I am afraid that if the speeches delivered here to-day were published verbatim for the country they would not impress the public, certainly not the public that I meet, very much. The position in and around the City of Dublin is that there is not enough bread and there is not enough butter. It is a waste of valuable time discussing post-war conditions when one has not enough to eat now. That is the position and we must face up to it. I have about 30 agricultural labourers and a few of them came to me and asked if I expected a day's work on seven ounces of bread. Let Deputies think of that and let it sink in. Any Deputies—not those who read all the pamphlets ever published about agriculture—who followed the plough and know what a day's work on hard clods is like, should consider how they would like to do it on seven ounces of bread per day. It cannot be done.
I am afraid we will miss the bus. When a motion was put down here that would be bearing fruit now, to grow enough wheat to give us enough bread, it did not get support in this House. It was a motion which would pay the people to grow wheat. Power of censorship was given to the Government, and how did they use it? I challenge contradiction when I say that every newspaper in Dublin, and every forward newspaper throughout the country, which attempted to deal with the food problem in an ordinary straightforward business way was censored. I challenge contradiction when I say that leading articles in our daily papers were taken out because they told the Government that the one way to get the food for the people was to pay the growers to grow it. The papers were told they must not say anything about price. Inspectors who, a couple of years ago, were lecturing the farmers that the only salvation for the country was grass were then sent down the country to lecture them that the only salvation was tillage. We all know how the people swallowed that hypocrisy.
If the people were told there was a guaranteed price for wheat of £2 per barrel, I wonder who would undertake to grow 600,000 acres of wheat—and we need that amount to give us bread. People who are too lazy or too ignorant to think, or who deliberately refuse to think, or who, if they do, will not tell the truth, say that £2 a barrel will pay any man. £2 a barrel will pay any man any time to grow a certain amount of wheat oil his farm, but, if he is called upon to grow his share of the 600,000 acres required to give us bread here, it cannot be grown at £2 a barrel and could not in the year that has gone out. I doubt if it could be grown at 50/- a barrel—the price that Deputy Cogan and myself put down here just before the Christmas of 1940, and in support of which we got only eight Deputies in the House. Those who voted against us, or those who would not vote for us, are to-day responsible for the bread queues and they must face up to that.
You are staring famine in the face. Face up to that. There was talk here about fertilisers, but there is no such thing as fertilisers in this country. I would not take a present of them. I put some of them on a potato crop last year and they shrivelled it up. I would not let my men put fertilisers on my land this year. We see the amount of intelligence that is behind Government policy. I am not speaking politically now but as a food producer and farmer. The Taoiseach at Tullamore last year warned farmers that if it came to a choice between feeding live stock and the human population, the live stock would be shot off, killed, or got out of the way, so that they would not be eating food that was otherwise required. Could anyone with the least knowledge of agriculture make a statement like that? The first line of agriculture and of the food front is live stock, and speaking as a farmer with 600 acres of land, half of it under tillage, I ask, how could I till my land unless I had a dairy herd of 100 cows and brought manure from Dublin? It could not be done in any other way. Of course if it comes to a question of deciding whether it is to be food for cows or for man, man must get it. But what will feed the man next year or what will grow crops next year? We are in a besieged country, and the only interpretation that can be put on the Taoiseach's speech at Tullamore was that we would be driven to kill off the live stock in order to maintain the human population.
I remember that when Deputy Cogan and myself—and we are both farmers who know what we are talking about—put down a motion dealing with the price of agricultural produce we were referred to as galloots. However, we have more tillage than most Deputies. I am not speaking now as a galloot but as one with some knowledge of economics. Deputies got up here and condemned the feeding of live stock. In the next breath there was talk about no butter being available in Dublin. Why is there no butter in Dublin? Because we have no concentrated food for our cows.
