to be destroyed or sold abroad. That being so, is it not better, in the balance of the land, to produce a commodity for which there is a demand and for which there is a market? If we produce a commodity for which there is a demand and for which there is a market, then it is suicidal to jeopardise our grip on that market or to place obstacles on the road between us and that particular market. Five years' responsibility here and five years' losses down in the country have produced certain signs of good results here. They have produced a very big wave of education in the country. That experience has taught even the most hysterically wild follower of Fianna Fáil of five years ago that neither this nor any other country with a surplus production can live without external trade. It has taught the most ignorant of them that the British market, instead of being an evil, was one of the greatest factors in the existence of Irish agriculture. It has taught even the most ignorant of them that that market is vital and essential to Irish agriculture and the leading politicians in the Government Front Bench being awake to that, being alive to that state of circumstances, have cunningly, every time there is an electoral test on or imminent, disseminated the rumour that we are about to settle, on every occasion for five long years. When the votes were cast to strengthen their arm and hurry a settlement these votes were used here, dishonestly used, as an argument against a settlement and as a mandate against a settlement.

Fair play is good for all, and it is about time the ordinary person in this country got a little fair play. It is not fair to the country to walk in here in a flippant mood asking for hundreds of thousands of pounds that it is hard to find, in order to continue to irritate a festering blister on the backs of the people. The rumours I refer to, doubtless, will be revived within a few weeks and there will be another appeal, not to strengthen the Government in carrying on, but to strengthen the Government in securing a settlement. If the people fall for that chaff, then we shall all return here in the same positions and we shall hear the leader of the Executive Council get up again to tell us that a settlement or compromise means surrender. In the heart of the Minister for Agriculture, what would he not give now, if he were unfettered by the foolish utterances of his colleagues in the past, to have within his grasp now the provisional settlement which he was party in bringing about in Ottawa?

Dr. Ryan:

I denied that twice already to-day. Perhaps the Deputy will have a little more decency than the other two Deputies.

Dr. O'Higgins:

All I would say to the Minister is that his denial is significantly belated.

Dr. Ryan:

I deny it, nevertheless.

Dr. O'Higgins:

The Vice-President was reported in the Irish newspapers as having made certain statements with regard to that provisional settlement. I accept the Minister's denial absolutely that he was a party to it, but it appears to me that the position was that the leader of the delegation, or the leaders of the British and Irish delegations, met without being accompanied by their colleagues and that it was between the leaders that the provisional settlement was arrived at, because it is a very significant thing that we have discussed that provisional settlement time and again here. It was denied by the President and it is now denied by the Minister for Agriculture. On the last occasion I mentioned it here the Vice-President, whose name was to the interview, was silent. Now, if I am reported in the papers as having done a certain thing or being a party to a certain act, it is not for Deputy Cosgrave to get up and deny it. It is for me, myself, to do it, and then when I have done it, it is a matter between me and the person who furnished that report. The Minister said he had not done it. Very well, the Vice-President can come in here and repudiate the whole interview, and, mind you, this is the serious aspect of it. If the Vice-President as well as the Minister denies that there was ever any provisional settlement, that there was any substance in the interview, which said: "If we have not arrived at an actual settlement, well, we are within sight of a settlement"—if there was no substance in that interview or in that statement, goodness knows, in the circumstances that existed, it got tremendous publicity in this country, and the Minister, if he is a fit person to occupy the responsible position of Minister for Agriculture, must have known what the effect of such publication would have been. He must have known the effect that would have on the farmer, that every farmer who could scrape together, beg or borrow a few pounds, would be buying stock for the rise in the market, for the imminent settlement. If there was no truth or substance in those reported interviews that were blazoned on every newspaper poster in this country, and stuck up in every village shop, surely there should be responsibility on some responsible person to repudiate these interviews and stop the farmers throwing good money after bad? Do you think that it is any use to the man who bought because of the publication of that announcement, for the Minister five years after that, and only five years after it, to walk in and say there is no truth in it? Why was it not done at the time?

Dr. Ryan:

I did it at the time.

Dr. O'Higgins:

Well, if you did, you must have got smaller print than ever you got before.

Dr. Ryan:

I shall show you very full print if I have time to go back.

Dr. O'Higgins:

Very well, I presume you will have time. I hope this will be thrashed out once and for all, and that the Minister will produce the big-print publication in which he says he denied it. If he does, most unreservedly I shall withdraw my latter remarks and I shall say that, in spite of any damage done by the silence of others, he at least did his best to avert the damage, but that is conditional on the Minister producing the big-print publication which he says he will produce.

Dr. Ryan:

I shall tell you the source when I am speaking.

Dr. O'Higgins:

It is for the Minister throw up his own defences.

Dr. Ryan:

I do not think there is any necessity to defend myself on it, but I shall tell you where you can get it.

Dr. O'Higgins:

Part of the plan?

Dr. Ryan:

Go ahead now.

Dr. O'Higgins:

I would urge on the Minister to appreciate the responsibility of his position, and to bring into operation the only policy that can be moulded by a responsible person, admitting that without the British market for our live stock three-quarters of the land of the country will go out of cultivation. I would ask the Minister, if there was any truth in that particular statement, and if there is any sense of responsibility either in himself or in his colleagues, to see that immediate steps will be taken to remove the obstacles between the Irish farmer and that market. If I am to believe the Minister's statement here to-day that there was no provisional settlement in Ottawa, and that he was not a party to such discussions, then all I can say is that I am horrified and bitterly disappointed, and that the outlook for the future is blacker even than I thought it was, because we had heard on so many occasions statements that it was the policy to settle as soon as possible. If an opportunity like Ottawa was lost and nothing was done, then I say it is hard to justify the expense of sending the Irish delegation there.

Dr. Ryan:

Twice already I made a statement on this matter to-day.

Dr. O'Higgins:

There is one other matter which I would ask the Minister to deal with.

Dr. Ryan:

I do not like to repeat myself to others who were present, but if Deputy Dr. O'Higgins had been here he would have heard me say twice already that I did not deny that I was a party to discussions, but that there was no settlement or no understanding arrived at.

Dr. O'Higgins:

I am delighted to hear that the Minister was a party to discussions. I am sorry he has to admit that his participation was so ineffective that nothing was done on behalf of the Irish farmers. If the participation of the Minister was such that, in a carefully selected and ideal atmosphere and with the assistance of the most influential statesmen of the other nations of the Commonwealth, he failed so abjectly to bring about any relief, or even to bring us nearer to a settlement, then it is about time that a few portfolios were changed. It is about time that the Government or the President saw the advisability of getting somebody who would achieve something. Ottawa was allowed to pass. There was complete and abject failure there. There were discussions which were abortive, and ended in nothing but penalties for the people. Five years have gone by—five years of crushing taxation, five years of increasing poverty, five years during which subsidy has been piled on subsidy to assist an industry which used to support the whole country. Heretofore the towns lived out of agriculture. Now, agriculture is living out of the taxation of the towns. Ottawa was let go. There is now a complete admission of attempt and failure. There is another Imperial Conference coming within a few short weeks. That is vital to Irish agriculture. The President, when asked some weeks ago if he intended to participate or if this country would be represented, said that it was under consideration but that no decision had been taken. That event is now three weeks away. Agriculture is still staggering under heavy impositions. The market without which we cannot exist is jeopardised. I would ask the Minister, when replying, to let the Dáil know whether a decision has yet been taken, and whether we are entitled to hope and expect, if this country is being represented, that opportunities will be taken to recapture the ground that was lost at Ottawa, and to restore to the agricultural industry a right of which they should never have been deprived for political reasons.

