Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 7 Mar 1939

Vol. 74 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Vote on Account, 1939-40 (Resumed).

Mr. Morrissey

When the debate on this Vote on Account for a sum not exceeding £10,855,000 was adjourned last week, the Minister for Agriculture was performing. It struck me that the Minister for Agriculture has lately adopted the technique of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and that is to get up and brazen out everything. A thing is so because the Minister says it is so. I would like to know, but, of course, I will not be told, whether farmer Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party sitting behind the Minister agree with him or not when he states that the farmers of this country are infinitely better off to-day than they were before this Government came into power. Is it not a fact known to every member of this House coming from a rural constituency and particularly members of the Fianna Fáil Party from rural constituencies that the farmers are so well off that we have beaten a path from this House to the Land Commission Offices seeking to get time for the farmers who are unable to pay their annuities? There is a daily and hourly trek from here to the Land Commission office of Deputies of all Parties, with the sheriff's notice in their hands seeking time from the Land Commission to enable the farmer to meet his annuities.

I venture to say that there is not a Deputy in this House, with any knowledge whatever of rural conditions, as they are to-day, at the end of the blackest year perhaps for agriculture in memory, owing to the appalling weather conditions, who would get up and repeat the statement made by the Minister. We had of course a confirmation of that statement from Deputy Childers. I will deal with that later on. The Minister for Agriculture advanced as one of the reasons why the farmers were so well off, that if they were paying £460,000 additional in rates over and above what they were paying in 1931, the Government had made them a present of £2,000,000 worth of annuities. When I asked him where he got the £2,000,000 he said, of course, that that was a silly interruption. The Minister was careful not to advert to this fact that not only are our people paying £460,000 additional in rates above what they paid in 1931 but that they are paying £9,500,000 additional in taxes and that they are trying to pay these huge sums on an income that has been reduced by one-third—and I am putting it at a low figure.

The Minister wandered then a little and he told us about "what we had done for the farmers of this country." There is no necessity for any Minister on the benches opposite to tell the farmers what they have done for them. The farmers know it to their sorrow and cost. They know not only what the Government has done for them but what the Minister for Finance under the new Valuation Bill proposes to do for them.

Then we had Deputy Childers backing up the Minister. One is inclined to make a lot of allowances for a new Deputy and particularly when that Deputy is a very young Deputy. Those of us who were very young when we came in here know quite well that allowances have to be made and had to be made for all of us. Deputy Childers, of course, wanted to assure the House that he had made a perfect study of this matter, and he told us: "Coming to the general position of the country I say, unequivocally, that, without any question, the people of this country are better off than they were before this Government entered into office, that the people have a better appearance, have a better life and, in the vast majority of cases, have more money to spend."

Mr. T. Kelly

Hear, hear!

Mr. Morrissey

My friend, Deputy Tom Kelly, says "Hear, hear!" to that. Deputy Kelly's knowledge of the conditions outside the City of Dublin are apparently on a par with that of Deputy Childers. I can only come to the conclusion that the man who made that statement that I have just quoted is completely ignorant, not only of the situation in the country generally but of the situation in his own constituency. The Deputy went on to deal with some other matters. Dealing with the unemployment figures, he said this: "You must not think too hastily on this question of unemployment." Anybody who would accuse the present Government either of thinking or dealing too hastily with unemployment must not have much knowledge of what has been happening in our political life here for the past seven years. The Deputy took great comfort in this fact and advanced it as evidence of the marked improvement which, to use his own words, was to be observed. He asked the House to look at the appalling position that we were in in 1935 when, according to him; we had 145,000 registered unemployed. To-day, he said we have only 105,000. Of course, it did not occur to him that in the period of 1935 to 1938 over 80,000 of our unemployed went across to England to seek employment, so that far from being 40,000 better off, as Deputy Childers sought to make it appear, we are really 40,000 worse off as regards the number of unemployed compared with 1935.

I can understand a Deputy like him rushing in and making a speech of that kind for the reason that he is young and inexperienced, and, as I have said, he is in a state of complete ignorance as to what the actual position in the country is. I cannot imagine a Deputy living in a rural district and in daily contact with the farmers rushing in here and telling us, as Deputy Childers did, that the people are infinitely better off and have much more money to spend than they had seven years ago. Anyone with any knowledge of the situation knows that that statement is not true. We were told by the Minister for Agriculture, and by Deputy Childers, all that this Government have done for the country: that they have provided the farmers with bounties and subsidies. Would the Minister tell us where did the Government get the money to enable them to do all that? When I interrupted the Minister and said

"Is not that feeding them with a bit of their own tail."

his answer was

"Did anybody ever hear such a silly interruption?"

Of course, the policy that has been pursued by the Government is, in effect, that of feeding the farmers with a bit of their own tail, but the question arises, how long is the tail going to last.

I have been driven to the conclusion that either the Minister for Agriculture is the most hopelessly incompetent Minister for Agriculture in this or any other country, or else that the members of his own Party are not telling him the truth. We know that there are members of the Fianna Fáil Party in as close touch with the farmers, and with conditions in the country, as those on any other side of the House. They are in a position to give first hand information to the Minister on the state of the country. Therefore, I must conclude, after listening to the kind of speech we had last week from the Minister for Agriculture, that the members of his own Party, representing agricultural constituencies, are not telling him the truth.

Deputy Childers spoke about people looking better and, in the vast majority of cases, having more money to spend. The Deputy, I understand, is in fairly close couch with a certain section of people in this country. He has perhaps a better knowledge of how they are faring than he has of the farmers. If he was speaking for that particular section I have not the shadow of a doubt but that they are looking better: that they are looking much better now than they were before this Government came into office, and that they have a lot more money to spend to-day than they had seven years ago. But if that is so, it is only because the rest of the people of the country have been fleeced to put them in that position.

I do not think it will be suggested by anybody now that there is anything in the nature of a campaign to keep farmers from paying their rates and annuities. I certainly never admitted that there was such a campaign and I do not believe that the people who made suggestions of that kind at one time would dare to do so now. I can say that farmers, hardworking, industrious men, have recently come to me, as they have to members in other Parties in the House, and admitted that for the first time in their lives they have been unable to pay their annuities and rates. When the Minister for Agriculture was speaking on unemployment, he said that the number of National Health Insurance stamps sold proved beyond yea or nay that there was a far greater number of people in employment now than under the previous Government. In ordinary normal circumstances the sale of these stamps is probably one of the best tests that can be applied, but the Minister must know quite well that, with the bringing into operation of the rotation schemes by the present Government, you have not ordinary normal circumstances prevailing. Therefore, you are not in a position to draw right conclusions from the sale of these stamps, because, instead of having one stamp for a week's work at the present time you have in a great number of cases two stamps. You have the position that a man is given employment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday when he is laid off. Another man takes his place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so that instead of having one card for that one week's work you have two cards. When Deputy Davin interrupted the Minister and asked him: "How much of that was due to relief schemes?" the Minister for Agriculture replied: "There would not be very much; there were not more than 20,000 on relief schemes." The Minister for Agriculture gave the figure as 20,000, while the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance told the House that, for the same period there were 45,000 people engaged on relief schemes. That indicates the amount of care the Minister for Agriculture took in preparing his speech on such an important matter. Little and all as he apparently knows about the state of agriculture, he certainly knows far less about the state of unemployment.

We have been told of the provision that has been made for the workers, and of all that has been done for them by this Government. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance read a long statement to the House on that subject just two weeks ago. He spent a considerable time making a comparison of the wages and conditions for men on relief schemes, and the wages paid to men employed in agriculture. He was comparing, he said, the 24/- a week paid to relief workers with the 27/- paid to agricultural workers.

Of course there is no comparison whatsoever, apart from the amount paid in each case. A man who is employed by a farmer is employed from week to week, and is paid his wages at the end of each week. If a day comes wet, or half a day comes wet, or if there are a few heavy showers, he is not sent home by the farmer, and that day is not deducted from his wages. The man on relief schemes may get two, three or four lays. If he is lucky enough, the four days allotted to him may happen to be fine days, but how many consecutive fine days did he get during the last seven or eight months? How many men sent out for four days at 4/- a day were able to work even the four days?

The Deputy told us about the way this money was being apportioned over different parts of the country. He held forth that there were no complaints received, in particular from the West, of Ireland. He said very few complaints were received even from the South. The men cannot complain. They have no alternative, because, as I said on that occasion, the alternative to rotation is starvation, and if a man refuses to accept whatever work is allotted to him under the rotation scheme, he loses not only that, but is automatically cut off from any payment at the Labour Exchange. There is no use in trying to boast that he has not received complaints. Men reduced to these circumstances are not in a position to complain.