I have every sympathy with those people who were prosecuted in Youghal. If 10 per cent. of our arable land is under wheat, and if 6 per cent. of the crop is given into the common pool for bread, then I think those who did that have done their job and are fully entitled to feed the 4 per cent. to cows or pigs. Remember this, that the feeding of cows and pigs is not an end in itself. The ultimate end of reeding cows is to provide a future generation of live stock to give milk and butter to the people. In that way that feeding is not lost, and human food is still being produced. A moment's reflection will show that when it pays a farmer to feed wheat to livestock, rather than cash it for bread at 40/- a barrel—remember that is the standard price now, and that the 50/- relates to the crop that will be reaped at the end of this year—that shows that the price has not been properly fixed. It is an economic truism to say that the most profitable way to get rid of, any agricultural crop is when you can sell it and make it immediately available for human food. Bread is immediately available for human food. If farmers get more money by feeding the crop to pigs, then the price has not been fixed on a proper level. I am sure that it has not been fixed in that way, because the corresponding price that the Government pays for imported wheat is £4 4s. I challenge contradiction when I say that the wheat that is being imported now is costing £5 a barrel. Why not offer some such inducement to home growers? It is all a question of price, and a price that will not be paid here.
As an example, take what might happen in the Army. If the Minister for Defence placed an order with a manufacturer for 100,000 pairs of boots, costing, say, £1 in the factory, and if the manufacturer was asked to make the boots for 17/6 would he do it? Of course he would not. Farmers here are going to be exploited, going to be robbed, by being asked to produce food under cost of production. Let me put this question to the Minister for Lands, who is representing the Minister for Agriculture: Are there any workers as badly paid as agricultural workers? Have their wages not been fixed by Government action? A good deal of technique is required in agricultural workers, and yet they are the most lowly paid in the country. Why? Food producers are asked to save the nation. They are told that they are in the front line defences. That is true, but they are going to be paid the smallest wages and are expected to save the nation on the smallest wages.
I employ milkers. One man left after telling me that he could get more money on the dole. He said that he was losing by working for me. He went on the dole. Is not that a terrible state of affairs, and a terrible state of society, at a time when we are facing famine, that men will get more for doing nothing than producing food? The wage was a fixed one. The price of wheat is going up step by step to 50/-, for the coming year, but immediately the 50/- was fixed the wages of agricultural labourers also went up. Why were wages not increased prior to the fixing of the price of wheat? Why do agricultural workers not get as good wages as any others in a corresponding capacity? I had my men working on overtime last year. They started at 7.30 a.m. and during the harvest worked on Sundays and Mondays until dark. Council employees who came to work on the roads, dragging a shovel along, and looking for something to do got £3 10s. a week and knocked off at 5.30 p.m. Why is there not some equity in these things? We must rely upon ourselves for the production of food in order to save the people from starvation. Subsidies or anything else will not solve the problem. From my study of conditions here I say that agriculture never got such a belt from a foreign Government as it got from our own Governments in the last 20 years.
The first shot was fired at agriculture by an Irish Government when fixity of tenure was destroyed. That was enlarged upon by the present Government. It is necessary to recall that handicap on agriculture, because it destroyed our credit. If there is not fixity of tenure in land, and if there is not 100 per cent. ownership of property, farmers cannot pledge their credit with a bank or anywhere else in order to raise money. We will have to go back to one thing—perhaps not until we go through a chaotic period— and that is fixity of tenure.
Deputy Childers finds himself in difficulties when he starts planning. He wants to reduce costs to enable us to compete in the post-war period with foreign countries, virgin countries that have not accumulated debts such as we haye, accumulated. The overhead charges in agriculture are too high, the rates are too high. Deputy McGovern gave some interesting figures showing how agriculture is helped in the Six Counties. I have heard people say that the price of wheat in the North of Ireland and in Britain is not as high as it is here. They overlook the other advantages enumerated by Deputy McGovern, such as a £10 subsidy for every acre of potatoes.
I am at a disadvantage, inasmuch as I have not been attending the House for some time; I did not hear the opening of the debate or the Minister's statement. I heard Deputy Bennett say that the Minister asked for an additional 50,000 acres of potatoes. I saw a photograph to-day of the tillers of the polo pitch in the Phoenix Park, marking out the ground in which, I presume, they will sow potatoes. There would be some sense in that if it were done three or four months ago, but they are going to destroy good grass land by breaking it up now, because we are up against 1st May. We are asked to grow an additional 50,000 acres. What will we manure that land with?
