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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 4 Mar 1943

Vol. 89 No. 8

Private Deputies' Business. - Emergency Powers (No. 234) Order, 1942—Motion to Annul.

I move:—

That Emergency Powers (No. 234) Order, 1942, made by the Government on the 29th October, 1942, be and is hereby annulled.

It is not intended, in moving this motion, to do what would appear on the face of it to be the object of the motion. This is the only way in which the House can have a debate on the Order. The Minister and the Government know that this motion was not put down in any spirit of hostility to the Order. It was put down in order that we may have a discussion which will reveal Government policy and in order to create an opportunity for the House and the country to understand the purpose and the operation of the Order. Deputy Cogan and I, who have done this annually since 1939, feel rather flattered that the Minister and the Government are now coming to realise the value of the suggestions we made three or four years ago. We are glad to see that, even though it is done in a rather clumsy and, in my opinion, not the best way, an attempt is being made to secure that the principal crop which we want to increase, namely, wheat, will get some attention.

Up to this Order there was no Tillage Order that made it obligatory on any farmer to grow wheat. Even this Order does not make it obligatory on a farmer to grow wheat, but it gives what I consider a very wrong power to an inspector, a power not definitely expressed in the Order, but a power such as he might suggest on his own, to tell a farmer how much wheat he is to grow, within certain limits, and where he is to grow it. I do not think that is right or fair and we would definitely oppose that section of the Order if procedure would permit us to do so. We have to take the whole Order and move its annulment if we object to any portion of it.

I think the Minister has adopted a very bad principle in that connection. We are satisfied that the Minister will do his best to get suitable inspectors, but we all know it is a very difficult thing to get suitable inspectors to go through the country for that purpose. There is a grave danger of abuse of power; there is a danger with regard to the selection of unsuitable sites for the growing of wheat. Even though that might be done with the best intentions in the world, such power should not be permitted. I think it would have been much better if the Minister had adopted the suggestion we have been making every year since the emergency arose, namely, that, realising we required a certain amount of wheat to give us a sufficiency of bread, and being aware of the area of arable land, it was merely a matter of arranging what percentage of that arable land would give us the necessary quantity of wheat. I think the Minister should have calculated that X per cent. of our arable land was required to give us a sufficiency of wheat and the owners of land to whom the Tillage Order applies should be obliged to till a definite percentage of their land and crop it with wheat. I do not think there is any more effective way of doing it.

I know that in generalisations of this kind one might class as arable land the type of land that might not be the best for wheat growers, and it might be better to get a little more wheat grown in some areas rather than have a flat percentage. Of course, the Minister will realise that it is well nigh impossible to attain perfection in any wheat-growing scheme. I think the only fair way would be to fix a flat percentage calculated to meet our requirements, and I would be inclined to go a little beyond the sufficiency standard and leave a margin to cope with a bad harvest—something in order to be on the safe side. I believe that 5 per cent. of the arable land under wheat would give us a sufficient quantity to meet our needs. If that is calculated to give us a bare sufficiency, I would not mind putting a decimal point or two on in order to safeguard the position.

That would be much better than giving power to an inspector to tell a man how much wheat he should grow and where he should grow it. Those who have grown more than any percentage would ever make it incumbent upon them to grow, and who will continue to grow wheat in large quantities, would resent such power, would resent being ordered out and told how much wheat they should grow and where they should grow it. I would not object so much to being told how much wheat to grow, but I certainly would object to being told where to grow it. I think such a position would be intolerable. The Minister must have some reason for that, and I would like to know that reason. I can conceive no reason sufficient to warrant such interference with the freedom of the citizen.

The Minister made no exemptions. I have asked him from the start to make exemptions with regard to dairy land. I think it is a pity that he did not do so. If the emergency continues very much longer, the milk position in the City of Dublin may become very grave. The arrangements for transporting milk to Dublin are, as the Government know very well, becoming more and more difficult. If the transport position becomes worse, I cannot see how supplies of milk can be brought to Dublin. As regards wheat, oats, barley and potatoes, they can be transported to the city at any time; but milk has to be transported at least once a day. I think the safest thing would have been to conserve the dairy land in close proximity to Dublin, so that there would be the Minimum of transport. That land should be conserved for dairying purposes rather than for tillage. As a matter of fact, instead of encouraging tillage on dairy land, it would be better business to encourage dairying on tillage land.