My colleague, Deputy Dillon, speaking on this Vote on Account the other night, asked us to visualise the position of a man with a family of three, four, five or six, trying to live on 27/- a week. He has not very much of a life, I grant you. I want the House to visualise the hundreds, the thousands of men in this country to-day with families, and without work, without any means whatever, who are entitled to the maximum unemployment assistance. What is the maximum? It is 14/- a week, and it does not matter whether the men have five or ten children. And remember, they only get that 14/- when they are completely without means. I want the house to visualise a man in that state trying to exist, with very little more than half of what even the agricultural labourer has.

That is what we are told this Government has done for the workers and the unemployed. Deputies know quite as well as I do that those are the conditions. The statements I have made are facts that those of us who go to our constituencies every week and mix with the ordinary people, meeting them on the streets, at the fairs or at the markets, are well aware of. Those of us who open our correspondence every morning are kept in touch with the conditions in the country. Every Deputy knows how many requests are made to him to go to the Land Commission for time, to the Agricultural Credit Corporation for time—time all the time. I want to say without any hesitation, and I have perhaps as long an experience as any Deputy here, that I have got more requests from my constituency, from farmers, within the last three months to ask the Land Commission for time than I got in the previous five years. There are many other Deputies in this House who could say the same.

I want to go back again to the position of the unemployed. Deputy Childers thinks it is a marked improvement, a marked advance, that we have only 105,000 unemployed. Deputy Flinn, who was a Parliamentary Secretary when this Government first came into office, was appointed chairman of a committee on unemployment. After seven years the position is that, notwithstanding the 80,000 who emigrated during the period mentioned by Deputy Childers, we not only have 105,000 unemployed, but we are told by Deputy Hugo Flinn, the man who is primarily charged with responsibility for finding employment for them, that he does not know hew he is going to do it; that the difficulty now is not merely the difficulty of finding the money, but that it is the difficulty of finding work for them in the country, assuming he has the money. That, it seems to me, can be characterised in one way only, and that is by saying that it is a policy of despair for the workers, or rather the workless of this country, when you have a responsible Parliamentary Secretary, speaking here on behalf of the Government, telling us that the outlook for the future is black and that even if the Government were in the position to guarantee all the money that was required, he is afraid that he would not be able to find the work upon which to expend that money and employ the men.

That is the position we have in the country and, in the face of that, we are told by a Deputy and by a Minister that this country and the people in it are better off to-day than they were in the period before this Government came into office; and not only better off, but they are looking better and, in the vast majority of cases, they have more money to spend than they had seven or eight years ago. Even the most enthusiastic supporter, if there are any enthusiastic supporters of the Fianna Fáil Party left down the country, would not believe that statement. The Minister is not going to improve the position by refusing to look at it, and he is not going to improve conditions in this country by refusing to admit that certain conditions exist in the country. You are not going to meet and deal with, and get over, a difficulty simply by getting up and saying it does not exist, it is not there.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce has been trying to do that in this House for the last seven or eight years. He has got up here and told us that such-and-such is the state of affairs, when every man listening to him, those behind as well as those in front of him, knew quite well that what he was saying was absolutely inaccurate. The Minister's technique was simply to brazen out that this country was getting better and better every day. We were getting a sort of dose of couéism, as we used to know it, saying "You are better off to-day than you were seven years ago; you have more money in your pocket and you are looking better." If you can only keep on saying it, you will convince yourself in the end that you really are. Mind you, saying that people have more money in their pockets when they have not is not going to deal with their difficulty. There is no use in telling the man with a six-day notice from the Land Commission or a writ from the Agricultural Credit Corporation that he has more money in his pocket and ought not to have any difficulty in paying his debts.

Deputies will have to face this fact, that the people of this country lost a tremendous amount of money for seven years and at the end of that time they were faced with one of the worst years in memory from the point of view of the agriculturist, owing to the frightfully bad weather; that to-day in this country there is very little feeding for livestock and that what feeding is there is not very much good. That may not be true of every county, but it is true of a great deal of the country, and Deputies know that as well as I do. You are not going to improve the situation for the agriculturists or for any other section of the community until you are prepared to admit to yourselves that they are in a bad condition and that something will have to be done to improve that condition. We have got to face up to the fact—we should have faced up to it long ago and I should like Deputy Childers in particular to face up to it—that all your industries in towns or cities—and I have no objection whatever to industries: I should like to encourage them as far as possible—cannot exist unless you have a prosperous, agricultural population to support them. That is so self-evident and such plain commonsense that it should not be necessary to state it here in this House but apparently it is necessary.

That is the picture as I know it. I have not tried to exaggerate it in the slightest. These are the conditions as I find them in my constituency and I come from a constituency where the soil is at least as good as any other part of Ireland, where the farmers have as good a way of working that soil as they have in most parts of the country, where the farmers are as good, as hardworking and as industrious as they are in any other part of the country. Having done their best fighting against the very adverse conditions of the last seven years, they are to-day far from the position which the Minister and Deputy Childers described for us the other night.

The future of this country depends on whether the Government will deal with that situation. The position is certainly a bad one. It is a very urgent one. The bad harvest, so far as a great number of farmers in this country are concerned, was the last straw. Some of them would have been able to survive, would have turned the corner, to use a hackneyed phrase, and have been able to keep their heads over the water, even after the depressing conditions of the previous seven years, if they had a good harvest, but so far from having a good harvest, they had a very bad one. Their condition is a serious one, one that demands attention, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of the nation as a whole.

Mr. Fagan

I was amazed listening to the speech of the Minister for Agriculture the last night on which this Vote on Account was debated, but I was even more amazed at the speech of Deputy Childers, because I see by the local papers that he and his Fianna Fáil colleague are going down to their constituency and are vying with each other as to who is doing best for the farmers. After listening to Deputy Childers here the last night, I must say that he knows nothing about the farmers. He is a city man and he has city ideas. The same may be said of most members of the Government of the present day. The Minister for Agriculture, by quoting figures here the last night, tried to prove that the farmers were better off than they were in 1931. It has been said that you can prove anything with figures, but the facts are there and they speak for themselves. I frequently move amongst the farmers and I can say it is pitiful to see the condition of some of them at the present time. I know farmers with seven and eight children in their families for whom they have scarcely a bit. The worst-off are those farmers whose valuations range from £25 to £50, because they cannot get any help from anybody. They have to pay doctors' fees and every other expense. The man with a lower valuation has some chance, but the position of farmers, such as I have mentioned at present, is deplorable. It is no wonder that the Bishops in their Lenten Pastorals should have drawn attention to it. I had some hope that the members of the Government might have read these Pastorals but, according to what the Minister for Agriculture has stated, they must not have read them. Many farmers are in need of immediate relief. I know that for a certainty. This scheme of providing 6d. or 1/- on a bag of manure is no good to them. They are not able to buy manure at present nor are they able to buy seed for their crops. If the Minister wants to know the real position of the farmers let him come down the country with me. I will take him on a tour round my constituency and I guarantee that he will come back with a sore heart to Dublin.

The Minister for Agriculture used the argument here the other night that when the economic war was settled there was a reduction in the price of cattle and that, so far as the price of cattle was concerned, we would have been better off if they had not settled it. I must say that the settlement of the economic war was a very welcome development, and I thank God that the Government did find itself in a mood to settle it at last. No doubt the price of cattle was reduced some little bit after the settlement of the economic war. Why? Because the Government were so long about settling the economic war. Fianna Fáil Deputies were going down the country telling the people: "It will be settled in a week," with the result that every poor fool was rushing out to buy cattle, and in consequence the price of cattle was put up to a false figure. The English farmers were also buying in anticipation of the settlement.

I know that thousands of cattle were bought by English farmers prior to the settlement. I myself bought them for English farmers and parked them in this country for two or three months in anticipation of the tariffs coming off. An English farmer would write to me and say: "Buy 20 or 30 cattle and keep them over for a while. This thing will be settled in a fortnight or three weeks." That is why the price of cattle went up immediately before the settlement of the economic war to a price that was not the real market value. The result was that when the economic war was eventually settled, there were thousands of cattle in this country that had to be got rid of immediately. The English farmers found that their requirements were more than satisfied, with the result that there was a drop in price immediately after the settlement.

