Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Nov 1940

Vol. 81 No. 4

Disposal of Agricultural Surplus Production—Motion (Resumed).

Mr. Hughes

I was speaking, Sir, of the grain situation, and I pointed out the various increases that have been effected last year as a result of the Compulsory Tillage Order. One thing I should like to say to the Minister is that if farmers aie compelled to till they should at least he provided with a market. I would go further than that and say that they should be guaranteed a price.

Replying to a supplementary question yesterday regarding the surplus barley available, over and above brewing and distilling requirements, the Minister stated that it was not their policy to encourage the growing of oats and barley, that they had advised the people to grow wheat, and if they departed from that advice it was their own responsibility, and that in any case, it was a speculative crop. If it is a speculative crop why did the Minister interfere by doming these people the right to sell it at a speculative price? That is their grouse. I am not suggesting that the Minister is unwise in his policy in preventing the exportation of barley as from the information at his disposal he is, probably, in a better position to decide that question, but it is grossly unfair to individual fanners to ask them to finance a policy of reserving food supplies. I suggest that if it is in the national interest to reserve food supplies for live stock, then the grain ought to be pooled and a fair and reasonable price paid to the owners. I know several men who cannot sell their barley. They are hawking it around from merchant to merchant trying to sell it even at 18/- or 19/- a barrel. I know men with 200 barrels, and others with 300 barrels, who have been able to sell only 50 or 60 barrels where merchants tried to meet them.

What is the position now? Side by side with these men are neighbours who, as Deputy Dillon pointed out, threshed early. In some cases they were big farmers who had more than one day's threshing and they were able to get a thresher. They got their barley on the market in time to be covered by the Guinness quota, while small farmers who were not able to secure a machine in time, but had barley of as good malting quality as that, for which some of their neighbours sold at 30/- a barrel, are now in the position that they cannot cash it. That happened through no fault on their part. There is a good export market for that crop in England where some barley is fetching 54/- a barrel. I admit that the quality of some English barley may be superior, and more suitable for the manufacture of light ales than Irish barley, but there is a market in England at 30/- a barrel for our barley. I am not suggesting that all the barley available should be exported. The Minister's Department could determine what quantities of barley and oats are required here and the surplus could be exported.

A somewhat similar problem faced the Minister last summer when there was a surplus of oats. The Minister, however, imported a quantity of Canadian oats in the spring and some of it is still at the North Wall. No attempt appears to have been made by the Department to deal with the situation. There was a huge crop of oats here this year. The increased acreage represented 27 per cent. It is obvious that the Minister should have cleared off the surplus in order to make way for the new crop coming on the market, Merchants cannot handle this season's crop because their stores are already full of oats. The Minister asked why the people did not take his advice and sow wheat. Does he not know that there are large areas of poor land unable to grow wheat but on which it is easy to grow oats and barley? Such land cannot grow economic wheat crops. Last year 1,329,900 acres of cereals were grown, and if to that is added the increased acreage that will come under the new tillage order, there will be considerably increased crops next season. Eight hundred thousand acres would represent our requirements in wheat.

In order to continue growing wheat a rotation policy is necessary as the land requires good dressings of farm-yard manure. As a matter of fact a good crop of wheat can only be grown following a root crop when the land is well dressed with farm-yard manure. In addition, as there is a serious shortage of artificial manures this year, it would not be advisable to ask farmers to grow wheat on poor land. Even if they took that advice, would there be sufficient seed available? It is inconceivable that we should put all the land under wheat as the produce would be more than our requirements. The majority of people who are forced to sow oats and barley have poor land that is unsuitable for wheat. They have no choice in the matter. They grow oats and barley because their land is able to produce these crops. These people are not in a position to have consumed on the farms the grain they grow. It is a surplus crop and must be sold as a cash crop.

There is an exportable market for barley at present at a decent price, but the Minister denies that market to people who have barley because he considers that it is not good policy to export food that might be required later for the feeding of live stock. I am not disputing that decision of the Minister. It may be sound policy, but I disagree with him in asking individual farmers to finance that policy. If it ih good national policy let the nation finance it, but do not ask individual farmers to foot the bill by selling their grain at unremunerative prices. The Minister should pool that grain and fix a fair price for it. Licences were given to merchants to buy wheat and similarly licences could be given to merchants to handle barley and oats. That is the way the matter should he dealt with. It is an unfortunate situation when one man with a parcel of barley as good as his neighbour's finds that he is offered 12/- a barrel less than the other man got.

There are farmers in South Kildare to-day with 500 and 600 barrels on their farms and if they had to sell at 10/- a barrel less than their neighbours got, it would represent over a couple of hundred pounds. That would be a very substantial sum for any farmer to contemplate losing. The Minister can see what injustice it would be, especially when there is a market available if he permitted the grain to be exported. I suggest that the Minister should reconsider the whole position. Messrs. Guinness promised last year to buy 400,000 barrels of barley but later on they increased their purchases, of their own accord, to 450,000 and then they bought a final quota of 50,000, making 500,000. What struck me as rather peculiar as that, of the 50,000 final lot of barley that Messrs. Guinness bought, 25,000 was ear-marked for County Wexford. Whether it was mere coincidence or not, it looked strange that it went to the Minister's own constituency, and the rest of the unfortunate farmers of the country had to do without.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

He went where he could get good barley.

Mr. Hughes

The Minister made sure it was for his own people. I hear Deputy Keating say that it is getting you credit. There is another little matter about which I should like to attack the Minister, merely in passing. He broadcast last harvest telling us how to stock corn and save it. We Know how to save our harvest.

Dr. Ryan

One would never think that was so.

Mr. Hughes

Let the Minister do his own job and our farmers will be able to save their crops. Let him get the price and the market and they can do the rest. We put down this motion because we feel there is urgent need for stocktaking in our agricultural affairs. I suggest that the Minister must pay more personal attention to our interests and our export market. If he compels farmers under a Compulsory Tillage Order to till more land, he should, at least, subsidise the production of that crop, as is done in Northern Ireland or in England, or fix a guaranteed price. I would prefer that he should fix a guaranteed price as, in so far as subsidising in Northern Ireland is concerned, £2 per acre where new land is broken is rather unfair to the old tillage farmer.

If it is in the national interest to reserve such grain, it should be reserved at the national cost, and not at the cost of the individual farmer. If the farmer has to pay higher taxes, higher rates, higher wages, and cope with a higher cost of living, and meet the sheriff for his annuities; if he is to weather this present very difficult period, his interests must be looked after better by the Minister, and the burdens that he has to shoulder at the present time in the way of taxation must be reduced to the minimum.

Dr. Ryan

I think it would be as well to give the Dáil my estimate of the normal production under various headings, and of the home consumption, and of our surplus for export, so that we may get a picture of how the marketing of our various products stands at the moment. I do not know whether Deputies might get an impression from the speeches made here by some members of the Opposition that we found it impossible to market our produce. When we come down to examine the figures, we find that our big trouble is not so much to market the produce: our big trouble really is that of price. On looking through the figures for some years past, we estimate that the average number of fat cattle produced yearly is about 300,000 head, taking grass-fed cattle and stall-fed cattle. Our home consumption of beef would account for 170,000 of them.

Mr. Hickey

Could you segregate that 170,000, and state the number of stall fed?

Dr. Ryan

I have not got that figure with me, and could not get it at the moment. I am taking very general figures. That means we would have about 130,000 fat cattle for export. There was no such thing as a quota on fat cattle up to quite recently, but five or six weeks ago a quota was put on of 2,000 per week. Unfortunately, it was put on at a time when, in the normal way, we would have our biggest exports. We have, however, been able to deal with that question in a fairly satisfactory way. The exporters and the shipping companies and so on have co-operated as far as possible. By taking only the very fat cattle for export as beef, I think the exporters have succeeded, in co-operation with the shipping companies and the Department, in relieving any real hardship amongst producers. After another few weeks it will be found that the number of fat cattle for export will hardly exceed the 2,000, and, of course, when we come as far as March, there certainly will be no difficulty whatever, as we would not, in the normal way, have as many as 2,000 to export.

The question was put to me as to how long these restrictions are going to continue. I must say I do not know. Deputy Hughes blames me for not being able to give the information that is in the mind of the Minister of Food in England. I cannot get the information from him. I do not know whether Deputy Hughes would be able to get it by some magic method or other, if he were over here. Naturally, we have asked the British Government for that information, but we have not got it and we cannot get it unless we use other means, and we are not going to use other means in the way of physical pressure or anything like that. In the beginning we had hoped that it was a temporary arrangement that would not last for all time. It was due to a surplus of fresh beef on the market in Great Britain. It was a time of the year when a lot came on from their own producers and here, and they were not able to deal with the amount of fresh beef that came on. When this season of very big production is over, that restriction relating to fat cattle in all probability will be withdrawn.

The next item is store cattle, of which we export about 500,000. To speak of the consumption of store cattle at home is impossible, as we have no idea at all of the number which change from one farm to another, and which would really be home consumption. In the case of store cattle, all we can do is to estimate according to the proportion exported. We are exporting about 500,000. There ts no restriction on the export of store cattle and, therefore, we conclude that that is the output, as far as the country, taken as one farm, would be concerned.

We produce about 850,000 sheep and lambs in the year for slaughter. We consume at home about 500,000 and that leaves 350,000 for export. There, again, there was no restriction up to some weeks ago. It was put on at the same time and for the same reason as in the case of fat cattle. The quota in the case of sheep and lambs was not proportionately as favourable as that in the case of cattle and that is why there is more dissatisfaction under the heading of sheep than cattle. The system of export is similar for the two. Figures are given by the shipping companies of the proportion of cattle exports shipped by each individual over a certain period last year and also during the month preceding the introduction of these restrictions this year. That was to cover any person who might possibly come into the trade in the meantime; he would get some share, at least, of the trade now. These two months— this time last year and the month preceding the restriction this year—were taken and that proportion runs through every exporter's licence or permit. That is what every exporter's licence or permit is based on. I think it is a perfectly fair system and that it would not be possible to depart from it.

I remember that, when we were dealing with the export of cattle before, I had a consultative council set up consisting of various people—some exporters, some butchers, some farmers— and I made an attempt on that occasion to keep back a certain number of the licences and consult these people about hard cases to whom they might be given; but the number of hard cases was so great that one would really need to keep all the licences in order to deal with them. I am afraid we will have to let things go on as they are. Let the shipping companies supply the figures; there is a committee there consisting of representatives of the shipping companies and the producers and they go through figures supplied and really their only job is to multiply—a small job in mathematics— and give out the licences. I am afraid we cannot depart from that. For the last few years our export of pigs was about 66,000. The figure may have been what Deputy Hughes says ten or 12 years ago, but that is not the position now. There was no restriction on the export of pigs for the last four or five years until quite recently, except those intended for bacon. Evidently, in the course of trade, the number of live pigs exported dwindled to about 66,000. What happened was that the only live pig which an exporter could export economically was the heavy type of pig. He could not compete against the factories here with pigs under 16 stone live weight. This year we will export about 52,000. There is a slight restriction, but it is not of any great importance as compared to bacon which I will come to later. Our bacon factories produce about 1,200,000 cwts. of bacon.

Mr. Dillon

Whom are you giving the export licences for live pigs to?

Dr. Ryan

They are being given to the parties who had them in this month last year. They are being given out by the export committee and not by the shipping companies.

Mr. Cosgrave

Is that the Pigs Marketing Board?

Dr. Ryan

It is the Pigs and Bacon Export Committee. It has the same personnel as the Pigs and Bacon Commission. The bacon factories, as I have said, have produced about 1,200,000 cwts. of bacon. Our home consumption is about 560,000 cwts. That leaves a surplus of 640,000 cwts. Our quota this year is 560,000 cwts. We had therefore, a surplus of about 80,000 cwts. Deputy Hughes talked about going over to the British and making a bargain with them. We have got 133/6d. per cwt. for 500,000 cwts., and we can export over and above that at the Canadian price. The Deputy talked about the bargain that Canada had made and asked why we did not do the same. We did better than Canada. We got a special price for 500,000 cwts. of bacon. We may not get it again. We got 133/6d. We could export another 500,000 cwts., if we had them, at the Canadian price. We have exported 60,000 cwts. at the Canadian price, but it is not a paying price. We could not possibly sell bacon to Great Britain at about 100/- per cwt. considering the price of feeding stuffs here. In that regard Canada may be in a different position from us. For maize and other things, Canada may not have to meet the increased prices that we have. They have not to meet the greatly increased freights that we have for our feeding stuffs, and, therefore, they can produce bacon at practically prewar costs. We cannot do that, and, therefore, we cannot sell our bacon at Canadian price.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Minister able to tell us whether the Canadian price is c.i.f. Liverpool or f.o.b. Montreal?

Dr. Ryan

Canadian bacon is about 106/- per cwt. landed in England.

Mr. Dillon

Does that cover war risk insurance?

Dr. Ryan

I understand it does. With regard to pork, the amount exported is very small and has been for some few years. Our exports of pig offals amount to about 40,000 cwts. per year. I am not sure what the total output is, but that is the figure for exports. These exports are going out without restriction at present. Taking dressed beef and veal and canned meat, I think we can say their production is about normal, and that the exports are about normal. Only odd lots of mutton and lamb are being exported. Of our total production of potatoes, 98 per cent. is consumed at home. Of the remainder, we exported about 45,000 tons, of which 28,000 tons were seed. We produce 1,800 tons of flax. The entire output of flax has been taken by the British Ministry of Supply. Our total output of wool is about 16,000,000 lbs., and of that about 4,000,000 lbs. is consumed at home. The rest is available for export. I do not know how much has gone out. The Minister for Supplies has already dealt with the question of wool.