I notice that the Minister has adopted the principle of a motion we submitted a couple of years ago and which, of course, was rejected. He has adopted it only in the case of land entered on by himself or his representatives. That principle is that the crops produced on such land cannot be seized for annuities or rates. When we introduced the motion some years ago, our idea was to have a kind of standstill Order with regard to arrears of rates and annuities—just to seal up the debt and leave it there until the emergency had passed and allow the owner of the land to carry out his obligations under the tillage Order and pay his current commitments. The idea was that all arrears would be frozen until after the emergency. That was then turned down by the Minister. If he reflects for a moment, I think he will find that a better purpose would be served by clearing away the difficulties that certain farmers found themselves in by reason of their arrears, by freezing up their indebtedness for the time being and permitting them to till their land. That would save a good deal of trouble and result in the production of more food. I am quite satisfied that any land entered upon will not produce the same quota of food for the same outlay as land worked by a farmer—even by a bad farmer.

I would like to have some points cleared up by the Minister. In Part VII it is stated that if land is entered upon and used on behalf of the Minister, or for conacre, the buildings on the land can be used. I should like to know if that includes the farmhouse. Is a right given, for instance, to a person who takes conacre, to seize the dwellinghouse on the land, or to dispossess the occupier or owner? In reference to compulsory tillage, regard should be paid to what is being demanded. If pressure is exerted at one point, it will have other ramifications throughout the economic system. When the Minister made an Order for the tilling of a percentage of land did he consider the rise in the price of the goods that the farmer has to buy and the consequent increased cost of production? Did he take into consideration the high cost of living of agricultural workers? The Minister is part and parcel of a Government that made a standstill Order that was amended; varied, amended again, and further varied within the last few days. It was expressly stated that the object of the Order was to prevent a rise in prices and inflation. The Minister is handling the most important job in this country at the present time. It does not matter what manoeuvres we have, what war weapons we have, there is now really only one weapon of defence for the neutrality and the freedom of this country, and that is the plough.

The greatest soldier in this country is the man behind the plough. He is the greatest defender of our liberties and of our neutrality, as he is saving the State; yet he is the worst paid man in it. The price of the produce of that man's toil is not guaranteed by this Order or by any Order made by the Government. His price is controlled and, in reaching that controlled price, the Minister based his case upon the wage and general outgoings of farming. A price of 50/- a barrel was fixed for wheat last year, notwithstanding that imported wheat cost 65/10 per barrel. We were told to-day that it would not be in the national interest to say how much wheat was imported. I can say that, in the national interest, none would be imported if as good a price had been paid for wheat grown here as we had to pay for imported wheat. The 50/- paid for wheat last year was based on a wage paid throughout the greater part of the country—33/-. To a small section 34/- was paid, and to a still smaller section, around the City of Dublin—I do not think it applied to the City of Cork—39/- was paid, but broken time was deducted. Is there anybody working for such a wage except the unfortunate man who is producing food for the people and saving this country from surrender? An Order has been made, which is operative from February 1, of this year, increasing these scheduled wages by 3/- per week. In my area the wage payable is now 42/- per week, but broken time is deducted. On that wage and on other outgoings the Minister has fixed the same price for wheat this year as last year, 50/- per barrel. If 50/- was an equitable price last year, surely it is an inequitable price this year. I put this question to the Minister: what man can, on 42/- per week, feed himself so as to be able to do a day's work?

The Deputy might indicate what section of this Order deals with agricultural wages or with the price of wheat.

The relationship is that farmers are obliged to till 25 per cent. of their land. They are obliged to grow more wheat to the extent, and on the site, that the Minister's inspectors direct them. That wheat, we know, has to be sold at a certain price. Men have to be employed to produce that wheat. Their wages, and the price of the wheat, have a very important bearing on whether it is equitable to ask us to cultivate 25 per cent. of our land and to submit to the orders of inspectors to grow a certain area of wheat.

The Deputy's contention may be justified, but the burden of his speech should be on those two points.

I think that, when you have heard me through, you will not say that is the burden of my speech. That is only the beginning. It is supremely important for us, if we have to put a large area under the plough, to be sure that we will have men to put in the crop, and men to take it out. I am satisfied that at these wages we will not have the men. Just for the purposes of comparison, may I mention that in my area the wages Order provides that I am to pay my men two guineas for a 54-hour week.

That is the minimum. You can pay all you like.