The Minister for Agriculture also referred to the question of rates. If some relief is not immediately provided in regard to rates, I do not see how people can be expected to pay these rates. In my county I was told recently by one man that his present rates were two and a half times the amount they were in 1918, on the same valuation. Does that increase not wipe out any relief farmers got by the halving of the annuities? I had the pleasure of meeting a farmer from Northern Ireland in the Dublin cattle market last week, and I had a long chat with him about conditions up there. I remarked to him: "I suppose you are all dying up there to get in with the Twenty-Six Counties?" He replied: "Indeed we are not." I referred to all the reports that had appeared in the papers recently about the matter, and he then said: "Why should we join with the Twenty-Six Counties? We have far more facilities, as farmers, in Northern Ireland. I get 3/- to 3/6 per hundred more for my eggs than you get, because they are treated as home-produced eggs on the English market. Your eggs have to be stamped before they are allowed in there. Again, if I spend £100 on improvements, I get £75 of that from the Government. I get at least as good a price for my cattle as you get, and, in addition, I get 7/6 per cwt. of a subsidy on top of that. Why should we join with the Twenty-Six Counties?" I mention this because the Government here frequently states that farmers in the Twenty-Six Counties are as well off as farmers in the other part of the country. The Government should look into these matters, and should take into consideration the Bishops' Pastorals, which give some indication of the position of people in the country.

Deputy Morrissey referred to the question of annuities. I have been obliged to bring many cases in the last month before the Land Commission, in which people were asking to get time for the payment of these annuities. No doubt I was met very fairly by the Land Commission, and in every case which I brought before them they gave time. I must give them credit for that, but the fact that it was necessary to bring these cases before them at all shows the position of the people. They are anxious to pay, but they are not able to pay. The Government should take these facts into consideration and provide the help which is so urgently required by the farmers. I am sorry to see that the amount of money provided for agriculture this year has been reduced. That indicates that the Government does not intend to provide any further help for the farmers. The Government have reduced the amount provided for agriculture, while they are increasing the amount provided for defence and other services. It would be far better to build up the agricultural community. That would be the best form of defence we could have in this country.

If you have not your people well-fed and well-nourished, what good is your defence? It is a sin and a shame to be spending millions on defence when you consider the position in which the farmers are at present. There is another matter to which I should like to refer, if I am in order. It is connected with insurance. There is some order in force whereby if a man does not stamp his card for a year——

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a matter of administration, which it would be better to raise on the Vote for the Department.

Mr. Fagan

Very well. I wish to impress on the Minister for Finance the desirability of loosening his purse strings so far as the agricultural industry is concerned. There has been a great deal of oratory at dinners and elsewhere in which it was accepted that agricultural industry is the main industry of our country. I am glad that the Government have recognised that at last. They made a mistake during the past five or six years when they omitted to recognise it. Let the Government practise what they preach, and loosen their purse strings for the benefit of the farmers. I invite any Fianna Fáil Deputy who represents an agricultural constituency to stand up and ask the Minister for Finance to contribute to the improvement of the farming industry. If the agricultural industry goes down, the country will go down, and it is going down fast at present.

Mr. Victory

I suppose it will be taken that I stand up as a result of the invitation extended from the Opposition back benches by the last two speakers. While I was interested in the speeches from one angle, I should be much more interested if I had heard any suggestion from start to finish as to how conditions were to be improved. There was not one word from Opposition speakers as to how that could be done. The Government was blamed even for the weather. How can they control the weather? They were blamed about the position of the agricultural industry, but what about world depression? Does the Government control the whole world, or only this island? It was suggested indirectly that we could improve prices here if we could surrender the national freedom we have got in the Twenty-Six Counties. I do not think that many people would stand for that surrender in order to get better prices. I heard, with feelings of regret, the complaints of these two Deputies about the number of times they have to go to the Land Commission on behalf of people who are not able to pay their annuities. The foundation of the nonpayment of land annuities commenced with the Blueshirt organisation, and we have the reactions of it still.

General Mulcahy

Ask Deputy Childers.

Mr. Fagan

What about the economic war?

Mr. Victory

It is not often I trouble the House and perhaps Deputies will hear me for a few minutes.

General Mulcahy

It is not often that we give you a bit of advice.

Mr. Victory

I have to go occasionally to the Land Commission and, if the path there is beaten, I know where that started. I know that people in this country were led to believe that by standing out they would never have to pay. When this Government came in, they, owing to the pressure of the economic war, funded the arrears of annuities for three years and halved the standard annuities. As a result of the preaching of the Blueshirt organisation, these people thought they would get away with another funding. That is what brought the present position about. I am ready to admit, with Deputies from agricultural constituencies on the opposite side, that 75 per cent. of the wealth of the country comes from agriculture and that, if this country is to improve, the improvement must come from agriculture. On that point, I am with them. Will they tell me what they would do to improve on the proposed drainage scheme or as regards the Agricultural Commission? Has this Government, since it came into office, not tried to guarantee the price of milk? I suppose that accounts for the complaint made by Deputy Fagan that there are so many cattle in the country now. That was an encouragement to the people to keep the cows. The price of cows was such that farmers were parting with them and the Minister had to improve the price of butter in order to induce them to keep the cows. Now, the Government is criticised about the price of butter. Will the Opposition tell us if they are prepared to do away with the guaranteed prices for pigs and bacon. They find fault with the boards. It is easier to find fault than to discover a better way of doing things. Will a single Deputy advocate free trade in that case and no subsidies in respect of exports? These are the things which should concern Deputies instead of finding fault with the weather.

What we want to see brought about is something that will improve conditions and the question is how far will you go in that direction without making the cost of living prohibitive to town dwellers. I heard one suggestion from Deputy Brennan with which I agreed. He talked about subsidising artificial manures and said it would be a good investment if the Government could see their way to pay half the price of artificial manures. I agree with that suggestion of Deputy Brennan because the agricultural community would be producing more, we would have better-fed cattle and, as a result of our increased export trade, we would have more money coming in.

It was as a result of the invitation I received that I got up. I now extend that invitation to the Opposition. There are Deputies here more interested in farming, perhaps, than I am, but I live by farming. There are farmers in a bad way—particularly those farmers who have bad land. The farmers with good land are not in as bad a position as those who have low-lying land which is half-swamped. I ask the Opposition to give us their help to improve conditions, whether through guaranteed prices for pigs and bacon, through subsidising dairy produce, through drainage schemes or the Agricultural Commission. These are the points on which the nation should be built up. If agriculture represents 75 per cent. of the wealth of the country, we must begin at the bottom and build it up.

Mr. Brasier

This debate on unemployment in relation to agriculture is one that must attract the interest of every member of this House, whether he is an agriculturist or whether he lives in an urban area. It is extraordinary that the assertions as to the prosperity of agriculture come from members who live in urban areas and who, probably, know nothing at all about agriculture. The shopkeepers in the urban areas have disastrous proof of the condition of agriculture. The number of farmers who have had to get rid of their men simply because they are unable to pay them is also another proof of the condition of agriculture. The books of the shopkeepers show the debts due by farmers which they are not able to reduce, and if the shopkeepers took drastic action it would simply put the agriculturists out of operation. I have seen large farmers who are gradually laying their land down to grass because of the present system. Both in regard to wages and costs of production, as well as in every other item of expenditure, even rates on the land, they are not able to make ends meet. Some of them are in a very serious financial position, and the banks could tell a tale. Many of those banks are willing to compound for large debts, which are due by the agricultural community, because the people have no means whatever of reducing those debts even when drastic measures are taken. The Government must take a serious view of the unstocked lands of this country, and provide the farmers with the means of restocking those lands. That is one of the directions in which the Agricultural Commission would be able to bring relief to the agriculturists.

The high cost of manures, the high costs of food stuffs, the high costs of agricultural implements, the high costs in every direction where the farmer has to expend money, have a tendency to put him completely out of commission, because they reduce his capacity to give employment. The first thing on which the farmer economises is the labour on his land. For that reason, those who have made the interests of labour their special care must take the position seriously, and try to devise means and advise the Government as to how best the farmer can be put in a position to continue employing labour on the land. Once the peasantry go down, it is impossible to bring them back to the land. We hear a lot about the employment on the land, and members opposite have deplored the fact that it is not as good as it should be. They have asked for advice as to how best to relieve the agricultural community. One of the best methods of relieving the agricultural community, after they have been given the means of stocking their land, is to reduce their costs of production; reduce the outlay which they have to make in order to keep their farms in a proper economic condition. Those are the first considerations. Every item of expenditure has been increased due to taxation, whether it is taxation from the national point of view or taxation for local services. In County Cork this year our levy will exceed £500,000 after all the reliefs of the rates by way of agricultural grants have been given. That is the highest figure which has yet been levied, and it is one which must be seriously considered by those who represent the people, no matter on what side of the House they may be.