Do the Government not realise that land will not prow potatoes or any root crop without manure and that one acre properly tilled and manured is worth ten acres unmanured and tilled in a casual way? It would bo better to leave it as good grass land, because it will feed a cow or a calf, but if you break it up and do not manure it, it will be suitable only for growing weeds. The Minister should realise that the growing of crops cannot be done by pressing a button; that it can only be done by feeding the land. It is obvious that our best policy now is to grow enough to feed ourselves, and our after-war policy should also be to grow enough to feed ourselves. I feel that we will be entirely on our own for years to come. I shall be surprised if this war, that is shutting us away from the rest of the world, will have any chance of ending within the next five years.
Suggestions were made here with regard to planning for the period after the war. I think we will have enough to do to plan during the war period, while we are, so to speak, besieged. What sort of plans have the Government prepared? We must maintain our live stock population if we are to survive as a nation. If we have not to appeal to the charity of the world to save us from starvation, we shall have to maintain our live stock and feed them on the produce of our soil. What plans have the Government prepared to achieve that? I have not seen any. Half the concentrates for our live stock population were imported pre-war and they are shut away from us by reason of war conditions. We need to increase our production of oats and barley to make up for that deficiency. We are losing 200,000 tons of offal by having 100 per cent. extraction of flour instead of 70 per cent. as in former years. That will have to be made up by way of an increased production of oats and barley.
It is a matter of simple calculation by the Department of Agriculture. taking all these factors into account, how much wheat we must have to give us bread, how much oats and barley we must have to give us our usual supplies of oatmeal porridge, flake-meal, etc., and to give us the foodstuffs to maintain our live stock. That is the problem to which the Minister for Agriculture should have devoted his attention. He has not done so; he has simply made a sort of omnibus order setting up 25 per cent. Every farmer can obey the Tillage Order and yet not grow one grain of wheat, oats or barley. These are the crops we need most and no planning has been done for adequate production. It is a matter of life and death for us.
I am sorry Deputy Meaney is not here. He congratulated the Minister, because he did not produce a plan— that is what it amounted to. When the Minister for Supplies or the Minister for Industry and Commerce—I do not know in what capacity he was acting— came to the House before Christmas, he asked for a subsidy of £2,000,000 so as to be able to keep the price of the 4-lb. loaf at 1/-. The case he made was that in 1940 our wheat cost us £5,700,000, and in the present cereal year it cost us £7,800,000. He wanted £2,000,000 to make up the difference so that the price of the loaf would not be altered. He explained that there was a rise of 5/- a barrel in the price of wheat. Since he got the £2,000,000 from this House the price of wheat has gone up 10/-, so we must assume that to keep the price of the 4-lb. loaf at 1/- when the next harvest comes to be used there must be twice the subsidy provided; in other words, there must be £6,000,000 provided to subsidise our bread, or otherwise it will have to go in a proportionate way beyond the 1/- for the 4-lb. loaf. How will that be paid? How will the poor be able to meet any extra demand? All our industries are slackening off because of the lack of raw materials.
I would be glad if men like Deputy Childers, who have a liking for investigation and planning and apparently plenty of ability and time to work out problems, would give this matter a little consideration. I think their time would be better employed in working out the problems of to-day, working out, for example, the type of problem I have just mentioned, than in directing their minds to post-war planning. I agree with Deputy Bennett that if the dairy farmer, as we knew him, is to be kept going, he will have to be subsidised.