Mrs. Concannon:

A Chinn Comhairle, after the very gloomy picture of life on the farms which has darkened most of our afternoon, it may savour of cruelty on my part if I ask the Minister to assist in dedicating some more members of my sex to it. I rise indeed for no other purpose than to ask him to give us a bigger and better supply of farmers' wives. He has made a pretty good start in 12 very excellent schools of rural domestic economy provided for under sub-head F (2) (a) of the Estimate. They help to give an extremely valuable course of preparation for the future farmers' wives of this country. I am glad to say that six of those are on our side of the Shannon, which shows how advanced we are in Connaught. We have three of them in Galway, two in Mayo and one in Roscommon. Cork comes next with two; then Meath, Wexford, Cavan and Longford are also in the running, but that is only eight counties out of the Twenty-Six. I think we should have one of those schools of rural domestic economy in each county of the Twenty-Six, and the Minister will find that to provide them he will have the co-operation of many of our convent secondary schools. The importance of the farmer's wife in the domestic economy of the country has been long recognised. I have here an abstract from Mr. Terence O'Hanlon's review of Dr. Arensberg's very interesting book on "The Irish Countryman," which shows what the traditional wisdom of our people has to say about the farmers' wives. This comes from County Clare, where, unfortunately, there is no such school such as I have mentioned:

"Here is something I want to tell you, and you can put it in your head and take it back with you," said a Clareman to Dr. Arensberg. "The small farmer in Ireland has to have an intelligent wife or he won't last long. He may do for a few years, but after that he can't manage... If it wasn't for the woman the farmer wouldn't last, and when he is getting a wife for one of his sons he should look to a house where there has been an industrious and intelligent woman, because she has taught her daughters how to work, and that is what is needed."

One reason why I am keen on better training for our girls for farm work is that it would solve a problem which is really a serious one. Our low marriage rate has been brought before us very strikingly. One priest in County Sligo said recently that marriage in his part of the country was almost a forgotten art, and I read an account of a lecture in Naas where it was said that our marriage rate was the lowest in Europe. Iceland comes next, and its rate is a good bit higher than ours. I know quite well that there is no better way of raising the marriage rate than by providing increased opportunities for the training for which I am pleading. One of the most hard-bitten and eligible bachelors on our own benches —I will not mention his name—told me that the nearest time he ever came to matrimony was when he accompanied the Minister for Agriculture on a tour of those rural domestic schools. He said that when he saw those girls in their beautiful, white overalls, amongst the milk pails, he did not know which of them to propose to first. I want the girls to remember that, and I hope that some one of them will capture him soon.

Another reason why I feel it desirable that there should be increased opportunities for girls to get domestic training is that it would make rural life more attractive. I think that a good deal of this rush to the towns, which we must all deplore, would be obviated if the girls who are to live their lives in the country were to be trained for their work. For the work we know well, and of which we are masters, is the work that makes us happy. Other countries have this problem as well as we have, but it is more incumbent on us, I think, to try to find a solution for it because we are dividing up the land. Now, there is not a bit of good in dividing up land and putting in a man on it if you do not give him a proper wife. If the Minister for Lands were here I would also get him to join me in urging the Minister for Agriculture to do what I am suggesting now.

Belgium, too, had this problem, and it set itself to solve it almost 50 years ago. In the last issue of the Sunday Independent there appeared a very interesting and instructive interview given by the Belgian Minister's wife to Mrs. MacNeill. I myself have been interested in this. I have written to the Ministry of Agriculture in Belgium for some particulars of their rural agricultural training courses for women. They started about 50 years ago, so they have had a good long period to bring their schools to the perfection which has contributed so much to the advanced state of agriculture in that country. They first had to solve the problem with regard to teachers. I think we have only one training school for teachers of rural domestic economy in this country. They have seven in Belgium. They have one outside of Brussels which has attracted pupils from every part of Europe. The six others are also, I believe, extremely good. Then while we have only 12 rural schools of domestic economy, Belgium, which is about the size of Munster, has 40. In almost every convent school in Belgium there is a section devoted to the teaching of rural domestic economy. In addition, in connection with the primary schools they have continuation classes for two years, which give a very complete course of rural domestic economy. In the interview that I have referred to we are told of the “Farmers' Wives' Unions,” in connection with which they hold conferences and courses and an itinerant school of rural domestic economy. Their talks are not altogether confined to domestic economy. They want to know all about farm training, poultry-keeping, bee-keeping, gardening, fruit growing and fruit marketing. All these things are covered, and in this way Belgian agriculture, with the aid of Belgian women, has been brought to the advanced state from which we may learn.

Mr. O'Donovan:

I am afraid there is very little hope that while Fianna Fáil is in office the man to whom Deputy Mrs. Concannon referred will ever get a wife. All the girls are getting away from this country now. If he did not succeed in getting one of the girls with the lovely white uniforms up to this, he is hardly likely to get one now. Going through the country at the present time, you will not see a farmer's wife in a lovely white uniform. In the first place, the stuff itself is tariffed so highly that the farmer's wife has not the money to enable her to buy the material. Even if she were able to buy the white uniform, the tariff on soap is so high that she will not be able to afford to wash it every day. With things as they are, I think, instead of finding a farmer's wife with a white uniform on her, it is more likely you will find her wearing a sack.

We are weary on these benches from criticising this Estimate year after year. We were promised alternative markets and a lot of other things, but none of them have materialised. The wheat and the beet schemes have not, to my mind, been a success. I will not say that they have been an absolute failure, but they have not been a success. They are not filling the bill. They are no substitute for the one and only market in which our farmers could sell their agricultural produce profitably. That has been taken from them. In a debate here about 12 months ago I gave an estimate which had been prepared by a prominent member of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture of the cost of the production of an acre of wheat. After allowing for everything, it left the farmer with a profit of 15/3 per acre, and out of that he had to procure the necessaries of life for his family. If he sowed 10 acres of wheat, it meant that his profit from wheat growing was ten times 15/3. That was his gross profit. At that time I made an estimate of the profit that man would have made if he utilised that acre for the feeding of cattle. I do not think that, 12 months afterwards, there is any need for me to change my estimate. My figures were not challenged then, and have not been challenged since. This must have been a good acre of land to grow wheat. If it had been utilised for the feeding of cattle it would have left that man with a profit of at least £15 after paying all expenses—rents, rates, annuities, etc. Therefore the position is that if that acre of land had been used for feeding cattle it would have left the farmer with a profit of £15. By growing wheat on it he was left with a gross profit of 15/3.

