Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 5 May 1939

Vol. 75 No. 14

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. — (Deputy Dillon.)

Mr. Hughes

I was pointing out last evening that because of the subsidy on fat cattle granted by the British Government, the policy of this country should be directed towards the production and shipment of more store cattle than fat cattle, because the price for store cattle is more attractive as a result of the bounty on fat cattle at the other side. I think that is a sound policy, and that we ought to concentrate on it. I was anxious to point out also that, as a result of the production of more store cattle and the consequent reduction in the number of fat cattle produced here, there is a greater demand on the fertility of the soil. It takes more protein and nitrogen from the soil to build up a store beast, to form the bone, the skin and the hair in the growing stages of the animal. For that reason there is all the more necessity to attend to the fertility of the soil. If we are going to continue that policy, and I believe it is a sound policy, if we are to contine the production of first-class store cattle to be finished off by the English farmer, if we are to bring about a situation in which the English farmer will come to rely more and more on the supply of these store cattle in this country, there is all the greater necessity that we should attend to the fertility of the soil. I want to point out to the Minister that the amount of manure used in this country averages only one bag per eight acres of agricultural land. That is the average amount used, spread over the 11,500,000 acres of agricultural land which we have

Would the Minister call that fertilising or manuring the land in the real sense of that term, or in the sense that fertilising is understood in other agricultural countries? I say it is not, nor anything like it. If we are to have any real results, that must be increased three or four fold at least. I again suggest to the Minister that the 10/- a ton is not sufficient. The consumption of home manufactured superphosphates was, as I pointed out last night, greater in the year 1929 than in 1937, the last year for which figures are available. The figure for 1929 was 141,000 tons, and by 1937 it had fallen by 3,000 tons, so that the protection afforded to the home manufacturers has not increased the output in any way. It has had the effect of forcing up prices. Home prices at present are considerably higher than the price at which we could buy imported super phosphate. The Minister must do something to try to bring the price of "super" to round about 50/- or less, if he wants to encourage farmers to increase the amount used.

With regard to fertilisers, would the Minister tell me if any experiments are being carried out in the use of the special concentrated manure that has appeared on the market in the last two or three years? I have seen crops that have been treated with it, and I must say that I was very pleased with the results. It has decided advantages. The quantity is small, and when it is used in its application to seed grain the results are very encouraging. You can mix 1½ or 2 cwt. of it with seed grain. You show it with the seed grain in the ordinary way, through a corn drill. That has this advantage: that you are putting it two inches below the surface, and are not fertilising the weeds, as was the case under the old system. The great disadvantage in the use of fertilisers at the present time is that when we top-dress with them we are fertilising the weeds on the surface. In other words, we are fertilising something that we do not want to fertilise. The modern idea in the use of this highly-concentrated manure is to sow it with the grain and put the manure close where it is required about two inches below the surface.

The farmer understands that the small weed seed an inch below the surface does not, as a rule, germinate. If this highly concentrated manure is put at a depth of a couple of inches down, the weed seeds in proximity to the manure will not germinate because they are down too deep. It will not get into contact with the weed seed close to the surface and is going to help the seed grain that the farmer has put into his land. It has this further effect, that it wards off attacks of wire worm.

These are some of the scientific advantages to be derived from the use of this highly concentrated manure. I would be glad if the Minister would say whether any experiments are being carried out by the Department with regard to its use, or is it the Department's view that we should try to further bolster up the superphosphate manufacturers in this country? They have done nothing in the direction of trying to produce a modern article. I understand that the machinery they have is more or less obsolete. They have taken no steps to instal in their factories the latest type of plant, with the result that our farmers are being forced to pay a much higher price for their superphosphates than that at which they could get the imported article. Evidently the Minister is afraid to experiment in the use of this high concentrate that I have referred to. At any rate, we have heard nothing about it from the Department. I think it is a matter that deserves close examination because, as I have said, it has very decided advantages over the old system of fertilising. Under that system the great problem was the weeds. You certainly did fertilise them. Farmers who use artificial manures are aware that the weed problem is much more difficult now than it was 30 or 40 years' ago. I hope that the Minister will look into this and tell us, when replying, what the views of the Department are.

A great deal has been said about cattle. We are all agreed that the foundation stock for this country is the shorthorn. Special attention should be paid to it. In addition to being our foundation stock, the shorthorn has this decided advantage that the production of that type of beast enables us to avail of the monopoly that we have of a special type of trade in the English market. I refer to the production of first-class milkers. Medical men, public health authorities and others are advising the people to drink more milk. Hence the demand for milk is becoming greater day by day, and to meet that there is, of course, an increasing demand for good milch cows in the one great market that we have almost at our very door. There is a keen demand for nice shapely heifers that will make good milkers. There is a great trade for that type of beast in the back end of the year. A lot of them go through Bristol, and one may say that the trade in them has come to be known as the Bristol trade. We should aim at producing the best type of heifer that will eventually turn out to be a first-class milker.

I do not propose to say much about pigs. A great deal has already been said about the production of them. I would like just to ask the Minister if he has taken note of the fact that the official figures available show that as between 1931 and 1937 the home consumption of bacon has gone down by just over 250,000 cwts., the respective figures being 825,000 and 572,000 cwts. I just want to say a word or two on grass seeds. When I spoke on this on the Supplementary Estimate, the Minister made no reference to it in his reply. To my mind, the matter is one of paramount importance to agriculture, and I hope the Minister will deal with it when replying on this Estimate. This question of grass seeds is of importance not only to our pasture lands but in the tillage areas as well. Every good farmer recognises that the laying down of land to grass is of tremendous importance if you want to have successful farming in this or any other country. It is essential that we put in the right type of seed that will take nitrogen from the air and store it in the soil. The best and cheapest form of nitrogen that the farmer can supply to his soil, and that can be got from the atmosphere, is obtained from the use of the right type of grass seeds.

What is the position here? I can supply the Minister with quotations from Dublin and Belfast houses for Italian rye grass, and these show that we must pay 75/- per quarter here as against 52/- in Belfast for the same seeds except that one is cleaned here and the other is cleaned in Belfast. Perennial and Italian rye grass cannot be imported clean. It must be imported in the rough, and I take it the reason is to promote a small cleaning industry here. The labour content in cleaning is very small, yet farmers here have to pay the difference between 52/- and 75/- for grass seeds. Talking about robbery in bacon and flour, there is a greater ramp still in grass seeds. A farmer in County Monaghan brings grass seeds to the market and sells Italian rye grass at 14/- a cwt., or 28/- a quarter. The percentage taken for cleaning is not great, but the ring that has been formed here amongst the few cleaners results in farmers having to pay 75/- a quarter as against 52/- in Northern Ireland. What happens? Small farmers go to lofts where hay is stored belonging to big farmers and get the old seeds and riddle them as best they can. We all know that these people are going to have a big percentage of weeds as well. That is not conductive to good results. What does the Minister propose to do about that? Does he approve of that policy? Does he think that will make for good farming? The sooner that kind of rot is dropped the better. If anything is going to be done for agriculture it cannot be done under such conditions. This is a matter of paramount importance to our primary industry, because we have to complete and sell everything we produce in competitive markets. We should be able to buy all our raw materials under as favourable circumstances as others. If we cannot do that, that ends the matter. The sooner we face up to that the better. It has not been faced up to, but the extent of the distressing conditions of this important industry is beginning to be realised.

With regard to wheat, I have grown a considerable amount of wheat, and I must say that it is my experience that winter wheat production cannot continue here. If we are to continue to grow wheat the Minister must find a more prolific variety of spring wheat Farmers sitting on the opposite benches, if they are honest about it, will have to accept that fact. Owing to our peculiarly mild climatic conditions the tendency of our land is to produce weeds and dirt. Land under wheat becomes very foul, and that is an enormous strain on the fertility of the soil. There is an idea that wheat is very severe on the land. To some extent that is right, but what makes it really severe is that two crops are produced, a crop of wheat and a crop of weeds. If a prolific spring variety of wheat could be found that trouble would be eliminated.

Coming back to the question of grass seeds, it has been found that land can not be seeded down properly with the winter wheat crop. Since we started growing wheat I notice all over the country inferior first crop meadows and, as a natural corollary, we have poor and inferior pastures. In first crop meadows there are weeds and bad grasses that we know as bent, scutch, Yorkshire fog and agrostes. To the ordinary man they look all right, but they have no food value, being fibre pure and simple. It is not good policy to continue sowing seeds in a winter wheat crop when it gives rise to such conditions. If the Minister is going to continue growing wheat he should concentrate on providing a more prolific late winter or spring variety, in order to get over the present difficulty.

I have pointed out on a previous occasion that the present is a most opportune time to try to make a trade agreement with our neighbours in Great Britain. It is now generally recognised that that is the only market we have for our huge surplus of agricultural produce. I think that a rare opportunity has presented itself to the Government to secure such an agreement when you remember that the British at the present time are thinking in terms of war, and owing to their insular position, with food lines extending all over the world, finding it difficult to get supplies. We should point out that we are in a position to develop and to increase our production if we got some encouragement. We should ask them what they propose to offer. The opportunity is there: Are we going to miss it? It is of paramount importance if anything is to be done for agriculture to reduce the cost of production. That is the only way the difficulty can be overcome. Any tariffs that affect the cost of essential raw materials must be removed, and it should be the duty of the Minister responsible to see that no new tariff is proposed on anything required for agriculture that would throw a burden on the industry. As Minister for Agriculture, the Minister is the guardian of the industry.

As far as employment on the land goes, the maps hanging in the Lobbies give a vivid picture of the canker that is eating into the heart of our economy, but I think the solution portrayed in the maps is not a solution at all. As I pointed out last night we are spending huge sums of money on non-productive work. There is a serious situation here, and the only solution of it is to put every man into production, and to take people off relief works that give no return but that are a drain on the country, and put them into production on the land. I would prefer to see the money voted here for unemployment doubled, because the strain would be easier on the country when footing the bill if it was spent on productive work. It has been an enormous strain to foot the bill, and there has been no return. Nobody will deny that good social work has been done, nevertheless there has been a definite strain on our resources because there was no return. We must face up to that position and switch off from that kind of work and get into production.

As to wages, farmers find it difficult to meet the fixed standard wages and, on the other hand, no man can be expected to work on land for less than 27/- a week. Even 27/- is a miserable wage for a qualified man working on the land, as against the wages paid in other trades. The agricultural worker is highly skilled. He is not a machine. He must use his intelligence and his skill, and must have ability if he is a good agricultural worker. No man can rear a family on 27/- a week. Yet, it is a strain on farmers under present conditions to find 27/- a week. That is evident from the reduction in the number of agricultural workers by 43,000 in four years. Deputy Dillon pointed out the solution. I think that some scheme for subsidising employment on the land should be carefully examined by the Government. There would be some return for that money. The solution for the unemployment problem should be a subsidy for employment rather than a subsidy for unemployment. The dole is absolutely wrong and immoral in every way. It must have a demoralising effect on our people. That proposition ought to be closely examined — to get the people back into production on the land. You cannot look to the farmer to finance increased employment on the land. The State must give assistance and there will be a return for the money so spent.