I cannot see where the subsidy is to come from. Agriculture, and we are beginning to see it more and more every day, is the only industry we will have to fall back upon, and to ask us to subsidise a branch of agriculture is to ask agriculture to subsidise itself. Agriculture will have to stand on its own two feet. Having given this matter a fair amount of consideration, I think a mistake was made in having any talk about guaranteed prices for agricultural products. The attitude should have been this: here is the Irish market which cannot be supplied from anywhere else, and the thing to do is to tell the farmers to grow for it. If that had been done, I am sure we would have had plenty of wheat, oats and barley, and no inspectors would be wanted. Those who wanted to work would know that there was a price there, and hence the stuff would be grown. There has been handling and interference with everything, with the result that not enough of any commodity has been grown. Pigs are going out, and butter is scarce. One cannot get oats. People talk about the black market. This country would be in want only for the black market. The fertilisers used last year and this year came from the black market, and we might as well face up to that. As regards the fertilisers that are being offered now, I would advise any friend of mine not to use them, because they are calculated to do more harm than good.
I think the Minister should be more alert in his job, and see that the farmers who are producing intensively and extensively are not denied a fair share of the oils and petrol available. I am satisfied that they are not getting their fair share of the petrol that is here. Everywhere one goes one sees people who have no connection whatever with production flying past in motor cars. The farmers, however, who have a lot of tillage and a lot of farming stock to oversee cannot get one pint of petrol even though their land and their stock may be miles apart. What about all the cars that were at Fairyhouse, the cars that one sees in O'Connell Street and parked outside cinemas and theatres, while at the same time farmers who are engaged supervising the production of food and fuel cannot get any petrol? I have a letter in my pocket from the Secretary to the Department of Supplies to prove that. So far as supplies of petrol are available, I think the Minister for Agriculture should see to it that the demands of those engaged in the production of food should have a prior claim for a share of what is there.
It is too late now to make any provision about producing enough wheat or, in fact, about producing anything. Whatever we have sown now we have sown it, and we must trust the Lord to produce the crops for us. If, at harvest time, we find we have not enough, we shall have nobody to blame but ourselves. Would the Minister say, when replying, why there was no freedom of discussion allowed in the matter of food production? If better plans than the ones the Minister had adopted were offered, why not hear them, and why should not the public be able to put up their plans? If the Minister's was a better plan it would not have suffered from discussion. But every time a word was spoken anywhere and communicated to the Press, and every time the Press itself offered a word of criticism, it was censored. Surely, the censorship was never given to closure a situation that might produce famine.
I hope the Minister will tell us how he stands with regard to the three cereals. He should be in a position to know, to within 10,000 acres, how much oats have been or will be planted this year, and the same in regard to barley and wheat, as well as what quantity of winter wheat and spring wheat has been sown. I want to offer this criticism of the wheat policy, that it is not being handled in the proper way. All the wheats that we are growing do not give a uniform yield. Some give a bigger return than others. Generally, the wheat that gives the bigger return is not of as good milling quality as the wheat that gives the poorer return. We should grow for quality. In the general production of food, it is not fair to give the same price for wheat that is not of top milling quality as for wheat that is, or very near it. I do not know if Deputies arc aware that in the ordinary flour grist we had pre-war there was never less than 20 per cent. Manitoban wheat, because Irish wheat is poor in glutin, and the glutin itself is of poor quality. In order to have the best flour there should be at least 20 per cent. Manitoban, which has a large percentage of glutin of very good quality. A 10 per cent. mixture of Manitoban in the grist with an extraction of 70 per cent. will not be as good as an extraction of 85 per cent. with 20 per cent. Manitoban in the grist. I know that when I was in closer association with the Department of Agriculture, ten or 15 years ago, they were working to produce wheat of good milling quality with a large percentage of glutin of good quality. They were working on, I think, Yeoman No. 2. I would like to know from the Minister if that policy has been dropped.
If we are paid on bulk, we farmers will grow what will bulk the best, regardless of quality. Why should not we? In addition to having a guaranteed price for wheat of any kind, there should be a graduated scale for wheat of better milling quality than the average. I understand that this new wheat, Atle, fills the place of Manitoban to some extent. I do not know whether that is true or not but, if it is true, some consideration should have been given to the question of giving a higher price for that wheat, because the grain of it is hardly half as big as the grain of Queen Wilhelmina, Pajberg, or any of those. I hope our forebodings with regard to the food situation will not be realised; that nature will make up the deficiency that is left unfilled. That is a big hope, but we have nothing but hope to go on at the present time. There is nothing that we can do now to improve the situation.
