I am not talking of shadows now, but of substances. Even Great Britain did not hesitate to accept the resignation of her Premier. Now, when we had the debate on the Tillage Order, I suggested to the Minister that he was not approaching the matter in the right way. I agreed that, if necessary, in the circumstances, the tonic of compulsion should be applied, but I suggested that if we could get what we wanted without compulsion, it would have been all the better. I suggested to the Minister that he should take stock of all the food for man and beast that this country will require for the future, or during the present emergency. When I read the Minister's speech at Cork I rather congratulated myself that I had been right on that occasion and that the Minister was not completely right, to put it mildly. He regretted, I think, that more animal foodstuffs had not been grown this year, but said that it was now too late in the season to rectify that position. I think, however, that, if it is not too late, he should make sure to rectify that position for next year.
The Minister made a statement, in his speech here to-day, which was self-contradictory. He said that feedingstuffs—and I presume he meant feeding-stuffs for live stock—would be cheaper in the future, but that they would be scarcer. Now, anything that is scarce, will not be cheap. If you have not an adequate supply of feeding stuffs, what you actually have will soar in price and, in all probability, be diluted, I think it will be agreed that it would be a pity if we were to be short of feeding-stuffs. Now, I do not suppose we will have more than half of our supply of native flour this year, and I wonder how the Minister proposes to give us our daily bread, if there is a shortage of imports, and it looks dangerously like that at the present time. The Minister's remarks about his negotiations with British Ministers were not reassuring, and were not comforting to agriculture. We were given a figure of 126/1 per cwt. for butter, representing 4½d. a gallon for milk. A cow that would give 600 gallons of milk would yield a gross income of £11 or £12. I am sure that the Minister is sufficiently conversant with practical farming to know that £11 or £12 gross income for a cow in the year is not a business that millionaires would pursue. He knows that it would not pay, even if every cow that was productive were to live and had no illness, and even if everything went with mathematical precision. Of course, if everything went with mathematical precision, you might be able to carry on, but the Minister knows that things in this connection do not go on with mathematical precision; that the expected does not always happen, and that, very often, there are unexpected losses.
In other words, dairying is not an economic industry here, and in order to induce Great Britain to buy our butter, we shall have to subsidise exports. A man with a varied business can run some parts of his business at a loss, but the majority of them must be run at a profit or he will run himself into bankruptcy. I should like to hear from the Minister, when he is replying, where will be the compensations for running dairying at a loss? In his dealings with British Ministers, has he impressed on those Ministers the necessity for our getting the manufactured goods that we require, at pre-war level, if we have to give our produce at, roughly, pre-war level, in exchange? After all, international trade is a system of barter. Will we get the same amount of manufactured goods for a ton of butter that we were getting pre-war? If trade between the two countries is to be continued on the basis that the present emergencies in both countries should not be exploited for either personal or national gain or super-gain or profits, then I suggest that the Minister should approach the question from the point of view of pure barter, and ascertain whether or not Great Britain will give us as much manufactured goods for a ton of butter, a ton of beef, a ton of bacon, and so on, as in pre-war times. If she does, we will be, at least so far, on an equitable basis.
The Minister has other things to consider, such as whether we would be able to get our fertilisers as cheaply and in as unlimited quantities as in pre-war days. He told us there were more potassic and nitrogenous manures used in this country this year than in any of a number of previous years. Of course, there were; and the reason was that the phosphatic manures could not be got, and, consequently, other manures had to be used in greater proportions in order to cover the land that required to be manured. That land was fertilised, not with a properly balanced manure, but with one that was heavily loaded with nitrates and potash, and, as a previous speaker said on this Vote, there was a considerable amount of waste there. Have we any guarantee about the supplies of artificial manures for the future? The Minister told us the amount of money that is provided. There is no use in providing money if you cannot get the goods to buy. It is much more important to the farmer to be able to get the stuff he wants than to be offered subsidies to buy that stuff if he cannot get it. If the Exchequer has money to spend on manures, it should be spent in getting manure into this country. I think the Government must now see the folly of farming out stocks of various commodities that certain merchants had in this country. By doing so they have killed the initiative of enterprising merchants to carry large stocks. I think a classic example of that was the rationing of paper stocks. If merchants were encouraged, by getting profits through carrying large stocks, we would have the stocks in the country.