I cannot pay all I like because I am controlled by the price fixed for the crop. That is the strait-jacket into which we are being put. My contention is that the wages we are paying are not enough. I would be very glad to see a very substantial increase in the price of the crop and to see the whole of that increase given over to the labourers in order to keep them on the land. How are we going to keep them on the land? I have men working in my fields to-day sowing potatoes and spring wheat. I am paying them at least two guineas a week, perhaps more, but I am not going to say anything about that. I could have them working according to the basic line taken by the Minister in fixing the price of the crop we are sowing, while there are men pretending to sweep the road outside at £3 10s. a week, working fewer hours, and with a fortnight's holidays and pensions. How long are we going to tolerate that? I am not saying one word against the men who are getting £3 or £3 10s. a week. I say "good luck" to them. If they are worth that, are not our men worth it, and if they are, why are they not getting it? If that wage is to be paid why are not prices based on it instead of having a starvation wage, or worse than a starvation wage?

Men are using every pretence to get permits to clear off the land. I have spoken to farmers all over the country about this, and my fear is that men are not going to stay on the land for that wage. Here we are in the intolerable position of having a fictitious wage on which men cannot live. That wage has been fixed for farm workers. The price of the crop is based on that wage. The Minister makes this Order and says that we must till 25 per cent. of our land. We are told that we are patriots. The greatest patriot in the country is the farm labourer, that we are all conspiring to starve and drive off the land. I say that unreservedly. I doubt if there is a member of the House who employs as much agricultural labour as I do. These men are working at a starvation wage and we are being driven to employ them at a starvation wage because we will not get a price for our crops. In the year that has passed we had the price of 50/- a barrel fixed for wheat, while at the same time we imported wheat from the ends of the earth—Irishmen's lives being sacrificed to bring it here— at a cost of 65/11 per barrel. It would not be in the national interest to tell us what quantity was imported. We had a flourish of trumpets a couple of weeks ago about a ship load of Canadian oats that arrived here, costing us 35/11, while our price for oats is 25/8. How is that? If we got 35/- a barrel, we would have enough oats to send to Canada; we would have sufficient for ourselves, and we could pay our men a wage.

I would like the Minister to tell us, when he is replying, of one job in the country that the agricultural labourer would not be better paid at if he cleared off the land. That is the position of expert agricultural labourers —that they could get better pay at any other job. Mick Redmond, the champion ploughman from the Minister's own county, was so badly remunerated —he the champion ploughman, a man who should command a good position in this country—that he left the land just before the war, and was engaged selling gravel for building purposes here in Dublin.

Who told the Deputy that?

I was canvassed to take the gravel from him. I placed an order with him. I probably know more about agriculture in the Minister's own county than he does himself.

The Deputy will be the first that we will hear that from, anyway.

I hope that we shall hear something informative from the Minister when he is replying. I want to know why the farm labourer must continue to be the worst paid man in the country. There will be no trouble about the production of food here, to the limit of our fertilisers and of our farmyard manure, if only we are prepared to pay for it. I do not propose to dwell further on that. I will do so when replying if the Minister does not tell us why our farm workers must be the worst paid men in the country, and why they must work the longest hours. Let us drop the bunkum of a guaranteed price. There is no such thing as a guaranteed price for agricultural produce in this country. There is a controlled price. Why is Irish wheat controlled at 50/- a barrel when you have to pay 65/10 for the wheat that you bring in?

I should like to know why the Minister insists on a starvation wage for agricultural labourers, or why agriculture here must be artificially depressed. I cannot see any reason why the man who takes out a tractor or a pair of horses, a plough, a corn drill, or a reaper and binder, should be paid a lower wage than a porter in a public house or any man working for the county council or the corporation. Then an appeal is made to the patriotism of those men, who are underpaid and underfed, to save the country in this emergency. They are doing it, but I do not think any lower wage than 50/- a week should be offered to any agricultural labourer at the present time, and agricultural prices should be regulated accordingly. Those agricultural workers are continuing to work without grumbling much, but they should not be forced against the wall, or more may have to be paid for less return. Show your appreciation not by nice phrases, not by appealing to their patriotism—they are patriotic all right—but in the only way that counts, that is by paying them a living wage. How many cases are being considered—I am not arguing against those cases—for a bonus on wages at the present time? The wages in question are far above 50/- a week. I repeat that I am not arguing against those cases. It is not my business, and it would be a bad approach to equity to attempt to pull down the wages that some men have to the level of the low wage that others get. It is best for the community and best for business that the highest scale of wages which industry and agriculture can afford should be paid.