Ever since I became a member of this House I have advocated the production of our own seeds. We have a Department of Agriculture that costs us millions. Until about 1938 or 1939, they did nothing in the matter of the production of seed. If, when this war broke out, England had said that she would not export any seed to this country, we could not grow a turnip, mangel, tomato, a head of cabbage— with very few exceptions—a carrot, a parsnip. Was that not a terribly exposed state to be in? Firstly, an attempt was made to grow beet. Then there was a hurried, belated attempt last year to produce mangel and turnip seed. These are not only scarce, but there is a famine in them. There is not nearly enough, in the country to meet even 10 per cent. of our requirements. What will be the position of dairy stock if we have not mangels, if we have not roots? It is an extraordinary position to be in. All our small seeds are scarce, particularly mangels and turnips. Beet seed is now being offered to the farmers as a substitute for mangel. It is no substitute and it is too costly. It would not pay to grow as a root crop for feeding live stock. I wonder why the Department that went down the country lecturing farmers and telling them what they should do did not do something themselves. As a matter of fact, there would not be a seed now were it not for some farmers and some enterprising seedsmen.
I am not one of those farmers who blame seedsmen for making money by buying up corn, cleaning it, minding it for four or five months and offering it at a price that will pay them. Why should not they make a profit? If they make a profit out of me, why did not I do it? I had the chance they had. Were it not for those enterprising seeds merchants who, last year, when they realised the position, went around and canvassed farmers to grow an acre or half-acre of different kinds of seeds and guaranteed a price for it, we would have no mangel or turnip seed this year. The Department of Agriculture, that cost us millions, was looking on, and it was only when they got orders from the chief to go out and tell these poor old mugs to grow more wheat that they went out and told them to grow it, but they did not use the machinery that was at their disposal, in Glasnevin, to produce the seed. I wonder will the position be in any way improved for the coming year or must the farmer who contemplates sowing any crop make up his mind that he must be his own seedsman as well as farmer and then perhaps he will be told that he must share what he had the foresight to gather for his own use?
That brings me on to another question—the position of binder twine. An order has been made that binder twine cannot be used for any purpose except for tying corn, not even for tying straw. The man with the steam thresher is at once faced with the expense of employing six or seven men extra, per day, to keep the mill going. I believe there is no use in asking if there is any wire for baling the straw. If we have nothing to bale it, neither twine baling nor wire baling, how much extra is threshing going to cost us? Last year, the Minister sent out warning notices to all steam threshers in the country threatening them with pains and penalties if they had not their engine ready to start threshing at immediate notice. Coal supplies were guaranteed. Conferences were held. The same threshers did not hear another word until they saw in the public Press a public announcement by the Minister's Department that there was no coal for threshing. How are people to produce food, how are people to carry on their business, with this sort of a Government interference?
The people are asked to provide food for the nation but the Government cannot see beyond their noses in providing supplies. Why are we short of twine? What has happened the twine factory at Newbridge? I had a special interest in that because they came to me looking for a site before they went to Newbridge. I thought when my site was not big enough for them that they would be producing for Europe in Newbridge. They are gone and we are told now that, under penalty, we dare not use twine for any purpose except for reaping and binding. Merchants are warned not to sell any binder twine except between a date in July and a date later on. Even the merchant who had the foresight to buy up all the twine he could in the last two or three years, and has stored it, dare not sell a ball of it until July. What was the Minister for Agriculture doing? If we were to grow 600,000 acres of wheat, how did he think we would tie it? Did he think that it could be tied by making a double belt and putting it around each sheaf by hand? No provision was made. These are the people who go through the country slandering the farmers because they have not produced at an uneconomic price. The farmers have stood up marvellously to the situation, but the Government has shown no foresight and has made no provision whatever. Other Deputies have mentioned machinery. Whatever the position in regard to machinery may be, we have to put up with it.