In the matter of fertilisers, we were told that phosphatic rock could be got plentifully and we were told, early in the emergency, that there was an adequate supply of fertilisers. That did not prove to be the case when it was put to the test. I would like to get a reassurance from the Minister that he, in conjunction with the Government, particularly the Minister for Supplies and the Minister for Finance, has made adequate provision to secure a supply of those fertilisers or the raw materials to make fertilisers. I would much prefer that we should import the raw materials to be manufactured into the finished fertilisers, ready for application to the soil, at home. So, I am sure, would every Deputy in the House. But, if we are running short in the coming year as we were last year, and if we can buy the finished fertilisers and we refuse to buy them, waiting to get them made at home, we may, in the end lose the race. That would be very foolish. The Minister will appreciate that if we have not adequate fertilisers, we will have to break more land to grow the same amount of food and thereby have less land for growing good grass. I hope that the suggestion to pay a subsidy per are broken will not be entertained. The way to reward tillage, the way to reward anything, is by results and to secure a price for results.
In regard to the price that the Minister may fix with the British for certain articles of food that this country will run short of, I think the Government is greatly to blame for having tens of thousands of people idle. There is plenty of land in the country not yielding very much and we are facing this harvest, even if it is a good one, with the certainty that in some articles of food we will be short. Why are not those people that are unemployed put to work? Instead of getting money for doing nothing, instead of being an overhead charge on productive industry, particularly agriculture, at the present time, they would become a source of revenue to agriculture. Let the Minister consider the responsibility which he and his Government carry. If in the midst of a war and selling in a war market we cannot get the cost of production, what will we get in the aftermath of that war? I saw that an English statesman said that they would be glad to buy our butter, and that they will buy it if we sell it as cheaply as New Zealand butter is sold. New Zealand butter, as I understand, has to come around by the Cape which, at the present time, takes a fortnight. Insurance risks are three or four times what they were. What is wrong that we cannot sell butter as cheaply as New Zealand?
The Minister must now feel a certain amount of guilt. The land of this country was considered by the Minister and his colleagues as something that could be taxed out of recognition. There was no limit to the load it could bear. Now, in times of war, within three hours' sailing of the British market, we cannot sell our butter as cheaply in that market as New Zealand can sell its butter, which has to come 9,000 or 10,000 miles, through a submarine-infested ocean, liable to attack by hostile aircraft, with hostile ships everywhere lurking to sink it. Yet, according to the British Minister, he can get it more cheaply than the economic price for which we can sell butter. I would like to know from the Minister, as he, through the machinery of his Department, must know, how is it that, in view of all those handicaps to New Zealand butter production and marketing in Britain, we are unable to sell it profitably as cheaply as New Zealand? If that is the position now, what will it be in the aftermath of the war? We have seen the aftermath of a previous great war but in that great war agricultural produce went to high prices and those engaged in agriculture were well-off when the depression came; but they will face the aftermath of this war badly off, with frozen debts, that have been mentioned before by some speakers on this debate, more frozen and with accumulations of them. Is it not a terrible prospect that is ahead of this country?
I have not heard from the Minister, I have not seen in the Press, any reason given why an economic price for our agricultural produce cannot be got at the present time. I would like to know has the Minister any guarantees or looked for any guarantees? Few people in this country are aware of the terribly dangerous position we are in in regard to agriculture. I put this to the Minister: that we do not raise a pound of agricultural seed in this country. If we were cut off from Britain to-morrow, we would starve for want of seed. I challenge contradiction of that statement. Every seed which leaves Britain at present must leave under licence, and seed is rationed, even though it is grown in Britain to the order of Irish growers, and some seeds cannot be got. There are two varieties of cabbage seed which I wanted and which I could not get. Onion seed cannot be got. We do not save it here, nor do we save cabbage seeds, except in isolated places. The same applies to parsnips, carrots, turnips, mangolds and beet, and if we are cut away from Britain, what will we do with our tillage?
The position is terribly serious and it is necessary for the Minister, when making his price deal with the British Government, to be sure to make a contra-seeds deal with them. On each occasion on which this Vote came up for discussion, I have stressed this matter of raising agricultural seeds, but I do not think any progress is being made in that respect. I am not confusing the propagation of seed from stocks or strains already in cultivation with the breeding of new strains but, of course, in the matter of breeding new strains, we have been deplorably lacking. We get a good strain of any seed only when it is past its prime.
Another matter touched on by Deputy Hughes—the Minister was not in the House at the time—was the question of the price of milk. There was a milk strike before Christmas. I was asked to intervene in it, and, whether I was responsible or not, it was settled, and what struck me about the settlement negotiations was that everybody concerned, the Minister, the Department officials, the milk producers and the public, were all delighted that a settlement had been effected. There was a paper agreement as to the terms of the settlement, one of which was that there would be no victimisation. I am sorry to say that the Minister and the Department have broken that term of the settlement, and have defended the breaking of it. They have broken it in this way, that there were certain creameries, running up to about a score, which were victimised by the withholding by the Department of grants due to them. Grants to the amount of about £1,600 were withheld from a number of creameries because they did not obey the order of the Minister to send milk to Dublin during the period of the strike.