As to the question of credit, many farmers are paralysed for want of finance. They are not able to finance their job, with the result that the State is losing possible production. That is a matter which must be attended to immediately. The Minister must realise the serious situation of our agricultural industry. The Minister tried to sidestep that before but I do not think it is possible to do so. The industry is in an alarming position at present and the Minister should face up to his responsibilities and tell the House, here and now, what he proposes to do about it. There is no use in waiting for the report of the Agricultural Commission which may arrive three or four years hence. The industry needs immediate relief. That is the responsibility of the Government and of the Minister and, on this Vote, I should expect the Minister to tell the House, at least, what he proposes to do to ease the situation.

Mr. J.P. Kelly

I believe that the attention we pay to the development of our store cattle trade should not be allowed to interfere with our tillage policy. It is quite obvious that the farmer will follow the line that will bring him the best return. That is the natural inclination and with that we can find no fault. But I fear that, in devoting our attention to the development of the store cattle trade, we may lose sight of the fact that a tillage policy is necessary to this country. We have suffered from the ranching system, as we knew it in the past. We suffered because the store cattle trade was in full swing, because store cattle could be fed upon the grass and sent across to the English market. Our aim should be to make tillage farming more remunerative than grass farming. I do believe that the farmers will engage in tillage operations if the profits which accure from their work are adequate. It is well known that grass farming employs the fewest number of workers of any of the branches of the agricultural industry. It is quite true that wheat growing may not give a large amount of employment but the rotational crops that follow the growing of wheat do give a considerable amount of employment. I hold that the solution of the rural unemployment problem lies along the lines I have indicated — the operation of a tillage policy. A guaranteed market and a guarantee of a fair profit are absolutely essential in this respect.

The farmer has been asked to grow more wheat. As a result of the appeal made by the Department, he has grown more wheat but, for the production of that crop, he has, at least, a guaranteed price. Provided that the climatic conditions are suitable, he is able to forecast what he will derive from the work he puts into the growing of wheat. It is essential that there should be a guaranteed price for the rotational crops that follow the growing of wheat. During the past year, I have had occasion to find complaint with the price secured for some of the crops that follow wheat growing. On the Dublin market last year, the price quoted for potatoes was, at least, three times higher than that which the farmers down the country were getting. I am not sure that, at the moment, the Minister or the Department has the necessary machinery to deal with that matter, but I submit that it is a matter that should engage their serious attention.

I should also like to refer to the growing of onions. During the past year, circulars were sent out from the Department requesting the farmers to grow more onions, pointing out that there was a market available and that a substantial profit could be secured. I understand from the Department that the average price for onions of satisfactory quality, properly graded and marketed in good condition, was about £12 per ton. I know instances where farmers down the country grew onions, which were properly graded, marketed in good condition and of satisfactory quality, and they did not secure anything like the average price. After paying for transport to the market, they were only paid at the rate of £8 per ton. I wish to point out to the Minister that the margin between the prices for onions of equal quality, grown in the same class of soil, in the same locality and marketed under the same conditions, is altogether too great if it runs from £8 to £16 per ton. I am informed that some men who grew onions and marketed them under those conditions are going out of onion-growing this year. That is a matter to which attention should be given. A guaranteed price will beget production. If you are not able to guarantee a price you should stabilise the price in such a way as to induce farmers to go in for the growing of onions to a larger extent. There is no guarantee that prices will not go down next year. When the farmers have their crop grown they have no guarantee, even though the average price may be remunerative, that they will get a fair price. Furthermore, what has happened is no encouragement to new growers in the localities concerned. These items may be side-lines with some farmers, but they are very useful side-lines and are very helpful in changing over from one crop to another. The market should give at least a decent return to those farmers.

Another matter that was dealt with by my colleague, Deputy O'Reilly, last evening was fruit growing. I should like to add my voice to the demand that he put forward. The demand from the fruit growers can be summarised into the asking of a guaranteed price and a guaranteed market. We have, of course, the best fruit in the world — I think that cannot be denied — and it is only fair that proper attention should be paid to the market. There is one point I would like to mention in connection with fruit growing and it is that fruit growing has been seriously affected by frost and this has a very disheartening effect on the growers. Last year the frost and the harsh winds cut away all the blossoms, with the result that it was only in very sheltered patches we had any fruit. In other countries, I understand, there has been some chemical production applied to the trees to enable them to withstand the ravages of the frost. I understand this chemical is very expensive and its application in this country could not be carried out economically by the growers. I think it might be worth while expending a little money investigating its possibilities by trying it out in this country.

Some people depend entirely upon the growing of fruit, and when they see their whole year's income swept away from them in one night by the frost, you can imagine the very serious situation that arises in such cases. They have tried various methods of combating the frost. They have lighted fires and used other methods and while those methods may have been useful in a small degree, nevertheless they are not able to save the bulk of the fruit crop. It is in the interests of the nation that the fruit growers should have their crops rendered immune from frost so far as that is possible, and I think some assistance should be given them in introducing methods to combat the frost. At least the element of chance in this connection should be reduced to a minimum. Money has been very well spent by the Department of Agriculture in connection with the fruit industry. Various orchard pests have been got rid of and the fruit has been improved immensely. The quality has been improved, and I think these other little matters which mean so very much to the growers of fruit should be attended to with the least possible delay.

Mr. O'Donovan

The criticism of this Estimate from the Government Benches has been very interesting. We have been treated to lectures from Deputy Kelly and Deputy O'Reilly on various aspects of the Department's work. I think that would be more the business of the Department's instructors rather than for Deputies coming here. The criticism from this side of the House has been constructive and it leaves very little for me to say, except to stress some of the points raised by other speakers from this side. The milch cow is the foundation of all agriculture, and the first matter I would like to stress is the question of cow-testing. I have raised this matter here on previous occasions and it appears we have not made much progress. The average yield has not increased in the last six years, notwithstanding that we have had schemes for the improvement of live stock very intensively carried out. We have had Government dairy shorthorn bulls and dairy shorthorn cows spread all over the country and, in spite of that, it is extraordinary that there is still no increase in the milk yield.

If the Department, at no matter what cost, could improve the average yield per cow by 100 gallons, you would have solved a good deal of the difficulties of the farmers. There is a slight increase in the Estimate this year for those societies, but I think it is altogether insufficient to encourage the people to go in for cow-testing. Let us suppose you want to get at the people who really need assistance. In the West Cork constituency there are about 24,000 rated occupiers under £10 valuation, and those are the people whom cow-testing has not touched. They have to depend for their livelihood on the land. They have not the advantage of being able to grow wheat or beet, if there was any advantage to be gained that way — there is an advantage in some districts. If you had some scheme whereby you could get cow-testing carried out in those poorer areas, it would be very much to the advantage of the people there. You must, however, pay a supervisor more than he is getting at the moment. It is a whole-time job, going from small farmer to small farmer. I think the Department should try to devise some scheme under which cow-testing can be more extensively carried out. As I have said, the milch cow is the foundation of all agriculture, and this would be the first step towards putting the farmer on his feet.

Next in importance to the milch cow I would put the hen. I am glad to see that there is some advance there also in the loans for poultry houses, for improving egg production and for the development of the chicken industry and on poultry rearing generally. I place the hen as next in importance, though I think the hen is really a more valuable asset to the small farmer than the cow. The small farmer can realise only once a year on the produce of the cow—when he sells the calf. Of course, if they are sending their milk to the creamery they get their little cheque once a month, or if they make their own butter they realise the price once a week. But every time the housewife collects a dozen of eggs she can sell them and buy for the household some particular article she needs. She can realise on eggs every day in the week and every hour of the day. It is most important to the small farmers of the country that the egg and poultry industry should be better looked after.

I think in the case of people of very low valuations there should be grants instead of loans, because these people are not in a position to apply for loans and possibly would not be in a position to pay back the borrowed money for some time. If grants were made available with the small loans it would be the greatest encouragement and help to such people in congested areas.

Not alone is the hen a source of great help to such people, but the raising and fattening of ducks is equally so. The keeping of ducks has been a wonderful source of income to people in other countries. I do not see why the industry should not be taken up more in our congested areas and so give profitable employment to the womenfolk. Then there is not enough attention devoted to the keeping of geese. If the Emden goose and the Emden gander were introduced into every farmstead in the country they would be found a valuable source of income. They are very healthy birds. The ordinary common or garden goose will eat as much and possibly more than the Emden, but there is a very large difference in the returns to the housewife. If a woman raised 20 Emden geese weighing 18 lbs. each, selling at 6d. or 7d. a lb., she would have a decent sum out of them as compared with what is made from the common goose weighing 10 lbs. each, and not worth as much per lb. as the Emden. The common geese cost more to raise, because they eat more. These are the things that will bring prosperity to the poor areas and they will help the good areas just as well. I would like to see these matters taken up by the Department, and taken in hands more quickly. Much prosperity could be brought to the country along this line of development. The Department will do little good if they go on dealing with these things piecemeal. Trifling loans will get us nowhere, as far as important matters like these are concerned.

There is another matter which I would like to bring before the notice of the Minister, now that calves have again become a valuable asset in the country. There is a great deal of mortality from white scour amongst calves. The anti-white scour serum is not allowed into this country with the result that the mortality among calves is greater and is being very much felt by farmers. Why should it not when no anti-white scour serum is available to safeguard against this disease? I do not know why this anti-white scour serum is not allowed into the country. I hope the Minister will look into that matter and have it dealt with very quickly for it is urgent.

Deputy Gorey spoke at length on the question of the rabbits and dealt very effectively with the rabbit plague. I think the country and the Minister are under a debt of gratitude to him for the suggestions he made for dealing with the rabbit plague. If any scheme could be put into operation for the complete eradication of that pest it would be a Godsend to the people. Rabbits are not much of an asset to the country. If the unemployed were got to go out and trap and snare the rabbits and pay them well for doing it it would be a step in the right direction.

The pig production has been dealt with very fully by Deputy Dillon. In the constituency from which I come, very intensive pig feeding was carried out some years ago by the small farmers. The small pig feeder has now disappeared. In the past the pig was considered to be the poor man's savings bank. The reason for the disappearance of the small pig feeder is probably the high cost of foodstuffs. In addition there was possibly the difficulty of getting the pigs into market in good time. There was also the want of proper housing for the pigs. As a result of these things the small feeder has gone out of business. I know two feeders in my constituency who feed 500 pigs each. They are putting up piggeries to carry 200 or 300 more pigs, to the detriment of the small feeder. Other Deputies have gone so effectively into this question that I need say no more on it.