This Order is ill conceived. Those men who are asked to do this work should be paid a living wage, a due return should be allowed to the farmer, and prices should be fixed on that basis. If the subject were approached and dealt with in that way, the wage that is being paid now would be found to be inequitable, and the prices of the farmers' produce would not be controlled at the present figures. The Minister can see for himself that the increased price every year resulted in increased produce. We need have no fear of hunger, no fear of shortage, if the farmers were paid for their work. When the Minister is replying I hope he will attempt to justify the wages fixed for the coming year—36/—for the greater part of the country, 37/6 for a smaller part of the country, and £2 2s. 0d. for a still smaller part. No able-bodied agricultural labourer should be offered less than 50/- at the present time. How does the Minister expect those men to stay on the land and work for a starvation wage?

In a question about a year ago I asked the Minister to consider the Order relating to the standard of milk. It is a terrible thing to put a man in such a position as a very prominent dairy owner in this city was put into recently when the milk showed a shortage of fat. With the present food for animals at the disposal of the dairying industry in Dublin, it is not possible to maintain the required standard. If a man grows a crop to feed his cattle in order to produce milk of the proper standard, he is prosecuted. Last year a few farmers —around Youghal, I think it was— grew surplus wheat, ground it and fed it to their cows and pigs, and they were prosecuted. They were held up to public odium because this valuable human food was given to the common pig. Of course, all the people in towns and cities howled for the blood of those savages who wasted, as they thought, good human food. They changed their tune soon afterwards when they found that they had no bacon, and when they found that butter was rationed. I see the Minister has changed his attitude. He is now advising the people to grow all the wheat they can for human food, and, when they have grown enough for human food, to grow for animal food then. We are learning as we go along. If 5 per cent. of the arable land will give us enough to eat, and a farmer put 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. of his arable land under wheat, and throws that into the common pool for food for the nation, I submit that that farmer has discharged his moral duty to the community as a whole.

If every other farmer in the country does not grow as much wheat for the common pool of food, it is the fault of the Minister who did not make him do it. Those farmers who looked beyond their noses, who had cows and pigs, and who knew that they could not produce the proper standard of milk and could not fatten their pigs for want of proper fattening food, grew extra wheat and ground it and gave it to their cows to produce more milk and to their pigs to fatten them. They showed an example to the Minister, and it is not they who should have been prosecuted but the Minister for not having formulated the right policy for the country in order to secure us from a shortage of bread. I should like the Minister to explain why he did not take time by the forelock and see that every farmer did his job and grew enough wheat. I notice now that he has taken the clumsy way of vesting power in inspectors, who come to us and say: "You cannot grow wheat here, and you must grow it over there." If we grow it in the place pointed out to us, and the crop is a failure, who will foot our loss? We will have to foot it, not the inspector. That is intolerable. When people show not only their willingness but their determination to produce enough food for the country they should be encouraged; the agricultural community should not be obliged to carry a host of inspectors on their backs. I wonder how the country is living. If a census were taken of those who have nothing to do but tell the few who are working how they should work— inspectors inspecting inspectors ad infinitum—you would wonder how the game can be kept going at all.

I should like to know from the Minister, before it is too late, if he is satisfied as regards the quantity of winter wheat sown. After three or four years' experience now in this job, he should have his information up-to-date —information not later than a week behind the actual sowing—to show how much winter wheat has been sown and how much winter oats, if any. He should also know the quantity of spring wheat for the sowing of which preparations have been made. He could then form an estimate of what the total acreage under wheat will be. Then we require more oats. I think a calculation he made here some six months ago showed that we were about 1,000,000 acres short in tillage. I should like to hear from him whether he has any information that this Order is adequate to secure that 1,000,000 extra acres or whatever is the estimated area he requires under tillage.

I should like to know if we are sure of our ground as we go along. If we are not sure of our ground, and if preparations have not been made to produce the required quantity of food in this country for the coming year, now is the time to take the necessary steps. This is only the 4th March, and there is still time to sow any crop we want, with the exception of winter wheat. If the job is not done now or within the next couple of months, we cannot hope to have any extra yield of food until next harvest 12 months, and that is a bit too long to wait for a meal. Now is the time for the Minister to be up and doing. It is due to the House and to the country that he should take this opportunity to tell us what steps he has taken to provide the necessary food supply for the nation. We farmers have shown that we will do the job. We can tell the Government we have done the job and will do it, if they do their job.