The same holds with regard to beet. I have here an estimate prepared by a member of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture. He calculates that the return on the growing of an acre of wheat leaves a profit to the farmer of 15/5. I wonder is the growing of wheat a profitable crop. A good deal has been said about it in this House. The Department now advises the farmers to get it in as quickly as possible. Weather conditions have been so bad this spring that it is hard for farmers to get in any crop. A few nights ago there was a broadcast from Radio Ath Luain. I took it to be a panicky broadcast, as if the Government feared that their wheat policy was going to go wallop this year. There was an appeal to farmers to get in the crop as quickly as possible—April, Red Marquis, which they condemned last year. Farmers find it hard enough to get in a grain of oats.

A lot of the winter wheat put in, as the Minister should know, has had to be ploughed up again because of the terrible season we have had. We have now this panicky broadcast from Radio Ath Luain to put in wheat at this season. I and others who have been growing wheat all our lives know that wheat which is sown late is never, and has never been, a success. I do not believe it will ever be a success. It is a pity to be fooling the farmers. The old Irish saying: "Tagann an tiar-bharr: ní bhíonn biadhmhar" is as true now as it was in our grandfathers' time.

Deputy Desmond dealt with horse breeding. I appealed to the Minister last year to give us some concession with regard to the heavy class of horse that was wanted in Cork County, particularly in West Cork. We are not allowed to keep registered Clydesdale horses or heavy horses there. While not decrying the Irish draught, I say that if we continue the Irish draught as it is I am afraid we will have nothing very soon. We want something heavier. The Cork County Committee of Agriculture, which the Minister will admit is a very sound body of practical farmers, have appealed more than once, supported by public opinion all over Cork, that this concession should be granted. I ask the Minister to reconsider the position and give the farmers of West Cork and of Cork County generally what they are looking for.

I should also like to refer to the inspections of bulls this year. I have heard complaints from various sources and I have also seen Press reports, that a big percentage of bulls were rejected at the inspections. You have the same type of farmer every year exhibiting bulls for inspection. He is a good type of farmer with a good breed of cattle. So far as I know, there is no deterioration in the herds of these men. The only thing that may be wrong is that they are not feeding now as well as they did in years gone by. I have had complaints from reliable sources about bulls being rejected that should not be rejected, and I have a little experience of it myself. These men are put to the expense of having to buy bulls at a higher price from people who are in the position to feed them better because they are well off. I hold that there is no difference except in the question of feeding between the bulls rejected and the other bulls. The people exhibiting these bulls have good herds and invariably, year after year, send bulls for inspection. I know that there is great dissatisfaction this year over it.

The slaughter of calves has been referred to at length and there is very little good in referring to it further. It is a pity that the Department of Agriculture should spend so much money purchasing bulls at the Dublin Show, the Cork Show, and at various sales all over the country and outside the country—there must have been a considerable sum expended in purchasing bulls in outside countries for the improvement of the herds here—and that their progeny should be slaughtered afterwards. It is a scandal and I am afraid it will bring its own retribution some day.

As to the question of offals, I remember distinctly that when Fianna Fáil were seeking office they boasted that, when we had achieved self-sufficiency and grew all our own wheat, one of the chief advantages which we would derive from growing our own wheat would be that offals would be cheap and plentiful. As far as I can judge, and I have to buy some offals occasionally, they are at present at war-time prices. Even though we are growing our own wheat, we have not the offals. They are dearer now than at any time for years past, although we are growing wheat intensively in this country. I do not know if that can be remedied, or who is gaining by it. Somebody must be gaining, because the offals should be cheaper. The claim of Fianna Fáil at the time that offals would be cheap made a certain appeal to me as a very sound one, but it has not materialised and I do not know that it will materialise. If the Minister would give a licence to merchants who know the quantity of offals they dispose of annually, to import offals in the autumn, when they are reasonably cheap, it would be a great benefit to the users of offals in this country.

I should also like to refer to the question of black oats which, so far as I know of in my constituency, have been neglected. There is a big area of Cork County in which white oats cannot be grown with success. Farmers who have to depend upon black oats are not in a position to import black oats, although I think they could get a licence to import if they were in a position to do so. I would therefore ask the Minister to give merchants, who know where to buy the best varieties of oats, who are in a position to store oats, and who would probably have to give the oats on credit to the farmers until the harvest time, a permit or licence to import the best varieties of black oats under a guarantee, which I am satisfied they will give, of furnishing the names and addresses, and the quantity of seed oats required by their customers. I do not see any reason why the Minister should not accede to that request.

Reverting to the slaughter of calves, which has been such a terrible loss to the State, when a parliamentary question was put down a year ago it was found that 480,000 calves had been slaughtered. I believe that the number now must be over 600,000. Surely the Minister and the Government must realise what a terrible loss that is to the community at large. We have a large number of farmers in this country who cannot take advantage of wheat growing or beet-growing —doubtful as that advantage may be— because they have not the land for it. A number of these farmers cannot even grow barley and can grow very little oats. They have to depend altogether on their milk cheque from keeping a few cows, on a few sheep that they graze on the mountain land, and a few yearlings to sell if they could only get back the normal market for them. These people are hit harder than anybody else in this country. Furthermore, in areas like West Cork, where they cannot produce these cereal crops, they are intensive pig feeders. They always have a litter of bonhams and always fatten some pigs. They cannot grow these cereal crops, as I say, but they have to pay for the admixture scheme. They have to pay for the carriage of the cereals from the rich lands of Kildare, Meath, etc. I have heard Deputy Harris talking about the advantage that the growth of cereals has been to the farmers in Kildare, but Deputy Harris's constituents will not feed pigs. Farmers' wives and daughters in Kildare have not to go out with the bag apron, like they do in West Cork. These people in West Cork have to pay for the carriage of these cereals down to West Cork. They have to pay the miller for mixing them and then have to sell their bacon at a price which is not up to the price paid in Northern Ireland or across Channel.

There is at present a scarcity of bacon, and last week one of the leading merchants in Clonakilty was unable to supply his customers. There must be something wrong when that is the position, while, at the same time, there is a glut of pigs in West Cork. The quota for curers in Cork City is reached about the middle of the month, and pigs ready for sale during the last ten or 14 days of the month have to be kept on at a loss in price and quality, or sent to Limerick or Tralee at extra cost, or shipped across the Channel. As curers have only a certain quota, merchants are unable to secure the quantity of bacon they require. I do not know how the Minister is going to remedy the position. The Department should try to find some way out, so that merchants will be always in a position to supply bacon when there is a sufficient quantity in the country, and particularly when there is a glut of pigs in places like West Cork. I suppose there is no use in appealing to the Minister, seeing that the Government have carried on this policy for the last five years. In any case, if he turns a deaf ear to this appeal, and to what was said in this debate, I promise him that there will very soon be a rude awakening.

Mr. Curran:

I am glad Deputy Mrs. Concannon has not left the House, because she struck a somewhat different note to that of other Deputies from either side who took part in the debate. As she mentioned in particular the farmers' wives and how she would like to brighten their homes, let me quote from a letter I received to-day from a lady in my constituency:

"I am writing to ask could you do anything for me with the Land Commission. I have written twice to the secretary asking them if they would accept £25 now—it is more than I can pay—and the rest in six months. Debts face me at every turn, and up to my husband's death I knew little of the business, and now find things so difficult, but will do all I can if I get a chance."

