The next thing I want to refer to is the fowl population. I do not know what success has attended the day-old chicken scheme this year, but it is of vital importance. It is too late to do much about it this year now. The scarcity of oats in the country at the present time is making it quite difficult for many people to carry on their fowl, and I want to appeal to the people in this country to struggle through at any cost, until the oat crop comes in, with as many fowl as they possibly can. If they are constrained to reduce their flock, then let them go out and kill the old hens instead of slaughtering off the pullets. The slaughtering done amongst the hens in this country during the last ten years would frighten one to think of.
Now we have got an immense opportunity of building up the fowl population of this country again, and recapturing the egg and dead and live fowl export industry, but, in order to do it, we have got to get through the next three or four months, when suitable feeding stuffs will be scarce and dear. Many a woman is reluctant to throw oats to the hens when it is worth 20/- in the market. It will take some little effort on the part of us all to persuade the farmers of this country that, even though oats are dear at the present time, taking the long view, a modest ration of them is well spent in keeping the fowl flocks going until the new harvest comes in. There never was a time when it was more vital to preserve the fowl flocks of this country. I urge on the Minister that such publicity as may be necessary to bring that home to our people should be embarked on without delay. One of the most effective forms of publicity would be to tell the people now that the price of eggs will be 15/- or 20/- next July, August, September, October, November and December, and to take steps to redeem that promise. In fact the ruling price might be higher than that which we forecast, but, even if our price were a little higher than the world price at the time we come to sell the product, it would be well worth our while to pay the little difference in this period of emergency in order to deter the people from slaughtering their fowl or allowing them to die.
What is our position going to be in regard to artificial manures next year? There is no use in anybody quarrelling with the Minister if he is unable to get African phosphate rock. We may be able to get some. I understand that we have some little tubs of boats which can make their way to the North African coast in fine weather, and we may be able to get some in that way, but I think it would be foolish to depend on such supplies as will be obtainable from there, because I expect that the battle of the Atlantic will become very much more intensified in the months which lie ahead. Adolf Hitler will sink as much of our supplies as he can lay his claws on, as he has been doing for the last two years, and as he is doing at the present time. He is not going to be any more scrupulous about our ships than he has been, and just as he has been sinking our wheat and petrol he is going to sink our manures in the spring.
But, Adolf Hitler notwithstanding, we have got to get manures for our crops. We have been talking a lot this evening about mineral exploitation. Will the Minister undertake to extract from the Clare deposit the maximum quantity of rock that can be got out of it, and to install whatever machinery may be necessary to reduce that rock, however hard, into a form in which it can be spread upon the land? We have to bear in mind that, no matter how much we grind the rock, if the soluble phosphate is not there the land will not get any benefit from it. But there is some soluble phosphate in the Clare deposit, and low-grade as it may prove to be— I do not know whether it is low grade or not, but I understand it is not as high-grade as the African phosphate— it will be better than nothing, and we certainly ought to have it. If we use it in conjunction with slag and lime and such potash as we can lay our hands on, it will be better than nothing. I am told that sugar beet requires a great measure of potash. I do not know. I know that potatoes and flax require potash.
It is perfectly right, in times when there are alternative sources of supply, to pay due regard to the economic considerations in regard to exploiting a domestic product, but where the choice lies between potash or no potash then we ought to go and take whatever potash we can get, wherever it comes from, and at whatever price, and use it. There is the seaweed on the shore. There are the unemployed standing in thousands along the west coasts of Donegal, Kerry, Clare and Galway. It has been our perennial problem to provide works for the congested areas of the western seaboard. Why in the name of God do we not send those fellows out to collect the seaweed? I am not suggesting that you are going to get potash as cheaply as from the potash combine. I do not believe you will get it at what, in normal times, would be called an economic price, but you are going to protect the land from potash exhaustion. If we found ourselves halfway through the season with some unknown disease striking a root crop, whether it be potatoes, beet, turnips or mangels, the crop being materially injured or even lost, and we then suddenly discovered that it was due to potash poverty in the soil which we did not know about, would we not look very foolish saying that the reason why we did not put out potash was because we thought that kelp was too dear? Surely it is better to have the fellows gathering kelp than to be incorporating them in the Construction Corps at the Curragh or paying them the dole?