With regard to the fertiliser scheme of 10/- a ton subsidy on fertilisers, that is not much help towards putting the farmer on his feet. It is not going to increase production to any great extent. In fact it will scarcely help at all and it might be described as a cod. The only root crop that is getting any sort of treatment at the moment is the beet crop and that is because the beet grower can take his contract form into the merchant and get on credit what ever manures he wants for his beet crop. There is no other crop growing or produced on the farm at the moment that is getting sufficient farmyard manure. The fertilisers available to the farmer cannot be bought by him because the merchant will only sell for cash down. The result is poor crops and the deterioration of the land.

In a recent debate here the Minister for Agriculture mentioned that grass is one of the most valuable crops in this country. But the grass has deteriorated and the pastures have become poor because of the lack of manure. No fertilisers and no top dressings have been applied to the pastures by the farmers in recent years because they cannot afford to buy the artificial manures. The result is the young cattle are not properly fed and are of poor quality; the milk yields are poor. There is nothing but decay and money is lost to the farmers.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer — and I do not want to do it by way of a lecture. I think that the time has come when our agricultural instructors should be asked to do something else besides carrying out experiments. There is little new in these experiments. It is the same thing over and over that has been carried out for the past 40 years. I have been looking at these experiments and I think they might be given a rest. I admit that Department instructors have done yeoman service to this country; I know they work well, but it is time that these experiments should stop. If any new manures were brought into the country it might be necessary to carry out experiments on them. But the demonstration plots all over the country are a humbug and that work should now be stopped.

If we want to give our young people an interest in agriculture and to show even city people what agricultural conditions are, I suggest that the Minister would get his instructors to start a scheme of taking the children of the fifth and sixth standards in the schools occasionally to the nearest fair and show them how the sales are carried out. They could lecture to the children on the different types of cattle, point out the difference between the good beast and the poor beast. They might put before them how a good price is realised for the well-turned out animal, while the poor beast is nearly unsaleable. They could tell the children what causes the difference in the condition of the animals. Then the children might be told where the cattle go when they are taken away, say, after being sold at the fair of Clonakilty, what is going to become of them, and their final destination. Something in the same line might be done with regard to pigs, sheep and everything else on the farm. Something like that could be done in other directions, too, all over the country. I would have the children taken occasionally to the local creamery and, with the help of the creamery manager, shown what becomes of the milk, how it is separated, what separation means, and what becomes of the butter; show them how cheese is made and to what market does it go. The children might be given some idea of the topography of the country, how different places are reached by road and rail, and what direction the child would have to travel to a town, say 20 miles away. Tell them all those things and, when that has been done, take them out on the land; take them out to the progressive farmer and show them how he is getting on; tell them the manures he has applied to his crops, and how he has made them a success; take them out on the grass lands and show them the difference between buachallan buidhe and praiseach buidhe; show them the difference between decent grass and weeds. In that way you will get the young people of 12 or 13 years to take an interest in agriculture, to take an interest in what is the mainstay of the country, and is giving them their bread and butter. I have not known very many who have an interest in going back to the land after attending a course at the winter agricultural classes in the agricultural schools, or after attending any of the colleges for a session — those are boys of 18 or 20. They are looking for jobs such as their teachers have. But, take the lads of 12 or 13 and the girls of 12 or 13, get them out on the land and show them the things I have suggested, and you will be laying the foundations for producing a useful type of citizen in this country, a type of citizen who will know what the country can produce and what should be done with it when it is produced. In that way you will be doing a good service to the State.

There is another matter to which I want to refer, and again it affects only a few districts. I think that in other areas they would not have the same grievance which we have. This affects the flax-growing districts of Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal and West Cork. In my time, and for generations back, West Cork has always been flax producing. Good flax has been grown there, and it always paid the farmer to grow it, in spite of having to send it to markets at a distance. There are areas in West Cork which can produce flax as good as any in Ireland, but they cannot produce other crops as well. You can get them to produce flax. It has been profitable in past years, and as far as I can judge it is going to be profitable in the future. As far as I can see, there are four instructors, with a supervisor, on the list. In other flax-growing districts there may be no necessity for an instructor, but there is absolute necessity for the presence of an instructor in West Cork. I have asked for that before, and it has been turned down. I hope my present appeal will not be turned down. I appeal for an instructor in West Cork. I repeat that the flax-growing industry is a success there. It is helping a big number of farmers who badly need help, and who can produce this crop. They have the land to produce it; they have the water for steeping purposes; the mills and everything else are there, but they want encouragement. The presence of an instructor in the place would give them a sort of confidence that flax yields and the flax industry generally will be a success.

A good deal has been said about loans. But of what use is it to give loans to people who cannot pay? Unless you put them in a position to pay, what good are the loans? I have in mind one case of a progressive farmer who wanted to build a stall for 16 cows. He was looking for a loan from the Land Commission or from the Board of Works—I forget which, as I have not the letter before me. He was told he would get a loan for putting up a new stall. That was in 1932. His intention had been to improve his old stall, but he borrowed £80, and that amount, together with the loan and the money he put up himself, enabled him to erect an up-to-date house, every detail being in accordance with the requirements of any inspector who might examine it. It had just been completed when the economic war started. He is now in arrears with his repayments of the loan, and the Department is forcing him to pay. That is a typical case of a progressive man who got a loan, and is up against difficulties. He ought to be given a reasonable time, as he is a progressive man, a good man, who would pay if he could, and will pay if he can. As I have said, therefore, there is no use in giving people loans unless you first put them in such a position that they will be able to meet the repayments. Otherwise, they will be millstones around their necks.

There is also another matter to which I should like to direct the Minister's attention, and that is in regard to seed oats. At times the Department does things very belatedly. I have asked the Department officials last year, the year before, and again this year, to give licences to merchants instead of to individual farmers for the importation of seed oats. That applies to this year even more than to previous years, because the harvest was a bad one, and the bulk of the oats produced here was not fit for seed. I asked the Department in October last to grant the licences to merchants, who know the conditions, and who have a certain number of customers. They possibly have a lot of them on their books. The merchant would give the Department the names of the people to whom they supplied the seed, together with a guarantee that the seed would be true to type, and would fulfil all the conditions. That request was made last year and early this year, but the officials of the Department did not think it would be wise to grant it. In one individual instance, when the merchants failed to get the licences a number of farmers—I think about 40 of them — came to a particular man whom I know well, and asked him to write to the Department requesting them to give him a licence to bring in seed for all the others in his name. That application was sent in on 10th February. It took the Department's officials one long month before they would make up their minds what they would do about that matter. On the 10th March they wrote to this particular individual — at the time when the West Cork farmer would be sowing his corn — and sent him down 40 application forms. Each of those farmers had to apply for his individual lot, had to go through all the difficulties of getting clearance orders from the customs, and so on, whereas one man could have got it all, and had guaranteed to deliver it to all the others. I think if there is anything which has damned the farmer of this country it is the attitude of the Department's officials when they do a thing like that. We expect the Department to help us. The officials of the Department should be there for the farmer; instead, apparently the farmer is there for them.

When that application failed, I put down a question here asking the Minister if he had a communication from the Cork Committee of Agriculture with regard to seed oats, and if he would grant licences to merchants to bring in a certain quantity of true to type seed. At that particular time, in the middle of March, possibly the 20th March, when the weather was good and farmers should be sowing their seeds, the Minister agreed to do what he might have done last October, or even a year or two years ago, and he gave a licence for the importation of a certain quantity to the merchants. Could you beat it for stupidity? How can you expect any farmer to keep going particularly in a year like this, under those circumstances? I would not mind a year when we had good seed oats here. I should like to know and I shall put down a Parliamentary question to find out what is the average test of seed sent to the Department this year. I know one case in which the germination was only 77 per cent. The farmer growing that has a 25 per cent. loss on his crop. Why there should be such stupidity and want of knowledge amongst the officials of the Department to allow such a thing as that to go on is beyond me. I hope it will never occur again. If seed oats are to be imported merchants of repute should be allowed to import it. They know their job and can pay cash for it. If the merchants had got the licence last October to import this seed they would have got it at £3 per ton less. I hope that such gross mishandling of the situation shall never occur again. I think there is a tariff on grass seeds.

Dr. Ryan

There is a restriction on the import.

Mr. O'Donovan

Grass seed is only produced in one county in Éire— Monaghan.

Dr. Ryan

Three counties.

Mr. O'Donovan

What are the three counties?

Dr. Ryan

Monaghan, Cavan and Louth.

Mr. O'Donovan

The others produce very little. They could not supply two parishes. Monaghan does produce it. When farmers want to lay out their land in permanent pasture the way the Minister helps them is to put a restriction on grass seeds. To my own knowledge, there is no farmer in West Cork this year who can afford to pay the price for seed. It would cost at least from 50/- to 55/- per statute acre to seed his land this year. Where is he going to get it?

Dr. Ryan

They must be sowing a very expensive mixture.

Mr. O'Donovan

The mixture that we had from the Department for years will cost him 50/- per statute acre. I put it in, and I know it.

Dr. Ryan

A statute acre?

Mr. O'Donovan

Yes—50/-.

Dr. Ryan

That is extraordinary.

Mr. O'Donovan

That is the way the Minister helps agriculture.

Dr. Ryan

I am afraid the Deputy is making a mistake.

Mr. O'Donovan

I am not, because I paid for my seed, and I know it.

Mr. Hughes

There is no mistake about the 75/- as against 52/- in Northern Ireland.

Dr. Ryan

Does the Deputy agree that it will cost 55/- per statute acre?

Mr. Hughes

I do not agree, but there is that difference in the price. I will supply the Minister with the documents.

Mr. O'Donovan

I do not want to refer to beet and wheat beyond saying this: Deputy Dillon stated yesterday that they were a "cod." They were no "cod" for a lot of people. They were all right for the men with the good land who were able to take advantage of them and get their manures on the credit system. But what about the unfortunate people in the rocky, mountainy places who could not grow wheat or beet, who grew nothing, and who had to go through six years of an economic war? All they had to live on was the 10/- per skin for calf skins which they sold. They had to help to pay the subsidy to those who were growing wheat and beet in order to put them in a better position than they were. The poor men, the working men, the men and women earning their bread in the cities and towns, were the people who had to pay for the small "bunch" who were able to take advantage of the wheat and beet schemes. These crops were no "cod" for those who grew them, but the others had to pay the subsidy in the purchase of sugar and flour.

One way to help agriculture effectively, if the Minister would take his courage in his hands and do it, would be to take the tariffs off. He should take the 10/- per ton tariff off "super." We have to pay £3 5s. per ton for "super" here. If Belgian "super" were allowed in without the tariff, it could be bought at £2 15s. Would not that mean a great difference to farmers? If the tariffs were taken off all feeding stuffs, it would help the farmers. The tariffs should be taken off plough parts and all sorts of machinery. The purchase of parts for agricultural machinery at present by a farmer who is carrying out extensive tillage operations is worse than the payment of his annuity. They are not giving satisfaction—they do not wear. In some cases I would rather pay the higher price for the imported article than have to put up with the inferior stuff we get from some of the manufacturers who are turning them out in this country. Take the tariffs off all these things. Remove the import restriction on grass seeds and give us a chance of getting on our feet by giving us what we have to buy at something like the price we are getting for what we have to sell. There is no fault to be found with the prices for anything the farmer produces on the land. The prices are reasonable—in fact they are good prices—for almost everything produced on the land. But we are up against an Agricultural Wages Act which fixes wages and hours, we are up against tariffs and all these things which increase the cost of production. If you bring down the cost of production, you will immediately increase production and improve the farmer's position. If the Minister would take his courage in his hands and do that now, when we are considering the Estimate for Agriculture next year we could look forward to much brighter and happier conditions.