I want to tell Deputy Mrs. Concannon that that is characteristic of the position of farmers' wives in rural Ireland to-day. Scarcely any section of the community has been put in the same position as the farmers' wives. In the last analysis it is they feel the situation most keenly. There is less money for the little luxuries they would like to give the children. I know the position that farmers' wives find themselves in, and I know that it is an unhappy one at present. I should like to remind Deputy Mrs. Concannon that our agricultural exports in 1931 were value for £27,000,000, and in 1936 for £15,000,000, showing a drop of practically £12,000,000. Does Deputy Mrs. Concannon realise what effect such a decline must have on the position of farmers' wives? It may be a nice thing to go into a domestic economy class and to see there young girls dressed in nice white coats, but if the Deputy went to the country she would see farmers' wives in their homes, where they have to get up early in the morning to look after the stock or to get breakfast for their husbands or workmen, and then, after all that work they find that demands were being made upon them by the Government, or by other bodies, that they were unable to meet. That unhappy state of affairs is characteristic of the position of these wives to-day. Deputies spoke about the flight from the land. Why not? What outlook is there at present for anyone on the land?

I intend to go into details about the policy of the Government, but I wanted to mention these facts for Deputy Mrs. Concannon, because I was glad that she intervened in the debate from the point of view of the farmers' wives. A great deal has been said about agriculture in general, but I think the Minister and the House will agree that dairying is the foundation of our agricultural economy. Deputy Bennett quoted 4.6d. as the price paid per gallon for milk last year. Does Deputy Mrs. Concannon think that a fair price for milk? Does she think that farmers' wives who milk the cows morning and evening are paid for their hard labour with that price? I had great admiration for the Minister for Agriculture when he was in opposition, and when he stood up on behalf of the agricultural community and the dairying industry and said that it would take at least 5½d. to pay for the cost of producing milk.

Dr. Ryan:

That shows what an Opposition could do.

Mr. Curran:

Now that the Minister is in office, what is he doing? It was all right to advocate what should be done when in opposition. The Minister then wanted that at least 5½d. should be given to cover the cost of production of milk.

Dr. Ryan:

You are only asking 5d.

Mr. Curran:

If we got 5d. it would probably not be so bad. Certainly times are getting better. World prices have increased, but Irish farmers are not getting the benefit of these prices. I have no hesitation in saying that in our agricultural economy the live-stock industry is the most important of all. I do not want to be too critical of wheat and beet, but, when all is summed up, cattle are our greatest asset. I stated recently that if farmers wanted to borrow any money from a bank, wanted credit from a shopkeeper, or even from a Government institution like the Agricultural Credit Corporation, one of the questions that would be put to them was: "What stock is the land carrying?" If they had no stock they would get very little money. I will not say that that branch of our industry has been ruined, because even a Fianna Fáil Government could not ruin it. It stood up to the test and is standing up to it. The threat of a one-time Minister that if it took 100 years to build up the cattle trade it would not take a month to kill it, even Fianna Fáil has not been able to carry out. Prices have been increasing, but no thanks can be given the Government for that. I am glad to say that times are improving. What is that due to? Every farmer one meets will say that things are getting better. We are all agreed on that. What is the reason? Because of a rise in cattle prices and better trade with our neighbour. Even the statistics show that more cattle have been shipped to Britain lately. As far as one can see, the situation at present is that there will be a shortage of cattle. There are no beef cattle. Nobody seems to know the reason. The reason is that in the past owners got such very bad prices, and the cost of food has risen so much, that it was not a paying proposition to keep them, and no matter what this Legislature or any other Legislature might do, it will certainly not compel people to do things which they think will not pay them. They may be caught once and do it, but before they take on that particular branch of activity again they will be very shy about it. The result is that we have at present a shortage of beef cattle in this country. It is due, in the first instance, to the tariffs, and, in the second, to the high cost of feeding stuffs. Other Deputies have gone very minutely into this question of the cost of feeding stuffs, and I do not intend to go into it.

A good deal has been said here about the horse breeding industry, and I want to say here and now that the greatest benefit that could be conferred on the horse breeding industry was the taking off of the tariff on horses, and the greatest benefit that could be conferred on agriculture as a whole, on the cattle, the butter and the eggs, would be to get the tariffs off, and, before agriculture can be put in the position in which it ought to be, that will have to be done by somebody. I have heard Fianna Fáil Deputies stating here from time to time that the farmers were glad to be fighting the economic war. I notice a great absence of Fianna Fáil Deputies tonight, and if some of the Deputies who talk about the farmers being glad to be fighting the economic war were farmers themselves, they would not be so glad.

Mr. Jordan:

The farmer Deputies of Fianna Fáil are in the House.

Mr. Curran:

I heard Deputy O'Reilly this evening say that he could see nothing amiss with the farmers. That is a very nice position to be in. I wish I were able to see like Deputy O'Reilly, but unfortunately I cannot.

Mr. Finlay:

How many acres of wheat does Deputy O'Reilly grow? He grows none.

Mr. Curran:

Deputy Hogan, or rather the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, a moment ago——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle never makes a speech; Deputy Hogan of Clare might.

Mr. Curran:

I was right at first if I had only kept on. I was struck by his reference to the position of the small farmer. We all know small farmers, and I am not a very big farmer myself. Deputy Hogan said that the loss of a cow or two meant practically the loss of everything to a small farmer. So far as I know the small farmers in my district, the economy which they practise is to have six or seven cows, or as many as their holding can carry, and to rear the calves and sell them in March or April. They always got good prices for them, but the depreciation in a dairy herd at present is something appalling. If anything goes wrong with a cow, and cows are unfortunately subject to more diseases now than in the days gone by, it is very difficult for the small farmer, or any farmer, to replace them. The matter of the diseases of cattle is one which should be looked into to see if it is possible to do something to recompense or to help the farmer to put a cow or two on his land to replace animals that have been taken from him.

I should like the Minister to make some statement with regard to the heifer loans scheme. As I have said, I am a bad parliamentarian, but I have been very anxious to know for quite a while the actual position of the Government policy towards that scheme, why they dropped it and what is the position of the fund now. Did they find that those to whom they gave loans were not facing up to their responsibilities? I am sure that is the reason. With a great flourish of trumpets, in the first instance, Fianna Fáil said, "We will give heifers to everybody," and they gave them in a good many cases; and John Brown went to John Smith's sale, bought a heifer and carried it off to some other sale the day after, and let the Government fly for their money. I do not blame the Government. The scheme is all right and the difficulty is one of administration. What is Deputy Dillon laughing at?

Mr. Dillon:

At John Brown's depredations on the heifer.

Mr. Curran:

That is what happened. The so-called farmer went to the sale of these heifers——

Dr. Ryan:

I only heard that in South Tipperary.

Mr. Curran:

At the time they were anything from £2 to £4 lower than the market value, and he bought them and sold them at another sale and got his £20 or £30 out of the transaction. He was out for that, and, with all due respect to everybody, the Irish farmers are pretty clever fellows and it is not easy to get one in on them. The scheme, however, is discontinued for the reason the Minister has advanced—and which I always suspected—that the loans were not being paid back.

Dr. Ryan:

I did not advance that. I will tell the Deputy the reason later.

