Last night, before reporting progress, I was referring to the question of credit facilities for farmers, who at the moment find themselves in the position of not being able to carry on their agricultural economy as they had been accustomed to carry it on in previous years. I also stated that possibly the giving of loans was not the best way of helping the farmers, but owing to the very serious times through which they have passed I think there is a large number of farmers in every county who find themselves in need of having credit facilities placed at their disposal. I happen to represent a county where mixed farming is extensively carried on, and where the farmers as a rule were able to make ends meet without any assistance from Government Departments, but recently I came in contact with many farmers who, through no fault of their own; find themselves very much handicapped through lack of capital. I refer now to the type of farmer who went in extensively for the rearing of cattle during those six years of the economic war, and suffered very great financial losses as a result of having to sell those cattle at prices which did not pay. That is the position at the moment.
The next point I should like to bring before the Minister, and I think it is a most important point in connection with the position of agriculture at the moment, is that the farmer cannot buy as he sells. If the farmer could buy as he sells, then at one stroke the chief difficulty in regard to the farmers' position at the moment would be settled. Everybody who has studied the question knows that some 30 or 40 years ago the farmer—the small farmer in particular—brought in his load of potatoes to the nearest market town. That load might consist of ten cwts. or it might consist of only six. He sold his potatoes at that particular period at an average price of 2/6 or 3/- per cwt. If he had ten cwts. he got about 30/-. The point I want to bring to the notice of the Minister is that when they got that 30/—most of them being married men with families, some of them with very large families—they went into the shopkeeper, and out of that 30/- were able to buy three or four pairs of shoes for their little children; they could go into the grocer's shop and buy groceries, and would have something left out of that 30/-. To-day that same farmer, if he is alive, or a farmer placed in the same circumstances, taking in the same amount of agricultural produce as represented by potatoes, gets about the same price. This year the price has undoubtedly gone up, owing to the fact that the winter was severe and there was a scarcity of potatoes, but if you take the average price for the last seven or eight years you will find there is very little difference between that price and the price which obtained 30 or 40 years ago. In the natural order, the farmer again goes into the shopkeeper to make certain purchases. Let us again assume that he goes in to buy a few pairs of shoes for his children. How many pairs will he be able to buy at the present high price as compared with 30 or 40 years ago? How many pairs can be pay for out of the 30/-? If he wants to buy a half cwt. or a cwt. of flour, what price will he have to pay to-day as compared with the price during those years? In the same way, if he wants a little suit of clothes, or anything in the way of wearing apparel for any member of his family, he finds he has to pay anything from 70 to 100 per cent. over and above what he paid during those years. That is the real difficulty confronting the farmers, both large and small and, incidentally, to the same extent the agricultural labourers of this country, namely that, for the money which they have to spend to-day, they cannot get the same amount as they could get some years ago.
I readily concede the point that this is a very difficult matter, but I consider that it is the duty of the Minister as representing the agricultural community of this country to keep a very close watch over the activities of the Ministers who are entrusted with the destines of the other Departments, particularly the Department of Industry and Commerce. I am one of those who have been connected with the Labour movement for a very large number of years. I am one of those who have always believed in giving a man a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, but I have also had the commonsense to know that I never could support a policy the object of which was to make the position of people who are comfortable more comfortable, and to make the position of people who are uncomfortable more uncomfortable. There should be some sense of relativity as between the activities of the various Departments. While people may laugh and joke at the expense of the farmer, and say he is always crying, we must remember that after all the rural population in this or in any country is the foundation on which the security of the country rests. For that reason, I think it is the duty of the Minister, backed up by the members of the Government, and, in fact, by the members of all Parties, to do something to make the lot of those who are engaged in agriculture more comfortable than it is at the present time.
Again, we come to the question of the employment provided by agriculture at the moment. At the opening of my remarks last night I referred to the growing of wheat and I questioned whether the introduction of the wheat scheme had provided any extra employment. As I stated then, and as I have since verified, one of the Ministers on the Front Bench stated that the growing of wheat would provide employment for an extra 30,000 or 40,000 labourers. He went on the basis that every 20 acres of wheat cultivated would mean the employment of an extra man. He estimated that it would take 800,000 acres of wheat to supply the flour needs of the country. Assuming that each 20 acres sown represented employment for one man, if 800,000 acres were sown, employment would be provided for an extra 40,000 men. Using my powers of observation, and I read at one time that observation is the best form of education, and from inquiries I have made I find that employment on the land—and I am now referring to land even in counties where wheat has been grown extensively — is unfortunately decreasing instead of increasing. There again, in my humble opinion, I think it is the Minister's duty to find out the cause. I think you can trace the cause back to the one fundamental fact that the farmer is not able to buy as he sells.
A farmer who employs three or four labourers is expected to pay each of these labourers 27/- per week. I am sure everybody will agree that that is not an exorbitant wage for an agricultural labourer who has to provide for himself, a wife and his family. But to pay even that wage of 27/-, week in, week out, for the 52 weeks of the year, on a farm takes some doing. The price which the farmer is getting for his produce is not sufficient to enable the farmer to keep these labourers in continuous employment. Consequently we have in this country a position vastly different from that of some years back, which was referred to by Deputy Ryan. At that time, when the farmer engaged his labourer he engaged him for 12 months, but in recent years he just engages him for the putting in of the crop and the taking out of the crop. In that way, he is only providing casual employment for agricultural labourers. Deputy Ryan had apparently at the back of his mind an idea that the farmers were not as keen workers as long ago, but he forgot to tell the House the reason for that, that the farmer is not in a position to pay the wages to-day, small as they are. At the time to which he referred the farm labourer's wages were only 8/- or 9/- a week. There is a big difference between employing four labourers at 9/- a week, which totals less than £2 per week and employing four labourers at 27/- a week, which works out at £5 8/- per week. The farmer would need to be something of a philanthropist to provide the same employment now. Deputy Ryan was unconsciously making a case against his own Government. He was proving up to the hilt that farmers who employ labourers are not in a position to keep these labourers employed for the 52 weeks of the year as they were some 20 or 30 years ago.
Of course Deputy Ryan had to get some scapegoat and he alleged that cattle dealers during the economic war formed a ring. It is nonsense for a man of Deputy Ryan's experience to speak in that strain about cattle dealers. Everybody knows that cattle dealers at that period could not give a price for cattle because of the fact that they had to pay £6 per head to the British Government before they were allowed to ship any cattle to the British market. If there was any ring, it consisted of those trick-of-the-loop supporters of the Government who saw a chance of making money by getting licences at that period to export cattle and who took away from genuine cattle dealers an occupation which they had followed by tradition for years. Anybody who knows anything about the conditions obtaining in the cattle industry at that time knows that all along the Border certain men who could never buy a goat previously, were given licences by the Government and before the economic war ended they were semi-millionaires.