I put it to the Minister that that is something which ought to be put in hand at once. I think it was the Minister for Lands who announced blandly a few days ago that after a great struggle he had made up his mind to pay £5 10s. Od. for kelp. Of course that is the one way not to get potash. That is daft; £5 10s. od. was always a bad price. It is just the very lowest penny at which, in normal times, you could persuade a fellow to go out up to his middle in the sea to gather kelp. Observe the amount of the saving; it is going to be about £8,000. Why, in the name of God, do you not say: "I will give you £7 for it. We will get whatever iodine we can out of it. It is not worth much but we will get whatever there is, and we will use the balance for potash manure"? Surely that is more sensible than saving £1 10s. on kelp and doing without any potash at all? Think of the employment you are going to give. Think of the advantage of having the potash. Think of the many benefits which will accrue from a courageous line in that direction, and think of how silly we will look if, in order to save a few pounds, we go without potash, and leave 50 per cent. of those fellows on the dole.
I would like the Minister to tell us has the Industrial Research Council been consulted as to whether it is possible to produce nitrogenous manures in this country? I believe that some of the nitrogen fixation plants are very complicated and elaborate structures, and it simply may not be possible, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, to get the necessary machinery. But there may be some more simple process, and I should like the Minister to give us some forecast, because my experience this year has been that it is quite impossible to get the people to put out super if they cannot get sulphate of ammonia with it. I am one of the unfortunate ones who this year did not get any sulphate of ammonia. Many merchants got supplies of sulphate of ammonia and so did farmers who applied for it before December, but the British closed down completely after December and you could not get any at all. In my area we cannot persuade people to put out superphosphate of lime if they have not got sulphate of ammonia. I sympathise with them, because they use super almost exclusively for potatoes and they feel that if they put out super without sulphate of ammonia it will not pay them. I consider that the production of some kind of nitrogenous manure is of vital importance in the coming year. This year we had compound manures, which contain a high percentage of nitrogen. We were not too badly off this year, although the position was bad enough, but next year the position will be truly desperate.
Why does the Minister persist in refusing to give a bounty on slag? Any load of slag that I could lay hands on, I bought it. Is it not an excellent manure if we cannot get superphosphate? It is difficult to understand why slag carries no bounty and super is getting the full bounty. What sense is there in such a policy? Our purpose is to get phosphates on to the people's land. Why should you have a prejudice against phosphates in the form of basic slag any more than in the form of superphosphate of lime? There ought to be much greater quantities of basic slag made available. Doubtless, the British will use large quantities of it, but, if individuals amongst us can get a few hundreds of tons of basic slag out of the British, why should we find, when we get it after great wangling, that we are penalised for having gone out ourselves and got the phosphates that the Department of Supplies failed to get? That is the present position and it ought to be ended. If you are going to give a bounty on manures, then give it on all manures, on basic slag as well as the others.
I think the drainage scheme—that is, the scheme whereby men get subsidies for making drains on their own land and cleaning existing drains—is a grand thing. I have been impressing that on the Board of Works for the last five or six years. They saw the light eventually, even though they were some years late. Perhaps it is better late than never. I must say that it is a tedious job educating the Fianna Fáil Party. I suppose I must regard it as my vocation. I must assume that I have been called into the world for that purpose. Sometimes, like all saintly men, I experience spiritual aridity, and these periods of spiritual aridity are relieved when the Government adopt some excellent scheme such as this one. But, as usual, they had to spoil it by providing that a man's valuation has to be below a certain figure and he has to be primarily engaged in agriculture. Whether the land belongs to a shopkeeper, a parish priest, a doctor or anybody else, if it wants improvement and if men want work, what does it matter who improves it or who pays the men to do the work? A particular man may own land at the moment, but he is not going to have it for all time. He will die some day, but so long as he lives you cannot improve his land because the Minister refuses to give a grant owing to certain little regulations.