Mr. Cogan

I do not think that at any time has there been more general concern and alarm felt in reference to the condition of agriculture. We have thoughtful and learned people in every walk of life expressing anxiety and concern at the decline of this industry. We have members of the Government and friends of the Government tying themselves up in black knots trying to explain what is wrong with agriculture. I think that the Minister for Industry and Commerce went nearer to explaining the whole secret of the alarming position of the agricultural industry when he stated that the prices of farm produce had only increased by 14 per cent., whereas the prices of the farmers' requirements had increased by 75 per cent. That simple statement proved clearly that, unless the farmer in pre-war times was making a tremendous profit, it is absolutely impossible for him to carry on at the present; but the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not go to the root of the matter. He did not explain fully the gravity of the situation, because, while prices of farm produce, as compared with pre-war prices, have only increased by 14 per cent., prices of agricultural requirements have increased by more than 75 per cent.; they have increased by at least twice that, or 150 per cent. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, probably, was referring to the cost-of-living figure, but that is not a true index of the farmers' increased costs, because there are many things included in the cost of living figures which are not included in the farmers' costs, and there are many things included in the farmers' costs that are not included in the costs of production, and these items that are included in the cost-of-living figures are the items that have increased enormously. For instance, farm implements have increased in price by 150 per cent., as compared with pre-war prices. Wages are probably the biggest item, for the larger farmers, at any rate, and they have increased by about 200 per cent. How would it be possible for the agricultural industry to continue on this basis unless we are to assume that farmers were making enormous profits during pre-war years? Nobody, of course, will assert that, and that is the whole secret of the decline of the agricultural industry.

We have, in this country, a very efficient Department of Agriculture—a Department which has been in existence for 40 years, I think, and that has discharged its duties in a very zealous, whole-hearted and efficient manner. Notwithstanding that, and notwithstanding all the energy, enthusiasm and hard work that the officials of the Department have brought to their task, we have the position that at the present time agricultural production is far less than it was in 1851, long before the Department was heard of. In 1851 the acreage under wheat was 429,000 acres, whereas in 1937 it was 220,000 acres. The acreage under oats, which is a most important crop in this country and which is suited to our climate, amounted to 1,500,000 acres in 1851, whereas to-day you have only 500,000 acres under oats. In 1851 you had 312,000 acres under barley, and to-day that has been reduced to 131,000 acres. Even in the case of vegetables —peas and beans—you had, in 1851, 36,000 acres as compared with less than 500 acres last year. Now, these are extraordinary figures, and they seem to indicate that there has been no progress but, on the other hand, an alarming decline, in every important branch of the agricultural industry. There has been a small increase in the number of live stock—the number, mind you—but everybody will admit that numbers are not the most important factor. The most important factor in regard to live stock is the quality, and in order to have the best quality of live stock in this country you want to have mixed tillage. Now you have the position that, in 1851, you had a better system of farming and more mixed tillage than you have now. You had three times as much oats, twice as much potatoes and wheat, and more than twice the amount of barley; and even though you have had a beet crop introduced into rotation in this country, you had twice the total amount of roots and green crops that you have now. That seems to indicate that all the attempts which have been made, both by the Department of Agriculture, the present Government and their predecessors, have been a complete failure and that agriculture has simply come to a standstill.

From no quarter have we heard any constructive suggestion as to how this position is to be remedied. The position has been aggravated, of course, by the fact that during the past six or seven years the most important branches of agriculture have been discouraged. Live-stock and animal produce of every kind have been altogether discouraged. The Minister, evidently, when he took office, assumed that the solution of our economic problems was to cut off our export trade and promote wheat and beet growing and tobacco growing and all those things, as a substitute, but evidently he had to abandon that policy very quickly.

Dr. Ryan

Where and when did I cut it off?

Mr. Cogan

Well, the policy that the Minister adopted was calculated——

Dr. Ryan

I see.

Mr. Cogan

——to cut it off——

Dr. Ryan

Calculated in the Deputy's mind.

Mr. Cogan

——because, even assuming that there was a world-wide-depression, the Minister, with a very efficient Department at his disposal, should have been able to understand that that world-wide depression was not going to continue; and even assuming that you were going to have an economic war as well as the world depression, the Minister and his Department should have been able to forecast that that economic war would not continue either. Therefore, when the depression hit this country, and when you had the economic war on top of it, the Minister and his Department should have taken adequate measures to safeguard the agricultural industry, instead of adopting panicky measures such as the slaughtering of old cows and calves. He should have told the farmers that there was a future for live stock, and he also should have taken steps to make some contribution towards the preservation of the live-stock industry by subsidising that industry until times would improve. Instead of that, he allowed the farmers to be driven out of production, and allowed the farmers who had fine dairy herds to sacrifice their cows.

Dr. Ryan

The number of cows has gone up since I came into office.

Mr. Cogan

The fact remains that in every part of Ireland you have the best type of farmer—the farmer who had been building up the most efficient and best quality stocks—being forced to get out of these to a large extent. With regard to the total number, of course, there may be something in the fact——

Dr. Ryan

The fact is that they have not gone out of them.

Mr. Cogan

——there may be something in the fact that they are still in the country, but that they are still in the country may be due to the fact that it was not possible to export as much as usual during those years.

Dr. Ryan

There was never any restriction on the export of cows; there was on other cattle.

Mr. Cogan

That is the point. The export was restricted, to a certain extent, and the result is that you have a position in which the best type of farmers, who did concentrate on improving their live stock, were driven into growing wheat and a position in which there was no encouragement to concentrate upon intensive feeding, particularly of home produced feeding stuffs. The farmer was hunted for money to meet his demands during those bad years to such an extent that he had to grab at anything that might bring him in an immediate return. For example, if a farmer grew oats, even though there was no decent price for it, he had to sell it as a cash crop in order to meet the demands of the rate collector and the Land Commission, and the ordinary expenses of carrying on his farm. In the same way, the farmer who had not got land suited to wheat growing was driven into growing wheat extensively and intensively, year after year, until he had exhausted the fertility of his land. The result is that, at present, there never was a greater tendency to get away from tillage altogether, to get away from every system of intensive production.

That is, I think, one of the reasons for the decline in pig production. The farmer who worked hardest during the period of the depression and the economic war was the farmer who lost most. The acreage under potatoes has greatly decreased, and that is because farmers can no longer concentrate on a long-term policy on their farms. The growing of potatoes as a feeding stuff for pigs is not a policy that gives an immediate return, and the farmer, in order to go in for that plan, requires a certain amount of capital. At present, the farmers are more inclined to concentrate on something which will give a more immediate return. That is one of the reasons why pig production has declined. The Minister was rather sarcastic about the farmers who demonstrated recently in Dublin. He said that they were not helping production by leaving their ploughs idle for one day——

Dr. Ryan

Is that not true?

Mr. Cogan

——but the fact of the matter is that the farmers have been working for many days, many weeks and many years without getting any return whatever, and it is possible that they may get a better return from remaining idle for one day and bringing home to the people who are governing this country the seriousness of the agricultural position than they would get from continuing to work indefinitely for no return whatever.

Dr. Ryan

Why did they not hold the demonstration on Sunday?

Mr. Cogan

As the Minister for Industry and Commerce said, there is no return, and there can be no return, in the agricultural industry. The position is that the average output, the value of the worker's work on the farm at present, is only £70 and the farmer is compelled to pay a minimum wage of over £70. What encouragement is there for the farmer to go on employing men on his farm and to increase production? What you want for agriculture at present is something in the nature of a five or ten year plan. The farmer must be guaranteed a stabilised price for a number of years, and such a plan can be worked out by the Government in conjunction, perhaps, with the Government of the country to which our export trade is mainly directed.

Without such a plan, there is no hope whatever of any improvement in the agricultural industry, and unless steps are taken to ensure that there will be a remunerative price in the main branches of the industry, there is no use in providing loans, or any other system of helping the farmer. The farmer must be assured that prices will be remunerative, and that can be done. There is absolutely no reason why it should not be done, if the Government are prepared to make whatever drastic changes in their economic policy as are necessary in order to achieve it, and in order to secure the bringing about of a permanent five-year or ten-year plan for the recovery of agriculture. If you had such a plan, if you had an assurance for five, six or ten years that prices would not decline, but would steadily improve, it would be possible to provide credit for agriculture.

Several speakers have referred to the desirability of improving the quality of our store cattle, and the question has been asked why the quality of our store cattle has not improved, having regard to all the money spent and all the attention devoted to live-stock improvement schemes over the past 40 or 50 years. One of the reasons, of course, why the quality has not improved as much as it should have is that there has not been a real inducement to the farmer to keep the best type of cow. While certain measures are adopted to promote a better type of bull, and while every inducement is held out to the farmer to sell and to export the best type of heifer, there is no adequate means adopted to encourage the keeping of the best type of cow. The result is that the best type of heifers are being exported and an inferior type, to a great extent, is being retained. That is an aspect of the agricultural industry to which the Minister should direct his attention.

Some means, should be adopted to encourage farmers to improve the type of cows on their farms. The much-abused heifer scheme has been again suggested. As far as I am concerned, I think the main cause of the failure of the heifer scheme—and the heifer scheme was a failure—was, to a great extent, because the prices of every kind of live stock collapsed immediately after the scheme had been first put into force. The cattle became absolutely worthless a year or two afterwards, and the result was that the farmers who purchased those heifers lost practically the entire purchase money. The Minister has said that the loans were repaid, and I believe that they were repaid, but the repayment was made by the farmers at a great deal of suffering to themselves. Not only had the heifers to be sold, but in some cases everything on the farm had to be sold in order to pay for the heifers; and that, of course, has, to a great extent, discouraged any attempt to introduce a similar scheme in the future. I think, nevertheless, that the Department should consider some type of heifer scheme, should consider purchasing heifer calves, or, at least, less than yearlings, and either loaning them to farmers or selling them. Possibly loaning them may be the better system. I think it is a suggestion to which the Minister should give consideration. I say calves, because in the case of the heifers being purchased by the farmers the purchase price would be smaller and the risk would not be so great. In the former heifer scheme I understand that the heifers were over two years' old and at their maximum value if prices had not collapsed, and the farmer was taking a risk. The whole scheme should be carefully considered, because there is need for an improvement in the type of cows kept on farms and in the general quality.