As to wheat, I put this to the Minister. If I offered wheat for sale now and got £3 a barrel for it, I suppose the person who bought it and myself would have committed an offence. But, supposing a tramp steamer came into the Port of Dublin with 20,000 tons of wheat and offered it to the Government at £5 per barrel, would they let it go? Are they getting it any cheaper? I put it to the Minister that they are paying more. If a tramp steamer can hawk wheat to the Port of Dublin at £5 per barrel, why should not a tramp farmer be able to hawk it? A member of the Government Party, who has not enough planning to do for the present time—that is all done—is planning for the future when the war is over in ten or 15 or perhaps 30 years, as it may be another 30 years' war. Why can we not do the thing which is to our hands? I do not know any of the farmers who were prosecuted in Youghal, but I am sure they are all enterprising farmers. If they were not, they would not have done what they did. They got wheat ground to feed cows and pigs after, I am sure, having given in to the common pool more than their share, whereas a Deputy can get up in this House and say that it was a cod to grow wheat at all and no notice is taken of it. But the farmer who wanted to keep his cows and his calves and his pigs fed is prosecuted.
I wonder does the Minister know the position in regard to agriculture? Does he not know that people are not rearing calves? If they are not rearing calves, where will the store cattle be in a year or two? That is a matter to be looked into. I remember when I alone stood up in this House and protested against selling our destiny to England by the Currency Act of 1927. Now we are tumbling to it that we cannot buy anything on the face of the earth unless we export something. We pawned all we had to England then. We are repeating that in the Central Bank Bill; but that is another day's work. We want our agricultural produce to buy petrol, oils and various commodities which we import. How are we to get it? Cattle are the only agricultural produce we are exporting. If we are not rearing calves, where will the cattle for export in the future come from? If we have not the cattle for export, where will this nation be which we have talked so much about and proclaimed so much about in the last 25 years? The only way to kill our aspirations was to hand over the country to us. We have killed them ourselves. We have the country now in our hands. The only problem is to work it so that it will feed us. I cannot see how it will do that if we go on as we are going at present.
What the Minister for Agriculture should do, if he wants 600,000 acres of wheat, is to find out what percentage that represents of the arable land and make every farmer produce that percentage. When a man has produced that percentage, he should be allowed to feed what he has over to his stock or do anything he likes with it. In that way we would not be short of bacon or milk, and farmers would not be giving up the rearing of calves. The position is appalling. We are walking into a pit with our eyes open. I do not blame the Minister and his Department for everything. Perhaps if we who are criticising were in his position we might not do better, or we might not be able to do as well. I am sure the Minister and his Department have the sympathy and co-operation of everybody in this House and outside, as they ought to have. But it was not fair to Deputies that they were not told what was going on in the matter of food production until they either read it in a newspaper or saw it in an order sent to them by post. I do not know how many Deputies read these orders. Why does not the Minister take Deputies into his confidence? When he is up against difficulties, as I am sure he is every day, he should take the House into his confidence. If the public want to discuss this matter at meetings, the reports of these meetings should be allowed to be published without being censored. If the Minister did that he would get quite a lot of help and suggestions. But he goes along in the dark and will not listen to anybody. That is the policy which has been pursued by the Government, and we are now face to face with famine.
Has the Minister thought of what the position will be if there is anything like a bad harvest? Has he considered the dangers ahead of us in connection with the harvest? There is only a limited number of reapers and tractors in the country. It may not be possible to work these if parts get broken or worn out, and we may have to fall back on the horse. Is the Minister satisfied with regard to the supply of scrap iron if we have to fall back on the horse for all our transport? Have we sufficient iron for the making of cars and for shoeing horses? Is he not aware that in parts of the country they are now using old gates for the making of horseshoes and that there is a scarcity of horseshoes? We may have to go back to the hand-made spade and shovel and fork. All these things should be engaging the attention of the Minister rather than the high-class machinery for large-scale agriculture.
The position is very serious and any criticism I have offered I hope has not been destructive. I hope the Minister will take it in that spirit and reconsider the policy of keeping the public in the dark. If there is criticism to be offered or suggestions to be made they should not be censored. They should be considered in order to see what can be made out of them, because it is possible to learn something from every man.