What was the grant designed for? Was it designed to please a farmer or to get his land improved and men employed? I thought the grant was intended primarily to improve land and employment. So long as the work is done, it should not matter who employs those men. I think we should remove those regulations and, wherever there is a scheme for the improvement of land and the employment of men, let that scheme be made eligible for the grant. Judge Wylie says he is going to relieve unemployment if the banks will lend him money free of interest. We could all relieve unemployment if the banks would do that for us. I ask that farmers should get this concession free where their main object is to employ men.
The Minister will recall that this spring the gravest dissatisfaction arose with regard to the supply of paraffin oil for tractors. Might I suggest that tractor owners, who are eligible for paraffin, should be invited to provide storage for their allocation of paraffin now and, if they are prepared to take delivery now, let the Minister say that between this and next September he will be sending dribs and drabs, whenever he can get supplies, so that, when the harvesting season begins, tractor owners will have sufficient paraffn to keep their tractors working without any further reference to the Department of Supplies? Certain tractor owners may say: "We have no place to store paraffin and we cannot buy it now." If they say that, the devil mend them. They have to realise that in times like these one cannot deliver paraffin at five minutes' notice, and if they are not prepared to make a little concrete shed where they can put two or three barrels of paraffin to keep the tractor going in the autumn and spring, then let them not be whingeing if they cannot get it when they want it. They had good reason for a grievance this year and I want to avoid a similar position next harvest and spring.
I should like to touch on the question of supplies of petrol for people who use it for the purpose of irrigating market garden crops. Some people who have large areas under glass irrigate crops of lettuce and tomatoes at certain seasons of the year, using water which they pump up from an adjoining river. I remember that last year a man came to me. He had a whole series of hot-houses full of tomato plants. There had been a long period of drought and he was unable to get these plants watered. The tanks which were ordinarily available for watering them by gravity had gone dry, and his only alternative was to pump water, by means of an emergency plant he had, from an adjoining river. He could not get a supply of petrol to work the pump but, fortunately, I was able to get him enough to keep the pump working until normal water supplies were again available.
There is that aspect to be considered, and also the aspect of protection against frost. Some hot-houses require to be heated through the medium of paraffin for a short period. They may be suddenly confronted with a sharp frost, and it is necessary to keep them at a certain temperature. It would be folly to allow such establishments to be destroyed for the want of a very small supply of oil fuel. I suggest some little reserve might be left in the hands of a county committee's agricultural instructor, or some other official, who, when he was satisfied there was an emergency, could dispense sufficient of the fuel to keep individual market gardeners in a position properly to carry on their business.
A matter arising under the subheads E (3) and F (3) refers to veterinary research. Why in the name of Providence do we not spend more money on veterinary research and on the equipment of the Veterinary College? I do not profess to pass judgment on the staff of the Veterinary College, but the college itself is a miserable institution for want of modern equipment and facilities. Veterinary research in this country is a disgrace. We depend mainly for any therapeutic work on what takes place in the way of research in France, Great Britain and America. Surely if it is worth while to start an Institute for Higher Studies and for the study of mathematics, it ought to be worth while instituting higher studies in mastitis in cows. Important as mathematical physics are to our people, as well as to the people of the whole world, I think the study of mastitis in cows is a subject that is quite as important. We must be on the verge of a specific for that condition. Mastitis in cows is primarily caused by streptococcus. It is not the same as streptococcus infection in human beings but it is the same class of creature. There is for human beings a specific now available which in 99 cases out of 100 will effect a cure. It must be a very small step from that discovery to determine the proper drug to control mastitis in cattle. If we could do that many of the cows lost in this country would be saved. We know that it is the best cows get mammitis.