The promotion of an increased acreage of potatoes should also be considered because they are certainly a most valuable crop—probably the crop which enables the farmer to get the biggest return out of his land provided, of course, they are properly manured—and a crop which provides probably the most economic foodstuffs, in conjunction with concentrated food, for pigs and poultry. The Minister has now got nearly 12 months in which to consider a suitable scheme for next year to promote an enormous increase in the acreage under potatoes. Suggestions of this kind may not be very readily accepted by the Minister, because his attention is devoted to a great extent to promoting increased acreage under wheat and he might say that any suggestion that would increase the acreage of some other crop would be at the expense of wheat. Now, potatoes would follow wheat in rotation and would enable wheat and grain production to continue. Potatoes can be grown on inferior land —in fact, if they are properly manured, they can be grown on any type of land; whereas beet and wheat can only be grown on the best quality land. There is an urgent need for an intensive development of potato growing in this country. In addition, in a time of emergency, potatoes would form an emergency food supply for human consumption.

As regards wheat I am in complete agreement with Deputy Hughes that winter wheat has very little future before it in this country and that all attention must be devoted to improving the varieties of spring wheats. Over the past five or six years, I think that, on the average, spring wheats have turned out best. It is true that during the years 1933, 1934 and 1935, winter wheat did well, but since then owing to the wet summers—and wet summers are more prevalent in this country than dry ones—winter wheat has not given a fair return. Therefore, whatever wheat is grown in this country should, I think, be spring wheat, as being the crop most suited to our climate.

Continuing on this question of wheat growing, I am prepared to agree that a certain percentage of our wheat requirements should be grown in this country; because a certain quantity of wheat can be successfully grown here, provided that the land is properly manured, and it can be grown very successfully after beet or some other root crop that has been properly manured. In saying that wheat can be grown economically here I mean, of course, comparatively economically, because wheat growing is not an economic proposition in comparison with world prices.

I believe that it would not be wise, in normal times, to go in for self-sufficiency or to pursue a policy directed towards self-sufficiency in regard to wheat in this country. The policy of the Government should be to have a certain proportion of wheat grown in this country, a proportion which could be expanded in time of emergency. If the Government were to adopt this suggestion of abandoning wheat growing altogether, they might leave themselves in the position that it would not be possible to grow wheat in time of emergency, because farmers would not have the experience of growing it or might not have the necessary seed supplies, etc. For that reason, the Government should concentrate on growing a certain amount of wheat, so that they could increase the supply in time of emergency and, in addition, they should always keep in reserve a sufficient supply of imported wheat to carry this country over at least one year. I think that would be a sensible policy in regard to wheat.

The Minister's policy in regard to oats and barley is difficult to understand. When the Minister was complimented on having abandoned the admixture scheme, a Deputy behind him, Deputy Moore, said he would bitterly regret it. As far as my limited experience of the Minister for Agriculture goes, I do not think that he would bitterly regret anything he has ever done or will do. If the Minister was the type of person who was given to bitter regrets for past errors, I think he would hardly be in this House at all to-day. He would have faded off the earth with worry and grief for all the mistakes he has made during the past five or six years or, in coming to present his Estimate for Agriculture, he would probably come arrayed in an old sack to show his appreciation of his errors in the past. I do not agree that the Minister will regret his abandonment of the admixture scheme, but I do hold that, when abandoning the admixture scheme, he should have substituted some other scheme to maintain and extend the acreage under oats and barley and such crops, so as to ensure that people growing those crops—who are, in many cases, people who cannot grow wheat—would get a fair return for their work. The Minister has now thrown these growers of oats and barley into confusion. They do not know whether they will get any return whatever for their work. I do not think that is a policy which any Government should adopt at the present time. The people who are engaged in a useful line of production, which is suited to this country and to the needs of this country, should be assured of a fair return for their work. For that reason, as a substitute for the admixture scheme, the Minister should, at least, adopt some measure, even if it were the purchase of the surplus grain on the market so as to ensure that the oats and barley would not be sold at an unremunerative price. I think that is a reasonable suggestion.

Again, we have the position that farm wages have been increased as compared with even two or three years ago. They have been increased by 6/- or 7/- per week. The result of that increase, in a good many cases, has been that farmers have been forced, through economic circumstances, to do with less labour on their farms. That, again, is tending to increase unemployment. Why should it not be possible for the Minister for Agriculture to subsidise wages, to a certain extent, at any rate, and to provide a family allowance? I think, if that were done it would be going a good part of the way towards encouraging young people to remain on the land and work with farmers in this country.

A good deal has been said on another Estimate with regard to the migration of people from the West of Ireland I think, if there is to be any migration scheme at all, it should be to encourage agricultural workers from the West of Ireland to go to the tillage and agricultural counties in the south and east of Leinster and work at agriculture. There should be such intensive development of agriculture as would provide a need for those additional workers. That, I think, would be a far better and less expensive scheme than providing farms for those migrants.

Education in agriculture has been referred to. Surely, it is about time to ask ourselves is all the money which is being spent on distributing literature, public advertisements in the Press and lectures, giving an adequate return? I think that it is not. I think that the Department of Agriculture should in the future concentrate more upon the youth and upon the education of the youth. I do not agree that you are going to secure agricultural education by providing text books in the school or even by going as far as another Deputy has suggested—taking the children to fairs, markets and other places like that. I think that the best way of promoting an interest in agriculture in young people would be, when they leave the national school, to provide some kind of model farm upon which the young people from 14 to 16 would be taken as apprentices in agriculture and given a proper training. I am sure that it should be quite easy to secure fairly large holdings for such a purpose. Perhaps the best type of holding would be a large holding of inferior land which could be improved. It should be possible for the Department of Agriculture to take over a number of fairly large farms and turn them into model farms for the training of boys in agriculture. They would not be exactly schools or colleges. They would be run as ordinary farms on commercial lines. I think if that were done in every county it would provide a better training than anything that could be done in a school or college or in the vocational schools. There would be no necessity for compulsion in the acquisition of such holdings because they can always be got. There is a certain type of fairly large holding in the country which is rather a drug on the market— fairly large holdings of inferior land, of a type not suited for division. Those are the holdings which the Department of Agriculture could easily acquire and turn into training farms for young boys. If they were to do that, they would be doing more useful work in agricultural education than all the lectures or all the literature that could be distributed.

The last point to which I wish to refer is with regard to one branch of the agricultural industry which has been allowed to deteriorate to the greatest extent, that is grass. I think there is no branch of farming in which output could not be increased to a greater extent by the improvement of pasture. I would suggest that more attention should be directed towards the improvement of pasture and, in this connection, the main factor is the provision of cheaper artificial manures. A subsidy for the purchase of artificial manures is absolutely necessary. Such has been admitted already in principle, though the subsidy is altogether inadequate. A subsidy of 6d. per cwt. is no encouragement to any farmer to use artificial manures more extensively. At least 50 per cent. of the cost of artificial fertilisers should be provided so as to increase the output of the land, because increased output is the most important consideration at the present moment.

Therefore, the Minister should realise the seriousness of the position, and that it is physically impossible for the farmer to continue production at present prices having regard to the cost of production. He should realise that it is necessary, by whatever means can be adopted, either by trade agreements with Great Britain or by a long-term agricultural policy of stabilising prices, to improve agricultural prices as far as possible. Then, having done that, he ought to get down to a reduction of agricultural costs. We know that while the farmers are unanimously agreed that every branch of manufacturing industry should be encouraged to the fullest extent in this country, it is absolutely necessary that a very strict supervision should be kept over the type of people who are engaged in manufacture to see in the first place that they are not profiteering, and, again, to see that essential raw materials and implements required by the farmer are not increased in price to too great an extent. On these lines a certain reduction could be brought about in the farmers' cost of production. I am not prepared to suggest that it will ever be possible to reduce the farmers' cost of production down to the pre-war level or down to a point 14 per cent. above the pre-war level, which is the extent to which the price of agricultural produce has increased over the pre-war level. There is no possibility of being able to do that. For that reason, whatever measures may be necessary must be adopted to see that the farmer gets a better price for his produce. In that connection, you have the position, in my own county, that the farmers' outgoings in regard to rates are more than double what they were five years ago and are probably ten times what they were in pre-war times.

Mr. Kissane

Whose fault is that?

Mr. Cogan

It is due first of all to the manipulation of the agricultural grant. The reduction in the agricultural grant some time ago has also contributed to it. Then the Government's social policy of intensive housing and sewerage, although those things are necessary, has piled on to the shoulders of the farmer a terrific burden which it is absolutely impossible for him to bear. The Government must face up to the proposition that has been put up to them by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that it is physically impossible for the agricultural industry to carry on on present lines. If the Minister for Agriculture is not able to suggest any way out of the difficulty, he should ask the Taoiseach to relieve him of his post and to provide another Minister in his place.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

This debate must largely be in the nature of a stop-gap debate. In debating an Estimate for any Department, the usual practice is to discuss the policy of that Department, but this year, as far as this discussion is concerned, we are rather handicapped in that respect, because we all know that a commission has been set up to examine into the state of Irish agriculture, a commission that we all hope will rectify a great number of the faults that have been committed by the present Minister and the Party now in power, a commission that we hope will do a great deal to find ways and means by which Irish agriculture can be put upon its feet again and that I hope will find some way in which the people who live upon the land and have to make a living out of the land will be restored at least to that condition of comparative prosperity which they enjoyed before the ill-omened day on which the present Minister for Agriculture took up office. That commission has got no easy task because the mistakes of the Minister have been exceedingly great. I am not referring entirely to such things as his subsidy of £250,000 worth of stuff to the Roscrea factory, money which could be spent in alleviating the condition of the farmers. I am referring rather to the main items of his programme, for instance, the wheat scheme financed in such a manner that it has become an intolerable burden not merely for the town dweller but for the small farmer and the farm labourer. I am referring also to that scheme of his for the slaughter of calves which is bearing its evil fruit to-day, as can be seen by our under-stocked fields and the uneaten grass in the fields. I know the Minister has suggested that the number of cattle in this country have not declined within the last few years. I do not care for any statistics which the Minister may produce. I trust to the sight of my own eyes. I trust to what I know in my own constituency, and I can most definitely state that there is very real understocking of the small farms in my county at the present moment. I believe there is a very real shortage of stock on all the small farms in this country.

I grant that in a great number of ways the Minister has no doubt improved. The Minister has been studying in the hard school that experience provides and very dearly has this country paid for the lessons he has learned in that school. He has learned to forget a lot and he has acquired a good deal of knowledge. We no longer hear from the Minister, or from his Party, any sneers at the British market or expressions such as that the British market is gone for ever. The expressions that we hear now from them are these: that the market has come back and, please God, it will remain back for ever—a complete volte face and change of position. I admit it is a very pleasing one not merely for the Minister but the Party. They are beginning to learn.