Mr. Curran:

A good deal has been said here about wheat and beet, but, to my mind, if there is any good in wheat or in beet, I think it should be left to the farmer to grow them if he wants to. That is my view on the wheat and beet question. Anybody down the country who wants to get work done at present finds the position very disheartening and I can safely say that, so far as my man and his horse are concerned, he has not been able to do a fortnight's proper work since January on account of the weather. I do not blame the Government for that.

Dr. Ryan:

Hear, hear! That is kind.

Mr. Curran:

Everything favoured them in the past, including the weather, but the situation down the country is that it is impossible for the farmers to put in the crops they want to put in. I have no doubt that when the economic war is finished and the tariffs are taken off live stock, then, and then only, will wheat and beet versus mixed farming be on trial for the first time during the Fianna Fáil administration. I know very well that farmers will grow anything to try to get money. I did it myself. I grew wheat and beet, and I have a fair idea of what I can get out of them; but it is only when the tariffs are taken off and things are running level that the policy of the present Minister and his boosting of wheat and beet will be on trial for the first time.

My last word may not be strictly relevant to the debate, but I am going to put it forward. I see in the Press every day the boosting of our industrial prosperity and our industrial products, and I put this to the Minister: suppose we had arrived at the stage when we had £500,000 worth of surplus industrial products, where would he sell them?

Dr. Ryan:

I should like to get notice of that question.

Mr. Curran:

You would so! You would not be able to sell them in any market in the world, but it is different with surplus agricultural products, which will sell in any market and against any competition in the world.

Mr. Finlay:

I have listened for the last few hours to speeches being made on agriculture, and Deputy Jordan has said in an interruption during Deputy Curran's speech, that his side of the House has been well represented during the debate. I say "no"; they have not. There has been a challenge to the House by Deputy O'Reilly. Deputy O'Reilly, from Meath, is no authority on agriculture. He knows nothing about agriculture. I am sorry he is not here now so that I might tell him that, when he was in a way of making a living out of agriculture some years ago, he ran away. He gave up his livelihood and got away.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Deputy O'Reilly's statement in the House may be criticised, but what Deputy O'Reilly did in regard to his own personal affairs must not be discussed on this Estimate.

Mr. Finlay:

I thought it would be no harm to introduce one of their foremost men, as Deputy O'Reilly was described by Deputy Jordan.

Mr. Jordan:

I never mentioned Deputy O'Reilly's name. I said that agriculture was represented on the Fianna Fáil Benches. It was Deputy Curran who mentioned Deputy O'Reilly's name. He said he was the only man who contributed to the debate. I did not mention his name.

Mr. Finlay:

You mentioned his name as one of those who contributed to the debate from the Fianna Fáil Benches. If it were not for Deputy Jordan, his name would not come up. I cross hands with Deputy Curran in regard to agriculture——

Mr. Jordan:

But not across the Jordan.

Mr. Finlay:

I crossed it before and I shall cross it again. I shall not ask you to come with me; I shall row myself. On this question of agriculture, we do not want the opinions of these fishermen. They may know something about the Galway Bay herring or mackerel or trout——

Mr. Jordan:

The Galway Bay herring gave your Party its answer.

Mr. Finlay:

They cannot compete with agriculture. I do not want any assistance from Deputy Jordan.

Mr. Jordan:

You will not get it.

Mr. Finlay:

I do not require it.

Mr. Jordan:

You may find yourself on the rocks.

Mr. Finlay:

I am not on the rocks. I have a sounder keel than you can put up.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

If Deputy Finlay would address the Chair, we should probably have less noise and a better discussion.

Mr. Finlay:

There is no noise at all. Deputy Curran made a sound case. I know the position that the Minister's own county—Wexford—and Tipperary and Laoighis occupy in connection with the agricultural industry——

Mr. O'Leary:

Where does Cork come in?

Mr. Finlay:

It is what I call a market garden. You are on the seashore and you get an early market for your stuff which we have not. We have to wait for the market, and we have to pit our turnips, mangolds, and so forth until the time comes. That is the big hardship. We are told that "the early bird catches the worm." We have to wait until the market suits us. We have crossed the Jordan with a clean boat. We have oared ourselves and anchored. We have in this country one industry only, and that is agriculture. Agriculture is the mainstay of the Twenty-Six Counties, and, indeed, of the Thirty-Two Counties—if we had only the courage and discipline to bring our friends in with us. When we are so hostile to English rule, I do not see why we should have the Six Counties in. I think they would be justified in standing as they are. If we had the same privileges as the Six Counties have with regard to tariffs and prices, I think we would have a very happy Free State. We here are being tariffed by politicians. For what purpose? Not to relieve ourselves but to give relief to somebody else. We were told four years ago, when the election campaign was on, to "starve out John Bull." We were told "We will take the big belly off John Bull in a few days so that he will not know himself." Have we succeeded? I never heard such ridiculous stuff in all my life. The Free State at present is not capable of giving John Bull one breakfast a week. We were to starve him out and ignore him. We did not ignore him but we ignored ourselves. I do not like to have to criticise the actions of the Minister for Agriculture. I have always held him in high respect. The fault is not his; it is the fault of his Party. I do not blame him; I blame the policy of his Party. We, in the Free State, are treating ourselves as exiles from the rest of the world. We are cutting ourselves off from the market of the world. What is left to us? Starvation for our sons and daughters and brothers. We have at present an Agricultural Wages Act. I hope it will work out very usefully and that it will be efficacious, but I cannot see what the use is of applying an Agricultural Wages Act to the Free State in the present state of agriculture. What you want to do, in the first place, is put your agricultural community on their feet. Put them on a working basis. What is the use of attempting to fix prices for labour when you have not the farmers upon a sound basis? This is the first thing with which the Government ought to deal.

That is the first issue with which this Government should deal—place the farmers in a position to be able to sell their products in a free market and the Government will have no trouble in the world in fixing a fair wage for the agricultural labourers. If they do that, then the farmer will solve the problem by being able to pay that fair wage to his workers. I had the pleasure of listening to the Minister for Defence at a meeting in Galway. What he said to the people was: "The bullocks to the road and the land to the people." As far as all the bullocks the Minister has I do not think they would amount to a great lot. I wish to heavens the Minister for Defence knew something more about agriculture than he does. It is open to any Minister on the Front Benches or any other Deputy to travel through the country; see what they allege is the prosperity of the people, and think well before talking stuff like the stuff they have been talking.

I agree with the slogan that the land of the country should be for the people of the country. But I know plenty of land to-day that is being offered to the Government for division amongst the people. I know cases where the Government have refused to take this land for the supposed purpose of relieving congestion. Why? Because the congestion is not there. That is the trouble in many parts of the country, because the people are flying from the land. Suppose to-morrow we had that slogan of the Minister for Defence carried out—the road for the cattle and the land for the people—it is perhaps a proper policy, but at present and under present conditions I say it is not capable of being carried out.

There is one thing that the agricultural community in this country want, and that is a free market for their products and for their live stock. I have been growing wheat and beet all my life. I am growing 15 acres of wheat this year and 10 acres of beet. Before there was any factory in Thurles, Mallow or Tuam I supplied Carlow with beet at 55/- a ton. When we were getting that price from the Carlow factory for our beet the Minister for Finance told us that the Carlow factory was a "white elephant."