Surely that is something worth doing and worth pressing for at once. There must be many of the finest veterinary specialists in the world now looking for jobs. Many of the finest were German Jews. We ought to be able to find throughout the world research experts who in collaboration with our own men could press along a particular line of research which would be most suitable to this country. As far as cattle are concerned two of the most urgent problems to be dealt with are mastitis and catarrhal vaginitis. In large areas of the country cows are brought to the bull, five, six, seven or eight times before they are got in calf. This scourge is a plague. If we could estimate the loss that our people suffered as a result of that situation it would astonish this House. In a tiny minority of these cases it is due to contagious abortion but in the vast majority of cases it is due to catarrhal vaginitis which is, apparently, caused by a filterpassing virus. Our efforts should be directed to the detection of what that virus happens to be. The discovery of proper treatment is a formidable problem but it is one in the solution of which this country ought to be able to take part, because our name is associated with the cattle industry.
I agree with the Minister that it is disheartening and incomprehensible how a country which professes to be a dairy country could continue to allow cow testing societies to be as small in numbers as they are. Would it be unreasonable—and I say it after full deliberation—to suggest that if creameries come to this House and say they want a substantial subsidy on butter exports, they should be told that if they are going to get that subsidy they should, at least, satisfy us that suppliers who were bringing milk to their creameries were keeping none but economic cows. We should say to them: "Do not ask us to subsidise the production of butter from 250 gallon cows. It does not matter what way the world price goes, you will never have economic production of butter on 250 gallon cows." At the other end of the scale I say: "Do not think you will ever produce butter economically from the 1,200 gallon cow." What is wanted is a useful 600 to 800 gallon cow. Is it unreasonable to say to the co-operative creameries that they should require suppliers to belong to cow-testing associations attached to the co-operative societies to which they belong? Where there is a cow in a herd that does not come up to scratch they should point out that it ought to be got rid of, and one got in its place which would produce from 500 to 800 gallons of milk or, if the supplier were unable to replace that cow, that it would be better to sell the uneconomic animal and put the money in his pocket. I think the Minister would be justified if he represented to co-operative creameries that the time had come when they should co-operate with him, as well as with one another, in securing that an average milk yield which was subsequently exported as subsidised butter should reach 500 gallons, and that the aim should be to reach 800 gallons.
The next question I wish to refer to concerns the judging of bulls. What is the use of setting a standard for dairy bulls which require them to be as fat as mallow when they walk into the judge's ring? What small farmer who takes such a beast home, when he buys him with the premium attached—the animal having lived on the fat of the land for the previous six months— could maintain and feed that animal? If he does not do so the bull is likely to die from hardship. If the animal was brought into the show in a hardy and healthy condition, when it went to a small farm it would continue to thrive. At the present time it is mainly convalescent. If a cow goes near it for the first month that is enough to finish it off. That class of bull is so paralysed by change of diet and circumstances that all it can do is to keep alive, not to talk of doing its duty. I put it strongly to the Minister that judges at shows should attempt to relate the quality they expect in bulls more to what they deem to be required in a healthy bull that is in good condition, rather than an entirely fictitious standard of show-ring contour. I am certain that that could be done if a reasonable body of cattle judges came together and accepted a given standard of perfection, aiming at that rather than insisting on the standard of overfed animals that seems to hold sway now.
Under sub-head C we provide for the publicity in which the Department engages. Surely we could make the leaflets a little less indigestible? The material in the leaflets issued by the Department is excellent if one has the fortitude to wade through them, but fortitude is required. At the same time the Department of Agriculture in England is producing similar leaflets in the form of books that would tempt one to buy them. They contain pictures and illustrations and are such that a boy would delight in reading them. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that as school books they would be universally popular. If we cannot publish such books, why do we not come to an agreement with the Department of Agriculture in England, seeing that their leaflets are suited to our circumstances, to sell us their productions in bulk? Supposing their annual output is 20,000 or 30,000 leaflets, if they printed 30,000 extra for us, the cost of the 60,000 would be much cheaper and we could buy at a bulk price. In the way I suggest, we could distribute the leaflets I refer to. Everyone would benefit, the British as well as ourselves. These leaflets are immensely important and it would be a pity if young people were deterred from reading them by their present appearance.