Mr. Dillon

Indeed he has, disastrously.

Dr. Ryan

In the case of creamery butter, the output is about 720,000 cwts. We consume about 460,000 cwts., and we have about 240,000 cwts. for export. There is no restriction on the quantity of creamery butter that we can send to Britain, but we are getting a very poor price. In the case of non-creamery butter, it is estimated that we produce about 500,000 cwts., that we consume about 450,000 cwts. and prewar had for export about 50,000 cwts. About, half the exports went to the United Kingdom and the other half to various countries, some being sold as ships' stores and in various other ways. Some part of that trade has been maintained to countries outside Great Britain. Great Britain is very reluctant to take any of this non-creamery butter. They have taken some this year. The output of cheese is about 40,000 cwts. We consume at home something over 50 per cent. The remainder is taken by Great Britain. There is no restriction on that. We produce about 136,000 cwts. of condensed skim milk. We consume at home about 27,000 cwts., and therefore we have about 110,000 cwts. for export. This is also taken by Great Britain. In the rase of condensed full-cream milk, we produce over 50,000 cwts. We consume over 20,000 cwts., and we have practically 30,000 cwts. for export, which is taken by Great Britain. We produce about 5,500 cwts. of dried skim milk. That is all used at home. As regards dried full cream milk, we produce about 11,000 cwts., we consume at home about 3,000 cwts. and export about 8,000 cwts. The export of creamy has been stopped since 1st October.

In the case of poultry, we produce almost 1,000,000 turkeys in the year. About half of these are consumed at home, and the other half exported. We produce 780,000 geese and only export about 100,000. We produce 680,000 ducks and consume about 660,000. We export only 20,000. We produce 7,000,000 fowls. We consume over 5,000,000, and we export less than, 2,000,000. In the ease of eggs, we produce about 8,200,000 great hundred; of hen eggs; we consume about 5,700,000 great hundreds, and we export abouts 2,500,000 great hundreds. We produce about 830,000 great hundreds of duck eggs; we consume about 662,000 great hundreds, and export 168,000 great hundreds.

That is a rather tedious summary of figures, but it is no harm perhaps to have it on the records for Deputies to study later if they wish to. I think they will see that our position is this: that we are not restricted in regard to quantity except in the case of bacon—I mean restricted unduly except in the, case of bacon and temporarily, I hope, in the case of fat cattle, sheep and pigs. If that is only temporary, then the restriction that we have to deal with applies to bacon only. Deputy Dillon appears to think that some of our prices are satisfactory, particularly in the case of eggs. As regards eggs it may be all right at the moment, but I personally think that all prices are a bit too low—some of them much too low and others a bit too low. I need not go into them in detail. Taking the year round, the price offered for eggs is not sufficient to encourage producers to go into greater production. It may be sufficient to keep them where they are. Certainly, the price for fat cattle is not sufficient, taking the year round. It may be satisfactory at this season when there is usually a slump in prices. It may not be too bad, comparatively speaking, during the months of October and November but, for the rest of the year, it is not satisfactory. The price of dairy products is entirely unsatisfactory and it would he impossible to get the farmer to continue in dairying were it not for the system of subsidy and so forth which we have adopted.

Points were raised by Deputy Dillon with regard to wool, manure and onions. His contention was that we had sacrificed the interest of the agricultural community in favour of some industrial group or other. That is not true. The Minister for Supplies dealt very fully with wool. I do not think that it is necessary to go into that matter again. He also dealt fairly fully with manures and I do not think I could add anything to what he said in that connection. With regard to onions, I should like to support what the Minister for Supplies said before he left the House—that if any blame attached, it was to be placed entirely on my shoulders, as Minister for Agriculture. I think the Minister for Supplies did ask me what the idea was in prohibiting the export of onions. He, evidently, did not appreciate what reason there could be.

The Department of Agriculture got certain people going on the growing of onions four or five years ago and they could never have got a decent return for those people if onions were permitted to come in. We had to keep out foreign onions. We had to keep the price of the home-grown onions up to such a figure as would give the growers a fair return. If they got up to 10/- or 12/- a cwt., they might continue in the business. The yield averages from six to ten tons. Ten tons would be a very good yield. The big majority would get six tons and 10/- or 12/- a cwt. would, probably, be sufficient to induce these people to go on growing onions.

For the past three or four years, we had to compel the merchants in the cities of Cork, Dublin and elsewhere to pay higher prices for their onions in order to get onions grown in this country. This war will not last for ever and, when it is over, the growers of Castlegregory and elsewhere will come back to the City of Dublin for their market. They will net go to Liverpool or Manchester. They will come back to Dublin or Cork. It is very short-sighted policy for Deputy Dillon and Deputy Miiglies to urge that we should allow all these unions out this year to Liverpool or Belfast, let the merchants get £60 a ton. for them —I do not know what the growers would get—and leave no onions in Dublin, Cork or the other Irish cities from that time on.

Mr. Davin

Where would they get £60 a ton?

Dr. Ryan

They would have got £60 in Belfast some time ago. What would be the result if we permitted that? The consumers here would, naturally, resent it. They would say: "We have supported these people for the past four or five years by paying an enhanced price for onions and now, during this emergency, they have let us down and provided no onions for us." I have, I think, the advantage of Deputy Dillon in one respect in connection with this matter. Before I came over to this side of the House, I had to go to workmen's houses in Dublin quite a lot. I had to go there when the men would be in and that meant that I had to go during the dinner or tea hour. I can say, from my experience, that about 90 per cent. of the workmen's households in the City of Dublin are consumers of onions. There is no vegetable so common as onions with them. If we break that habit, if we leave them without onions for a year, they may go on to a cheaper vegetable. They may use turnips or other vegetables and they may not go back to onions.

The Castlegregory growers might therefore have to give up the game when the war was over. It is very short-sighted for Deputy Dillon and Deputy Hughes to try to get these onions out. It is unfair to these growers in Castlegregory who have not the same knowledge of war conditions that they have and who cannot be expected to take the same long view. It is unfair to tell them that but for the Minister for Agriculture and the Government they would be getting £60 a ton for their onions. It is very unfair to be putting bad thoughts into these people's heads and it is not worth what Deputy Dillon and Deputy Hughes are going to gain by it.

Mr. Davin

Is not the fixed price £25 a ton?

Dr. Ryan

It has been brought down. Deputy Dillon said he knew a merchant who bought 110 tons of onions. A man who goes into a business like that should know his business and a merchant should not have bought onions unless he was going to get rid of them before they would go bad. He should have been able to calculate how long he would have these onions on hands. If he miscalculated and they went bad, then he should not be in the business. I do not know if these onions went bad but, if they did, he should not be in the business.

Mr. Belton

Was not the Minister asked for a statement of policy as to whether or not he would keep the embargo on the export of onions?

Dr. Ryan

I do not know that I was asked for it, but we are going to keep it on.

Mr. Dillon

If the onions are going bad, what do you propose to do?

Dr. Ryan

Thirteen or 14 years ago, we were told that, if we succeeded in growing wheat, it would go bad. Now, we hear the same thing about onions. That is only the talk of the merchants who want to get their onions out. Anybody who goes to the Spring Show knows that you will get an Irish onion which will keep as long as any foreign onion. I do not know whether or not Deputy Dillon grows onions. I grow onions, not for sale but for my own household, and I know that they will keep until next May or June.

Mr. Dillon

Will you go down and look at that man's onions?

Dr. Ryan

If he bought onions of that kind, he should not be in the business.

Mr. Davin

Was there not a scramble on in Kerry at the time?

Dr. Ryan

A lot of merchants from Dublin and elsewhere went in and put the price up to £26 to the grower. Numbers of the people who bought these onions are coining to me and saying that they bought at £26 a ton and that they can get only 12/- or 14/- a cwt. for them here and that they are going bad.

Mr. Belton

Who is buying onions at 12/- or 14/-?

Dr. Ryan

That is what they tell me. They expected to get a good price and they are disappointed. I do not think that we should go to their aid when they did not succeed in getting them up to the North of Ireland or Liverpool.

Mr. Dillon

Would you sooner have them go bad?

Dr. Ryan

If we permitted the merchants to go to Castlegregory, and buy onions on the chance of getting a high price by exporting them, they might expect the same next year. They would expect us to say to them that if they did not find a way out, we would find a way out for them. We are not going to do that.

Mr. Belton

The price is now controlled.

Dr. Ryan

Secondly, if we were to allow all the onions to be exported which the merchants tell us are going bad, we would swamp England with onions because they all say that their onions are going bad.

Mr. Dillon

It seems to me to be a silly thing to let them go, bad out of pure spite.

Dr. Ryan

Not out of pure spite. Deputy Dillon said that he had warned me several times as to what was going to happen with regard to oats and barley, that I am now floundering around trying to find a solution, and that he, as usual, comes along and gets me out of my difficulty. How does he suggest I should get out of the difficulty? By adopting something which he condemned for years —the maize meal mixture. That was the simplest solution anybody in the House could suggest. Deputy Dillon came back to Fianna Fáil policy, as others always do; he looked through it and saw that the only thing suitable was the maize meal mixture, and he suggests it now to get me out of the difficulty.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to be uncivil, but I am tempted to make an uncivil observation.

Dr. Ryan

Is it not true? The Deputy will not deny that he said I was floundering around, and that he, as usual, had come to the rescue?

Mr. Dillon

I do not deny that.

Dr. Ryan

And what was the solution—the maize meal mixture?

Mr. Dillon

No, sirree! But let the Minister make his speech. He did not interrupt me, and I have no right to interrupt him.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy says that the farmers cannot keep their oats and barley. No doubt, to some extent, that is true, but the peculiar thing is that the experience of anybody who has gone through this—I do not say that I have personal experience of it, but the figures have been produced to me—is that in any year in which there is a good opening price for oats, no oats is offered. The oats are held, and come on the market about February, March or April, like last year. There was practically none on the market last year until February or March.

Mr. Belton

It was available earlier at 14/- in Boyle.

Dr. Ryan

The big majority of the oats came on the market in February and March last year. The farmer was able to hold it last year because his financial and storage troubles did not arise. On the other hand, experience shows that in any year in which there is a bad opening price, the whole lot of it is shoved on the market immediately. Figures have been produced to me showing that that is the experience of the Department.

Mr. Belton

It is the same with every commodity.

Dr. Ryan

The only point I want to make is that the farmer can hold his oats some years.

Mr. Belton

Is there a real surplus?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think there is very much.

Mr. Davin

Does that argument apply to barley?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think so. They always market their barley. The position, so far as we are concerned, is that we know now that the maltsters are finished buying barley. Whatever oats and barley are there for sale will go into feeding. It must go through some miller and pass back through the merchant to the farmer who is feeding it. Why should we come in as another intermediary and make the thing more difficult still? Why should we interfere between farmer and farmer in a case like that? If the farmers are in difficulties, it would be a great thing if they were organised. Take two districts, one in my own constituency, Campile, and the other Dungarvan. Let Deputies inquire if there is any farmer around Campile or Dungarvan who has barley or oats on hands. They have not because there is a co-operative society in those places to deal with it, and the only cure for those farmers who seek a market for oats and barley is to co-operate and to do their own marketing in that way.

Deputy Dillon and the Deputies opposite are, I am sure, logical in many cases. What is the difference between coming in in this case, taking oats and barley from these people and helping them to market it, and then giving it back to the farmers to feed and the potato men coming to us? There is not a farmer who does not hold potatoes till next May or June and then puts them on the market. Why should they not be allowed to say to me: "Take them off my hands because you will want them next May or June"? Take the case of the farmer who supplies the Dublin market with hay. He brings the hay in out of ricks and he might say: "Take over these ricks. You want hay in the country. The Government want hay as they want oats, barley and potatoes, and could you not take it over now?"

Mr. Keating

Is the Minister not aware that farmers have no storage for corn?

Dr. Ryan

What I have said is that last year, when oats was dear, they kept their oats.

Mr. Keating

How many farmers kept it? The merchants kept it.

Dr. Ryan

The great bulk of the oats was sold by the farmer to the merchant after Christmas.

Mr. Keating

I do not know any farmer who kept his oats last year, but they have to keep it this year.

Dr. Ryan

For goodness sake, let them keep it a little longer and they will get a good price.

Mr. Keating

I think it only fair to the farmers that the Minister should buy the corn and give it plenty of storage.

Dr. Ryan

Take barley again. Everybody knows that there is a certain amount of barley taken for malting. We should all like to see plenty of barley for malting, and we do not want to see a shortage because it would be disastrous if we had not enough malt in the country because we would not have the things that flow from it. I made at least two broadcasts last year, and I suppose I spoke in public as well, and in every speech I made, I said to the farmers: "If you want to be sure of a cash crop, sow wheat."

Mr. Keating

How many farmers can grow wheat economically?

Dr. Ryan

There are many farmers, as the Deputy knows, who think they cannot grow wheat.

Mr. Keating

The farmer who grows six barrels to the acre cannot.

Dr. Ryan

There is scarcely a farmer in County Wexford who could not grow wheat successfully.

Mr. Keating

I would not agree with that at all and I am speaking from experience. There are any number of farmers who would not have seven barrels to the acre in a good year.

Dr. Ryan

There are any number of them who never tried wheat.

Mr. Keating

They did, before you and I were born.

Dr. Ryan

That is true, but not since then. Deputy Dillon said there were thousands and thousands of acres in this country that could not grow wheat. That is quite true. There are thousands and thousands of acres that could not grow wheat, but is it not a pity that Deputies did not come so far a few years ago, when our combined efforts might have been sufficient to get farmers to grow wheat as far as possible as a cash crop, because they were sure of their money, sure of their market, and on that land on which they did not grow wheat——

Mr. Belton

They are not sure that there is enough cash for the crop.