Now I want to tell the Minister for Agriculture that from the way he has handled the interests of the agricultural community of this country it is my opinion that he will not be returned again to this House. The reason is that his entire policy is wrong. He and his colleagues have so dealt with the economic interests of the people that I do not believe, unless the people have lost their senses, they will be seen on the Front Government Bench after the next election. I assure Deputies on the Government Benches that I am not out in any way to ridicule Fianna Fáil. I got up here to preach a lesson to them and to try to bring them to a realisation of the state into which they have brought the country. The Deputy for Kildare seems to be very amused at what I am saying. I know the Deputy's farm. I travelled his farm and his brother's farm as well. The Deputy need not blow about farming because he does not know the first thing about it.

There is one Act of the Government which has in a pre-eminent way crippled the agricultural industry of this country and that is the Slaughter of Calves Act. The farmers were given a bounty of 10/- for killing off their calves. Four years ago the Minister brought a Bill in here for that awful purpose and 500,000 calves were slaughtered. I was at Rathdowney fair this morning. That used to be one of the biggest fairs in the country but there were not 400 cattle at the fair. Why? Because some of the calves that were slaughtered two and three years ago would have been at that fair but for the action of the Minister. The calves slaughtered then would have been two or three-year-old beasts now and they would be worth at least £8,000,000 to £10,000,000. All that money has been lost to the country. The slaughter of those calves accounts for the fact that in Rathdowney and in hundreds of other fairs to-day there are few cattle on offer. The cattle that should be there and that would now be two or three-year olds were slaughtered through the policy of the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister carried that Bill through with the support of his back benchers. See the injury that they did to the country.

I am as much in favour of tillage as any Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches and I have tilled more land than any of them. I tilled land before ever Fianna Fáil came into power and I hope to till land when they are out of office. It ought to be quite clear to any Deputy on the Government Benches that if you are going to have tillage you must have live stock. You can till eight acres of land to-morrow morning and sow corn in it, but what is the good if you are not able to manure that land? You will probably get eight or ten barrels of corn off that land. I ask any farmer to remember that if he is to sow corn in that land it will cost him at least £6 to manure that crop, not a penny less.

The Government at the present time are depriving the agricultural community of their means of existence and of their livelihood. I know in Laoighise and Offaly plenty of farmers who went to Mountrath, Abbeyleix and elsewhere to get manures for this year's crops. These men were favourably known to the merchants and shopkeepers four years ago but at present they are not favourably known to them. They would be given no manure on credit because the farmers' credit is gone. The farmer's advice note is gone. He has lost his credit with the country shopkeepers because of the policy of Fianna Fáil. Before ever we heard a word about extra tillage, I often grew as much as 18 or 20 acres of wheat in the year. I invite any member of the Fianna Fáil Benches to come down to the farm where I live. They can see there the crops I have been growing on my land. Most of those Deputies are ignorant of everything about tillage.

If the farmers knew how ignorant about agriculture they were, they would not be sitting on those benches at all. I know this thing well, that the men on the Government Benches are not the men who can uplift the country. Whoever will uplift the country, it will not be the men on the Fianna Fáil Benches. The farmer and the labourer can do much to improve the country and to improve the position of their own community if they are given a chance, but the Government is to-day depriving them of every chance. They are depriving them of the means of making a livelihood. Personally, I am out for the best interests of the country, and when it comes to a question of the interests of the country I am neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael. I am out for the welfare and upliftment of all the people of the country and not for the success of any Party. That is what I stand for.

Mr. Daly:

There are a few matters in this debate to which I wish to refer. This is, perhaps, the most important Estimate the Dáil has to consider. It is an Estimate for £637,350. Now, in the first place, I would like to know what value the people of the country are getting for this money. I see in the Estimates a total sum of £187,131 for salaries, wages, allowances, travelling expenses, incidental expenses, telegrams and telephones. I also see an item for research and for technical advisory work in agriculture, and for that a sum of £5,284 appears. We have this large amount of money to be spent this year by the Department of Agriculture. I have been farming, I think, now for the past seven years and during that time neither an inspector nor an adviser in agriculture ever called into my farmyard to advise me on any line of agriculture. Yet the people of the country are paying £637,350 this year for the upkeep of this Department. We have inspectors and we have supervisors all over the country. They are holding classes at all hours of the day and yet the most important thing of all, to my mind, is being neglected. We should have inspectors and advisers calling to the farmers' places all over the country in order to advise them on the different lines of agriculture which the farmer is following.

I notice an item of £80,000 in the Estimates this year for the slaughter of calves. I think it is simply disgraceful now, with the price of cattle at the figure at which it stands, that we should have included in the Estimates £80,000 in order to induce the farmers to slaughter their calves to earn the 10/- bounty which the Government is offering. I think the Minister would be well advised if he devoted the £80,000 towards some remedy for the dreadful disease of abortion in dairy cattle. It would be money very well spent, instead of devoting it to the slaughter of 160,000 of our calves. If those calves had been left for one year they would be worth more than £500,000 to this country.

Deputy Mrs. Concannon talked of the need for the better training of country girls in order to fit them to become suitable wives for the farmers. She referred to the schools that we have. I believe I am right in stating that the young girls who go into these schools seldom go back to the farms. They go into the schools and are educated, and their one idea is to get into the ranks of the Department of Agriculture in some form or another— to find some job there. It would be well for the community if large numbers of these young girls were suitably trained in the schools and then found their way back to the farms as farmers' wives.

With regard to the whole policy of the Minister for Agriculture, I can only say that it is a ruinous policy. In the area I represent the farmers are growing wheat and beet and keeping the factories and the mills going. With all that, they are in a worse position to-day than they were five years ago. There must be something wrong. Our young men and women are fleeing from the land. They are going across to England. I have a case in mind of the son of a small farmer who had to go to England for a livelihood something like five or six weeks ago. There were only five or six cows on the farm and three of these died. Some pigs that were fattening also died. One of the sons went to England and after four weeks he sent back £9.

I think it is really deplorable to have young agricultural workers, men and women, leaving the land and going to England to find employment. We have an Agricultural Wages Board now, but I am of the opinion that unless something is done by the Minister and the Government to improve the conditions of the agricultural community, by the time the Agricultural Wages Board will be operating there will be very few agricultural workers to be dealt with. If the rate of emigration continues as at present, we will have very few labourers to save either the wheat or the beet. The whole agricultural policy of the Government, to my mind, is ruinous. The chief source of trouble is the economic war, and it would be well for the Government if they would make one sincere effort definitely to settle the economic dispute. They are going to the country in June and, after five years' experience of this Government and its policy, I am sure the people will be better judges in regard to the promises that will be made them than they were at the last election.

Dr. Ryan:

I shall endeavour in the short time I have at my disposal to answer the principal points raised in the course of this debate. Deputy Dillon spoke of a great shortage of bran and pollard. To some extent that is true, but the strange fact is that with our present production of bran and pollard in our own mills there is more bran and pollard available than was imported and produced during the five or six years before 1932, when this policy was undertaken. In addition to that, licences were issued to a number of importers during the present season for the importation of bran and it was found very difficult, in fact impossible in some cases, to fill the quotas arranged for imports. What Deputy O'Reilly said appears to be true, that were it not for the policy of having all our wheat milled by our own flour mills there is no doubt we would be in a worse position with regard to offals at the moment.