I did not propose this motion for the purpose of criticising the Government. I have criticised them in my speech up to the present but I certainly pay them the tribute that, when the emergency came on this country, in the matter of food production they had a springboard prepared from which the country could jump off and provide 100 per cent. of the food requirements for the country if handled properly. When I say "if handled properly", I admit that the man on the sideline is the best hurler. I know they were up against difficulties and that it is easy perhaps for those of us looking on to think that we could do better than they did. Allowing for that, I think they could have done a little better, particularly having regard to the way they rushed like a bull at a gate to prosecute people for doing what the Government themselves should have done. I remember the Taoiseach threatening, down in Tullamore a few years ago, that, in effect, if the farmers did not produce more food for human consumption the live stock would have to be shot off. He has changed that tune. He now has another key and the Minister knows it. If he does not know it, I will give him a little lecture on it. I will give him a little demonstration, such as he never saw in his own place. The Minister need not shout until he is out of the wood. He now realises that the area of production in this country cannot be regulated by Order. The area that will produce economically in this country is governed by one factor, and one factor only, and that is the quantity of manure we have at our disposal. The land of this country will not grow crops without manure and there is a limit to the area of land that can be manured. The quantity of manure at our disposal is limited and the area which can be manured economically will be limited.

Many people, particularly townspeople, ask why, if a 25 per cent. tillage does not give us enough food, should we not have a 30 per cent. or a 40 per cent. tillage. I am convinced from personal experience that we have reached the limit of the area which can be tilled economically. If the quantity of manure at our disposal has to be spread over a larger area than that embraced in a 25 per cent. tillage, instead of producing more food we shall produce less food. We shall have reached the point at which the law of diminishing returns, economically speaking, operates. If we say that there must be a 30 per cent. tillage instead of a 25 per cent. tillage, I am satisfied that the yield from the 30 per cent. will be lower than that which can be produced from the 25 per cent. To increase the area under tillage you must first of all increase the quantity of manure you have. If the Minister can manage to get fodder for our live stock, if he can get a good market for our fat stock in Britain, and if we can go in for stall feeding cattle on a more extended scale, we shall have a greater quantity of manure, and the area which we can till economically and productively can be increased, but not otherwise.

I said in moving this motion that it is put down, not in opposition to tillage or to the Order, but in order to bring the matter before the House for discussion and to get the Minister to give his viewpoint and that of the Government on certain very important matters relative to the industry of agriculture and to food production for the nation.

I second this motion on the definite understanding that it will not be put to a division. It is put down in order to secure an opportunity to criticise some items in this tillage Order and to afford the House an opportunity to discuss tillage policy generally. There are some features of this Order which are undesirable and which should not have been included in it in their present form. One matter —which may appear small but which is, nevertheless, important—is the definition of arable land as "land capable of being tilled". In my opinion, as a farmer, that is not a proper definition of arable land. It should be defined as "land capable of being tilled with horse or tractor implements and capable of producing a satisfactory crop". Practically any land in this country can be tilled with a spade or a pick, and a large amount of land could be tilled but would not produce a crop, as in the case of marsh, bogland or water-logged land. Therefore, this definition of arable land is incomplete and unsatisfactory and is capable of being construed in such a way as to inflict injustice upon the occupier of land.

The powers vested in inspectors have been criticised already in this House. Of the 105 inspectors operating the Order, at least 51 are purely temporary inspectors and, as far as I know, the majority of these are very young men, some of whom are under 21 years of age. It is hard to imagine that such men would have sufficient experience to visit a farm and, by inspection, decide whether a certain portion of the land was arable and which particular portion of it should be utilised for the growing of wheat. Having regard to the drastic powers vested in these inspectors, there should be some satisfactory system of appeal from decisions taken by them. It has been urged already by the Minister that any form of appeal would take considerable time—and time is a very important factor in enforcing the tillage Order— but surely it would not take very much time for the farmer to appeal to the local agricultural instructors, who would be quite competent to decide as to whether land would be suitable for growing wheat or not. Wicklow, generally, is not a wheat-growing county, but I happen to know a case of a certain farmer there who was ordered to grow wheat at a very high altitude, quite close to Lugnaquilla. He protested and offered to bring in the local instructor. The inspector was reasonable enough to accept the protest and the opinion of the local agricultural instructor, but there should be definite power under this Order to appeal in cases where the inspector is determined to enforce his order. There may be cases where an inspector would stand resolute and insist on his order being carried out and thereby inflict a great injustice on a particular landowner.