Dr. Ryan

I thought that when Deputy Belton got over to his present position he might go back in favour of wheat again.

Mr. Belton

He will grow wheat with the Minister any time.

Dr. Ryan

I am sure of that. There is no doubt about it. There are these thousands and thousands of acres, and, in the first place, I admit that on what is regarded as good barley-growing land, you will get a better crop of barley than you will of wheat, but you can grow wheat on some of that land, and grow it successfully. In the second place, there is some oats grown for sale in the poorer areas where wheat could not be grown successfully for sale, but there are hundreds of thousands of acres at present under oats on which wheat could be equally well grown. That applies to some of the counties, at any rate, where this big agitation arose about a surplus, including the County Meath, for instance, where there was a very big agitation early in the year about a surplus of oats, and surely to goodness the land of Meath would grow wheat.

Mr. Belton

That is hardly the experience, except in regard to the Boyne Valley.

Dr. Ryan

Again, before we were born, that was the experience.

Mr. Belton

Before we were born the Boyne Valley was a great grain-growing area, but not any other part of Meath.

Dr. Ryan

Deputies opposite will agree that we should not allow oats and barley out.

Mr. Dillon

Would it not be very wise to let out a proportion of the oats?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think so. I heard it stated on many occasions, as the policy of the Party opposite, that what we should do here as an agricultural country, of course after providing for ourselves, is to walk our produce out.

Mr. Belton

The oats crop is walking out; the rats are taking it.

Dr. Ryan

We are adopting that policy much better than the Opposition; we say that we should not only walk our beasts out, but walk them out with Irish produce in them as well as far as we can. We are compelled to do that in any case, whether we like it or not, because we cannot get the stuff in. Deputy Dillon referred to those eastern countries of Europe where they can grow grain continuously, but cannot in some cases have animals at all. The poor conditions there are due to the fact that the only cash they can get is for their grain.

Mr. Dillon

And their land has been so impoverished by successive crops of wheat that they are getting only three and a half barrels to the acre.

Dr. Ryan

Are we not going to make an approach to that if we export grain? This Party here has been very much in favour of growing tillage crops, but I do not think it was ever advocated from here that we should export grain, and I think it would be a great mistake. We have advocated growing our own grain, and we have, as far as we can, retained the fertility of the soil, but if you export grain you are going to destroy any fertility there is——

Mr. Belton

If you have a surplus, why compel the farmers to grow a greater surplus when there is no outlet for it?

Dr. Ryan

I do not say we have a surplus.

Mr. Belton

I should like the Minister to deal with the question of surplus.

Dr. Ryan

I do not think we have a surplus. I do not know how much maize we are going to get in until the end of August next, which is the cereal year. If we get in half as much maize as we got in last year we may not have an acute shortage. If we get in less than half, we will have a very acute shortage, and it looks like coming in at less than half at the moment. I cannot say, nor can anybody else say, if we will have too much foodstuffs or too little. All I can say is that, taking all the factors into consideration, it would be a great mistake to allow barley or oats out. If the course of the war changes, if shipping becomes easier, and if we get in our 100 per cent. supplies of maize as we did before, we will have no shortage, but I am afraid we are not going to get it.

Mr. Keating

Why penalise the farmers who have barley on hands?

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Keating is thinking of the farmers of Wexford, but I have to think of the farmers of the whole country. The farmers of Wexford already held a meeting at Enniscorthy, where they said: "Why should we be compelled to give cheap feeding stuffs to the rest of Ireland?" I do not know if Deputy Keating has read that.

Mr. Keating

I have.

Dr. Ryan

And he agrees with it?

Mr. Keating

Yes.

Dr. Ryan

The farmers of Deputy Dillon's part of Mayo and Roscommon have been saying for the last seven or eight years: "Why should we be compelled to pay more for our feeding stuffs under the maize meal mixture scheme to bolster up the Wexford farmers?"

Mr. Dillon

You did wrong on both occasions.

Dr. Ryan

Whatever I may do, Deputy Dillon would do the opposite, so if I am always wrong he is always right, and if I am always right he is always wrong. If, by restriction and by compulsory mixture and so on, we have provided a market for the tillage farmers for their tillage crops during the last seven or eight years, and if that home-grown grain was sold to the non-tillage counties, I think—just like the onions—that now is the time for the tillage counties to give a bit of benefit to the non-tillage counties during the war.

Mr. Keating

Would the Minister say that in his own constituency?

Dr. Ryan

I am not a bit afraid to say that to the Wexford farmers.

Mr. Keating

I know the Minister has a great nerve, but he may be pulled down a peg.

Dr. Ryan

I am not a bit afraid to talk to the farmers of Wexford in that strain. Deputies opposite should realise that the farmers are the most sensible men in this country, and the most far-seeing. They are not out to grab the benefit of the moment at all.

Mr. Keating

Some of them in the Minister's constituency have been very short-sighted for some time.

Dr. Ryan

There is no need to point out to them the hackneyed story about the goose that lays the golden eggs; they do not want to grab any benefit.

Mr. Bennett

They would kill all the geese in the world if they got a bob for them, they are so hard up.

Dr. Ryan

I do not agree with Deputy Dillon when he talks about such a high standard as an 800 gallon cow. I believe it is too high, because for ordinary commercial purposes, like supplying milk to a creamery, I think that getting milk from an 800 gallon cow would work out as dear if not dearer than getting milk from a 650 gallon cow.

Mr. Belton

I quite agree with the Minister.

Dr. Ryan

I am delighted with that anyway.

Mr. Hickey

What about the Cow Testing Associations?

Dr. Ryan

I do not want the Deputy to think we are trying to cut down cow testing. It is necessary to have some of those 1,200 gallon cows to breed from.

Mr. Dillon

Now the Minister has gone up to 1,200 gallons.

Dr. Ryan

For some of them. Deputy Hughes started off by saying that one of the effects of the economic war was quotas. That is absolutely wrong. It had nothing whatever to do with the economic war. I was over in Ottawa when the economic war started, and in Ottawa the quota system started for all the countries that were sending stuff into Great Britain as well as for here. The economic war led to tariffs on our produce going into Great Britain, but it certainly had nothing whatever to do with quotas. The economic war has been charged with a lot of offences, but that is not one of them. Deputy Hughes also said that our policy was to charge a high price for bacon to the home consumer in order to give cheap bacon to Great Britain. That is an argument I cannot understand. If, let us say before the war, Great Britain is buying bacon from Denmark at 88/- a cwt., and they say that they think Irish bacon just as good and will give 88/- a cwt for it, and if we say, "88/- a cwt. is not enough; we will give a subsidy of 7/- or 8/-", how is that giving cheap bacon to Great Britain?

That is an argument I can never understand, but evidently it is an argument that Deputy Hughes believes in. We are giving butter to Great Britain at the same price as New Zealand butter. We cannot get Great Britain to give us more than the 126/- which they are giving for New Zealand butter. If we give our producers more, does that mean that we are giving cheap butter to Great Britain? We are giving them cheap butter, but we are not making it any cheaper by giving our producers a bit more. That is the most silly argument I have ever heard, and that is saying a lot.

Mr. Nally

And you are making the Irish consumers pay the balance.

Dr. Ryan

The Irish consumers are paying the subsidy; that is admitted; but, however that may be, it does not mean that we are giving cheap butter to Great Britain.

Mr. Belton

The Danish Government pay their exporters a subsidy by way of an exchange rate of 22/- in the £.

Dr. Ryan

They are all giving them subsidies. That is true. Deputy Hughes wants to know why we do not go over, and so on. We did go over, and we were not very much the better for it. First of all, he wants to know why we did not go over at the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the war the Minister for Food in Great Britain sent his principal live-stock man and some of his other principal men across here, and it was settled that until further notice at any rate we would get the ruling price, whatever that might be. We got the same price as the British farmer for sheep; we got the same price for bacon, the same price for pigs. Eggs were not controlled at that time. We got whatever was going for eggs. We got the New Zealand price for butter and we got the same arrangement for fat cattle that had been in operation before the war started. That was, if you like, an interim arrangement to go on until there was time for the British Government to meet us to discuss arrangements. We could not do any better at that stage. There was no use in going across to the British Ministry at that stage and saying: "We want to discuss this thing for the future", because they had given us as good a price, in most things anyway, I do not say in all, as they were giving to their own farmers. We could not expect more. That was to carry on until we would have discussions. The discussions took place, I think it was, in April or May.

Deputy Hughes said that they were too busy to see us when we went over. Where did he get his information, I wonder? It is extraordinary the information he has about it. We were over there about three days. We met three Ministers at least during that time for about eight hours a day. You could not expect anybody to do more in conference because it is rather tough work. You have to be very careful about everything that falls from your lips. You could not work more than about eight hours a day. The whole time we were there we saw British Ministers. There was no question of their being too busy or too preoccupied to see us. There was this question, that we could not agree, and if we stayed for another three months we could not agree. The reason why we could not agree was: I met the Minister for Food on a couple of occasions—Mr. Lemass and I met him on other occasions—but every time I met the Minister for Food he said: "There is no sentiment in this. If I get butter in New Zealand at 126/- I will give you 126/-; if I get bacon from Canada at such a price I will give you that for your surplus bacon, over and above what was already arranged." We could not shift him.

Mr. Dillon

That is not sentiment. That is daft. Did you say that to him?

Dr. Ryan

No, I was not insulting.

Mr. Dillon

It is a pity you did not.

Dr. Ryan

As a matter of fact, I do not believe that in any case.

Mr. Dillon

It is a damn sight better for them to get butter here and carry it 300 miles than to get it in Canada and carry it 3,000 miles.

Dr. Ryan

The price was for goods landed in Great Britain, you must remember. From his own point of view, he said, he was a business man. He wanted to buy stuff and to get the same value from one country as another. He was not going to pay us a bit more for our butter than he was paying New Zealand, or more for our bacon than he was paying Canada, and so on. We could not get beyond that, and we have been negotiating, if you like, over the telephone, as Deputy Hughes said, since, but as far as I can see there is going to be no move from that. We are quite prepared to sign an agreement, the sort of agreement that Deputy Dillon and Deputy Hughes would like, that the British Government would take all the stuff we have at our price. Anybody would sign that agreement. But the British Government will not sign it; that is the trouble. It never appears to strike Deputy Dillon and Deputy Hughes that the British Government will not sign an agreement like that. They will not, and that is the end of it.

Mr. Dillon

I suppose we had better look for an alternative market then.

Dr. Ryan

When we talked about an alternative market we were scoffed at and told that the British market was going to be there for all times and what more could we expect.

Mr. Corry

"Give us back our markets."

Mr. Brennan

That was the time you were going to starve John Bull. You have the result of it now.

Mr. Keating

Where are the alternative markets?

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Hughes said something about the slaughter of calves. Why do not Deputies opposite try to be a little bit informed about things? I think, of course, that it may not be altogether honest on Deputy Hughes' part to talk of the slaughter of calves. I have explained here on many occasions what the bounty on calf skins was given for. Of course, Deputies opposite like to refer to it as the slaughter of calves. They think it is a sort of stigma on this Government. Really, the Deputies opposite should be ashamed to talk of the economic war if they had any shame in them, but they have not. They go on talking about it. We got up against the British Government in regard to certain payments. The Party opposite might have stood by us, but they did not. They have learned their lesson.

Mr. Dillon

What does the Minister mean by that?

Dr. Ryan

They are standing by us this time.

Mr. Dillon

Do you imagine we regret anything we said during the period of the economic war?

Dr. Ryan

You should.

Mr. Dillon

You were not fit to run a fish-and-chip shop and you have ruined many people as the result of your folly.

Dr. Ryan

We had to do the best we could.

Mr. Dillon

A damn bad best it was.

Donnchadh O Briain

The people did not think so.

Mr. Keating

What about the calves?

Dr. Ryan

I am going to talk about the calves now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister must be allowed to proceed without any further interruptions.

Dr. Ryan

I explained this thing here on many occasions and I explained that on the continent they have sufficient butter and milk for themselves, or almost anyway, in France and Germany, and yet they had no surplus of cattle for export. I could not understand that and I said to myself: "How is it that here in this country we have only a small surplus of dairy products for export, and why is it that we do not consume as much meat as those other countries?" I found they consumed a lot of veal in Germany and France. I said, "If England is not going to take our cattle, the only thing is to get a certain amount of veal consumed here because England will have to put on a quota on our cattle."

Mr. Keating

How many of the murdered calves went for veal?

Dr. Ryan

We thought we would try to get veal encouraged here.

Mr. Keating

Is a day-old calf veal?

Dr. Ryan

Will the Deputy keep quiet?

Mr. Keating

Will you tell me?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Keating must keep order.

Mr. Keating

Is a day-old calf good veal?

Dr. Ryan

A Leas-Chinn Comhairle, do not mind Deputy Keating.

Mr. Keating

He will mind himself.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Keating must obey the Chair.

Mr. Keating

I want to ask is a calf a day old good veal?

Dr. Ryan

I will answer that if you give me a chance. The only way we could encourage veal was to say to the butcher: "If you kill veal you will get more than if you kill the mature beast because we will give you 10/- a skin." We did not ask anybody to slaughter a calf.

Mr. Keating

How many calves did the butcher kill?

Dr. Ryan

The system came in and was disappointing because there was very little veal consumed. As a matter of fact, the last year that the scheme was in operation there was not a single calf consumed as veal and we paid the bounty on 120,000 skins.