We no longer hear attacks on the live-stock industry, and of what a terrible thing it is to fatten cattle on grass. We used to hear a lot about that a short time ago. I did hear a little of the Rip Van Winkle attitude in the speech which we had from Deputy Kelly. He was rather tending to go back to the old Fianna Fáil attitude. It seems that now, when the rest of the Party are waking up. Deputy Kelly is still remaining in his sleep: that he is not quite aware of the fact that the Fianna Fáil policy to-day as compared with what it was five or six years ago is not the same policy at all. The two policies are poles apart. He talked about setting tillage farming against grazing. He seemed to think that there was a complete contradistinction; that you must have one or the other. Nobody has ever advocated entire grazing or entire tillage. The policy announced by this Party, and by the best Minister for Agriculture, I suppose, that this country will ever have, the late Deputy Hogan, was always a policy of mixed farming. That is the policy to which we adhere, and it is the policy that I see the present Minister gradually approaching. I am glad to see that but, as I said a moment ago, he is a student in the school of experience and is learning expensive lessons at the cost of the country. He has not quite acquired full knowledge yet. He has not quite brought himself to completely understand and appreciate, to be an open advocate and convert to the Hogan scheme of agriculture, but I see every sign that he is coming there. In a few years' time we may, at least, hope that he will become not merely an undergraduate but a graduate, and that he will be a complete convert to that policy.

With regard to his past policy, we do not hear very much in favour of it from any of his supporters. I had not the advantage of hearing Deputy O'Reilly's speech yesterday, but I did hear Deputy Victory. I was very interested in his speech. It was altogether different from the old speeches on agriculture that we used to get from the Fianna Fáil Party. Deputy Victory has come round to be a complete convert. I am very much inclined to think that the Minister for Agriculture could not find in his own Party to-day one single genuine apologist for the policy which he put before the country and on which he endeavoured to run agriculture in this country. I am sure that a more sensible-minded person in the Fianna Fáil Party, like Deputy Victory, must occasionally, in the stillness of the night-time, when it sets his fancy free, and be is soliloquising to himself, say, "If only the Chief"—I think that is his pet name—"If only the Chief had made me a Minister instead of Deputy Ryan I would have made a great deal better job of it, even though I do not regard myself as a very high-flyer." I do not believe you will get one whole-hog supporter of the policy which the Minister has been putting before the country for the last few years in the ranks of his own Party. I miss from this discussion the advocacy, and even the presence, of the man who used to be the Minister's chief henchman, his right-hand man, Deputy Martin Corry. Where is he when agriculture is being discussed?

There are two things, I think, that the Minister for Agriculture has not yet learned entirely. There are others, of course, but I am singling out two. One is that he has not recognised that the Irish agricultural problem is not one problem but many, and that there is no one solution. There is no one method by which you can make everybody living upon Irish land prosperous and well off. The farming problem is one that differs from county to county; it differs sometimes in areas in the same county and, therefore, it must be approached not as a simple but as a complex problem; not as one problem, capable of one solution, but as many problems, each one of which must be solved separately. That is the one principle that I do not think the Minister has ever grasped. There is another thing which I am pretty sure he has not grasped, and that is that when he is dealing with farming, and with projects for the improvement of the condition of farmers, that he has a great deal more to think of than the improvement of the condition of the large farmer. There is another body of farmers, a more numerous body, whose problems are, if anything, more intense and require solution more urgently than the problems that beset the large farmer. I refer to the small farmers, the men with valuations ranging from £15 down to £5. I have never seen any trace of recognition in the Minister's agricultural policy that such a class of farmers exists at all. I should say that they form 90 per cent. of the population in the constituency that I represent. They are precisely the men who have sent me to this House to voice their needs here. They are the men whose needs I know and whose wants I can appreciate, but I cannot see any effort made in anything that is being done by the Minister since he came into power to help the condition of these small farmers that I have referred to.

The wheat scheme and the beet scheme are of no use to them. What has been done that is of the slightest help to that class of small farmer? The Minister may say that he has proposed something that will be of some slight benefit, a subsidy for the purchase of artificial manures. It was a trifling subsidy, and it is only incidental that it happens to help small farmers. That is a particular phase of Irish farming in which I am naturally most interested, and it is to that I intend to address my remarks. I admit straight away that one of the heaviest burdens, and one of the greatest obstacles to agricultural recovery in the West generally, is a matter over which the Minister individually has no control. I refer to the shockingly high cost of living. That is the main barrier to agricultural recovery, but the Minister cannot remove it. The best we can hope for is that the Minister would become more enlightened, and spread the light amongst other members of the Government. Perhaps that is too much to hope for, and since a discussion on that line would, I suppose, be irrelevant to the debate, I will pass on.

What is clearly recognised is that beet and wheat schemes and things of that kind can be of no assistance to small farmers in the West. That has been proved by the experience of those who attempted to benefit by these schemes. What then are they to do? They must look for their income to the sale of live stock, cattle, sheep, pigs and an occasional horse. If you add to that the sale of eggs, that is the entire source of income they have to depend upon. If you are to improve their position they must be enabled to produce the best class of stock, and must be able to do it at the cheapest possible rate. There are several things keeping back agriculture in the West. A shortage of capital is common to the whole country. That is shown by the shortage of stock. I reiterate what I said during the absence of the Minister, that if he produces any statistics to show there is not a shortage of cattle in the West of Ireland, then these statistics are all wrongly compiled.

Dr. Ryan

There are just as many as there were previously.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Such statistics are absolutely wrong. I venture to say that if the Minister went down to fairs in the West and told the people that there are as many cattle in County Mayo now as there were ten years ago they would cover him with ridicule.

Dr. Ryan

With what?

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

With ridicule.

Dr. Ryan

I would not mind that.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I know that you would not. You have only to look in the glass and you cover yourself with ridicule.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy might look into it.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I mean a mental glass. The two main difficulties of agriculture are the shortage of capital and the shortage of stock. I suppose the shortage of stock will, if there is capital, gradually repair itself, but there is the other aspect in which the shortage of capital is showing itself tremendously, and that is the annual destruction of the fertility of the soil that must take place if crops are removed from it, especially hay, and nothing is put back into it. That damage to the fertility of the soil has been going on for the last few years. It cannot be repaired without capital. I do not think the Minister or many members of his Party, judging by their utterances, realise how much the land has been run down within the last few years. I wish they would bring that fact home to their minds. I do not think they recognise how very difficult it is to bring back to fertility land which has been allowed to run down. It is very easy to let land go downhill, but it is not at all easy to bring it back. That is one of the problems that has to be faced when dealing with small farmers in the West.

In order to face up to the situation certain things have got to be done. Artificial manure must be made available at prices within their reach. The Minister stated that he had taken 10/- a ton off the price of artificial manures. If the problem is to be dealt with, artificial manures must be sold at a price which will be attractive to those whose lands are in need of it, and who are now short of capital. Make capital available to them. I sincerely hope that that is one of the things which the Agriculture Commission will do. It is all very well to say: "Live horse and you will get grass," but in the meantime these people must carry on. I should like to see the Government making some attempt to have money lent temporarily for the improvement of land at reasonable rates, not for the drainage, but for the improvement of the fertility of the soil. It must be remembered that if live stock is being produced the cheapest form of food for them is grass. That has been admitted. It was not admitted at one time from the opposite benches, but it is admitted now. In our grass and the natural fertility of our fields we have an asset which, instead of despising, discounting and running down, we ought to use to the full for the production of the maximum amount of wealth. In addition, in the West of Ireland, you have this problem—that the farming conditions for the past few years have, of necessity, been changing and that that change must be expedited. When I started farming in the County Mayo, the small farmer— the £10 man—reared his calves and sold them when they had two teeth to a middleman who kept them upon a farm for another year. They went to Meath when about three years old and they were fattened off in Meath and killed. That was the life-cycle in the West of Ireland about 40 years ago. That is completely changed. The large farms have been broken up and are still more in process of being broken up, with the result that it is necessary in the West of Ireland to have much more forward cattle, cattle that will mature much younger than they used to do long ago. The reservoir into which the small farmer used to pour his cattle is gone. The large farm is gone and the Meath farm is, to a certain extent, going too. In consequence, it will be necessary to produce in the West of Ireland a very much earlier-maturing class of stock than we have had and, when I say the West of Ireland, I mean the territory from Donegal to West Cork. In order to do that, you must go back to your system of mixed tillage. The matter was put very well by Deputy Hughes when he said that, if cattle are to mature early and well, they must never be allowed to lose their calf-fat. That is not a very serious problem in the West of Ireland because, so far as my experience goes, calves there are always fed upon home milk and never upon skimmed milk, mixed with meals, as is done in the creamery districts. It will be necessary, when you have your calf reared and he requires no more milk, to feed him the whole time. In order to do that and keep him from going back, you must till more than you were doing and utilise the produce of your tillage in feeding the stock upon your land. That is the proper method of mixed farming.

But you must do more. You will not be able by this means to finish your bullock, if you want him finished in two years, which is highly desirable. I should like to see revived a thing which is now completely dead in the West of Ireland, if it is not dead all over Ireland—stall-feeding. You cannot successfully stall-feed without cake and other artificial foods, which must be imported. Instead of having tariffs and taxes upon imported animal foods, the Minister should do one or other of two things: he should either allow artificial foods for finishing cattle to come in free or he should actually subsidise their import. For the quick and, therefore, the profitable finishing of stall-fed cattle you must have cake. We do not produce cake in this country. The advantage of stall-feeding cattle is greater now than it ever was and the need is greater than ever it was because the manure from stall-fed cattle is far and away more valuable than any other class of manure. It is not only the very best of farmyard manure—there is more nitrogen in it than in any other class of farmyard manure—but it gives that humus which no artificial manure can possibly give.

The Government should take up a policy of helping along the stall-feeding of cattle and abandon the present policy, which is a policy of endeavouring to strangle the stall-feeding of cattle. As a matter of fact, they have strangled it. I ask any Deputy who knows the West of Ireland intimately and well—I am speaking of the whole western sea-board from Ulster to Munster, taking in Connacht on the way—if stall-feeding is not completely dead? Has it not been killed by the policy which the Minister has adopted? You may get a large farmer here and there who still, out of custom, has kept on stall-feeding, but amongst the small farmers stall-feeding has perished during the last two or three years. The loss to the country is very considerable. Therefore, the policy which I should like to see adopted—it may be rather hopeless to expect to see it adopted— would be the policy which I have put before the House.

Everything that adds to the cost of production hits the small farmers and hits them very heavily. The Minister made a rather curious statement to-day. He was told by Deputy O'Donovan that it takes at present from 50/- to 55/- an acre to lay down land in permanent grass seed.

Dr. Ryan

That is absolutely wrong.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

The Minister declared that that was an extraordinary statement.

Dr. Ryan

So it is, and a wrong statement.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I have before me quotations from a well-known firm of Dublin seedsmen.

Dr. Ryan

So have I

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I have quotations for a three or four years' mixture. They charge 58/- for their best mixture.

Dr. Ryan

How much to the acre?

Mr. Fitzgerald

I take it that it is 60 lbs. to the acre. Their cheaper mixture is 48/- and that is only 51 lbs. to the acre. Their mixture for permanent pasture is 60/- per statute acre.