We speak about the unemployed in rural areas, but when we remember that there is continual emigration from this country across the Channel, and the greatest desire to take up employment in England, then we must wonder why it is that the unemployment figure still exceeds the 100,000 mark. I think it has now reached 105,000. Must not that be a matter for serious consideration by the Government, when they see that, in spite of their efforts to reduce it, it still remains at a figure which it should not have reached in this country while the tide of emigration still goes on. That is simply because the agricultural community are not able to employ on the land the number for which they at one time found employment. We have schemes for beet and schemes for tillage, but the beet area is rapidly going down, and it is questionable whether the factories will be able to get an acreage that will enable them to keep an economic production. Those are facts which have to be taken into consideration. I say that even the large farmers are so financially depressed that they cannot continue employing men on the land. They either have to lay it down for grass or offer it to the Land Commission to divide up among the landless men.

The increased cost of living is another factor which is seriously crippling the agricultural community. That factor is crippling to the big farmer, but it is more crippling to the small farmer. Perhaps the best means of helping the small agriculturist would be to bring down the cost of living, because where he has a large family that is the most crippling burden which he has to bear, but there are other matters, such as costs of production and various other expenses, with which the agriculturist has to contend. Perhaps, with the exception of the new-milk vendor—whom I can characterise as in a protected industry—there is no agriculturist to-day who can be said to be in a prosperous condition, or even to be able to pay his way. Every shopkeeper you meet has the same tale— that he is unable to cope with the present state of affairs. Those shop keepers are really in as bad a position as the agriculturists. They are in the position that they cannot give any more credit. When the shopkeeper cannot carry on, when the farmer cannot give employment and is not able to maintain his farm in active production, then definitely that will react on the position of the workers as well. If the agriculturists and the business community are hit so hard that they are not able to carry on the normal trade of the country, then, surely to goodness, the workers are also going to be hard hit in consequence of that fact.

We have 12,000,000 acres of arable land in this country. Would I be right in saying that half of that land is not in production to-day? I think I might venture to say that 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 acres of the tillage land of this country have been run out through over-cropping, and that the farmer has not the means to restore them to fertility. Those are factors which we have to take into consideration. They are an indication of the serious position in which the farmer has been placed. To maintain our population in this country, emigration had to be stopped. If emigration to England is to go on, and unemployment is still to continue at the same rate as for the past few years, then surely unemployment on the land is increasing, and the only way to stop it is to restore to the agricultural community something like their former prosperity. You can do that by giving help in the form of loans, by reducing the costings of agricultural production, and also by helping to reduce rates on agricultural land. These three things would do a lot to relieve unemployment, by enabling farmers to keep labour on the land, because the first thing farmers will do when they have to reduce expenditure is to reduce the amount of labour on their holdings.

Mr. M.J. Kennedy

There has been an appeal from both sides of the House for co-operation, in an endeavour to relieve whatever distress exists amongst the farming community. Deputy Brasier dealt with one aspect of the difficulties of the farming community, their bank debts. He said that many banks were willing to make a composition with regard to these debts. If there is to be co-operation, here is one aspect of farming on which we could all agree. In every country that I know of in Europe there has been a liquidation of debts. There has been a Government direction to the banking institutes in these countries to liquidate these debts. Farmers, like every other section of the community, do not like to indicate to public representatives, or to anybody else, the burdens they are under as regards mortgages on their farms. Very often the interest charged on these mortgages is greater than the rates and annuities. Very often, because of these charges, farms have been denuded of stock year after year, until we have a spectacle, which did not arise out of the economic war, but was there long before it, all over Leinster, in East Connaught, and in part of Munster, of derelict large-sized farms not employing any labour and not carrying any stock. If we are to have co-operation let there be a national indication to these credit institutions that it is time, a quarter of a century after some of these debts were originally contracted, that there should be a cleaning of the slate. That will not hurt the stability of these institutions, but it will put land and people into production that have been for a long time out of production.

The trend of the debate has also been about cattle, the price expected for cattle when the economic war ended, and the price now being realised. One thing stands out, that the tillage policy of the Government has been absolutely right; that the more subsidised tillage we have the better. If a great conflict should break out in Europe, the first consideration of this Government, even long before it did break out, should be the sustenance of the human beings that compose this nation, and not the wealth of certain individuals. The sustenance of the people and food supplies should be the Government's first consideration. People cannot live without meat, without cereals or vegetables; consequently, it is necessary, as part of our economy, to see that there is enough food here to feed our own population. The farmer who carries on a mixed economy, who goes in for some tillage as well as live stock production, is on the right lines.

I live in the country and I know that live stock are a necessary complement to farming. The farmer who went in for mixed farming stood up best against the economic war. He was the least hit, and the best able to resist the effects. Now when prices are fluctuating, and when those who shout most about our dependence on England for our cattle trade are beginning to realise that it is not the Alpha and Omega of our agricultural economy they thought it was, they are awakening to the fact that prices can soar to a point, but that then a point of saturation can be reached, when they will be competing with cattle from the Argentine and the rest of the world, and that English industrialists, miners, and the rest will only pay up to a certain point. Consequently, in the Dublin cattle market last week there was a marked drop in the price per cwt. compared with the previous week. I come from a constituency that depends more than most constituencies on the rearing of live stock. People were told that when March came the price of beef would go to £3 a cwt. but, as a matter of fact, it has to compete with world prices in the markets on the other side.

The farmer with a mixed economy, who is not really depending on the rearing of live stock is best off. That policy is also best for the nation. The Government have been wise in their policy of subsidising tillage. Admittedly we had a very bad year, and a very bad harvest, but that is no reason why people should go out of tillage. A bad year should not drive people to give up the production of beet and wheat. The trend in the past was as cattle production increased, the human population declined. We could have a state of things here when we could have estancias as large as counties, with a major-domo on horseback, and three or four men, responsible for the exportation of cattle worth millions of pounds, just as Ireland was immensely wealthy at a time when she was sending food across to England while, at the same time, 1,000,000 people died of hunger in the ditches. Give me at any time Gibbstown, County Meath, with houses, families, and shelter, in preference to one of these huge ranches that we hear of. I would have Gibbstown at any time in preference to the economy advocated by those who believe that all our wealth depends on how much cattle we can produce. The Government are on the right track. Admittedly, we had a very bad harvest, especially coming on top of the economic war, but the Government are directing the ship in the right way, and let them keep at it.

Mr. Bennett

I was interested in the last Deputy's speech. It is to me a satisfaction to learn that a number of Deputies in the Government Party have come to advocate the agricultural husbandry recommended by the late Minister for Agriculture, one more cow, one more sow, and one more acre of tillage—mixed farming. That was the policy always advocated from these benches. There came a time when, from the Government Benches, was launched a reversal of that policy, for intensive tillage. Evidently, there is now a belated attempt to get a little bit away from that policy. However, in regard to this particular Vote on Account, what I am particularly interested in is the lack on the part of the Minister to provide additional funds for agriculture. Deputy Victory, in his short speech, levelled the accusation at us that, while we admitted, and while he and everybody else admitted that agriculture is not in a good condition, we do not offer any particular remedy. The remedy may be difficult to find, but desperate diseases require desperate remedies and that there is a desperate disease in agriculture at the moment nobody denies, either on this side or the other side. We may offer solutions for its recovery. They probably would not be accepted if we did. It is the duty of the Government in office to provide the remedy if, as I say, they are satisfied that there is a desperate disease, as there is. If there is a desperate situation in any other line, if, for instance, there is a desperate fear that this country is going to be in, I do not say immediate, but ultimate danger of war or anything else, the Government gets active in preparations for that ultimate danger. There is no speech then from the Government side of the House to say who will provide the remedy or where the remedy will come from. The money is forthcoming. There is at the moment a fear that this country may be mixed up within the next few years in a war. I hope there is no immediate possibility but there is a fear that we may be mixed up in a war. Most of us hope not. Most of us believe not, but, anyhow, the fear is there and this Government has no hesitation in asking us to spend, within the next 17 or 18 months, £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 to protect this country. This country needs protection. We do not deny it. But it is a question of what can be done if the will is there and if the need is there and what must be done if the need is there. If there is a duty to protect the citizens of the country from a possible war, it is certainly, beyond yea or nay, the duty of the Government to protect the bulk of the people of this country engaged in a particular occupation from extinction. That is what the people of this country are rapidly coming to. Farming is no longer popular or profitable. People are fleeing from the land everywhere. Why should they not? It is not a nice job at any time. It is a particularly desperate job when you are up against it and when your back is to the wall.