I am not saying that they should, or should not, have sent it. I had no part in the strike, but I do say that it was a condition of the settlement that there would be no victimisation. The Minister and the Department victimised those creameries—they make no secret of it—and they defend that victimisation. I should like to hear from the Minister how he feels justified in departing from the terms of the settlement. It was a very small matter and was not worth their while. I hope he will see his way even at this late hour to rectify the position and restore the grants to these creameries.
In those settlement negotiations, the question of price was important. It perhaps was the cause of the strike. Anyhow, the Minister referred the fixing of prices to the Milk Board. That was agreed to, but it was understood that it would be attended to with all expedition, and the Minister told the milk producers how he was alive to the situation, and that, in fact, he had introduced a Bill dealing with the price of milk. That Bill was introduced at that time, about the beginning of December, and it was on the Order Paper of the Dáil for Second Reading. It is still on the Order Paper for Second Reading, and the price at which milk was to be fixed for the winter months has not been fixed, and it is now midsummer. I understand that the board met and unanimously decided on a certain increase, but the Minister did not budge, and there has been no increase. The impression given by the Minister was that if an increase was recommended by the board, he would do the rest. I hope that the period during which this Bill will lie dormant on the Order Paper will be cut short.
I was glad to see that the Minister proposes, in relation to unemployment grants, that the money should be used for land reclamation, and that the scheme in hands may be ready by the autumn. Autumn would be good enough for a scheme of land reclamation which consisted of the removal of rocks and stones, but the Minister knows very well that it is not the time to start the reclamation of wet land. A scheme in respect of wet land should be ready now, because this is the season for working on wet land. You cannot reclaim wet land in winter, and a scheme which will have matured only by next autumn is, in reality, a scheme which will not mature for 12 months, because nobody can touch wet land in the middle of winter.
The Minister did not say, I suppose he could not very well say, how this would be administered in detail. He proposes giving a percentage of the money required for certain reclamation schemes to farmers, the latter to back that with a percentage of the total cost. I suggest that the Minister should consider another party in connection with that, namely boards of health, and, where they do not exist, boards of assistance. We know that millions of money are going out, in the majority of cases to able-bodied men. This money is being administered by boards of health and boards of assistance. Why could it not go by way of contribution to a scheme of this kind? At the present time this country, and rightly so, will not allow any citizen to die of hunger, but neither, I suggest, should it subsidise idleness, because the man who is working must pay for the man who is idle. If it is the duty of the State to maintain its citizens, it is also its duty to see that those citizens give a return to the State. As I look out on the order of society to-day and on the economics of this country, I do not see how any reduction can be made except in the overhead expenditure of subsidising people for doing nothing. If all the money that is going out in doles, assistance, relief of various kinds, unemployment grants and all the rest could be utilised to give an adequate productive return, then the overhead weight on agriculture and on industry would not only be very considerably reduced, but those people who are now living as parasites on agriculture and on industry would be contributors to the wealth of the common pool and to the taxation and rates of the country.
A considerable amount of discussion hinged around frozen debts. A lot of it, in my opinion, was unreal. I cannot understand why the Government have not tackled this problem. The banks are settling those debts every other day. I have been with parties and have helped to settle dozens of them. The banks are most anxious to settle. I know of one case where the bank was prepared to commute thousands for hundreds: to take £100 for each £1,000 due. It is time the matter was taken in hands, because while the banks feel that they have so much dead money in these frozen loans, money that is not even paying interest, they are not inclined to lend to agriculture. If some composition were effected and those frozen debts wiped out, then, unless new ones were contracted, and I do not think there is much danger of that, the credit of agriculture would go up from that new starting point.
We had a little toy loan scheme introduced last year by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health for the purchase of seeds and manures. The scheme is being administered by the county councils. What surprised me was that the scheme was not introduced by the Minister for Agriculture. The county councils would be prepared to go much further than is contemplated in that scheme. As a matter of fact, some of them have done so, and have had very satisfactory results. They were able to borrow money at 4 per cent. and to lend at 5 per cent. for the purchase of seeds and fertilisers. When that measure was before the Dáil we, on this side, suggested to the Minister for Local Government that a more ambitious scheme should have been introduced. His reply was that a scheme such as we visualised should not belong to his Department, but to the Department of Agriculture. I would be glad to see the Minister for Agriculture considering that matter and enlarging the scope of that scheme. It could be very easily administered and, in my opinion, would tend to increase production. If certain amendments that we put up when the scheme was going through were now refashioned and applied in another way, the result might be that we would be able to get round, for the time being and during the emergency, the problem of frozen debts.