I do not agree with the statement made by Deputy Dillon the other day that there is no justification whatever for this particular power to compel a farmer to till a certain portion of his land. Deputy Dillon stated that only a lunatic would seek to cultivate the inferior portion of his land. He cannot have been familiar with every type of land in the country, or he would know that cases may arise where a farmer might derive some advantage from tilling the more inferior portion of his land, continuing in permanent pasture that portion which was good fattening land. It is justifiable to give this power, provided there are safeguards. The safeguard I suggest is an appeal to the local agricultural instructor. It is not too much to ask that this suggestion be included in the Order now. Deputy Dillon was hopelessly inconsistent, inasmuch as he was prepared to give the Department power to compel every farmer to grow wheat, but was not prepared to give the Department power to decide which particular portion of the land should be tilled. Both these powers are drastic, and as great an injury could be inflicted on a farmer by compelling him to grow wheat as by compelling him to till a particular portion of his land. Therefore, the only effective means of doing justice to the farmer, while serving the best interests of the community by getting the land cultivated to a proper extent, is to provide the safeguard I suggest.

There is another section of this Order which protects the crops, chattels and equipment of the Department and of persons taking conacre from the Department—in the case of land compulsorily acquired under this Order—from seizure in respect of arrears of rates and land annuities. It is a very extraordinary thing to afford this privilege to the Department and to people who take land from the Department, and not to afford the same privilege to the farmer who takes land by conacre from the occupier. I think that the man who takes land by conacre from the occupier for the purpose of tillage is as patriotic and as good a citizen as the man who takes land by conacre from the Department. The man who takes land by conacre from the occupier usually pays a much higher price than the man who takes it from the Department. It is not right that his crops should be liable to seizure while the other man's crops are protected. That privilege cannot be justified, unless it is extended to all who take land by conacre.

While these particular sections of the Order are open to criticism and are unjustifiable, the Order itself is necessary and justifiable—provided, of course, that the Government, having taken this drastic power to compel the agricultural community to till a minimum percentage of the land, also takes the precaution to see that the people who comply with the Order and who safeguard the nation's food supply are adequately repaid for their enterprise and their labour. That provision has not been complied with, as far as the Government is concerned. It is unfortunate, as Deputy Belton has pointed out, that the man who works on the land is remunerated on a much lower scale than the man who works in industry, transport or commerce. Deputy Belton also referred to the low wages of the agricultural labourer, but he did not refer to the still lower wages of the agricultural landowner, or to the wages paid to the sons and daughters, or other dependants, of the agricultural landholders who, for the most part, have enabled tillage to be carried out in this country for all these years, and who have received nothing in exchange. Those are the people who have carried on agriculture here, and who, through the Government's policy, have been driven off the land. As a result of these people being driven off the land, our country is now presented with a serious danger both in regard to the cultivation of the soil during this spring and the saving of the crops in the coming harvest. There is no doubt that a serious difficulty, and even danger, will arise with regard to agriculture in this country during this spring and the coming harvest, in view of the fact that many of our best and most skilled agricultural labourers have emigrated; and I think that the Minister for Agriculture should seriously deal with this question of the harvesting of the crop, with a view to seeing that there will be an adequate supply of skilled labour. Nobody, for example, can tell whether there will be sufficient tractor fuel this year to enable the crop to be harvested expeditiously. It is possible, for instance, that there may not be sufficient kerosene for tractors to enable harvesting operations to be carried on by means of tractors, or at least that the cost of it will be 100 per cent. higher than we anticipate.

In that connection, I should like to remind the Minister that the position in regard to food supplies does not leave any room for complacency, and I hope the Minister is not adopting a complacent attitude in regard to our food supplies for the coming year. We know that last year our wheat supply was far short of our requirements, but that, as a result of imports from other countries, we were able to obtain sufficient supplies to tide our people over, probably, until the next harvest, but there is no guarantee or security that imports from other countries will be possible this year on the scale that was possible last year. For that reason it would be no harm for the Minister to check up on the quantity that has been sown already. I am sure that there are ample means at the Minister's disposal to enable him to ascertain, approximately, the amount of winter wheat which has been sown this year as compared with the amount which was sown last year. I think it is a matter of urgent importance to ascertain what has been done with regard to the amount of winter wheat that has been sown and, if the adequate amount has not been sown, to ensure that the acreage of spring wheat will be increased. I hope—and I think I have good reason to hope—that there are adequate supplies of spring wheat seed to enable the necessary acreage of spring wheat to be sown. It is for that reason that I urge the Minister not to be complacent. For example, we know what happened in regard to beet last year, when we had falling off of, I think, 70,000 acres, as a result of the fact that the price offered to the beet growers was not adequate, and I suggest that the same may happen in regard to the acreage under wheat.