What is the situation? None of us say that agriculture is in a good position, or that it was in a good position even before this Government came into office, or for years before that. It is in a worse position now, admittedly. Farmers' receipts are much less than they were ten years ago. I was interested in comparing receipts of my creamery at home ten years ago and now, and I find that where £26,000 or £27,000 came into that particular village in milk receipts ten years ago, it has dwindled down to £16,000 now.

Mr. Hickey

And why?

Mr. Bennett

For various reasons. World prices may have reduced. There may be other reasons. I am not dealing with that. I am making this point: that so much less money came in when, even if the same amount came in as did come then, it would not suffice to put me or any other farmer in the same position that he was in ten years ago. Not alone does he suffer from a fall in prices, but he suffers, just as every other member of the community suffers, from the increased cost of the essential commodities of life.

What do we find, looking over the particular Estimates, receipts and other things? At this moment we have collected in customs in this small State something approaching £10,000,000— practically £10,000,000 in customs alone. Remember that when we were governed by a foreign Government, that amount sufficed to run this part of the State. The amount that is now collected in customs sufficed to run this three-quarters of a State, and we were over-taxed, admittedly. Our argument was that we were over-taxed when this country was run for the amount collected in customs alone now.

The farmer is insolvent. There are not 10 per cent. of the farmers of this country at the moment that are in anything approaching solvency. They have nowhere to turn. We have Deputies one after the other saying that they had to go to the Land Commission to make appeals for farmers, and the Land Commission are sympathetic and willing to give help. It is no use putting a thing on the long finger if, when you come to the end of the finger, there is no more hope than what you had in the beginning. That is our position. The average farmer is insolvent. He has nowhere to turn to get a ha'penny or a penny. He could not borrow a penny from any source.

Mr. Hickey

It would be refreshing to know what is going to be done or should be done?

Mr. Brasier

That is the business of the Government.

Mr. Bennett

Even at the moment, if there was such a thing as a solvent farmer, still he has no credit. The Government has taken away his credit and any hope of credit he had. In the time of the previous Government, when he was not altogether insolvent and perhaps not too solvent either, he could borrow. He cannot now. Even a man that approaches solvency cannot borrow now. I had a case last week of a farmer, one of the few farmers I know of in this country approaching solvency, and he is approaching solvency because he has a family of eight or nine grown-up children working for him who should be earning wages and for whom no wages were put down. This man made a success of his farm during 25 years because he had free labour. It should not be free, but it was free. About five years ago he purchased another farm for one of the children and another was married. He was one of the few what I may call "miracle workers" in this country, who did all that in a few years and does not owe any man, bank or shopkeeper a penny. Here is his grievance. He has six or seven children left and, being the careful farmer that he is, he wants to get a farm for one of the other children. A farm in his immediate locality is offered for sale. He has most of the money to purchase it and he wants to borrow a little. One would have thought that, if there was any case in this country where a man engaged in agriculture could get money, it was this man and, on the credit of the farm which he worked for 25 years and made money, the credit of the farm that he purchased five years ago and a charge on the farm that he is going to buy and his stock-in-trade, he could not get any bank in this country to give him a couple of hundred pounds. Then the Government state that there is credit for the farmer in this country. There is neither hope nor credit. He is no man's child. He ought to be the Government's, but he is not.

Somebody asks what is the reaction on employment. Of course, the reaction is what anybody would expect. If the greatest industry in this country is in a desperate condition it must have an effect on employment, and it has.

Mr. Hickey

Or employment has an effect on farming—which?

Mr. Bennett

The other way around. The Deputy can argue that, if he likes, and if the Deputy wants any argument in that direction, it is this, that there was only one period, in my recollection, in this country when everybody was prosperous. Only one, from my recollection, and I am an older man than the Deputy.

Mr. Hickey

That is during the War.

Mr. Bennett

We will not mention the period. But there was only one period in this country when everybody was prosperous and that was the one period when agriculture was prosperous. We had not the same number of factories then that we have now. There were no smoky chimneys or the munition factories we are going to have, but the old factories were working to the full and prospering and everybody else in this country prospered. There was no man unemployed who wanted to work and everybody was fairly happy. I do not say we can resurrect that position with a stroke of the pen.

We cannot, but every help we give to agriculture, at whatever cost, and it must be at a cost, is going to lead in that direction. Where is the employment now? As I said, there is no credit for farmers anywhere. Possibly, if a farmer had more credit, he might employ more, and he might have some hope of surviving during a lean period, with hope for to-morrow, but he has not got it. There is only one source of credit, in my county, anyhow, and that is a temporary loan from the creameries. They are sympathetic and they know the position. They will lend money on a farmer's year's supply of milk. I can mortgage my year's supply and they will give me the price of a cow, but there is no help in any other direction.

As I said a moment ago, desperate diseases require desperate remedies. We can find, and we are finding, £7,000,000 to raise an army, and we can, and we should, find £7,000,000, £10,000,000, £20,000,000 or £50,000,000, and it would be well spent, to save the greatest army in this country, the agricultural army of farmers and workers. Any money spent in that direction would be well spent, and it needs must be spent, when, on the other side, we are building up barriers, partly with help from the Government, but mostly from the unfortunate consumers, in the way of tariffs to raise a small arm for this country. We have been asked for suggestions and the Agricultural Commission is suggested as a way out. It probably is a way out. Everybody is glad it was set up, and when it reports eventually, it is going to be a help.

Mr. Gorey

The Agricultural Commission?

Mr. Bennett

I hope it is going to be a help.

Mr. Gorey

What a joke!

Mr. Bennett

And I hope that Deputy Gorey hopes so also.

Mr. Gorey

I do not, because I have no hope. I have lost hope.

Mr. Bennett

The Deputy is in much the same position as the farmers. They have no hope.

Mr. Gorey

It is a packed jury.

Mr. Bennett

They are like the raven in Edgar Allan Poe's tale, who replied "Never more," when asked "Is there any balm in Gilead?" There is hardly any for the farmer. I hope, even though the hope is not general, that something good will result from the investigation of our agricultural industry. I believe that something is bound to come out of it, because I believe it is impossible for any set of men to investigate the present set of circumstances without coming to the conclusion that something must be done in the way of relief. It is not for me to anticipate what they are going to do, but it is going to take time. We do not know when that report will come to us; we do not know how long afterwards it is going to take to put into effect whatever recommendations they offer. If those recommendations are accepted, and legislation is brought in to give effect to them, it will take months, possibly years, and it will be too late for many. There are thousands for whom it will be too late. I repeat what I have said 100 times, and perhaps repetition is sometimes useful: We must not wait in a desperate situation; we must do it now and it should be done now. I know that the Minister for Finance has a difficulty. I know full well his difficulty as well as anybody else, and I should not like to be in his position. He will have difficulty in finding £7,000,000 for the defence of the country, and he will have difficulty in finding £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 in defence of the agriculturists, who are much more important, but he could do it with the will and the Government behind him, and, in God's name, I ask him to try to do it.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Bennett has given us one remedy to-night, and it apparently is the only remedy offered yet. He said that there was only one time when everybody was prosperous and that, apparently, was during the war. I suppose he is crying for another.

Mr. Hickey

When millions were engaged in destruction.

Mr. Corry

The Agricultural Commission was proposed as a cure by the Deputies opposite, and I then made the suggestion, and I believe with Deputy Bennett, that we will not get that cure until it is too late, namely, the economy of this country cut down to fit the agricultural community. That is the only cure for it. The outlook of the agricultural community has completely changed during the past 20 years, and I, for one, am glad of it. I am very glad that there are now very few farmers of the type spoken of by Deputy Bennett—the farmer with seven, eight or nine children, who worked and slaved and toiled for no wages until they were 30 or 40 years of age, in order that every drone in the country might live on their sweat. That is what has happened.

That is why the people are leaving the land. The young farmers' sons of to-day are not prepared to work for nothing, and Jack and Tom, Mary and Kate, are not prepared to stay there until they are 45 or 50 years, and then get a £10 note and the emigrant ship. That is why they are leaving the land. What is the cure proposed by Deputies opposite for keeping anyone employed on the land? Their shadow Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, gets up and condemns anything that gives employment on the land, anything that gives one hour's employment on the land, anything that would put a plough and a pair of horses to work. There must not be any more wheat grown; the plough must stop. There must not be any beet grown; that must stop, too. The farmer must no longer be provided with a market for his oats and barley by the admixture scheme. That has got to stop. That is the policy outlined by Deputy Dillon for the agricultural community, and that is the policy he has stood over, morning, noon and night.