Mr. Keating

A calf a day old is not veal.

Dr. Ryan

No, but what I want to know from the Deputies opposite is, what is the objection to veal? Deputy Cosgrave said on one occasion that we were going against nature in doing this thing, in getting veal consumed. I want to know where does the mortal sin stop? It is a mortal sin to kill a calf up to some age but it is not a mortal sin to kill baby beef. I would like to know for my own information.

Mr. Keating

A calf a day old is not veal.

Dr. Ryan

Two days would be all right?

Mr. Keating

Would it?

Dr. Ryan

That is what you say.

Mr. Fagan

If the Minister knew anything about it he would know veal must be fed for about two months.

Dr. Ryan

We did not prevent that.

Mr. Fagan

It is not veal until it is mature and cannot be sold.

Dr. Ryan

We gave a bounty on skins of calves up to three or four months old in order to encourage it. All I want is that Deputies opposite should have a little bit of understanding about this and not be making fools of themselves.

Mr. Hickey

Is the Minister satisfied that the home market is sufficiently supplied, without talking of foreign markets?

Dr. Ryan

It is possible we could have more agricultural products, such as milk, for instance, consumed at home, if we could afford it. Deputy Childers explained the situation very clearly and concisely.

Mr. Keating

A practical farmer, Deputy Childers.

Dr. Ryan

Anybody listening to Deputy Childers speaking, and then hearing the speeches opposite, would come to the conclusion that at least Deputy Childers knew something about farming. It is no wonder that some farmers opposite do not make their farms pay. We must, as Deputy Childers explained, do the best we can to supply our people, but over and above that we must try to bring in essential articles of import. Deputy Davin dismisses that with a gesture.

Mr. Davin

I was merely thinking of self-sufficiency.

Dr. Ryan

We will always have to forgo certain things. Deputy Hughes said that I sent over civil servants to negotiate some sort of an agreement with Great Britain, that I sent over men who had never been in touch with the practical side of agriculture. I meet these civil servants practically every day and you would be surprised how much they do know about agriculture compared with some of the men over there.

Mr. Keating

For the Lord's sake, man, talk sense. It is the poor agricultural man who is keeping them there.

Dr. Ryan

There are civil servants in my Department who can talk intelligent agriculture, what some Deputies opposite do not talk.

Mr. Keating

I could not stay here to listen to that type of thing any longer.

Dr. Ryan

I hope Deputies sitting on the opposite benches will not follow Deputy Keating's example by leaving the House. I shall not be much longer. Deputy Hughes said that even if we grow all our wheat requirements, 800,000 acres, we would still have a lot of land for other crops for which we would have to get a market. I do not think that is quite correct. A good farmer will not sell all his grain. He is not a good farmer if he does that. By a good farmer I mean a mixed farmer. He wants a certain amount of grain for his animals. He may be able to manage 15 or 20 per cent. of his tillage as a cash crop. That is all he should have if he is working his farm properly. It is a question of having a small proportion of the grain crop as wheat, the portion the farmer wants to sell for cash.

Deputy Hickey asked me whether we could not get more consumed at home. Deputy Childers gave the figures. Our agricultural output represents £60,000,000 in value and we export about £20,000,000 worth. We could keep a certain part of that at home and give our own people more to eat and drink, but I should like to point out that of the £20,000,000 about £14,000,000 is made up between cattle and pigs. All the other items are very small and when we talk about the export market, with the exception of cattle and pigs there is not much in it. A big proportion of our output goes for home consumption and only a small proportion goes for export.

Mr. Hickey

You admit the farmers are fairly badly off economically?

Dr. Ryan

I not only admit it but I would like to add that as long as I remember—and I am getting old, like the rest of you—the farmers in this country were badly off. From 1914 to 1918 they were fairly well off, but after that they were badly off again and I do not think they are any worse off now than during the last 20 years.

Mr. Hickey

And that is not saying much.

Dr. Ryan

It is not, but maybe we will improve matters as time goes on.

Mr. Cogan

The Minister for Agriculture has described a good farmer as a mixed farmer. Perhaps that could also be applied in this way, that a good Minister is a mixed Minister and the Minister for Agriculture is certainly very mixed in his ideas as to how the agricultural industry can be preserved. I candidly admit that the Minister is faced with a number of complex problems. Deputy Norton would make it appear that the problems which face this country are very simple. We have only to consume our exportable surplus and all our problems are solved. I think Deputy Norton has the sympathy of every Deputy here when he points out that there is a large section of our population under-nourished. But Deputy Norton has overlooked the important point that every nation must balance its economy in exactly the same way as the small farmer or the large farmer balances his economy on the farm. Every nation has to live within its income. That is to say, the payments which a nation has to make for the goods it requires must be balanced by the prices which that nation obtains for the goods and commodities it produces. That is a fundamental fact which a lot of people seem to forget and while I have some sympathy with those who claim that our economic problems could be solved by a reform of our financial system, I believe many of those who advocate such reforms forget the essential fact that we must have a balance in our external trade.

A good deal of attention has been directed in this debate to the need for securing increased quotas for exports and increased prices for our exported goods, but there is one aspect of the question to which I think not much attention has been directed. Steps should be taken in any negotiations with Great Britain to secure that the goods which we require from Great Britain are supplied to this country at an economic price. It is, to my mind, an extraordinary thing that when we meet the British and tell them that we have agricultural produce to export, they inform us that they will not give us more than a certain price for such produce, that they can get it elsewhere at a lower price, but when the British meet us, and ask us to take their exportable surplus of coal and other products, we are not in a position to say to them: "We shall not accept your goods at the price which you state; we must get them at a reduced price." Until steps are taken by our Government to put this country on a sounder economic footing than it is at the present time we shall not be in a position to deal with external dictation. I should like to point out that our Government must face the whole economic position. They must face the need for a stabilised economic condition in this country. They must, as a matter of fact, do what continental countries have done; they must adopt at least a five year plan.

That plan must be directed towards conserving the largest possible market within this country for home-produced goods. An extraordinary statement was made by Deputy Childers to the effect that our industries require £20,000,000 worth of raw materials per year. I believe that attention must be directed sooner or later to the need for cutting down imports which are considered essential in this country at present but which are not, in the main, essential. It is not sound that this country should require to import £20,000,000 worth of raw material. Until we eliminate the consumption in this country of imported goods, which can be dispensed with, we shall never be in a position to deal with any foreign Government in the exchange of goods and commodities. Therefore, I believe that, instead of less self-sufficiency, instead of more free trade, we shall have in the future to direct our policy towards a more rigid control of imports. I believe it is possible to reduce our imports, and when we do that we shall be, as I have said, in a position to bargain with England or any external power which requires our exportable surplus, because we shall be able to hold our goods if the price offered is not adequate.

In addition to restricting imports— and I believe that policy will have to be continued and intensified—we must do everything possible to increase the production of goods and commodities which we can export. Apart from that, more agricultural produce could be consumed in this country if we had the standard which Deputy Norton rightly advocates. The question is how can we increase agricultural production so long as we pursue a policy of impoverishing the people who are engaged in that production. So long as we refuse to give the agricultural producer a fair return for his labour, and a fair return for the capital that he invests in the industry, there is absolutely no hope of bringing about an intensification of agricultural production in this country.

The Minister for Agriculture tries to get away from his responsibility of providing a fair price for oats and barley by asserting that those products are the raw material which the farmer requires for other branches of the agricultural industry—for live-stock feeding. The Minister for Agriculture must remember that there are areas in the country in which the farmers must grow a surplus of oats. They must have some cash crop. They cannot grow wheat or beet successfully. I know there are such areas. In fact, in Wicklow and parts of Carlow there are areas in which wheat or beet cannot be grown successfully. Surely the farmers in those areas must have a cash crop of some kind, and, since there is a demand for a certain quantity of oats, it should be a sound economic policy for the Government to provide a market, at least in such areas, for oats. It may be necessary, in order to carry out such a policy, to register the growers of oats for sale. That would not be impossible. In the case of beet, for example, there is only a limited market. If every farmer in this country who could grow beet were to go in for beet production, you would have an unlimited amount grown, and the result would be chaos. A number of farmers would have beet on their hands and could not dispose of it. The same position applies in regard to oats. If it is possible to arrange to have a limited acreage of beet grown for sale, it is equally possible to have a limited area of oats grown for sale. The areas in which oats could be grown for sale under licence could be very easily discovered and outlined. I think that there should be no difficulty in regard to that. Farmers who require to grow oats which was not for sale could grow as much as they liked. The same would apply to barley.

In this connection there is urgent need for a central body in this country to purchase both oats and barley, so as to make sure that a uniform price is paid to all growers who produce grain of the same quality. It is certainly a grave hardship for a farmer to find, when he has grown an excellent crop of barley, that he cannot sell it except at a price which is 10/- less than his neighbour obtained, perhaps for an inferior sample. That state of affairs should never have been allowed to develop. I and other Deputies in this House have frequently suggested that what this country needs, and needed long ago, is the establishment of a central pool or board to purchase the oats and the barley of the country, and to store it so that the price will be stabilised, economic and equitable. One of the advantages of such a scheme would be that in years in which the yield would be very high, it would be possible to hold over a reserve for the following year.

A nation such as ours should always hold a reserve of grain, which, I think, would be more valuable to this country, or indeed to any other country, than a reserve of gold. That policy should have been adopted long ago and perhaps it is not too late even now to adopt it. When we have a large number of people unemployed, and when the Government claim that they are trying to find employment for such people, surely it would give very useful employment to provide suitable stores into which the grain would be taken and stored by the State for any need which might arise. That would have the effect, in the first place, of giving farmers an economic and equitable price and, in the second place, of ensuring that there would be always reserve stocks of grain in the country.

The most important point in regard to the growing of barley and oats is that the State has a very grave responsibility in regard to the remuneration which the farmers receive for their expenditure of labour and capital. The State has taken action to compel farmers to put a certain acreage of land under cultivation. Although it seems that the State may have been acting rather illegally in that matter, at any rate the intention has been to compel farmers to put a certain acreage in grain. Having that intention, there is a moral responsibility on the Government to ensure that farmers get a proper return. The Government have made no attempt to meet that moral obligation. They have simply let the farmers take whatever they can get for their produce. Of course, the argument was put up that farmers could have grown wheat. As I pointed out, there are large areas in which wheat cannot be grown. Apart from that, as long as you have unregulated production of oats and barley and unregulated prices there will always be a temptation to go in for the production of those commodities if, through an occasional shortage, the price rises.

We know the position last spring when the price of oats was over 30/- per barrel. Naturally a great number of farmers felt that with oats at 30/- per barrel there was reasonable ground to hope that after the harvest oats would be at least £1 per barrel, and it was a very reasonable enterprise to grow oats as a cash crop. If, as I say, we had a reasonable measure of control and regulation of the price of grain that situation would never have arisen. The position with regard to oats and barley would be the same as with regard to beet. The farmers would know before they put the grain into the ground exactly the price they would obtain, as the acreage would be regulated or restricted and there would be no danger of a surplus. I think that would be a sound policy for the Minister to adopt, instead of the haphazard method of allowing farmers to take a chance and grow whatever they think will give a return and find at the end of the year that they have backed a loser. We know that for particular farmers barley has been an economic proposition, inasmuch as they got rid of it before the brewers were fully supplied. For a very large percentage of the farmers, however, it has been a disastrous business, because, in the first place, the Government failed to take adequate steps to regulate production and regulate the marketing of the produce, and, in the second place, because the Government definitely intervened to prevent the farmers from exporting their produce where there was an economic market.

I believe that the Government would be quite justified in preventing the export of barley provided they were prepared to ensure that the farmers would get an economic price, or at least the same price for their produce that they would have got if they had been allowed to export. That is quite a reasonable and just claim on the part of the farmers. If they are prevented from selling their produce in a market which is open to them, if they are asked to withhold it, surely they should not be asked to bear the cost of doing something which may be in the national interest, but which, if it is in the national interest, the entire nation should bear the cost, instead of putting the burden on a small section of the community. Surely that is a matter which should have been carefully thought out and considered. Justice demands that where farmers are compelled to do something in the national interests at least they should be compensated for the loss incurred in the transaction.

Almost every branch of agricultural production has been mismanaged by our mixed Minister for Agriculture. We have the position, for instance, in regard to pigs for which a statutory price was fixed. I know that in my own county pigs are being bought at 7/6 less than the fixed minimum price, simply because the farmers cannot afford to hold their pigs until such time as the pigs commission find it possible to come and take them. That is a very serious injustice to the people engaged in pig production, because I think nearly everybody will admit that the present fixed price is not an economic one having regard to the cost of production. Then in regard to the poultry industry we have the position that, while a good deal has been done to promote increased production, in a number of counties poultry-keeping is absolutely uneconomic, because they are completely overrun with foxes. I think that matter has been brought to the notice of the Department of Agriculture but no action has been taken. In a good many parts of the country farmers have had to get out of poultry-keeping altogether, because there is absolutely no protection for them.

In the same way, for two or three years past, a very great part of the tillage areas has been completely overrun with rabbits. Some time ago the Minister stated that the number of rabbits was declining, but I think those responsible for supplying that information did not discharge their duty very efficiently. At any rate, the destruction last year, as a result of this pest, was greater than in any year previously. I hope that, as a result of the campaign that is been waged against rabbits at the present time, the situation will be improved.

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the Deputy classify the stock of rabbits as part of the agricultural surplus production dealt with in this motion?