Were they not offered a good price, and was there not the question of manure?

If the price had been adequate, the farmers would have taken the risk of growing a lesser crop as a result of the lack of artificial manures, and I think that the fact that the Minister has agreed to increase the price this year is an answer to Deputy Killilea's remark.

Does the Deputy admit that the price is quite satisfactory this year?

No, I do not say that, but I say that the fact that the Minister has increased the price is an answer to Deputy Killilea's contention. I have not suggested, however, that the Minister has increased the price sufficiently. I said that he had increased the price, but not sufficiently, and the fact that the price of 50/- a barrel was paid last year, and yet did not produce a sufficient supply of wheat, ought to be a warning to the Minister that the price is inadequate for the present year, particularly when we take into account the extent to which the costs of producing wheat have increased this year as compared with last year. Surely, the Minister will not contend that the cost of growing wheat this year is the same as last year? I am sure that he will not deny that the cost of labour has been increased in the case of farmers who employ labourers, and surely he will not deny that the cost of living has been increased very substantially in the case of farmers who do not employ labourers, but who have to provide for the needs of themselves and their families. There was an increase this year of 10/- a barrel for wheat, but what might have been entirely justifiable last year is a different matter now. Of course, I know that the Minister will reply that if we try to force up the price of wheat or other essential foodstuffs it will mean the forcing up of the price of other things—wages and so on—and that we will be led into the vicious spiral of inflated wages, with prices going higher and higher, but I do not think that that will enable the Minister to get away with the inadequate prices that he has given for tillage products this year.

There has been no increase this year in the price of any grain crops produced in this country, notwithstanding the increase in the costs of production. Surely, the Minister must realise that the farmer who grows oats in this country is entitled to the price of 35/- or 35/11 which was paid for the imported oats, and I suggest that if a sufficient price was paid for the homegrown product, it would not be necessary to import such commodities as wheat or oats, and that it would not be necessary for men to risk their lives in importing wheat or oats from other countries. In that connection the Minister should give some attention to the steps that are being taken, for example, in Great Britain, to enable the agricultural producer to produce at a profit.

At lower prices than ours?

In a few cases, prices are slightly lower than ours, but in the majority of cases, they are higher. In addition, the step has been taken in Great Britain of providing adequate and ample subsidies per acre for land under tillage. In the case of the potato crop, although potato prices are much higher in Great Britain than here, there is a subsidy of £10 per acre. That is one way in which the Minister could enable the farmer to till with profit, without increasing the cost to the consumer.

Another very serious feature of our tillage policy is the fact that the hand-feeding of live stock has been discouraged during the past couple of years, due to the fact that store cattle pay much better than stall-fed cattle. All Deputies realise the desirability of maintaining the fertility of the soil and providing adequately for its manuring and it is essential that measures be adopted to promote the hand-feeding of live stock and thus enable land to be cultivated profitably and effectively and with good results to the community. For that reason, it would not be unjustifiable to pay a substantial subsidy for the stall-feeding of cattle in order in some way to restore the balance which has been upset. There is no doubt whatever that there is a famine in grass at present. Notwithstanding the fact that it is sound national policy at the moment to promote tillage, grass is paying more at present than land under cultivation and land set for grazing is commanding prices almost equal to those commanded by land set for tillage, which shows that our policy of promoting tillage which is envisaged in this Order is being upset by the scale of prices prevailing for store cattle as against stall-fed cattle. Surely it should be the duty of the Government to rectify that balance in favour of tillage.

I should like the Minister to inform us, if he proposes to take part in this debate, to what extent the powers taken by the Department's inspectors to compel farmers to sow wheat have been utilised and how many acres under wheat have been required by the Department's inspectors. That would be very useful information for the House, inasmuch as it would show the extent to which these drastic powers are being used. The Minister might also inform us as to how many holdings have been taken over by the Department's inspectors and to what extent the powers to compel farmers to till certain portions of their land have been used.