Farmers had, I would say, the worst year of their existence in the past 12 months. This time 12 months the price of cattle jumped in expectation of the settlement, and the farmers in England who bought those cattle sold them for less than they paid for them. The great English market, about which we heard so much, and to preserve which we were howled at for five or six years, was worth nothing to the Irish farmer. The price of cattle went steadily down from February of last year to October and November, and, from the reports I am getting of the position in regard to both pasture and feeding stuffs in England, I do not think the position is going to be much better this year. If they are scared enough about a war, they will buy; if they are not, they will not. The one objection I have to people speaking here for the agricultural community is this: that you have every separate type of farmers trying to cut other farmers' throats, and that does not exist in any other walk in life except the agricultural community alone. You have the creamery man attacking the new milk farmer. You have the grazing farmer attacking the tillage farmer.

Mr. Gorey

No.

Mr. Corry

Certainly. I have heard it from those benches. I am sorry for it, but the facts are there. You have farmers getting up there complaining because another farmer gets a market for his oats and barley through the admixture scheme. You have that complaint going on there. It has come repeatedly, year after year from those benches, and I can recollect very easily your attitude and the position which you admitted did exist before the admixture scheme came in, when I saw thousands of barrels of barley down in Midleton that was unsaleable because there was nobody to buy it. You had the same with regard to white oats—unsaleable because there was nobody to buy that either. Then we had one branch of farmers getting up here and attacking the other branch of farmers in order to kill that side of it and you had another bunch saying that there are farmers who cannot grow wheat and who cannot grow beet and asking why are the people of this country to be asked to pay for either wheat or beet. That has been the position, and that has gathered up pluck enough in the Department of Finance to induce the Minister for Finance to get up and say "Very well, we will not put any more on sugar, in order to provide a market for the farmers' beet." That has been the position—that there is no cohesion and no combination between the agricultural community in this country; none whatever.

You want to know why people are leaving the land. It is partly due to the industrial policy. For instance, down in my constituency, you have the Cloyne Clay factory giving a certain amount of employment; you have the Carrigaline factory doubling or trebling the amount of employment it is giving; you have the waterproof factories giving double and treble the amount of employment; and you have the Blarney Mills employing once and a half the number they employed in 1932. You have the flour mills giving whole-time and overtime employment now where formerly men were working for one, two and three days a week during the reign of the Party opposite when they were in office. You have that change. You have paid out in wages every week in the town of Cobh, which was a derelict town when we came into office, £1,500 a week to-day. You have that change there.

Naturally the farmer's son working out on the land for what Deputy Bennett justly called jaw-hire casts his eye around and says: "I do not see why I should not get a couple of pounds or 50/- a week inside a factory as well as any of the Jackeens in the cities or the towns." He goes into the town, naturally, and he gets employment, and he can always get it or generally get it in preference to the man from the city or town because he is able to work. That is what has happened, and if that condition of affairs is to be remedied in this country, you have got to get down to the position where your overheads in this country are going to compare in some way with your agricultural economy here. You are not going to have a change in the position when you have Employment Acts being brought in here providing for an eight-hour day in certain jobs and a week's holidays with pay, and so on, while it is a case of a 24-hour day for the farmer. You have to change that or else let the lad in the city, when he gets his fortnight's holiday, come and work on the farms, and let the farmer get his fortnight's holidays then—let it be turn about.

I hear a lot of talk about the depression in agriculture. I think it was Deputy Bennett who said that the only time the farmer here was prosperous was during the War. Well, Deputy Cosgrave set up a commission in October of 1922, which was only a few years after the War, and that commission solemnly found that agriculture was in a very depressed condition. That was in 1922.

Mr. Brennan

That was the time of the big drop.

Mr. Corry

The big drop?

Mr. Brennan

Yes. Do not you remember that?

Mr. Corry

I wonder if we could get an unanimous decision in this Dáil to set up a commission to act as a kind of coroner's jury on the results of all the commissions that were set up in the last 20 years.

Mr. Brennan

We have another one now.

Mr. Corry

You have another one now. You looked for it and you got it, and if ever a Party was led into the soup in this country, that Party was led into it. You looked for that commission, and you got it. When Deputies come along and put Deputy Dillon in the saddle, I do not know what they expect. I do not know what the dickens he expected out of it, but I know what I expect out of it. At any rate, you have got a commission, and I wish Deputies every joy out of it and every happiness, and I hope that there will be a sufficient number of members of the commission who will not be too lazy to write a minority report. I shall say no more about that.

Mr. T. Kelly

The Deputy is vexing them over there.

Mr. Corry

What was the Minority Report of the Derating Commission— even the Minority report? The best minority report you can find suggested a one-third increase in the Agricultural Grant. What is the position to-day? The rates have been increased by close on £500,000—£460,000. You got £2,200,000 in relief on annuities; that is, roughly, £1,740,000 of a loan taken off the backs of the farmers as far as those overhead charges are concerned. That is more than one-third derating, but that is the position to-day. If you take the reliefs given by halving the annuities, and take the extra burden of close on £500,000 increase in rates, one against the other.

Mr. Brennan

What is the figure?

Mr. Corry

You get £1,740,000 relief to the agricultural community. Figure it out there as often as you like. That is the actual position: that this Government have taken off the overhead charges on the farmers, £1,750,000. That is the actual cash position. You have the farmers, after going through nearly the third time, finding themselves last year with a harvest practically unsaleable, and with cattle, from which they hoped a lot, that are unsaleable still, despite the fact that this Government handed over to you the great English market you were shouting about for the last five years.

Mr. Hickey

What is the way out?

Mr. Corry

The way out is to take those Estimates, start off with the nearest Civil Service department, and clean the whole damned lot out. That is the cure. Take the load of drones off our back, and do not have one departmental inspector with £1,000 a year tripping over another inspector from the same department into every local body in this country. No Deputy should have a better knowledge of that than the Lord Mayor of Cork. He is aware that recently one inspector went down to the City of Cork and selected an hospital site and, when the Corporation paid £6,000 for the site, another inspector went down and condemned it, leaving the ratepayers of the Lord Mayor's city at a loss to the tune of £6,000.

Mr. Hickey

On a point of order.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

As a matter of fact, the disorder started through the interruptions of the Lord Mayor of Cork. If the Lord Mayor makes interruptions of that kind he is bound to get it.

Mr. Hickey

I do not think it is fair to attack people who are not here.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I quite agree that it is not, but the Deputy would have probably finished by this if it were not for the Lord Mayor's interruptions.

Mr. Corry

I do not wish to make an attack on any individual, but when the Lord Mayor of Cork challenged a statement I made I had to give a specific instance, of which nobody is better aware than the Lord Mayor. I could keep quoting instances until 10.30. Deputy Brasier alluded to the derelict holdings. The sooner the Land Commission get to work on these holdings and divide them up, the better for the community. In parishes in my constituency you have 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000 acres of land lying practically derelict, on which families could be put and happy homes created. There are as many superabundant officers in one Department as in another; they are tripping one another up. Unfortunately, this State started on wrong lines. It inherited its Civil Service from Great Britain. It started off with a Civil Service that might suit a big wealthy industrial country like England, but not an agricultural country like this, where in the end the agricultural community have to pay the piper for all.

That is the position all over. The only trouble I see is in this House, where the majority of Deputies representing rural constituencies and the agricultural community come along here echoing the cry of a few city Jackeens outside: "Look at the price of sugar; look at the price of bread." You have the tax cry started by Deputies here who should not support it. If we have to pay, as we have, something extra for our agricultural machinery in order to give employment to Irish people in Ireland, something extra for our artificial manures in order to give employment here, something extra for our boots and clothes in order that employment might be given here for Irish people, I am in favour of it. I am quite satisfied with it; but I also say that the agricultural labourers and the farmers are entitled to a fair price for their produce, let it be got where it will. You cannot, on the one hand, have the man in the factory with £3 10s. 0d. per week and an 8-hour day, and the labourer on the farm with 5d. per hour and a 10-hour day, or, in the case of the farmers and the farmers' sons, a 24-hour day.

Mr. Bennett

And no pay.

Mr. Corry

And no pay. You cannot have that condition of affairs. If the beet factories get anything like sufficient beet this year, the only reason they will get it is that you have still a number of farmers who believe in making their sons and daughters slave in order that certain drones might fatten out of their sweat. I say that openly, and with full knowledge of the costings of the beet industry. Unfortunately, the position is that everybody can be sure of his dividend except the farmer. The farmer is not going to be sure of anything, and that is because of want of cohesion and loyalty amongst the agriculturists themselves.

Mr. Hughes

Why did you not see to it when you got the chance?