There was another point raised by Deputy Dillon. Speaking of the bacon question, he said he had no great faith in the Prices Commission. He said that the Prices Commission would not lead us anywhere, because, in all probability they would not report as he would like them to report. That is more or less preparing a retreat in case the commission report does not agree with his ideas. I may say straight off that, so far as I am concerned, I will not be in any way disappointed if they should report that there is profiteering and if they should indicate a method of dealing with it, whether the profiteering is by one individual or by groups of people; I will not be disappointed whatever they may report. I may tell the Deputy that, so far as the Government and the Department are concerned, they will give the Prices Commission every possible assistance in getting a full investigation into this whole matter.

The Deputy made a very long speech in regard to this particular item. He built up a case which went from point to point. It amounted to this: that the bacon curers in order to recoup themselves for losses on the foreign market, were charging high prices to home consumers, and they were doing that not only with my knowledge, but with my connivance and encouragement. I may say that neither I nor the officials of my Department have ever had any discussion with the bacon curers as to what they should fix as a hypothetical or appointed price, or as to what bounties they should put on exports or home produce or anything else. I would ask the Deputy to study the figures and see for himself whether there is anything in his argument. He will find from the trade reports that the value of the bacon exported in 1936 was £1,823,000. Two-sevenths of that would be taken as duty if it all went to Great Britain, and most of it did. That would be £521,000. We actually paid in subsidies between £460,000 and £480,000—I could get the exact figure in a day or two. The maximum deficit that the bacon curers had to make up on sales in the home market was £60,000—probably the amount would be nearer to £40,000. Deputy Dillon's contention would not therefore account for a greater increase in the home price of bacon than about 2/- per cwt.; that is, if his contention had any foundation that that was responsible for the high price on the home market.

Mr. Dillon:

What is the Minister's explanation?

Dr. Ryan:

I do not know. If I had any explanation I would not like to mention it at the moment, because my Department have asked the Prices Commission not to lose any time investigating the matter, and I think it is better to let them go ahead. The Deputy, and some other Deputies also, spoke of the planting of spring wheat at this stage, and thought that the Department had made a mistake in recommending the sowing of spring wheat at this time. Well, we know from experience that certain varieties of spring wheat sowed at this time last year, and even up to the end of April, did quite well. I think it may be taken that April Red will be good on almost any land, provided the season is good, and that on good land Marquis or Manitoba will be all right. I was asked what would become of the rest of the land, supposing we grow all our own wheat. Deputies opposite always speak on the assumption that there is nothing else in this country growing except wheat and beet, while it is obvious to them, and has been pointed out to them over and over again, not alone by me, but in official publications of the Departments concerned, that there is no reduction whatsoever in the number of animals in this country. As I pointed out to-day already, we have more cows than were in this country over the last ten or 12 years. We have more cattle, and a bigger production in butter and cheese as a result. We have as many pigs—more than the average over the last ten or 12 years; and we have as many sheep, almost, as the average over that period. The only things in which we are slightly down, to the extent of about 5 per cent., on the average over the last ten years, are poultry and eggs. Therefore, this argument, which goes on the assumption that we are just growing wheat and beet and that the rest of the land is idle, has no foundation whatsoever. The cattle, the sheep, the pigs and the horses are all there, and the fact is that we have increased our acreage of wheat and beet and at the same time maintained the number of animals as they were before this policy of ours came into operation.

Deputy Dillon also spoke about our realising only 74/- for our butter on the British market, while the average price was 89/- a cwt. The Deputy should go back over the returns, and if he does so he will find a most peculiar thing and something that should make him think, and that is that over a period of 12 or 15 years there was one particular year—I forget the exact year at the moment—when we were about 7/- or 8/-, or more, over the world price. In another year, perhaps, we were down a few shillings. The reason for that is that prices vary throughout the year and that, perhaps, at the time we were exporting our butter, the price might be either up or down, and that is what makes the difference. Prices fluctuate from time to time, and it is absolutely valueless to base an argument on a figure like that.

Deputy Dillon also asked a question with regard to stallions. A scheduled disease on which stallions will be rejected is whistling, because it is regarded as a hereditary disease. However, there are exceptions, as the Deputy said he heard. If a stallion has been examined yearly by a veterinary surgeon and found to be sound until he is over seven years old and then develops the disease, the disease is taken to be due, not to heredity, but to some other cause. Investigations and experiments have been taking place at Thorndale into contagious abortion, vaginitis and mammitis. Examinations and experiments have been carried out with regard to the incidence of these diseases, and certain vaccines and other remedies have been tried. Remedies recommended by the more reputable veterinary sources have been tried, but so far we have not got either a reliable or a cheap remedy, and, naturally, it would have to be both to be of much use.

Mr. Dillon:

Has it been found that mammitis is due to the streptococcus haemolyticus?

Dr. Ryan:

Well, I cannot say.

Mr. Dillon:

Because if it has, I think the Minister ought to have the matter inquired into with a view to a remedy.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes. Now, as the Deputy pointed out, claims are made from time to time on behalf of certain proprietary preparations, and advertisements are sent out about the wonderful cure that has been discovered by somebody or other. In all cases we have tried to protect farmers, as far as possible, by not allowing the importation of such quack remedies into this country, as we have power to prohibit them under the Cereals Act. Deputy Dillon did make what I regarded as rather a peculiar plea, from a man of his mentality, with regard to the growing of even wheat in this country. He advocated the growing of soya beans. Now, they have been tried here, but one would imagine that it is a Fianna Fáil Government that would try the experiment, and not a Fine Gael Government. They have been tried here and they have not been found to be successful, but surely this country is better suited for the growing of wheat and has had more experience in the growing of wheat than it has with regard to these beans. However, I quite agree with the Deputy that if the growing of these beans were successful here, it is a thing that has many uses, and therefore we shall continue to carry out the experiments, although, so far, they have been unsuccessful. A complaint has been made with regard to the journal issued by the Department. That journal, as a rule, is only issued annually, although sometimes it comes out more frequently. I hardly think that all Deputies in this House would be interested in it, and it has been the recognised practice, up to this, that any Deputy who expressed a desire to have it, could have his name put on the list and it would be sent to him.

Mr. Dillon:

Yes, that is quite fair and reasonable.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, I think that would be the better way. Deputy Brennan found fault with my opening statement because, in giving the export prices of various commodities I added on the bounties. He said that these bounties were taken from the people. That, of course, is going into another question which was argued here on the Budget. The bounties were taken by way of taxation, it is true, but at any rate they were not taken from the farmers either by way of food taxes or any of the other indirect taxes that would bear unduly on the farmer and his family. The point has been made by many speakers that, if we had a choice of mixed farming in this country, no further wheat or beet would be grown. I pointed out already to-day that in England they have the choice of mixed farming, and that they have a higher price for cattle, sheep, and so on, and yet that in England they have a much bigger proportion of their land under wheat than we have here. I give that as a proof of my contention, or my opinion, that, even if much better prices for cattle and sheep were ruling here we would still maintain our wheat crop, and even probably increase it, as long as there is a guaranteed price and a market for it here. Two or three speakers admitted that cattle prices were improving, but they hastened to add that that was not due to the Government.