Mr. Cogan

I think, Sir, that as far as numbers are concerned we are exporting more rabbits than anything else, and I hope we shall continue to do so. It is the one item, the export of which has not been interfered with, and I hope the Department will take every step to ensure that no area is neglected. I hope the Government will also take steps to see that property which is under their direct control, such as forests, and land acquired for division, will also be dealt with. Now, Deputy Dillon took the farmers to task because some of the farmers, or a large number of them, have permitted their dairying industry to be carried on on uneconomic lines. He pointed out that the farmer who keeps a cow which will not produce more than 400 gallons of milk is not conducting his industry on efficient lines, but Deputy Dillon apparently forgot that there are more questions to be taken into consideration than the yield of milk in regard to cows. If Deputy Dillon were engaged in dairy farming, he might quickly find that, if he were to invest £30 or £35 or £40 in a good type of dairy cow, which would produce up to 800 gallons of milk in the year, at the end of the year he might have to sell that cow for beef, at a very much reduced price, owing to the prevalence of sterility, contagious abortion and other diseases which are inflicting very serious losses on the dairying industry and making it impossible for dairy farmers to improve their herds.

Accordingly, it is not pure inefficiency or carelessness on the part of farmers that results in farmers keeping cows which are not strictly economic. It is due in a large measure to the fact that they have not sufficient capital, and it is also due to the fact that that disease is so prevalent, and it is very difficult to improve dairy cows. I think that in this connection the Department would be very well advised to take some steps to assist farmers improve their herds, either by introducing national registration of cows or by giving some inducement, if it were only by way of free insurance of such registered cows against disease. I think it would help farmers to go in for a more economic type of cow.

Then, again, in connection with dairying we have the fact that very large expenditure is being incurred in the subsidising of exported butter. I do not think that the subsidising of exported butter is altogether economic. I think that if that money were paid for the purpose of promoting increased consumption of dairy produce of all kinds within this country, it would be more usefully spent, and I think the Government should direct their attention to this aspect of the problem. Surely, it is not a sound enterprise to spend public money in order to provide butter for another nation at an entirely uneconomic price—and I am sure that that is also true of a lot of other items of our exportable produce. We are too much inclined to export at any price, whereas our policy should be to secure a thoroughly economic price and, if such was not available, we should be in a sufficiently economic position to hold our produce.

Another matter which is causing a good deal of dissatisfaction among farmers is the lack of sympathy and understanding shown by officials to people, engaged in the agricultural industry. We have a case in our county of a farmer who was prosecuted and fined £20 for having a sheep suffering from maggots. Now, of course, everybody knows that flies will attack sheep and that, in the course of a few hours, the sheep will be affected, and no farmer, no matter how experienced or no matter how careful he is, can escape such things happening, and the fact that a statement was made by this official, that this sheep had been affected by maggots for over a fortnight, shows how little officials know about agricultural conditions, because a sheep affected for a fortnight, or even three days, would be dead. These are causes which are producing the widespread discontent which prevails in the agricultural industry at the present time and which is leading to a diminution of production and to the unsatisfactory condition prevailing at the present time. There is just one small matter to which I should like to refer, and that is in regard to sheep licences.

An Ceann Comhairle

I would draw the attention of the Deputy to the terms of reference or, in other words, the motion before the House. That motion relates to the disposal of our agricultural surplus production, and the dead sheep to which the Deputy refers could hardly be included. The Deputy should come to the matter to be debated.

Mr. Cogan

I am just coming, Sir, to the matter of export permits. There is grave dissatisfaction in regard to permits for the export of sheep. One of the reasons why that dissatisfaction prevails is that in many cases the number of permits which have been allotted to a particular individual exporter is so large that it enables that particular exporter to control the market entirely. I had brought to my notice a case where an exporter came to a fair with 700 permits and no other buyer in the fair had any permits whatever. Surely, a condition of distribution which permits such a state of affairs is hardly wise. I understand that the reason why this particular buyer had such a large number of permits in his possession was that he retained the permits, which were issued for the month, until the last week or the last few days of the month, while other exporters had disposed of theirs. The result was that he was able to control the entire market. I suggest that a reasonable way out of that difficulty would be to have these permits distributed on a weekly instead of a monthly basis, so that they could not be held over in that fashion. If that were done, I think there would be a more equitable distribution of these permits.

In conclusion, I think we are not making a reasonable effort to dispose of our exportable surplus unless we have a sound economic survey of production for the coming year; or, better still, for four or five years—unless we are in a position to plan ahead, and unless we have a determination on the part of the Government to control effectively the marketing of such produce as barley and oats.

As to wheat, everyone will agree that it is desirable everything possible should be done to have the largest possible acreage during the coming year. A great many people, however, overlook the fact that there is a very large area of the country in which winter wheat cannot be grown, and for that reason more attention should be paid by the Department to the provision of suitable spring seed. Great losses were caused to farmers who grew wheat for the first time in recent years, owing to the unsuitable types of spring wheat provided. Some varieties could be grown economically if suitable seed was available. By having a larger acreage of wheat, the problem of surplus oats and barley would, to a certain extent, be relieved. I want to emphasise that effective control over the marketing of oats and barley is essential, and there should be a guaranteed price before farmers are asked to increase the acreage under tillage.

Mr. Hickey

I am rather disappointed that Deputies did not keep more to the point when dealing with the motion. I agree with the last speaker in a great deal of what he said, because everybody must admit that the average farmer is suffering from low prices, and that the position of the mass of the agricultural community, both farmers and labourers, is entitled to a good deal of consideration. I am satisfied that their standard of living is far below what it should be. Why is the agricultural industry so depressed? I am inclined to believe that they are the victims of combines and monopolies. Why is there such a difference between the price that the farmer who produces bacon gets for his produce and the price that the consumer has to pay for it in the shop? I have never been satisfied why the price of oaten meal is so high compared with the price of oats. As farmers have to produce food for the nation I am satisfied that the agricultural community has a genuine grievance about the sale of it. Deputies referred to the prices obtainable for wool, oats, barley and other produce. I am satisfied that farmers are the victims of the present capitalist system.

A very important factor also is transport charges. I heard Deputy Childers talking about England's desire to buy up all the wool she could get, not only for war purposes, but because it might be useful as currency when the war ends. We heard from the Government Benches that there is only one third of the normal supplies of artificial manures available, and that there was no possibility of getting further supplies. Farmers have to pay the heavy cost of transport of these imports. I went to the trouble of ascertaining some particulars of the shipping in the port of Cork for the last nine months, and having some knowledge of the grain trade, I found that we brought in 146,000 tons of maize and wheat for which we paid foreign shippers an average of £6 10s. a ton or something like £900,000. Including Cork and other ports, and putting the charge at the mild figure of £5 a ton for maize and wheat, we have paid over £5,000,000 to foreign ship owners for freight charges of grain and timber. At the moment we are unable to get ships to bring in the timber we require. Merchants here are charged £6 and £7 a ton for freight on timber and are not able to get sufficient supplies. During the past year, 1938-39, 52 ships brought in raw phosphate, but to-day we cannot get a ship for that purpose even by paying the exorbitant prices now charged.

I want to tell Deputy Childers and other Deputies that if the Government had complete control of currency they should have exercised that control long ago, and have ships available for the carrying on of our trade, instead of leaving us in the position that nothing can now be done in that respect. If there is one way of dealing with the surplus produce of farmers it is by providing cheap transport. At present farmers cannot get ships to take their cattle across the Channel. Some cattle are getting through via the North of Ireland because no ships are available in Cork. I heard the Taoiseach speaking recently and he told us that we had to build up an economy of our own here, so that we could provide frugal comfort for all, and that in order to do that we would have to adopt a different outlook on our way of living. I am rather disappointed with the excuse the Minister for Agriculture gave when, having admitted that the farmers were badly off, he said that as long as he could remember they were badly off. That is no consolation to the farmers or anybody else.

There is a lot of unnecessary talk about the English market. We are agreed that the English market is worthy of exploitation at any time but, for goodness' sake, let us first of all try to feed our own people before we talk about sending the food to any other country. If we want to produce more food for export, as Deputy Childers has pointed out, we have 120,000 unemployed who can till more land and produce all the goods we want for export, in addition to the surplus we have at the moment. I admit that we have no surplus on hands at the moment that can be turned to food for the people. Read the report from the doctors in Dublin. There is over 80 per cent. of the unemployed not getting the necessary food to keep them, as they should be, in a state of health. Anybody who listened to the wireless on last Sunday night and heard the appeal for the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Dublin must realise that it is a shocking commentary on our social system that these people should not have the wherewithal to get food for the nourishment of their bodies. There is something deeper than talking about this export market and talking about the economic war. There is a good deal to be dealt with, but we must have some more equal distribution of the wealth of this country first of all.

As I mentioned yesterday—and I am prepared to mention it again now—I would not be one bit surprised at the farmers having a complaint and a genuine grievance to express, while we have in this country 2,500 persons with an annual income of £8,500,000 between them. I read this morning in one of our newspapers that the annual income per head of the population is something about £60 per year. If that is so and we find that there are 2,500 persons in this State with an annual income of over £8,000,000, it is clear to anybody with the least imagination that there is poverty existing among masses of the people. This thing is not being dealt with in the sort of manner I expected. We had the Taoiseach here saying that the fundamental thing was production and that it was more important than money. I wish to say seriously to those on the Government Benches that the problem of production is solved but the problem of distribution is not solved, and that a solution is not being attempted by the Government Party. I can picture those members on the back benches coming from rural areas and they know much more than I do about it. There is a big majority of the farmers, and their sons and daughters, who do not enjoy an egg for their breakfast or butter for the table, because of their poverty. Here are people producing food for the nation and not able to enjoy it. Then we are told there is a surplus. We may want to produce goods for export, but let us first of all feed our own people in the manner in which they should be fed and then put the 120,000 idle workers to produce the goods that Deputy Childers wants to export in order to bring in raw materials for our industries. I suggest to the Government that that is a most important thing.

I have listened to all the criticism by Deputy Dillon as to what should be done and what can be done, and I should like him to be here to hear me now. If Deputy Dillon were over on the other side with the Minister for Agriculture and had side by side with him all the angels he could bring around they could not solve the present problems of unemployment and poverty as long as they are prepared to stick to the present social system and the present capitalist system. I am saying that deliberately, since I am satisfied that Deputy Dillon and the Minister for Agriculture are as anxious as anybody else to end the problem of poverty. Under the present capitalist system it cannot be ended, and until such time as purchasing power is placed in the hands of the people there will be a surplus of production and there will be poverty. If you have, as Deputy Childers says, complete control and dictatorial powers over the currency and credit of the country then, I suggest to the Government, that they exercise that control. Then we will be in a position to deal with the surplus and the poverty of the country.

Mr. Corry

If there is any Deputy who should not have intervened in a matter like this, it is Deputy Dillon; yet he kept us most of the time here this evening. What is the surplus of which complaint is made that we cannot find a market for it? Is any Deputy here prepared to say that 126/- per cwt. is an economic price for butter to-day? Still, that is the price that we can get in the market that the Deputies on the other side spent two years shouting for—126/- in the middle of a war. Take any industry that any

Deputy wishes to mention here, any one of our Irish industries that Deputy Childers is so interested in. They first of all make out the cost of production and then their profit, and that is the price the Irish people have to pay for the article.

Mr. Hickey

And they are paying 6d. a gallon for milk.

Mr. Corry

That is the price the Irish people are being made pay in order to provide cheap food for Britain, for the market that Deputies opposite said would make them all right if they got it back. They got the English market back and, having got it back, what is the meaning of all this? Was their policy wrong in regard to the English market? If the Irish farmer had not the market that has been afforded him for wheat and had not the market that has been afforded him for beet, could he exist at all? Still, the price of Fine Gael co-operation, as given here by Deputy Dillon from the bench opposite somewhere around 12 months ago, was that we abandon wheat and blow up the beet factories. That is the policy he had: that is the Deputy who had the nerve to stand up here to-day and talk about the dud Minister for Agriculture over here who did not know how to do his business.

Take the barley question, on which many Deputies were vocal, including Deputy Hughes. I certainly blame the Government in regard to the barley question—I blame them for giving some heed to the advice of Deputy Dillon and abandoning the admixture scheme. In order to be fair to the Minister for Agriculture, I must say that he published at least seven times in the newspapers a warning to the farmers against growing too much barley last autumn. The position in 1932 was that there were between 50,000 and 60,000 acres of barley grown here, and it was sold at 12/- a barrel—what could be sold of it. There was no other market, and no other hope of selling any but what the brewery liked to take and pay for, whenever they paid for it—and they never paid for two months after getting it. That was the position in 1932 when we came into office—12/- a barrel. In 1935 that price was up to 14/3; in 1936 it was 16/3; in 1937 it was 18/1; in 1938 it was 17/6; in 1939 it was 24/-, and in 1940 it went up to 30/-. There was this change in the farming community: in 1939 it was 24/- a barrel for barley, as compared with 12/- in 1932, but they still grew only 68,000 acres. The other guaranteed Government priced crops were so advantageous to them that there were only 68,000 acres of barley grown in the 1939 season, at a 100 per cent. increase in price, as compared with the price the farmers were getting when Fine Gael was in office.