We are supposed to be reorganising the creameries for the last 15 years. Legislation was introduced by the late Mr. Patrick Hogan on the representation that for a short interregnum the Government would take over the creameries, but would be uneasy until they had passed them on to the farmers, after being reorganised. They have been hatching on that for the last 15 years, and the plain truth of it is that some extremely able men are running the creameries, and they are doing so good a job that they do not like to be pried away from it. I do not think it is any question of self-seeking, because I think they would walk into just as good jobs to-morrow morning if their creamery job were taken from them, but that they like the business of running these creameries, and think they are doing it "swell", and that nobody else could do it any better. That is not the purpose for which the creameries were first put in their hands. They were put into their hands to reorganise and then to restore them to the co-operative societies. Are you going to do it or are you not? If you are going to leave the creameries in the hands of these decent men at present running them, get up and say so, but do not have the unfortunate farmers persecuted and annoyed, waiting and hoping that these creameries will be given back to them, and never getting them.
There is one group of farmers in North Cork—I think they are interested in the Shelbourne group of creameries, and Deputy Meaney is familiar with their problem—who are clamouring to get back the group of creameries they used to have, and which, I understand, have now been reorganised and are ready for transfer, but in respect of which there is some difference about the price. The Department wants £5,000 or £6,000 more than these poor men can afford to pay. Surely it ought to be possible, after the years that have rolled by, to have arrived at some accommodation in the matter? If you want the creameries to go back into their hands, is it not better to be easy about the price instead of sticking out for the last penny? It is not a recurrent matter. It is a matter of making a bargain and winding up a piece of business. Why do you not give them back their creameries and let them paddle along for themselves? Of course there are wiseacres who say that they ought not to take them back, but I was brought up to believe that good government was no substitute for self-government. These fellows want to get back their creameries and let them "stand the gaff". If they want to do that, I think they ought to be allowed to do it. If they "bust" themselves, it is their own funeral. They are doing it with their eyes wide open. I think the Minister will recollect the group of creameries I refer to because I have been in correspondence with him on the matter.
I take it that there will be no shortage of butter this year. That was one of the Minister's minor gaffes this year. He let out too much butter and we had a butter shortage which was something approaching an absurdity in this country, but let us not dwell on that if we can have a guarantee that it will not recur. What about cheese? I hear on all sides that the British are very short of cheese. Every pound of butter we send to England is subsidised. Could we make cheese here at a price that would enable us to sell it profitably in Great Britain? I must say that if you like that kind of Kraft cheese and the other kinds of manufactured cheese which are made at Mitchelstown, they are as well made there as anywhere else, and I understand that it is that kind of cheese that is largely consumed in Great Britain by the working men. Could we not develop that trade, and, if so, could we not do it more profitably than the butter trade?
I am always talking about the enforcement of the Noxious Weeds Act. I go out and cut my thistles as best I can. Coming back from the operation, I see my neighbour's field with thistles four feet high, each crowned with a crown of seeds all set to blow over my wall into the very place in which I have been labouring to cut the thistles for his protection. That is very discouraging, and I put it to the Minister that the enforcement of the Weeds Act ought to be more vigorously undertaken. The poor Local Security Force are asked to do so many things that I am reluctant to ask them to help us in this matter, but I do say that the Minister ought to look around for help, from the Guards, the Local Security Force or any others, to try to enforce the Weeds Act, most especially in so far as it relates to thistles, because so far as I am concerned that seems to be the most noxious weed commonly distributed. Buachalláns are a great nuisance, too, but, if you keep your land in fairly good heart, they never get a serious grip of it.
There is one last matter to which I want to refer. We are giving loans for the erection of farm buildings. Does anybody here know what happens to a farmer who is fool enough to avail of such a loan? The minute he puts a new farm building on his land, the rate collector arrives with far greater rapidity than Clanricarde's bailiff ever dared to arrive. The old landlords had some sense of decency. They had a kind of noblesse oblige feeling and that you did not “rear” into a man's holding at once to raise the rent on his own improvements. Not so the rate collector. He arrives on his bicycle the day after you have put the last slate on the house.