Mr. Corry

I have seen different chances, as the Deputy put it, given here. The Deputy is not too long here. I am only about 12½ years here, and I have seen five different Farmers' Parties coming here, and each one of them sold out. The last bunch of them sold out for nothing at all. Eleven votes in exchange for a shadow Minister. Those before them got something, but the last bunch only got a shadow. At every election until the last election you had a Farmers' Party going up for election. Then they were collected together—five or six or seven of them—and they said: "How much, a job lot going cheap?" A job lot going cheaply. Parliamentary Secretary for Posts and Poles! A mark of appreciation ! That unfortunately was the position and that is the position to-day amongst the representatives of the agricultural community. The man who is in the livestock business, the farmer who is depending largely on live stock for his living does not want anything given to the man who is engaged in tillage. The farmer who is engaged in tillage does not want the live stock farmer to get anything in the way of subsidy. It is a case of Peter robbing Paul and Paul robbing Peter. The people in the towns, the factory workers and the industrialists are getting all the benefit. That is the position for the man in the country and unfortunately it is a pitiable position. I hope that Opposition Deputies and Deputies in all parts of the House will note this and take it seriously. If the agricultural community is ever going to get beyond being hewers of wood and drawers of water they will have to come together, work together and fight together.

Mr. Gorey

Deputy Corry is coming on.

Mr. Corry

Yes, but you are not going to fight together by having a shadow Minister for Agriculture getting up in the House and damning every item that will give anything like employment on the land and a chance of making a livelihood to the agricultural workers. You are not going to get ahead that way. There are Deputies on the Opposition Benches, like Deputy Brasier, who see their constituents being robbed by the policy preached by Deputy Dillon. Yet they sit dumb behind him; they are far more to blame than Deputy Dillon himself. The constituency that Deputy Brasier and I have the honour to represent in this House is a highly-rated constituency. The land there is carrying a valuation of 30/- to £2 an acre. That land was valued as wheat-growing land. Now we are going to have the position there that the beet price is bared to the bone. That is the policy that is advocated morning, noon and night in this House by Deputy Dillon, the shadow Minister for Agriculture. Are we to have the wheat policy battered out of existence by Deputy Dillon, morning noon and night, attacking it here and misrepresenting it? Remember it was on the wheat policy and on the wheat-growing capacity of our land that our lands were valued under Griffith's valuation. Are we to have the market for our wheat, oats and barley wiped out of existence by the shadow Minister for Agriculture coming along here and dinning into our ears morning noon and night everything he can think of about the only policy that can give employment on the land and a living to our agriculturists? The sad part of it is that Deputies who know that Deputy Dillon is wrong back him out. In these circumstances I think there can be very little hope for agriculture in this country.

Mr. Keating

To my mind the only way in which we can help the farmer is by enabling him to reduce the cost of production. The way to help the people in the country is to reduce the cost of living. We hear a great deal about the Pig Marketing Board. The fact is that every man who is feeding pigs knows quite well that it is the bacon curer who is getting all the profit. On the one hand the producer is being driven out of existence and on the other hand the consumer is robbed. We hear a lot about wheat-growing. Now as a practical farmer I advise every man whose land is suitable for wheat-growing to grow wheat. But let us have protection. Do not ask the farmer to produce wheat for the sake of enriching the millers. Deputy Victory told us that there would be no question of annuities but for the Blueshirts. Does the Deputy remember that during the first years of the economic war there was an embargo of £6 a head on fat cattle, 10/- a head on lambs, and so on with everything else produced on the farm? We have been hearing a lot of talk about the price of cattle here and the price of cattle in England. Anyone reading the reports in the Press of the British markets will see that first rate cattle in England are making 42/- a cwt. while in the Dublin market they are making 41/-.

Some Fianna Fáil Deputies ask how cattle can be sent to England at 1/- a cwt. I will tell them how it is done. The British Minister for Agriculture has given the British farmer a bounty of 7/6 a cwt. on those cattle. That brings the price of the English cattle to 49/- a cwt. We farmers in this country who feed cattle have to sell at 41/- and we have to compete with the people who are getting 49/- a cwt. Other Deputies and I have repeatedly asked the Minister for Agriculture to give our farmers a bounty on stall-fed cattle. His answer to us was that the Minister for Finance would not agree. It is impossible to carry on tillage in this country and give employment if we have to compete against a man in England who is able to buy store cattle here, stall-feed them in England and get a substantial bounty of 7/6 a cwt. on them. We in this country have been asking to be put on a level with the English farmer.

The biggest mistake either the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Agriculture made was their refusal to encourage tillage farmers to feed more cattle. If the Government were to give this subsidy or protection to the farmer who stall-feeds his cattle they would be doing the best day's work they ever did for the country. It would be the best possible way of helping tillage. What they are doing now is driving people off the land.

We hear a great deal about people flying from the land. I ask people who complain of this how do they expect that agricultural workers should slave on the land, trying to live on a miserable, paltry wage? Why should the farmer's wife and his sons and daughters be asked to work for no wage? Surely the time is overdue when the Government ought to waken up to the fact that if they wish to keep the people on the land they should encourage the agricultural workers. They ought to give the farmer an opportunity of being able to make a living wage for himself and his family. Let the Government do something to reduce the cost of living so that the married worker who is drawing 14/- a week and his board, will find that when he takes that 14/- home, it will buy him 14/- worth of food and other necessaries of life. At the present moment, with the cost of living as it is, that 14/- is scarcely worth 7/-. The man who is really facing the hardest problem to-day is the man who is trying to rear a family on 14/- a week. I know that some of those people who write to the Press deploring the fact that people are flying from the land, and advocating staying on the land, would not themselves care to stay on the land in the circumstances with which the agricultural workers are faced to-day. The majority of those people who talk about the flight from the land are people who themselves left the land. It is time that the Government should waken up and give the farmer an opportunity of making a living out of the land.

We have been told a great deal about the Land Commission collecting only half the annuities. Well, according to the case made by the Taoiseach against the British, the farmer owed no annuities. The Taoiseach at one time said that we owed no annuities to England. If the annuities are not owed to England, then surely they are not owed to anybody, and they should not be collected from the farmer. That is all I have to say on this matter. There has been plenty of talk on it already. We have just listened to a speech from Deputy Corry, but we take no notice of him.

Mr. Hickey

There is one thing I appreciate highly and that is the patience of An Ceann Comhairle and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in listening to long speeches. I would like to see the day when Deputies' speeches would be shortened. I have listened to the points made by the various speakers. I say that the problem is not so much to find work for the unemployed but the distribution of the goods that we can produce in abundance. These goods should be distributed to those who need them. Deputy Bennett told us that the most prosperous period in this country was the period during the Great War. That was the time when 8,000,000 people were engaged in destruction. And the Deputy says that was the most prosperous period in our time. Well, that is a poor commentary on the peace period. If we could have prosperity during a period when you had over 8,000,000 people engaged in destruction, how much more reasonable is it to expect prosperity in a country when there is no war?

Mr. McGovern

Did Deputy Bennett say during the period of the Great War?

Mr. Hickey

He did not contradict me, so that I take it he agreed with me. What was the condition of the poor during the Great War, and since? If Deputies take the trouble to look up the records they will find that infant mortality amongst the poorer classes reached its lowest figure during the period of the Great War. That applied to the whole country. It was only last week that I read the report in the newspapers of a statement made by the president of a medical society in Dublin about the condition of the poor in this city. He referred to the fact that there were 50 expectant mothers under supervision for some time, and that during that period all they had was 3/- a week. That was their only income to enable them to get food. That gives one an idea of the conditions here. That doctor said that he would keep harping on the matter with a view to making the public conscience uneasy. It is matters of that kind that we should be giving attention to, and not wasting time talking on the merits or demerits of the economic war. The sooner we forget about it the better for the country and for the people who sent us here.

Deputy Dillon, when speaking the other day, referred to his recent visit to Australia and New Zealand. He referred to the fact that the unemployed in Australia received so much per week, together with a maintenance allowance of 5/- a week for each child in the family. He pointed out that if the unemployed in those countries were left without the means of getting decent sustenance they would think it a most unchristian thing, and yet the Deputy, with that experience before him, threw up his hands and admitted that he had no solution for the unemployment problem here. In Australia, over the past 20 years, they have had such a thing as a minimum wage of £4 5s. 0d. a week for workers, with a family allowance of 5/- for each child up to the number of five. In New Zealand, agricultural labourers have a wage of £3 a week, with a month's holidays in the year. Deputy Dillon finished up by saying that he did not know how a man, his wife and five children could live on 29/- a week. I want to suggest to him that a man in receipt of 27/- a week who has to support a wife and family is not living; he is merely existing. How could anyone expect a man with a wife and five children to live on 27/- a week; but while that is so, what must be the position of the man who has a family of six, eight or eleven children and who is getting no assistance from the State?