Now there is a complaint because we have a surplus for which they will only get £1 a barrel, despite the fact that the Minister for Agriculture warned the farmers solemnly that there was a grave danger that, with the admixture scheme gone, there would not be a market for all the barley grown. That is the position, and that is what the Deputies on the opposite side are complaining of now: that the farmers who got 12/- a barrel for their barley when Fine Gael were in office now have to take £1 a barrel for the whole of it, or at least for what is left after the brewers' requirements have been satisfied. We in the Beet Growers' Association, representing the farming community, threshed all this out with the brewers last year. We got a guarantee from Messrs. Guinness that they would pay 30/- a barrel for the quantity of barley they required, which it was indicated would be in the neighbourhood of 400,000 barrels. Decently enough, they have bought an extra 100,000 barrels. The position to-day is that our Minister for Agriculture took the advice of Deputy Dillon and abandoned his admixture scheme. The result of that was that we have been left with only one market for barley. On the day that the Minister took Deputy Dillon's advice the barley-growing business was killed, and there was no use in producing barley beyond the quantity estimated to meet the requirements of the country. In the same way it is, in my opinion, a waste of time to be keeping milch cows to produce milk for the creameries at 6d. a gallon in view of the present cost of animal feeding stuffs. That is the most that you can get in the English market, and unfortunately the price there is something of a guide here. If our industries require £20,000,000 to bring in the raw materials for them, then I say let the agricultural community pay their share, but let the industrialists also start to do a little at a loss, and see how they will get on.

We have had a lot of ridiculous argument put forward from the opposite side on this motion. Complaint is made because our Minister for Agriculture could not go over to Britain and say: "Here is our price and we must get it for an exportable surplus; you must pay us double what you are paying New Zealand." I admit that some Deputies opposite have made a better bargain, but it all depends on what you are prepared to sell. As things stand, and as things stood, you cannot expect to get in any market more than what the people in it have to pay for the goods themselves to other countries. If Britain can get butter from New Zealand, or any other country, at 126/- per cwt. there is no danger she is going to pay us more. That is the market for which Deputies opposite were prepared to pay a tribute of £5,000,000 a year. They fought and dragged the country asunder over it. They nearly plunged the country into civil war to force us to pay a tribute of £5,000,000 a year to John Bull. That is the difference between their policy and ours. Under the policy that this Government have put into force, we have been able to build up a home market for the farmer in which he can get at least the cost of production, plus some profit. That is to be contrasted with the policy of the Party opposite, the policy of blowing up the beet factories and of saying: "I would not be found dead in a field of Irish beet." Their policy was to blow up the beet factories and to produce for that market. That is the difference between their policy and ours. Some Deputies opposite have been foolish enough to support that policy. God knows some of them are old enough to know better. We have Deputy

James Dillon putting down a motion which says that:

"If economic collapse is to be avoided effective steps to dispose of our agricultural surplus production must be taken forthwith."

Where are they going to dispose of the surplus production, anyway? They are not going to dispose of much more beef in Britain because the people there have nothing to cook it on. They are now living in shelters underground. Their gas mains have been blown up, and they have no gas cookers.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy had better not pursue that line.

Mr. Corry

I will pass from that. I am simply giving reasons to show why the market is not there for our farmers. To sell food at an uneconomic price is not going to pay anybody. If we are ever to get down to bedrock in this country we will have to get something else to make a start on. We will have to start cutting down our overhead costs, and the sooner we attempt to bring these into line with what our farmers can afford, the sooner we shall have a country in which the farmers can hope to get something for themselves. The idea of attacking the Minister for Agriculture on this point is ridiculous since he has succeeded, starting in 1932, in building up markets in this country for our farmers which they had not before that date, markets which, in fact, they were not allowed to have. At the present time, under the policy of this Government, when a man is putting in a crop in the spring he knows what he will get for it when he harvests it. An agricultural labourer down in my part of the country got £43 15s. this year for an acre of wheat. I do not know how many bullocks he could fatten on that acre. If the Deputy on the opposite benches who was so anxious to interrupt this evening were here now, perhaps he could tell us. Our farmers have that guaranteed home market for wheat. I admit that some of our farmers gambled last year and increased the acreage under barley by close on 100,000 acres. In a gamble of that sort some were bound to lose.

Mr. Hickey

What about those who cannot grow wheat?

Mr. Corry

Those who cannot are growing other things and they are very few.

Mr. Hickey

There are some who cannot grow it.

Mr. Corry

If the Deputy goes down to his own part of the country in the morning——

Mr. Hickey

That is what I have in mind.

Mr. Corry

——I guarantee that he will see plenty of wheat growing on the top of Rahan.

Mr. Hickey

On portions of it.

Mr. Corry

I saw it growing there myself this year. There are farmers in that mountainy district growing plenty of wheat. They are not as badly off as they were. They are doing fairly well. Deputies opposite make an attack on the Minister for providing those markets against the rainy day. He secured that the people of this country would have bread to eat. If we were in the hands of the genius who put down this motion, I wonder what the people would be eating to-day. I wonder what kind of bread Deputy Dillon would have for his breakfast this morning if he had been over here for the past 12 months instead of the Minister. If his policy were put into force, I wonder what he would sweeten his tea with after blowing up the beet factories, which he advocated last year. I wonder what the small farmers of County Cork, County Carlow or County Galway, who are getting £30 or £40 an acre for beet, would do if they were dependent on Deputy Dillon's British market for their butter, bacon and bullocks. The thing in itself ought to be a lesson to Deputy Dillon and those who think like him, but that they should come here and parade their lesson for the benefit of the people—well, I did not think they were idiots enough to do that.

Captain Giles

The statement made by the Taoiseach—a statement of which I am very proud—has changed the course of this whole debate. We all know that our troubles are maddening, and that to solve them is very difficult. I have been inclined to blame the Government, but the great majority of the people must take part of the blame. They elected the Government, and if it does not please them it is their own fault. The people must take the blame for the many problems left unsolved. You cannot expect to have your loaf and eat it. For seven or eight years we have had political antics the like of which no other country has experienced —a small nation trying to best an empire—with the result that the resources of our State were wasted, the farmers were denuded of their assets and are now without cash. The whole problem affecting the small farmer is that he has no money. The whole initiative of our people has been destroyed by excessive spoon-feeding during the past few years—giving with one hand and taking away with the other. There has been far too much State interference, and the farmers and the people of the rural districts were far better off and more manly when left to stand on their own legs and fight their own battles. Morning, noon and night we have nothing but officials, inspectors and organisers, and trouble about quotas and licences. A person who has received only an ordinary education does not know where he stands. Every farmer would require a solicitor by his side to solve his home problems. At present a Bill is going through this House whereby close on £1,000,000 is to be utilised to create a new industry in a bog called Clonsast.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Bill being under way may not be discussed.

Captain Giles

If instead of going into that bog, that £1,000,000 was directed into agriculture it would provide an economic price for the oats which are surplus, and we would be doing much better for our people generally. These new schemes are very good, but if half of them were left over until we saw how the country stood after the war some of them might not be necessary at all as their subject matter might not be in existence. We know that the lands of our people will be in existence no matter how the soil is blown up. Our people can derive a living in a meagre way from the soil. Our surplus money should be devoted to improving our soil so as to provide food for our people and, if we can at all, have a surplus for export. There is no use in blaming the Government for failing to utilise the British market to a greater extent. We all know that they have not the whip hand. John Bull has the whip hand and, if he uses it as he has done for 700 years, he will use it to his own advantage.

The tillage problem is one of the burning questions of the day. To my mind, Meath should be considered as a special area. One of the grandest little markets we had in County Meath for the last dozen years or so—during the period of the last Government and part of the period of the present Government—was that provided by the large farmer for the small farmer on the poorer type of land who always tilled a fair amount— almost as much as he has to till under Government orders. The big farmer or rancher did not till because he found it more remunerative to rear cattle for export. He provided the market for the small farmer in Meath. To-day, the large farmer has to till his land and he may have up to 1,000 cwts. of oats in his stores. The small farmer finds his market taken from him because the big fellow, instead of buying from his neighbours, is a seller or exporter of oats himself. That is a most unfortunate thing for County Meath because the small farmer lived on that market.

An Ceann Comhairle

May I draw the Deputy's attention to the terms of the motion—"to take steps to dispose of agricultural surplus production"? The Deputy will have an opportunity of dealing with the matter to which he is now referring on the last motion on the Order Paper, which must be taken within 21 sitting days. That motion refers to the annulment of an emergency powers order and the speech which the Deputy is now delivering would be relevant to it.

Captain Giles

I should like the Minister to allow first and second crop hay to be classed as tillage because they are really tillage. Another of our problems is that arising from having so many people drawing money and giving no return to the State. To keep these people in idleness is costing the ordinary farmer too much. The Government should make every effort to inaugurate schemes by which these men would give some return for their money. It is not their fault that they are idle.

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the Deputy rank them as "agricultural surplus production?"

Captain Giles

I suppose you could class them as surplus, but they are not for export. A better effort should be made to solve the oat problem. That is the principal problem in the Midlands to-day. The Minister should make some effort to help the small farmer in Meath who cannot get 7/6 a barrel for his oats. I was lucky to sell my surplus oats at 7/6, but there is no market now. The small farmer in poor circumstances has only a damp old barn and, if he keeps oats there for a week or two, they commence to grow. The ordinary farmer of from 20 to 30 acres has not, as a rule, a loft in his barn. He has to put the oats on the ground floor, where they reek with dampness. I saw them with 2½ inches of a sprout after a few weeks. The farmer has no market for his oats and no loft. The Minister has taken the market away from him because every man had to till his quota whereas, if the Minister treated certain counties in a certain way, he would be providing a real market for these people.

The Minister will say that he did not ask them to grow oats, but that he wants them to grow wheat which is a paying crop. It is all very well for the big man to go out with a tractor and plough 50 acres of good sound, rich land and get wheat out of it, but when you come to the ten, 20 or 30 acre man and ask him to sow five or eight acres of wheat, he can do it and get a fairly good crop, but what can he do next year or the year after? All that the 30 acre farmer is able to manure is one Irish acre or one and a half Irish acres. He has not got the stock for the production of manure because he cannot keep stock over the winter as he has no grass and very little hay, so that there is no use in talking of the small man having a big crop of wheat. If he does have it, as I have seen him have it, his land goes absolutely wild; it goes into dockens, thistles and weeds of every sort and it will take 20 years to bring such land back again. That is the case with the growing of winter wheat. The spring wheat is not so long in the ground and is not so dirty a crop.

I believe that the problem of the country is that there is too much State interference in agriculture which has resulted in the people being unable to decide where they stand. The farmers of to-day are not the farmers of 20 years ago. They were more free, more independent aye, and more thrifty, and they solved their own problems then. At present, they are watching for others to solve their problems and nobody comes forward to solve them for them, with the result that the initiative of 20 years ago is gone, and we have a nation which is looking for spoon-feeding by a State which has no money to spoon-feed them. Until we get away from that idea and develop a spirit of enterprise, of initiative and of standing more on our own feet, this nation will go down. I can see no other fate for it. We have the dole men looking for money for nothing and the farmer looking for the dole which he cannot get and a market for his crops which he cannot get. Where do we stand at all?

I know the Minister is doing his best but the unfortunate thing is that he is a man you cannot get at. He is too gentle, and nice, and has a grand smile. I would rather that the Minister for Agriculture was the present Minister for Supplies. Then we could get under his sleeve and rattle him, but you cannot do that in the case of this Minister for Agriculture. Everybody in the country says: "He is a hell of a nice fellow and you would not like to hurt his feelings." I have that feeling myself, and that is one of the things which has left this Government in a hell of a happy position. I have met people in my own county who curse the

Government, morning, noon and night and who throw up their hands and ask, "Will you ever get them out? But, after all, that Dr. Ryan—he is no good, but he is a decent fellow". I admit that he is a hell of a decent fellow, but so far as helping the farmers to solve their problems, he is not too decent.

Another point is that this country cannot carry all the officials it is carrying at present. We have officials all over the country, passing each other on the road and drawing big salaries. For what? For trying to keep the people fooled, and nothing more. We have warble-fly inspectors, tillage inspectors, Land Commission inspectors, factory inspectors, bacon inspectors and devil the one of them we want at all. The farmer will be his own inspector. There is no need for wheat inspectors and warble-fly inspectors if the farmer can make his land pay. He will cut his weeds, trim his hedges and drain his land, and will need nobody to look after the warble-fly because if he can get a pound or two more for his bullocks by taking them out, he will take them out. There is no need for these inspectors, drawing a huge amount of money for nothing. They may see three or four farms but they draw their money the whole year round for nothing.

The root of the whole problem is that we started on too big a scale. The State which we of the old Republican Army tried to set up was a plain, common Irish State, ruled in a small, sensible way. Instead of that, we started off as though we were a budding part of the British Empire with its huge wealth resources. Here we are to-day in the position that we are too big for ourselves and, like a good many people in the country to-day, living beyond our means. That is one of the problems, and if this House cannot solve that problem, somebody outside the House will try to solve it, and God forbid that we should allow that to happen. We are in the midst of a war and we have a neighbour across the water who should be our friend, but who, perhaps, cannot be our friend—there are many difficulties in the way—and who is not of much use to us. We see gentle threats in American and British newspapers that there may be more interference with us and all this leaves us in a hopeless position. We are not able to adjust ourselves to the needs of the country quickly enough to the extent of going down to the level at which we should be living and at which we should be ruled.

We must get away from all these officials and inspectors and allow the people to solve their own problems. We must have this House a plain House and not the House of Parliament of a mighty empire. We make laws to-day and break them to-morrow; we amend them the following day and we wipe them out the next day. It is all for nothing and all a huge waste of time, paper and money. I do not blame the Fianna Fáil Government for this but the whole country. We are imbeciles if we think we are going to carry on in this country as we have carried on for the last 20 years. We must ask those people with a proper national spirit to wake up; we must start in a small way and build up because at present the nation is just struggling along, wobbling on its legs and that spirit of nationalism and patriotism which we had in the past is dead. We have united our people as best we can, but what for? They are merely looking at each other, with no resources and no energy, and until we can get them back to a proper sense of the spirit of Irish nationalism and put first things first, we will be, what we should not be, a down-trodden and subject people, the prey of anybody who wishes to use or abuse us as was done in the past and as will be done to-morrow if it is possible.

