I am on the point as to the provision of adequate loans to work the land. I am a member and, I hope, a responsible member of a county council which is backing a scheme to give large credits or loans relying on the security of the county rates. We are, thereby, mortgaging the county for these loans, and we must see that they are secured. To be of any use it is necessary that these loans should be given in a simple way while, at the same time, being adequately secured. This is a Bill to help people who cannot help themselves. It is the people who own these lands who are mainly in need of help, and, according to the circular sent out by the Minister, this is the type of people proposed to be helped. That is my view as a farmer and as a citizen who wants to increase food production. As a member of the county council and as a lender, I want to see these loans properly secured. If we lend on such land, the sheriff may go in and seize what is produced on account of decrees for land annuities and rates, whereas, if we do not put any money into that land, it will lie idle and there will be nothing for anybody to seize. I own some land and, though I am not a Communist or a Socialist, I recognise that the State has an overriding authority and control which it should exercise in times of emergency for the good of the whole community. That time of emergency is here, and I advocate interference with lands in this period of emergency which I would not advocate in normal times.
We are prepared to lend on such land in County Dublin. Will the Minister go some of the way to meet us? If the owner of that land gets sureties, we can lend. That will take a long time. I have a little experience of getting things done by legal men, and my experience is that life is almost too short to get anything done. We have a scheme from which we can exclude the legal profession. I am not now referring to the Minister. Did the Minister consider putting the type of land of which I have spoken into production? If he has not, and if he sets his back against any credits or loans under this Bill that would help to get such land into production, I think we have taken an exaggerated view of what can be done under this Bill. I hope the Minister will see the desirability of getting something done along those lines.
It is regrettable that the Minister for Agriculture is not here, because I should like to know how the Tillage Order can be carried out on such lands. It can be carried out, as it was carried out in some instances during the Great War, by putting in a team of horses, breaking up the requisite amount of the land and leaving it there with a shake of oats. That is tillage, but it is not food production. If the county councils, recognising their responsibilities in this time of emergency, are prepared to mortgage the rates to give loans for the purposes stated in this Bill on the guarantee of the applicants, the Minister should either seal up the debts on these lands or give priority to the money the councils are prepared to lend in order to get the lands worked. If the Minister cannot consider that proposal favourably, then he is only helping agriculture in pennyworths. This Bill will really apply only to cottage tenants. It will not affect food production in the slightest. Loans were given in previous years by guarantee. There is no need for a guarantee beyond that of the borrower himself if those frozen debts are sealed up during the period of emergency, or if we give priority to the charges of the county council. We are ready to proceed in County Dublin, but I suppose our scheme would require the approval of the Minister. If the Minister would do as I suggest, we should be ready to start operations in the morning and lend freely to any bona fide farmer in County Dublin. From soundings made, I do not think that any conception of this magnitude has entered the mind of the Minister or that of the Ministry. Consider what that would mean in relieving unemployment. It would be no charge whatever on the rates, and it would produce what would repay the seasonal loan—repay it by, say, the 1st January at the latest, and perhaps earlier. It would repay the interest and leave a margin of about 1 per cent. for working expenses, and would increase the entire food supply of the country. It would give employment to many people who are now on the dole or on home assistance, and it would be a genuine attempt to solve the unemployment problem.
The whole problem is a question of finance. I do not want to go deeply into the financial side of the matter, as there will be ample opportunity on the Estimates to go into that, but the key to the success of this scheme is to make loans available in a simple way. A loan that would be a first charge on a farm, a loan that would be required for seeds and manures, would be amply secured without any guarantor, and it would put that land into the production of food—land that is not now producing and that will not be producing unless capital is put into it. It is a terribly serious state of affairs that all food supplies, both for men and animals, are getting scarcer every day. I shall give the Minister one instance. Cotton meal that could have been bought for £8 5s. a ton a year ago is now £15 a ton, and scarce at that. Apart from that, it could have been got at ordinary trade terms a year ago, but now it is a matter of cash with the order. See the difference of working under the two sets of circumstances. The war is only on since September last. What will the state of affairs be next year, if the war is still on? And there is every sign that it will be on.
There is no use in saying, in a few months' time, that we should have put this country under production and have allowed no obstacle to stand in the way of doing so. If you do not do it now, there will not be another opportunity for 12 months, and even if you do it now you will not have an increased food supply until next August, September or October; but if you do not get going now you will not have an increased food supply until August, September or October of 1941. This too, comes back to the question of credit facilities and loans for farmers, which this Bill proposes to make available, but in too small a way.
Now, we had experience of small loans for those seeds and fertilisers. That does not affect the agricultural position at all. These, perhaps, had some justification when you had no Compulsory Tillage Order operating. I submit to the Minister—and I am sure he sees it himself—that there is an absolute necessity for something bigger, on the lines of this Bill, from that which obtained last year or at any time since 1932. You want something bigger, and if the Minister takes a wider view of loans for this purpose, it will not cost the national finance anything. We have got in touch with our treasurers, our bank, and we will get the money. We can lend it at 5 per cent., and we will have a sufficient margin left to pay for administration expenses. We are quite satisfied that that will be repaid and that it will have produced food for men and animals before it is paid back, and that some profit will be left to make lands that are now useless able to pay some of the old debt, or some interest on the old debt, that otherwise they would not be able to pay.
From every angle that this matter can be examined, one can see the necessity for a chance to be given to land that is now overburdened, from causes that happened yesterday or the day before and with which we need not now concern ourselves; but we cannot put that land working unless we have Government or statutory assurance that our money will not be interfered with and seized upon to pay debts that accrued before the present emergency. We do not approve of the working of this proposed scheme. We do not agree with getting sureties, because what good is getting sureties? If I am not able to buy the seeds and manures that I want myself, and if Deputy George Bennett is not able to buy them either—if I go as security for Deputy George Bennett and if Deputy George Bennett secures me, in such circumstances might you not as well give Deputy George Bennett his whack and give mine to me? What good is getting sureties? We want to fix the land, and we have every right to ask for the land to be fixed so as to produce, in the first line of defence, the food that is necessary for men and animals, and I say that it would be much better for us to do that instead of spending £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 on an Army that is either too cowardly or too inefficient to defend its own ammunition.