These are the matters that should be engaging the attention of Deputies, instead of spending their time trying to score debating points off one another. I listened to Deputy Childers speak about the condition in the rural districts. He seemed to think that everything was all right and that there was no financial distress. I would advise young men like him to try living on 27/- a week either in a rural area or in cities like Dublin and Cork. If he had the experience of trying to support a wife and six or seven children on that wage he would not be so complacent about conditions in the country. I think if he had such an experience that the views he expressed here the other night would get a bad shattering. Deputy Kennedy, who spoke this evening, seemed to be of the opinion that, if the banks liquidated the debts that farmers entered into about 25 years ago, things would be all right. I want to suggest seriously to the House that we may talk as much as we like here about conditions in the country, about unemployment and all the rest, and that we are never likely to get very far until the Government takes over control of the monetary system of the country. The cry is raised here day after day: "Let the Minister for Finance open his purse and give money here and there for this and for that". My feeling about the matter is that the Minister for Finance and the Government as a whole are powerless to give money to anybody at the present time because they have not control over the credit or monetary system of the country.

Deputy Victory spoke this evening, and as I listened to him I felt that he was really sincere and honest in trying to find a solution for the difficulties that confront us. He talked about world depression. I think that the solution that I have put forward is the only one that will bring about a real change for the better.

Why is it that we have so many unemployed, so many thousands living on a miserable pittance in the form of home assistance? The number, I think, is about 98,000. In addition, we have about 104,000 unemployed. Why is it that we are not able to provide all our people with a sufficiency of the necessaries of life? In my opinion, all the ills we suffer from are due to the fact that we do not control the credit and monetary system of the country. I have some knowledge myself of the condition of the farmers. In my early days I lived on a farm, and during the last 25 years I have been brought into close contact with the condition of the working classes. I know how they are striving to exist. I am afraid that enough consideration is not given to the serious problems that confront us in this House. Too much time is devoted to the things that do not really matter. Speaking for my colleagues, I want to say that we are prepared to give 100 per cent. co-operation to this or any other Government that will make a real attempt to solve the problems that I have referred to. But I want to say again, that unless the solution that I propose is adopted by the Government, we are not likely to achieve very much in the way of practical results.

The only solution that Deputy Corry had to offer for overcoming our present difficulties was to wipe out most of the civil servants. That, surely, was treating the thing too lightly. I have not had very much experience of civil servants, but from what I know of them they do their work conscientiously and well. I do not think it is fair to suggest that the civil servants are responsible for any shortcomings that there may be. In conclusion, I want to say that, instead of wasting time in this House trying to score points over one another for political purposes, Deputies should apply themselves seriously to the problems that confront the country. In my opinion, good results would be achieved if they did so on the lines I have indicated, and if we had control of the credit and currency of the country.

Mr. McGovern

I do not know if the method suggested by Deputy Hickey would solve our problems. It would not be the simple matter that he seemed to think. Many Governments who had control of their monetary systems and tried the expedients Deputy Hickey has in mind, viz., inflation, found that they manufactured, or produced too much currency.

Mr. Hickey

Where?

Mr. McGovern

I can name France, Germany and America at one time and there were other countries as well that tried that expedient. What happened? The first people who were up against it were the labour people. They cried out that under it the cost of living had gone up so much that the £ was only worth 5/- to them. In my opinion the people who would gain most in the first instance from a depreciation of the currency would be the farmers, but I am firmly convinced that in the long run, nobody would gain. I am also of the opinion that the first people to cry out against it would be labour. It would be easy, of course, to produce paper pound notes, but Labour would soon find, if there was any depreciation of the currency, that the pound note under the old system was about three times less valuable under the new system. They would cry out against that.

Mr. Hickey

What is wrong with the Deputy now?

Mr. McGovern

What is wrong with the Deputy? He has been talking a lot about currency and credit. In my opinion we need not waste much time in discussing that problem because the people of this country have sense enough to know what tampering with the currency means, and would lead to. Personally, I do not believe it is going to cause much trouble, because some time ago the British £ was on a gold standard and now it is worth only 11/6 and still, looking at it from the farmers' point of view, we are no better off. If you examine the amount of production in this country you will find that we are consuming twice as much as we are producing and the fact is that the balance of trade is against us. I think the Deputy should know that. If you go back to the £, and if you put it on the sovereign basis, the position would be that for the farmers it would reduce prices nearly to half, so that you cannot interfere with the currency, because you upset everything.

The first trouble came when the Great War started. We then had an inflation period: prices soared, the cost of production soared, everything soared. When things got back to normal, the prices of agricultural produce dropped until they were less than pre-War. Even at the present time, when the economic war is settled, the price of agricultural produce is less than 110 as compared with 100 in 1913. While the price of agricultural produce is almost down to the 1913 level, the cost of production is 200. That means that the cost of production is actually doubled. The position in regard to those engaged in agriculture, our principal industry, is that whereas their gross income is increased by about 10 per cent. as compared with 1913—at the outside it may be increased by 10 per cent.—their net income is less by the difference between 110 and 200. That means that the net income is affected by the 90 per cent. in regard to the cost of production.

Let me compare the position of farmers with other classes in the State. Other classes have had their salaries increased in order to keep pace with the increase in the cost of living. Take the civil servant as an example. The bonus of civil servants is fixed upon the increase in the cost of living. Let me take the average increase given to those civil servants whose position would be comparable to that of the average farmer. The increase this type of civil servant is getting in the shape of a bonus is something like 70 per cent. Instead of the farmer getting an increase of 70 per cent. in his net income he has lost to the extent of 90 per cent, on the cost of production. Suppose the cost of production in pre-War times represented 40 per cent. of value of produce that would mean 60 per cent. was profit. By doubling the 40 per cent. it would bring the figure slightly above 73 per cent. on present cost of production so that the profit or the net income is only 27 per cent. on the whole.

The fact is that the farmer's income as compared with pre-War has been reduced from 60 per cent. of the total value of his produce to 27 per cent., slightly less than half. While the income has been reduced to less than half, the cost of living has gone up by 70 per cent. That is the difficulty in which the farmer is placed. I do not say it was the economic war that caused that position. It was the Great War put the first misfortune upon the farmer, the Great War with the resulting inflation and the high cost of living. When costs went up they remained up, but the price of agricultural produce went back to the pre-War level. There is a bigger difficulty in solving this problem than most people imagine. You have also to consider in relation to this matter, the policy that was put into operation in this country.

An Ceann Comhairle

The subject of the debate is supposed to be unemployment, with reference to unemployment in agriculture.

Mr. McGovern

In order to relieve unemployment the Government imposed tariffs mountains high. These tariffs were, no doubt, put on with the best intentions, to create employment, but they had the effect of raising the cost of living, and the wages of the agricultural labourer had to be increased or else he could not live. Then the farmer was fleeced by the increased cost of living, because he had to provide for himself and his family, Increases were added to the rates, everything else went up and the farmers were unable to employ men and pay them the increased wages, or pay them any wages, in fact. That is a very serious difficulty.

I am glad to see Deputy Corry and Deputy Victory and others are beginning to realise these difficulties and are anxious to do something to help the agricultural community and keep the people on the land. There is no difference between us as to the end we have in view, but there is a great difference as to the means to attain that end. Deputy Corry was rather critical about Deputy Dillon's view with regard to the growing of certain crops. I agree in this instance with Deputy Dillon, although I agree with Deputy Corry in a good many other things. I agree with Deputy Dillon's view in relation to some of these schemes—wheat and beet for instance, and petrol and light oils. I do not approve of these schemes. The farmers are supposed to be getting millions in connection with these things. What is the use of wasting the taxpayers' money if it does not bring benefit to the farmers? The average farmer does not get any benefit from them. Some of the farmers are losing by the schemes.

Certain individuals and certain districts may be getting a small benefit. The fact that the benefit is small is proved by the failure of these schemes in most places. They have proved a costly failure. At the end of six or seven years we have still only about half enough wheat grown. Is that not proof that the scheme is a failure? I think it is costing the consumers and the taxpayers something like £4,500,000 because of the increased cost of flour and the increased taxation in order to subsidise the growing of wheat.

Mr. MacEntee

There is no subsidy on wheat.

Mr. McGovern

In any case I think the Minister will agree that there is an increase of over £2,500,000 put on the consumer in connection with the price of flour. He knows the price of flour in Northern Ireland. There is a difference of 6/- per cwt., and that works out at £2,700,000. That is a very heavy tax to put upon the people. I move to report progress.

Progress reported, the Committee to sit again to-morrow.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 8th March.