The problems of the country are many and the problems of our Irish agriculturists are the problems of Ireland. In my county, we have created a number of colonies to relieve congestion in the west of Ireland. I think new colonies should be started in my county and that in them should be put all the middle-men, the monopolists and the surplus inspectors. They should be put on 22-acre farms with a house and one shed and given five years there, and then let us see what sort of living they will knock out of them, and let them realise that the Irish farmer has to live likewise. If you put all these types, who are bleeding our country white and living like gentlemen in Dublin and in the grand surroundings of the city, in such a position and give them a taste of what we have to live on down the country, this will be a better country for us because there are a lot of gentlemen in this country who live too damned easily on the unfortunate suffering people. These people are locusts in our midst; they are the people who are getting what the Irish farmer should get. What flows out of the Irish farmer's pocket is flowing into the pockets of these middlemen and monopolists in Dublin, many of whom have names we never heard of and which we hope we will never hear again.

Mr. Meaney

This motion reads:—

That the Dáil is of opinion that if economic collapse is to be avoided, effective steps to dispose of our agricultural surplus production must be taken forthwith.

This debate has gone on all this evening, and not one speaker from the Opposition Benches has yet made any attempt whatever to prove that we had a real surplus of agricultural production; neither have they made any attempt to prove that, even if we had a surplus of agricultural produce, we would suffer economic collapse. That is what their case is founded on. They touched everything under the sun in the course of the debate, but never touched the vital point as set out in their own motion. For instance, Deputy Dillon took us along through the exports of wool, the importation of artificial manures—which has got nothing to do with exports—and wept over the prohibition of the export of onions, and mentioned the surplus oats held over here since last year. I think the Minister for Supplies answered him pretty well on most of the points which he raised.

We now come to the question of the oats held over since 1939, which perhaps is now being held responsible for the so-called surplus, and which I am very doubtful is there at all; but even if it is there, I think it would be very sound policy to hold on to it. Early this year we heard a great deal in this House about the conditions which gave rise to this surplus of oats. It is a well-known fact that last harvest certain dealers in oats down the country bought oats from the farmers at a comparatively low price, held it during the winter and spring months, and then offered it to the farmers as seed oats at the exorbitant price of about £25 per ton. In order to ensure that there were adequate supplies of seed oats in the country last spring, and to ensure that the farmers would not get fleeced at the hands of those merchants, the Government very wisely allowed in Canadian oats, and thereby came to the rescue of the farmers. If the merchants in question suffered, they had nothing to blame but their own avariciousness. Although Deputy Dillon touched on the cattle, sheep and pig trades, I notice that he did not belabour either of those subjects. We have not a surplus of butter at the moment, although we had some during the summer months, but we have a surplus of cattle, sheep and pigs.

They are now being offered, and were being offered all this year, in the market across the water, that market about which the people on the Opposition Benches have preached so much for years past. I am very sorry to say that, as a result of war conditions, the people across the water could not buy sufficient of our surplus stocks of those animals, and were not even able to pay a remunerative price for those they did buy. I think it will be agreed by most people that every avenue was explored in an attempt to get as many as possible of the cattle, sheep, and pigs taken off the farmers' hands. Of course, Deputy Hughes has a different outlook on that. He blamed the Minister for not going over at a certain period to try to get the British to purchase more of our live stock. On the other hand, he blames him because he did go over, so he was inclined to blow hot and cold with the same mouth.

Deputy Dillon, of course, repeated what can now be termed his annual advice to farmers, to hold on to their stock until the spring and everything will turn out all right. Last winter, I think somewhere about the month of February, he advised the farmers to hold on to their stock and they would get a good price. I am not a prophet any more than Deputy Dillon, and it is really hard for anyone to say whether or not the price will be good in the spring, but the unfortunate position is that farmers, whether they wish it or not, are bound to hold on to some of their live stock. Deputy Dillon, and also, I think, Deputy Norton, made the suggestion that the State step in now and purchase the grain which the farmers have on their hands at the moment, and resell it to the farming community at a later period when it would be needed for the feeding of animals. To my mind, that is not a very good suggestion. I think it would be uneconomic, and I think it would not work out in the best interests of the farming community. If the State carried out that suggestion, they would have to rent granaries, they would have to pay buyers, they would have to pay storage costs and so on, and by the time the grain got back to the farmers there would have to be a pretty nice price tacked on it, too, in order to meet the overhead costs of the reshuffle.

I think Deputy Hughes also took exception to the fact that the Minister for Agriculture at some period this year—not so long ago; I think it was in October—was not able to say how long the British thought they would stick to the present quota regarding the importation of Irish cattle to Britain. Surely to goodness he cannot blame the Irish Minister for Agriculture for an act or rather for an omission of the English Minister for Agriculture? I think that is rather an unreasonable attitude to adopt. He says there is no good in expanding production as there is not a market for our produce. Well, of course there is not much use in expanding the production of certain produce for which there is no market. For instance, I do not think it would be very wise at the moment to expand our cattle and sheep raising, or our pig raising, because the market seems very slack. Would it not be the sensible thing for Deputy Dillon and Deputy Hughes and the other Deputies in the Opposition Benches to think this over in a business manner and to realise the wisdom of the Government policy here in making provision for guaranteed markets for wheat and beet? If there are some people temporarily embarrassed because they have more oats and more barley than they need on their hands at the moment, if these people had followed out the advice of the Minister for Agriculture and had grown wheat instead, would not they have now disposed of that crop and have their cash in their pockets or, at least, have the crop and the knowledge that there would be demand for that crop? It would also be one of the guarantees against an economic collapse which we are told must be avoided.

Deputy Hannigan—of course I do not blame him—he is a city Deputy and he tried to deal with a purely agricultural matter—told us about the English market and thinks we should be in a position to supply the British market and, according to the tone he adopted, I understood from him that he made that suggestion regardless of whether the British market could give our people the cost of production. If the farming community cannot get the cost of production for certain products then they have got to change their system. The wise thing for any businessman is to produce the articles that would pay him. Where our farmers through the country followed the advice given by the Department of Agriculture this year and grew wheat instead of oats and barley as a catch crop, they are pretty thankful to the season, they had a good average crop of wheat; they got a good price; they have got their money weeks ago and they are not in the position of those who, instead, followed the advice of Deputy Dillon and other members of the Opposition when they suggested to them not to mind the wheat and the beet but to go in for potatoes, oats and barley.

I think that it would be of far more benefit to the country at large if the Opposition members showed some common sense when taking part in this debate, and made some real, constructive suggestions. I have listened to a number of speeches here and I honestly say I heard hardly one really constructive suggestion during the whole night's debate. I cannot see any danger of an economic collapse just because at the moment the export of certain agricultural products is prohibited from this country. In fact I believe the holding here of our grain crops and of our butter is the best safety valve and the best guarantee we can have that we can weather economically the stormy days that seem ahead at the moment. Is it not better for us to have our food in the country so that we can feed our people? It is less than 100 years ago that our people, through advice and through coercive methods, exported thousands of tons of foodstuffs across the water and a few months after the very people who helped to raise those crops and helped to harvest them felt the pangs of hunger and upwards of 1,000,000 of them died of starvation. I think that if any Government were so weak-minded or so weak-kneed as to listen to the clamour of certain people to allow what some people would term a surplus of food to be exported from this country, they would not be worthy to be a Government.

I congratulate the Government on taking the right steps to preserve the food supply for our people. In times of scarcity and times of dire economic pressure oats and barley could be converted into human food, but even if we are not compelled to go that length they are still left available for feeding our cattle and our pigs. I do not know whether or not the Opposition mean to put this to a vote. I do agree that, of course, to carry on international trade we must have an export trade. Nevertheless, export or no export, the first concern of a Government is the welfare of the people of the country.

Mr. Coburn

I would just like to say a few words on this motion. I might say that the discussion here has covered a very wide ground, and I do not propose to follow in detail all that has been said by the various Deputies. All I am concerned with is to see that the farmers of the county which I represent will be placed in a position to dispose of any cereals that they have to sell at the moment in the manner which they think will give the biggest return to themselves. The last speaker put the question to the members of the Opposition as to whether there is any agricultural surplus at all in the country, and he stated that no speaker on the Opposition Benches gave any figures to show that such a surplus existed. In like manner I should like to put the point to him that he himself did not disprove that this surplus does not exist. Anyhow, this motion has been set down as a result, I believe, of the opinions expressed by the farmers throughout the length and breadth of the Twenty-Six Counties that they had a surplus of agricultural produce to dispose of and that at the moment they were not in a position to turn that surplus into cash.

One does not like to be personal in a discussion of this kind, but yet it is hard to have to sit in this House and listen to one Deputy—I mean Deputy Meaney—saying that the Government should see to it that this agricultural surplus should be kept in the country even if it means a little expense to the farmer. I want to tell Deputy Meaney, without being personal to him, that the small farmers, on whose behalf I speak here this evening, have not a salary of £480 to enable them to keep their barley and oats for six or nine months in case there might be a scarcity in that period. It is all very well for Deputy Meaney to speak in that strain but I will give you my experience, practical experience, in going through the county and mixing with farmers, whom I represent, and on whose behalf it is my duty to state here the opinions they have expressed to me.

Only last week I visited the farmstead of one of the most up-to-date and hard-working farmers to be found in Eire, a man over 74 years of age who, in winter and in summer, is out of bed by 5 o'clock. I was discussing the position with him, not from the political or narrow-minded point of view, but from an honest point of view. I went through the various portions of his agricultural work, telling him I thought he was doing well in such and such a direction and, on the other hand, expressing sympathy with him in so far as I thought he was not getting a fair return for his work in other directions. He brought me into the barn and showed me 80 barrels of oats, well saved after hard work on his part and on the part of three men to whom he has to pay wages ranging from 37/- to 30/- a week. He told me he could not get 80 pence for it. One can imagine the feelings of that man. Not wanting to score any political point, I said I thought times were not so bad with the farmers. He pointed to the 80 barrels of oats and said: "Get me cash for them, because I cannot get 80 pence for them." On top of all that, in comes an inspector and he asks for that man's books to see what wages he was paying his men. If he had a slash-hook at hand I believe he would have taken the head off that inspector, and he would be more or less justified.

That is the honest expression of opinion you hear, not from the inefficient or careless farmer, but from farmers of the type who have helped to build up this country. To-day that man whom I visited is not able to cash the crop he spent so much time raising. Mixing with the farmers and not wanting to score political points one learns many things. In a casual conversation with one farmer, speaking about cattle, I said: "They are not doing so badly; you may get £23 or £24, perhaps, for a 10-cwt. bullock.""You are right," he said, "but I can remember when they would be worth £27 10s. or more." Another farmer remarked to me: "To-day I may get £22 or £23 for my bullocks, but when I look across the Border I can see the farmers in Northern Ireland getting £27 to £28 for the same class of animal." Deputies on the Government Benches do not make much allowance for the farmers who give expression to those views.

It is the same way in the case of pigs. Right along the Border, in Louth, Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal, the pig trade is practically killed in so far as producing pigs at a remunerative price is concerned. On the other side of the Border there is as much as £1 a cwt. more given for pigs. Is it any wonder that the farmers complain of the prices prevailing in Eire as compared with the Six Counties? That position is due to a very large extent to the policy pursued by the Government during the past eight or nine years, when they were fighting an economic war with Great Britain. I do not like to go into that matter in any detail, but I will go so far as to say that to-day you are trying, with your cap in your hand, to get into the same market in connection with which the Taoiseach once said: "Thank God it has gone for ever." It does not matter what Deputy Corry, Deputy Meaney, or even the Minister, says here. I suppose they are counting on the short memories that, unfortunately, we Irish people have; they imagine that we will forget those days. Let me point out that you are depending more on the British market to-day than ever you were.

You speak about what is consumed in the home market. Take the figures that the Minister for Agriculture read out. He spoke of 300,000 cattle, 170,000 of which were consumed in the home market, the rest being exported. What would the position be if you could not export that number? It is the same with the 800,000 cwts. of butter. In the home market 500,000 cwts. are consumed and 300,000 cwts. are exported. Where would you be if that could not be exported? It is the same with sheep, pigs and bacon. There is no use in Deputy Corry or Deputy Meaney trying to make out that you are independent of the British market. You never were so dependent on it as you are now, and you will be dependent on it in the future. The sooner you get away from trying to put that across here and on the people of the country, the better.

Now we come to a matter that is very much in the limelight. The Minister said it would not be fair to allow onions to be exported for the reason that the people here would then have very little for themselves. There again I think the Department showed a lamentable lack of foresight, so far as the disposal of onions is concerned. At the beginning of the season I made it my business, representing a district where onions are grown very extensively, to visit the Department and point out to them the position of the growers of onions in that area, especially the cottiers who go in for the growing of onions on little plots consisting in the main of a rood, a half acre, or perhaps an acre. I implored the Department to grant licences in order to enable those producers of onions to export them to Northern Ireland, where there was a ready market. I did that because I knew that at that moment there were clever people going round snapping up onions at prices ranging from £8 to £10 a ton —£12 was considered a good price. I put forth the view that if they allowed a limited quantity of onions to be exported from that area into Northern Ireland it would be very advantageous to the people there, but the Department would not agree.