Dr. Ryan

Not per statute acre. I have here a quotation from the biggest seed merchant in Dublin for permanent pasture and it is 34/- per statute acre.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Who is that

Dr. Ryan

The I.A.W.S.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Has the Minister any idea what is in the mixture?

Dr. Ryan

It is the best mixture for permanent pasture.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I should like to see that quotation.

Dr. Ryan

Get their catalogue and you will see it.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I think the Minister was seeing through the wide end of a telescope.

Dr. Ryan

No. I would appeal to the Deputy to get the catalogue and look at it.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I will get the catalogue with the greatest pleasure, but I am certain I will not find 60 lbs. of permanent grass seed to the Irish acre.

Dr. Ryan

I am talking about statute acres. That is what Deputy O'Donovan was talking about—40 lbs. to the statute acre. I say it costs you 34/-, and not 75/-. Most of the statements from the other side are just like that.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I would like to see that statement. I do not accept it.

Dr. Ryan

Get the catalogue.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

You get the catalogue and you will find the opposite.

Dr. Ryan

The next day I will bring in an invoice I got myself.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I would like to know what mixture is being put on the market at 34/-.

Dr. Ryan

Here it is:—Perennial, Italian, Cocksfoot, Timothy, Meadow Fescue, Hard Fescue, Tall Fescue, Crested Dogstail, Tall Oatgrass, Rough Stalk Meadow Grass, Cow Grass, Red Clover, White Clover, Alsike Clover and Trefoil. Is there anything left out?

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I presume that mixture would be 30 lbs. Italian rye grass and a lb. of the rest?

Dr. Ryan

There is much more Perennial than Italian. From recollection I think it is 22 Perennial to eight Italian.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

How much Cocksfoot? Have you the figures before you?

Dr. Ryan

No, I have not them with me.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I would be very interested to see that. However, I am quoting a different figure from another seed merchant. The particulars I have here were just put before me. Unless the Minister has got a particularly kindly quotation for himself, it will come as a great astonishment to people that there is that difference between two firms in the City of Dublin.

Dr. Ryan

The catalogue will give you all the information and, another thing, you will get a discount for cash. I was not able to pay cash.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Here we have a magnificent admission. Here we have a Minister farming largely, following out his own policy; a Minister rolling in money; a Minister with a few little pecuniary additions that we need not mention, and he cannot pay cash.

Dr. Ryan

I had not time to look after my farm, you know.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I wonder if that is the only reason. Perhaps the Minister might now make a little experiment. Perhaps he would make a little change. Suppose he tried working his farm along the lines that we have been suggesting so long— mixed farming, with the one more sow, the one more cow, and the one more acre under the plough. That was the old jingle that Deputy Hogan produced when he was Minister here. If the Minister tries farming on these lines I think he will have cash to pay 30/- for his grass seeds.

Dr. Ryan

I made that possible.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

By taxing the seed coming in—that is all you did.

Dr. Ryan

The seed was not taxed coming in.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

You prohibit rye grass coming in and your cocksfoot, I take it, is from New Zealand. The Minister has not done anything to help.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It would be better if the Deputy addressed the Chair. This cross-chat in the House should be avoided.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Perhaps it is getting too colloquial. However, I have said my say. I know it is a little disheartening. One speaks to ears temporarily deaf, but the fruit of years of criticism is beginning to show itself; in fact, it is showing itself very considerably. It is showing itself in the practical abandonment—I hope shortly it will be the complete abandonment— of the policy that used to be preached off those benches, and it is showing a gradual approximation of the views of the Party opposite to the views which, in opposition, have invariably and unfailingly and unfalteringly been preached by this Party, the members of which have shown themselves by experience to be advocating a sound, agricultural policy for the people of this country.

Mr. Corish

As a representative of Labour, I would like to say how much we are concerned with the position of the farming industry. There is no doubt that the farmers have been passing through a very bad time. Last winter was a very bad period so far as the farmers were concerned. As a member of the home assistance committee in Wexford County, it has been my unhappy experience to see during that period farmers, and no small farmers either, coming before the home health committee with the object of securing home assistance. It was proof beyond yea or nay that, owing to the position of farming and the conditions that prevail, these men were unable to earn a livelihood. Some relief will have to be given and it is my earnest hope that the commission now sitting will be able to bring forward some solution and will give some relief to the farmers.

Whilst I am concerned with the farmers, I must say that I am more concerned with the position of the farm labourers. The wages fixed for the farm labourer on which he is expected to support a wife and family are entirely inadequate. Small as the fixed wages are, a great many labourers are not receiving those wages. I think the Minister knows that it is very hard in some areas to secure that the wages laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board are being paid. It is only when a man loses his job that the information leaks out that he has not been in receipt of the wages laid down by the board. It is a pity that the Minister did not do as he was advised to do, seek more powers over that board. It will be remembered that, when the Bill was going through, we made certain suggestions in so far as the wages of farm labourers are concerned. It was pointed out them by various representatives in the Dáil that the farmer was unable to pay anything approaching a living wage. We suggested then, along with others, that the Minister should pay a subsidy to cover the difference between what the farmer would be in a position to pay and what would be considered a living wage for the farm labourer.

It is to be hoped that the Agricultural Commission now sitting will go into that aspect of the situation, because there is no doubt about it that even the wage laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board is not sufficient at all to enable the farm labourer to look after his wife and children in the way that he should look after them. I would ask that the Government should consider the proposals put forward at the time the Bill was going through this House and the various other proposals since—that a subsidy should be given to the working farmer to enable him to bridge over the difference between what the experts would fix—that he would be in a position to pay and what the labourer would need to support himself and his wife and children properly. Unless that is done the flight from the land to the towns and cities will continue. That is the big problem facing the urban and the city authorities at the moment—various people coming from the rural areas into the towns. The reasons are economic. The wages even as laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board are not sufficient, and in a great many cases less wages are paid than those laid down by the board. I would ask the Minister to seriously consider that problem of supplementing what the farmer is able to pay to his labourer by a subsidy sufficient to enable the labourer to support his family. The Government should consider the matter from that angle.

Colonel Ryan

Seeing that there is an Agricultural Commission sitting, I suppose we make take it that nothing will be said by the Minister on this but to tell us to wait until the Agricultural Commission makes its reports or decides on something. I am sure there are few better acquainted with the situation of agriculture than the Minister is. By now he should have learned what the conditions are. The thing that hurt this country more than anything that has taken place in the past was the economic war. The people engaged in agriculture were put into the front trenches, not for six months, not for a year, but they were kept there for the six years. That has been one of the great causes that has brought ruin to the agricultural community. Even though before the Minister came into office times were bad, especially for agriculturists because of world competition, the times became ten times worse since 1932. In addition, there has been an increased cost in the working of the land so as to enable it to produce anything. That frightfully increased cost cannot be computed at anything less than 100 per cent. and in many cases it is more. For all this the Minister has some responsibility and, indeed, I should say a very great one. It has been admitted of late by him and by his colleagues in the Government that agriculture is one of our greatest industries. On that account, at least, the Government ought to take some steps to put the mass of the people, the small farmers in this country and the agricultural labourers into the same position as they were before the Great War. I think the Minister ought to take some steps to do that. If we compare his Ministry with the Minister of Industry and Commerce what do we find? We have the industrialists, good, bad and indifferent, subsidised at great cost to the community. Terrible burdens have been thrown on the shoulders of the people because of the subsidy and the protection given industrialists. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce thinks that is good for the country, the Minister for Agriculture ought to work on the same lines. He should see that anything that the farmer sells in this country is sold at a minimum price, even though it may not be value for the price that it must be subsidised. There is no reason why agriculture should not be subsidised in the same way as other industries and just as well as other products of the industries that have been introduced.

Let us take the things the farmer has to buy. Take, for instance the plough about which the Minister should know something. I ask the Minister what is the percentage of increase in the price of the sock of a plough, the breast of the plough? How long does that sock last? Take Ransome's plough; we have to get a Pierce sock to fit that plough. How long does that sock last? Why, one would want one every day.

Dr. Ryan

There is no duty on the sock coming in.

Colonel Ryan

Whatever has happened I blame the Government for the increase that has taken place. Why is it one cannot get a Ransome sock to put on a Ransome plough? One has to buy a Pierce sock for the Ransome plough. Why is that?

Dr. Ryan

The Pierce sock fits it better.

Colonel Ryan

I hope the Minister will tell me where can I get a Ransome sock made by Ransome. I would like to know. I am only taking that as one of many instances. As dear as the machinery used by the farmer is, there is worse than that. The Minister knows that the price of fittings, spare parts, for these implements, is 300 times dearer. That is one of the great burdens we have to carry. With these things and the economic war thrown in, the farmers were ruined and their credit went. For that loss of credit the Minister has his share of responsibility. I do not like to harp back on what happened, but for the loss of credit the Deputies on the Government side of the House have some responsibility, because at one time they preached the gospel which caused men who were impoverished or badly off to believe that they would not have to pay their just debts. When that sort of thing started some people did not even renew their bills in the banks and did not make an effort to meet their obligations. Because of that you have to-day the honest hardy, thrifty, hard-working farmer in the position that he will not get any credit. I should say that about £12 is to-day the most that a farmer will get on credit.

I remember the time when the farmers were never short of credit. They could always come into the town and get credit for a period while they were bringing their cattle into a condition fit to sell. All that has gone by the board. For that the Minister is responsible. Agriculture is admittedly the most important industry in this country. The Minister ought see that something is done at once to bring relief to that industry. He should not wait until the Agricultural Commission reports. Even though prices have improved—there have been good prices I must admit during the past 12 months —most of the farmers in this country are not able to avail of the opportunity to make money out of those better prices. The bigger man who, perhaps got the first shock of the economic war, and perhaps lost an immense amount of money in the first year, had sufficient capital to enable him to stand that shock. In the next year he was able to go out and buy for practically nothing, and he was able to keep his cattle until there was a rise in the British market. He was able to buy a licence here, there, and everywhere for his cattle, and he never made more money. Those are only a few here and there. Most of the farmers scarcely know how to apply for a licence, and in any case they had no chance of getting it. What happened? The industrious hard-working farmer, who was trying to rear a family, went out and took a few beasts to the fair—beasts for which in the ordinary way he would get £11 or £12 —but he could not sell them at all. Eventually he might be able to sell one for 50/- or £3. He was disheartened. The 50/- or £3 would not meet any of his demands, and he generally went and spent it. It was just sufficient to buy tea and sugar and a few minor necessaries of that sort.