Mr. Curran:

Is not that quite true?

Dr. Ryan:

I am quite prepared to admit it is true, if necessary and if the Deputy desires it, but when prices were falling in 1933 and 1934 they maintained that the Government was responsible. When prices were falling in earlier years I did not blame the then Government. However, I am quite prepared to give it to the Deputy either way. I will take responsibility for bringing them down, and I will also take responsibility for bringing them up again. Deputies opposite cannot have it both ways. I will take responsibility for all of it, or I will take no responsibility at all, whichever the Deputy likes.

Mr. O'Leary:

Will the Minister take responsibility for the loss to the farmer of £4 5s. 0d. a beast to-day?

Dr. Ryan:

I will take responsibility for the whole lot. I will take responsibility for bringing the prices down and also for bringing them up.

Mr. Fagan:

Let the people judge that.

Mr. O'Leary:

We do not want to let them forget it.

Dr. Ryan:

I say that I will take responsibility for the whole lot or for none.

Mr. O'Leary:

You will have to take responsibility, whether you like it or not. We will see that you take responsibility for it.

Dr. Ryan:

All right. Now, Deputy Bennett questions this £2,000,000 we received in 1936 for our wheat. Undoubtedly, some Deputies here wondered how I could get that figure of 60,000 in employment out of wheat. I said that it would take 555,000 tons of Irish wheat to supply all our requirements. That amount, at £11 a ton— taking the price at 27/6 a barrel— would bring in £6,105,000 to the farmer. What I said was that if every person engaged in agriculture had an income of £100 they would consider themselves well off—that is, a man with a wife and son and daughter and so on.

Mr. Curran:

That is better than Alberta.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, it is real cash. Well, let us assume that income of £100, and I hold they would consider themselves lucky to have it. If you divide that into the £6,105,000, it means that you have 60,000 people provided for, whether they work or not.

Mr. Dillon:

That is like the plan to solve unemployment.

Dr. Ryan:

It is giving them an income——

Mr. Dillon:

That missed fire by 150,000.

Dr. Ryan:

There is no misfire about this. Deputy Desmond was also one of those Deputies who said that the price of cattle was going up. He did not blame me for it. Deputy Desmond was sincere, I believe, when he said that he did not blame me, but he went on to say that cattle were going 36/- per cwt. and that mutton was 1/2 per lb. and he asked what were the town consumers going to do. That has also appeared in one of the Opposition papers—what is the Government going to do for the consumer about the rise in prices of cattle and sheep? We have been listening for the last few years to complaints about the low prices of cattle and sheep and now, when the prices go up, the Government is blamed for not doing something to protect the consumer.

Mr. Fagan:

It is your policy that has left the country with such low stocks.

Dr. Ryan:

The slaughter of calves was the next matter dealt with. Up to the time that we took up office, 60,000 calves died a natural death yearly. We knew that when we decided to give a bounty on calf skins. We had that in mind in the first place and, secondly, we knew, as every Deputy here knew who had any knowledge of the cattle trade, that there was a lot of bad cattle in the country. There have always been bad cattle and it would be much better for us——

Mr. Curran:

To kill more of them.

Dr. Ryan:

Yes, to kill the bad ones, to get rid of the bad ones. As a matter of fact, we have as much cattle in the country as ever we had, in spite of it all. I do not know whether the figure of 500,000 which has been given for slaughtered calves is correct, but the man who slaughtered his calf in order that he might get 10/- for the skin did not think very much of the calf. Probably it was not worth as much as that, but it is a good thing for the cattle trade to get rid of all the bad cattle and to leave only the good cattle. Somebody mentioned that if we were talking about diamond mines in South Africa we would think it peculiar if the South African Government said to the owners of the mines: "You will have to destroy half your stock of diamonds." We probably would think that an awful thing, but if the South African Government came along and said: "Let us destroy all the bad diamonds in order that we may not export anything but the best," people would have a different opinion on the matter. That is exactly what we have been doing. I may say that in addition we tried to encourage the consumption of veal, but that did not succeed, I admit.

Mr. O'Leary:

The greyhounds would not eat it.

Dr. Ryan:

We would be saved a lot of trouble in this country if they did. Deputy O'Leary knows that as a matter of fact in 1931 there were over 15,000 calves slaughtered in Macroom area when there were not as many skins exported.

Mr. O'Leary:

At what price?

Dr. Ryan:

7/6 each.

Mr. O'Leary:

Nonsense. I challenge the Minister's figures.

Dr. Ryan:

All right, I accept that.

Mr. O'Leary:

I know what I am talking about.

Dr. Ryan:

Deputy O'Leary said that we cannot fill the quota for fat cattle. The Deputy knows very well, at least he ought to know, that the difficulty is that if we send all our store cattle across to England they are fattened there and a subsidy of 5/- is given on them, whereas if we send fat cattle across no subsidy is given on them. There is, comparatively, a higher price for stores than for fat cattle. That is a problem that will have to be dealt with apart from any economic dispute. Deputy Hogan asked a question, which I should like to deal with, in regard to the losses of cattle in Clare. We have, as the Deputy knows, through the Dairy Disposals Board organised a group of creameries there. They have worked very successfully. As a matter of fact, the total amount of milk handled by those creameries last year on the peak day amounted to 45,000 gallons. Through these creameries there is a system of lending money to suppliers who have lost cows. In that way they can replace their stock.

Mr. Curran:

Is the creamery responsible for the loan?

Dr. Ryan:

Yes. The creamery gives out the loan. The Deputy also asked how we had constituted the Agricultural Wages Board and who recommended those who were appointed to the board. Wherever there was a recommendation from the county committee, that recommendation was accepted. The county committees in all cases nominated the employers' representatives and in all cases they were selected from the county committee list. They did not in all cases recommend the employees' representatives. In any case where the county committee did not make a recommendation as to employees' representatives, we circularised the Deputies for the area and got recommendations from them and the employees' representatives were then selected from that list. Deputy Hogan said that some of them never saw land except when on an excursion to the country. I am sorry if that is true, but I did myself, as a matter of fact, wherever I saw that a man had a town address, automatically leave him out. We also asked our inspectors, who have fair knowledge of the country, to indicate on the list those whom they knew to be genuine farmers. It was out of that list the employers' representatives were selected. We had not got anybody in the Department, unfortunately, who was familiar with labourers throughout the country but we selected these representatives as I have outlined.

Deputy O'Higgins, Deputy Brennan and Deputy Dillon all made certain allegations in regard to a settlement which they alleged was arrived at in Ottawa. I just want to say, in reference to that matter that there were discussions, but there was no agreement or no understanding, even, of an agreement. There was nothing whatsoever in that way. I did not bring back any understanding or any agreement from Ottawa. I came back because I thought there was more to be done here than over there. I was asked why that was not made clear. I was only back in this country at most about a fortnight when I made a public speech in Navan which was fully reported, and I think anybody who reads that report will not have any great doubt about what took place at Ottawa. I do not think that there is time to go into any other point.

Mr. O'Leary:

Might I ask the Minister a question?

An Ceann Comhairle:

The question must be put before 10.30, if the debate is to be concluded to-night.

Question put and declared defeated.

Vote put and agreed to.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until Thursday, April 22nd, at 3 p.m.