What happened? Onions were taken from Kerry and other parts of the country to Dublin and a crowd of racketeers, who never grew onions, got the onions in Dublin and put them across into Northern Ireland for as much as £40, £50 and even £60 a ton. That may seem extraordinary, but that is the fact. There were men who made £300 overnight on ten tons of onions, getting a profit of £30 a ton after paying £20 a ton for them. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying here—and I would say it as well from any public platform—that so far as I was personally concerned, I did my best to convince the Department of the reality of the situation. I said to the officials of the Department of Agriculture: "Assuming that not an onion left Eire, how long would the supply last?" One of the officials replied that the supply would last up to April or May. "If that is so," I said, "then I, for one, will not lose a night's sleep if I do not see an onion after to-morrow. All I am anxious about is to see that the producer, the little cottier and the small farmer, who devoted his time to the growing of onions on the advice of the various agricultural instructors attached to each agricultural committee throughout the country, would get some little advantage from the production of these onions, that they would get £25 to £30 per ton"—a price which they got afterwards in spite of the Department. Again, in spite of the Department the onions went across. One cannot but remark at the same time that many of the people who took these onions across would be quite capable of shouting "Up Craigavon" or "Up the North" when they went across the Border, for the lucre of gold, and when they had sold the onions to feed Craigavon and his men across there, they would be quite equal in the next minute to shouting "Up the Republic".

That is the position as I see it at the present time. We make no apology for disclosing it on this motion. We are accused of introducing it purely for the purpose of criticising the Government, but that does not give me a thought once I leave the House. I try to do my best for the people I represent and I do that, not alone here, but all through the county. We make no apology for coming here and stating the facts of the situation as we know them at the present time. If Deputy Corry, Deputy Meaney or any other Deputy on the opposite benches thinks that we are just here for the mere purpose of criticising the Government, I take this opportunity to disabuse his mind of that impression because the Government is the least of my concern when I sit down. My concern is to do my duty as a Deputy in the House and to make my views felt whenever necessary. I seldom speak but, when I have to do so, I make no apology for it. It is our duty to emphasise whatever points we think would be of benefit to the Minister in his efforts to bring about a situation advantageous to the farmers of the country. I am not going into details on the motion. I know it covers a very wide field and, in the terrible times that we are passing through, possibly the best plans may be blown sky-high. While there is not much use in talking about the merits of respective policies, we must do the best we can in present conditions and that is the object of this motion. We are not asking the Minister to do the impossible, but we do say that the farmers have a surplus of produce on their hands for which they have no market at present, and it is necessary to devise some means of enabling them to dispose of that surplus, if they are to have the necessary cash to enable them to carry on.

Mr. Dillon

The circumstances under which this debate was initiated by myself and Deputy Hughes have been described in the introductory exchange between myself and the Taoiseach to-day. Concerned as we were to approach the economic problem of the country, we have pursued steadfastly a certain course throughout this debate but, into the middle of it, the Taoiseach deemed it prudent and expedient to inject a statement on the international situation now obtaining. The terms of the statement seemed appropriate to a situation of gravity and yet, so far as I am aware, no demands have been made upon us, no threats have been issued against us, no violence forecast. I could not help asking myself whether, in these circumstances, the terms of the statement we heard to-day were those best calculated to promote a calm preparedness amongst our people for the unforeseeable future. It seemed odd in my ears to hear the possibility of bloodshed between two neighbours who are at peace—so happily at peace after centuries of discord—mentioned even as a remote and contingent possibility. I cannot help feeling that our people and the English people, the simple people who make up our respective nations, do not, and cannot, contemplate bloodshed between them and I am certain as that I am standing here that any difficulty which lies before us is surmountable by consultation and understanding.

Mr. Davin

On a point of order, with great respect to Deputy Dillon, does this statement arise out of the discussion on the motion or is it a statement made on the adjournment motion?

Mr. Dillon

I relate what I am saying, Sir, to the difficulties which are added to the economic considerations which were contemplated here to-day.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think the Deputy is in order because he is referring to the atmosphere created by the intervention of the Taoiseach at a certain point.

Mr. Dillon

I cannot believe that the ordinary people of our nation and of the British nation can contemplate the solution of any differences that could possibly arise between them by a solution involving the shedding of blood and I have no doubt that—as in the past, so in the future—no demands, no threat, no violence, will be employed by our neighbours calculated or designed to prejudice our sovereignty in this State.

I pray that in the future, as in the past, that happy state of affairs may continue to which the Taoiseach referred in his observations to-day, wherein no question was ever raised as to the right of the sovereign Irish people to determine what the Irish nation should in all contingencies undertake. I believe, on reflection, that those concerned in this matter on both sides of the seas that divide us will reach the same conclusion as I do now, that nothing must ever be allowed to come between us, that consultation, understanding and desire for friendship will not be equal to surmounting.

The economic problems which were called into review in the course of this debate I think received scant attention from the Minister for Agriculture when he came to reply. I do not think it is enough for those of us who are in Parliament in this day and age to stand by and wring our hands and say "nothing can be done". There was a time when democratic Governments took the view that all they were called upon to do was to maintain the public peace and the freedom of man's passage from place to place and then to allow the classic law of economics to rule the economic relations of men. That day is past, and with the passage of every year the Government claim the right to interfere further and further and further in the private affairs of all citizens for their better regulation. But the Government have no right whatever to take upon themselves just those tasks they choose to do without accepting responsibility for correcting the consequences of their intervention where they are evil.

We have the pig trade regulated, we have the butter trade regulated, we have the egg trade extensively regulated, we have almost every branch of agricultural production at the present time made subject to the most exhaustive regulations by the Minister himself. Not only that, but recently the Government have taken upon themselves the right to dictate to every individual farmer in this country how he will operate his own farm. If a man is not operating his farm in accordance with methods which recommend themselves to the Government, they claim the right to take his land from him; they claim the right to go to the man and say: "This much you shall till, and that much we will leave you discretion to handle as you please." But, having claimed all those rights, when the harvest comes and the fruits of that harvest designed by the Government are saved, the farmers are told: "Go and dispose of them now in what way you like; we cannot help you; if you find yourselves in a grave dilemma, we cannot help you to get out of that; it is not reasonable to ask us." It would not be reasonable to ask them to do it if they did not claim the right to insist on what we should do.

I come back again to the comparison I made here to-day between the treatment meted out to industrialists and the treatment meted out to farmers. The Minister for Supplies justified his record and said:

"I do go to textile manufacturers and I do tell them that that machine must produce a certain cloth."

But he stopped short there. He did not go on to add: "I told them, I give you a 10 or 15 per cent. profit on the costings of that operation, and whether you turn out one mile or ten miles or 50 miles of cloth, I bind myself now, before the wheels begin to turn, to take every inch of it, and to pay you for it all, and, what is more, I will barter the property of every farmer in this country to secure a steady supply of raw materials for your machines. If that means a loss to the farmers, let the farmers lose that. I will get you woollen yarns; I will get you the machines, and I will spare you all the import taxes on them. If you want to bring in new machines I will exempt you from all duty on these machines when they come in. If you want a trade loan, come in and explain to me that it is a good social service, and that you are going to employ men, and I will give you a trade loan on terms that no commercial bank would contemplate. When I have done all that, if you say that the exceptional demand that my order is calculated to create requires an expansion of your premises greater than your normal business would indicate, I will build a premises for you, and if you do not make more profits out of my contracts than will redeem the lot for you, I will excuse you the loan and make you a present of the premises; and, at the end of all that, I will guarantee you, not a market, but a profitable market based on your costings and giving you a day-to-day guarantee of a steady rate of interest on every inch of cloth you produce."

Then comes the farmer. The farmer has a little factory, but a different Minister comes to call on him. Here is no promise of a trade loan; here is no guarantee of an abundant supply of raw materials; here is no promise to exempt all farm implements from tariffs and taxes; here is no guarantee that every ounce of stuff produced will be bought and paid for at a price which will guarantee a profit. Not at all. Here is an order: "Get on with the job or we will give your land to someone else; plough that field, do what you like with the other one; but if you want seeds go and get someone to supply them; if you want manures you cannot have them, the Irish manure ring will not let you; no one can have manures in this country if the Irish manure ring does not want to give them to them. If you want to produce a crop, produce wheat or we are not interested; if you cannot produce wheat go hang, because if it is oats or barley you can take your chance; if the rats eat it that is just too bad."

Are we all farmers' sons in this country or were we all born under a shuttle? Have we all suddenly turned on our own? Have we all suddenly entered into a conspiracy to tear the hearts out of our own people in order to line the pockets of the Jabiotinskis and the Moisewicskis, who have poured into the country in the last ten years? Is it a shame, is it something for which men must apologise that they stayed on the land? Is it something to which farmers must plead guilty that they carry the whole State on their shoulders? Are they always to be beggars? Are they always to be jeered at? Are they always to be told that they are damned lucky to get 30/- per week for 54 hours' work, while an industrial operative, whose products the farmer has to buy, is getting £3 and £4 for a 44-hour week?

I heard a story recently of one of the Department's inspectors going to visit a small farmer in this country. He asked him what stock he had and he told him; he asked him what crops he had and he told him; he asked him whom he had working and the farmer said: "There is an old broken-down fellow who does a bit of work around the place." The inspector got quite interested, and said: "What do you pay him?""Pay him?" says the farmer. "He gets whatever is going. He gets three meals a day, if you can call them meals, and sometimes he gets a bit of tobacco for his pipe and sometimes not, and he is glad to get even that.""Oh, that will not do at all," said the inspector. "Did you ever hear of the Agricultural Wages Act?""I did indeed.""Well, where is this man?" says the inspector. "Oh," says the farmer, "you are talking to him now. He is standing before you. This is the poor "ould" wreck that was fool enough to stay on this farm, and he was the only one that was fool enough to do so, and he counts himself lucky to be able to get three meals a day, to get a bit of tobacco for his pipe now and then, if he is lucky, and to have a roof over his head." And the inspector, who was in receipt of £350 a year, got into his Ford V8 motor car and drove away into the gloaming— and 135 Deputies of Dáil Eireann, each several member of which is in receipt of £480 a year, smiled at the plight of the poor "ould" fool that sent them here.

Mr. Meaney

It is the poor fool that is here.

A Deputy

That is an old story.

Mr. Dillon

Troth, it is an old story —it is ten years old but, God help us, it is true, and I confess that, so long as the Fianna Fáil Party can find enough of these old fools to send them back here, it must be a great temptation to get them to go on sending them back. An error that many people in this country fall into is to imagine that Ireland is an abstraction, or a country, or a landscape. She is none of that. Ireland is our people, our people who are bound to this country— not fly-by-nights who can clear out in the hour of adversity and return to batten on the people when they have accumulated a little reserve, but the people who won the Land War and the people who held our country against every aggression and against every attempt to dispossess them. Those of us who were brought up in the Land League and the Land League atmosphere never guessed that we should see the day when the children of those men who followed Davitt would be regarded by an Irish Parliament as the exploitable serfs and that the frauds who financed the powers that would have robbed our people of our birthright would be erected into a new landlord class for the robbery of our people.

The Land War was fought to take off the backs of our people rack rents, because the poverty borne down upon them by those rents robbed them of their capacity to claim their freedom. It was when that burden was lifted off them that our people had the spirit and the courage and the resistance to rise and keep upright till they got their freedom. This Parliament is piling back upon the backs of our people, in the form of taxes, tariffs, restrictions and oppressions, denials of their right to live, that very burden that broke down their grandfathers, and I am telling you now that if we stand up and let that thing be done, we will build up in Ireland a generation of people who will lose the birthright that those who came after '98 had no longer the substance or the strength to claim.

This country has seen its dark days. It has seen times when our people were brought so low that there was scarcely a voice to rally them or a light to guide them on their way. Providence always sent us back someone to gather the people again, but if we now, having for the first time the responsibility ourselves of looking after our own people, put upon their backs burdens and disabilities that the worst oppressor England ever sent here never dreamt of afflicting them with, we will do them an injury perhaps more fatal than any foreigner could ever do, and all I can pray God is that the generation to which I belong and the era of public life into which I have entered will never go down into history as the era of Irish public life that destroyed our own people. I want to see our people living in dignity, peace and freedom, without doles, without the necessity for doles, but with the ability to stand upright and, without being beholden to any politician, whether in the Fine Gael Party or the Fianna Fáil Party, to rear their families and hold their heads high.

If we can establish in our country a people so circumstanced on the land, then Ireland is safe. Come all the world against her, she can meet it. It is our job to enable that time to be. I have tried, in technical detail, to bring home to the Minister for Agriculture to-day that he is failing in that job, and I do not think he has attempted to meet the case we made, and I put it to him and his colleagues of the Executive Council that, unless they meet it and unless their shoulders are equal to the burden that circumstances put upon them, they ought very seriously to consider changing the personnel of the Executive Council, if not to change the Government itself.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 41; Níl, 48.

Tá

• Bennett, George C.
• Benson, Ernest E.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Broderick, William J.
• Brodrick, Seán.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Burke, Thomas.
• Coburn, James.
• Cole, John J.
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John A.
• Curran, Richard.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Mongan, Joseph W.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Nally, Martin.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Davin William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry M.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Esmonde, John L.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Hickey, James.
• Hughes, James.
• Keating, John.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Linehan, Timothy.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• O'Donovan, Timothy J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Sullivan, John M.
• Redmond, Bridget M.
• Reidy, James.
• Rogers, Patrick J.

Níl

• Bartley, Gerald.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Brennan, Martin.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Carty, Frank.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Crowley, Fred Hugh.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Flynn, John.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Friel, John.
• Gorry, Patrick J.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hogan, Daniel.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kelly, James P.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• McCann, John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• Meaney, Cornelius.
• Moran, Michael.
• Morrissey, Michael.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Munnelly, John.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Loghlen, Peter J.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Conn.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Smith and Seán Brady.

Motion declared defeated.