They are now carrying on from hand to mouth, and when pressed for land annuities they have to sell beasts which they ought to keep. I want the Minister to think over all that. I do not say it in relation to anything which has happened in the past, but the time has come when, if the Minister or his Department does not do something for agriculture, everybody will get a shock. One of the worst difficulties which confront the thrifty and hard-working small farmer is that he cannot get any credit. As I said already, he cannot get credit to tide him over the lean periods. The Minister, at a time when agriculture was at its very lowest ebb, brought in an Act regulating the wages for the agricultural labourer. I admit that, in view of present costs, wages are not even high enough, but the Act was brought in at the wrong time, when the farmers were not even able to pay the smaller wages which then obtained. The wages side of it is bad enough but, in addition, all kinds of bickerings are taking place, and we have people being brought into court. The old decent type of working man is still working for the farmer; he is working hard and earning his wages, and there is no bickering. But some of the other fellows are taking advantage of the position. They are taking advantage of the regulations with regard to hours. Knowing that the farmer does not keep a book or an accountant, and does not check the time of that man coming in, or the time he is idle or the time he leaves—the labourer leaves the farmer after four or five months, although he made a solemn agreement with the farmer—what does he do? He makes up an account of his own. He says: "I worked from half-past six in the morning until seven at night," and he brings the farmer into court. The farmer has no books, and there is no law for him. It is forgotten that there were many wet days, many hours during which the labourer was idle, and all the rest of it. The farmer is now so careful that he will only employ a man when he badly wants one. He will not employ a man to do the necessary work which always used to be done on the farm. That is all left undone, and the Wages Act is more responsible than anything else for having brought about that position. The Minister himself knows very well that, unlike other industries, agriculture does not lend itself to a fixed scale of hours. The weather does not lend itself to that. A man may have corn out in the field, and he cannot touch that corn until 11 o'clock. It might be a lovely evening at half-past six or seven o'clock, but the labourer is going to charge him from seven o'clock that morning until whatever time he gets home that night. I am anxious to stress that point, and I would ask the Minister to see that there is some relaxation of the regulations as far as hours are concerned. That regulation, as I say, is responsible for a very vexatious position and is causing a lot of bickering. I am not grumbling about the wages. I think the Act was brought in at the wrong period but, at the same time, I feel that the labouring man is not even given enough. I do submit, however, that the matter of hours should be regulated some other way. You cannot apply fixed hours to farming, where corn and hay and other crops have to be dealt with, and where the sun and the rain affect the working hours. I would ask the Minister to think over all that.

There is also another matter which I would ask the Minister to look into, and that is in connection with the Act of 1928 in relation to the transferred suppliers to creameries. I have discussed this matter before with the Minister, and with the disposals board and several others, but there seems to be no redress. As I said before in this House, there is certainly a great anomaly. Under that Act, everybody understood that they were compelled to take shares in a creamery once they were transferred to that creamery, and they had to pay £3 a cow. That was the general thing. In some creameries they were compelled to take the shares the minute they entered the creamery, and before the first 1/- was paid. In other creameries they have almost the £3 a cow paid, and they will not get the shares. Under the Act it was intended that everybody should get shares, whether they liked it or not. There is an anomaly in the Act and I think the Banking Commission have referred to it in their report. I would ask the Minister to look into the matter and to bring in an amendment which would compel the creameries to give the shares to the suppliers who have paid the £3 per cow.

With regard to the technical side of agriculture, I should like to see a good deal more money spent there. Great numbers of the farmers have taken advantage of the agricultural instructors, and here and there through the country you will find whole districts in which farmers have taken advantage of the manure schemes and everything else, but in other places you will find farmers who say: "My father and grandfather did so and so and that is good enough for me." The real reason for that is that they have not an example of good farming before them. You will find that, wherever there is such an example in the district, nearly all the rest will follow, but there are whole districts in which farming is not carried out as well as it should be, and where, even though there is capital, there is not the amount of production which there ought to be. I would ask the Minister to give a good deal more money to the county committees of agriculture if he possibly can, and to have a few extra inspectors. I believe that would be a great improvement. I believe it is very necessary, because we are lacking in education on the technical side. I know areas in the Minister's county and in Tipperary where there are some of the best farmers in Ireland; but there are other areas where things could be much better. I do not like, however, to go into that matter here. Let us take, for instance, dairying cows. In many places we find that a cow is kept because she produces milk. There is no idea of the profit that is to come from that cow. In a herd of cows you will find one cow making £27 in the year and another cow making only £3. That should not occur, because we have plenty of good strains of cattle in the country. All the cows should give a good average of milk. I give that as an indication to the Minister that he should go seriously into the question of how the technical side of agriculture could be improved.

I also want to refer to the bulls which are sold at our shows, and the serious matter of sterility which is largely increasing. I have been watching the feeding of bulls and I find that any man who feeds a bull as an ordinary beast should be fed has no hope of selling that bull in a show or getting a prize. These bulls, which are 12 or 15 months' old, are fed on from four to six gallons of fresh milk per day with all the other things thrown in which I will not mention. An ordinary farmer buys one of these bulls. What happens to that bull when he is put on ordinary food? In a great many cases he becomes a "screw." We know from experience that most of the progeny of these bulls are light and fine and not very good. I do not know how that can be remedied, but I say it is only natural that a beast should be fed in the ordinary way. These bulls are fed in the way I have described in order to make them fat. The inspectors at our shows should have regard to the frame of these bulls rather than the fat which has been accumulated by this purely artificial feeding. One of the greatest dangers, I think, in connection with our cattle production at present arises from those bulls which are sold at these shows and which are fattened in that way. The whole object is to have them fat so as to get a premium or a prize; it does not matter what happens afterwards. I ask the Minister to look into that matter very carefully. I know it is a difficult matter, but there ought to be some means of dealing with it, because it has become a grave danger. While our cattle have improved to a certain extent, we find that there was never more sterility than there is at present.

Mr. Meaney

We are discussing an Estimate for one of the most ancient and complicated industries not alone in this country but in the world—agriculture. The Irish agriculturist leads a clean, hard-working and industrious life. He has a proud spirit, because the best blood in the country flows in the veins of the Irish agriculturist. As agriculture is our most important industry, and as those connected with it are the best of our race, it is only right and fitting that that industry and the people engaged in it should get all the assistance possible. It is also well to remember that the economic lives of all sections of the community are interwoven. Realising that, I believe in the justice of protecting agriculture and also affording protection to the other industries. There is, unfortunately, a large discrepancy between the remuneration which the agriculturist gets for his produce and the remuneration that those engaged in other industries get. It is not due to Government policy; it is due to world economic conditions. I must say that this Government have done a lot in their own way to bridge that gulf and lighten the burdens of the farming community.

As I said, this industry is complicated; it has many branches. Some people speak at times as if some of the interests in agriculture clashed. We should take a broad view, and I think the Government have taken a broad view of this matter. I must congratulate Deputy Hughes and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney on their wisdom in at last seeing the Fianna Fáil point of view in regard to some part at least of the Fianna Fáil agricultural policy. Of course, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, as usual, conveniently forgets many things and tries to be a little imaginative. He asserted that Fianna Fáil had not originally a mixed farming policy. But, if the breaking up of grazing ranches, turning them up with the plough and growing food for the community, is not part and parcel of a mixed farming policy. I do not know what it is. To my mind, the policy of mixed farming should be extended. There are large tracts of fertile land which are even still given over to grazing. If the people engaged in mixed farming it would go a long way to solve their problems, and it would also be of help to the State. My idea of mixed farming is that dairying should be the foundation of such a scheme, and I am glad to see that substantial sums are being asked for in this Estimate to help the dairying industry. In that connection I should like to offer a suggestion to the Minister to reconsider the reintroduction of the heifer loan scheme, but on a different basis of administration from what it was formerly. I understand that the repayments of the loans advanced for those schemes are pretty well paid up, and my idea in suggesting the reintroduction of this scheme is to increase the number of milch cows in the country, and my suggestion for the administration of the scheme is that it be done through the creamery societies. That would give an opportunity to farmers to go in for dairy cattle and also give an opportunity to those farmers who wanted to change their present system of farming and start on a dairying foundation.

I should also like the Minister to consider a suggestion of mine in connection with the poultry industry. As a Deputy on the opposite benches mentioned in his speech—I think it was Deputy O'Donovan—that branch of the agricultural industry is a very prolific one and, without a doubt, under up-to-date conditions, it could be made a source of great wealth to those engaged in it. My suggestion is that the Department, through its county committees of agriculture, should put up stations in certain central sections, for the hatching of eggs, and that these stations should also include apparatus for the rearing of chicks, say, one month old—these chicks to be sold at a reasonable price to the local farmers and cottiers. If the Minister would consider such a matter, I should prefer that these stations would be put up in some of the congested areas. My reason for suggesting this scheme is this: As we are all aware, eggs command a higher price in the winter months than in the spring and summer months, and in order to have successful winter production it is essential that chicks be hatched early—that they should be hatched, I believe, in the months of February and March. The vast majority of our farmers—particularly those of them who have comparatively small holdings—have not the proper machinery at their disposal for the early production of chicks, and their capital is somewhat limited. The ordinary hens, or at least a very small percentage of them, do not go "broody" in the months of February and March. If this scheme were carried out it would mean, to my mind, that these districts would be supplied with chicks at a reasonable price, and that would mean that they would have eggs to meet the market when the market would be at its highest peak.

Let us turn now to the question of agricultural education. As the Minister rightly stated, there is plenty of agricultural instruction and plenty of scientific knowledge available, but the bother is to get those who need that knowledge most to assimilate it and practise it.

Mr. McGilligan

That is very like the Government, is it not?

Mr. Meaney

There is an old saying that one man may lead a horse to the water but ten men cannot make him drink, and I should not like to criticise adversely Deputy Dillon's suggestion in regard to that matter, but I myself think that some system should be formulated whereby the annual reports of the various county committees of agriculture could be sent into the homes of every landholder and occupier of land in the country. In my opinion, it would be a step in the right direction, but I think we should go even a step further and try to popularise agriculture. We know that it is a hard life and that there is a certain amount of drudgery attached to it, but it is also a clean life and, despite the drudgery that is attached to it, it is the noblest of all the industries. It is the one occupation where man can live near to nature and to his God. I think that the Press and the radio, and all the other organs that might be helpful, should be used without stint to carry out what I would call a propaganda campaign of agricultural education.

I also think that the agricultural instructors in the various counties should be brought to the local national schools oftener, and that in the evenings, immediately after school hours, lectures should be given both to the children and their parents on matters pertaining to agriculture. As I am on that subject, I would like to draw the Minister's attention to a matter that has come under my notice recently, and that is the matter of expenses for agricultural instructors when attending the Dublin shows. I know of a certain county committee of agriculture that will not allow the instructors the full amount of expenses that the Department has laid down. Now, these men are coming up here because they are men who have an interest in their job. They are keen on agriculture and they come up here at their own expense in order to get whatever knowledge they can and to distribute that knowledge among the people. I think that they should be allowed their full expenses. After all, if agricultural instructors are to keep in touch, they should get full facilities for attending the chief shows which, no doubt, are a real education. I come now to the question of help for the farming industry.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy might move to report progress.

Mr. Meaney

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again on Tuesday next.

The Dáil adjourned until Tuesday, 9th May, at 3 p.m.