While certain sections of the Order are unjustifiable, open to severe criticism, and give scope for the inflicting of severe injustice on the occupier, I am not prepared to advocate that the Order should be annulled. Farmers fully recognise their obligations to the community. The farmer is a good citizen, and, as a good citizen, realises that he has an obligation, as the owner of the soil, to provide for the feeding of the population of the country. All he asks is that he be given fair play, that he will be at least as well treated as the industrial producer has been treated, and will be given a price for his produce which will enable him to pay his workers as good a wage as is being paid in industry and allow him a margin of profit.

There is a tendency on the part of some people to regard the difficulties of the situation as insurmountable. I do not take that view. I am rather an optimist, and I believe that if we handle the problem of providing food for our people efficiently, it can be done. When we consider that there are 12,000,000 acres of fairly arable land—I do not say it is all arable because I do not believe it is—on which we have to support 3,000,000 people, it will be realised that that represents a farm of 24 acres for every family of six persons. If six people are not able to maintain themselves during an emergency period on 24 acres, there must be something radically wrong somewhere. I make that comparison just to show that the problem is not insurmountable, but it demands efficient handling, and efficient handling is what the problem has not got up to the present.

Of the various complex economic problems confronting this country during the emergency, the most vital of all is the securing of sufficient food for man and beast, and of getting the maximum production from the land. When one examines the results achieved by other countries in the matter of agricultural production, even for many years before the war, and compares them with the stagnation in agricultural production for many years in this country, one must come to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole organisation of our agricultural economy. Obviously, at a time like this, when our people have to rely absolutely on their own resources, that problem should have commanded the immediate attention of the Government and of those charged with the responsibility of ensuring the provision of our essential requirements.

When one remembers that economists have computed that an acre of land, properly used and cultivated, will maintain an individual, then in this country, where we have a population of less than 3,000,000 and where we have arable land aggregating 12,000,000 acres—bearing in mind that some of that land ranks amongst the finest in the world—we should not, assuming that our work is properly organised and properly done, have any problem at all in the matter of food production. It does seem an extraordinary state of affairs that we have had a problem of the magnitude of that which has existed for the last two or three years. Our aim, apart altogether from the emergency, to secure the prosperity and progress of the country, should be a policy which would ensure maximum production from the land. I do not think that the mere issuing of a compulsory Order by the Government, as an effort to secure that end, relieves the Government of their responsibility in the matter. It appears that the Government and the Minister felt that their responsibility ended by merely making a compulsory Order compelling our people to till a certain percentage of land, amounting in this present year to 25 per cent., and by going down the country on a campaign of speech-making and appealing to the people to fulfil the conditions set out in that Order, and in a patriotic way appealing to their sense of duty to produce our requirements. I do not think that that was sufficient at any time. I have criticised it in the past, but no further effort has been made by the Government to bring to bear on this problem the organisation which, in my opinion, is necessary to secure maximum production.

So far as tillage operations and the fulfilling by individuals of the amount required under the Order are concerned, of course it is obvious that in those counties where mixed farming was not the order of the day the problem was most acute, because in those counties the people lacked the necessary equipment. Very often in the grass counties you found you had the bigger units, and because of the bigger units the amount of land that came under the Order was considerable. In a great many cases individuals in these counties were faced with an almost insuperable problem. No matter how anxious they were to comply with the Order, they found the equipment was not there and that it was impossible to hire it. Prosecuting such a man under the Order, bringing him to a court of justice, finding him guilty and imprisoning him for the offence, I think is unfair and unreasonable. Some effort should have been made by the Government and the responsible Minister, in those districts where equipment was lacking and the individuals were unable to procure the essential equipment, to provide that equipment. In order to ensure that the work was properly and efficiently done, it was necessary to build up an organisation of some sort on the lines of a local committee of agriculture, giving them statutory power to provide a certain amount of equipment in each county, so that that equipment could be operated in districts where equipment was lacking.

That is the procedure that is being adopted in other countries, and notably by our neighbours across the Channel. I know that the Minister has taken exception in the past to any suggestion in this House that we should follow on the lines that they have pursued in other matters. But it does seem to me, in that regard, a rather strange anomaly that very often the Government, in legislation in this House, are inclined to follow slavishly enactments which have been passed in another Parliament. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that, through intensive organisation and the opportunity that is being given through that organisation to attend to details in the way of providing credit facilities and the use of equipment, tremendous attention is being given in Great Britain to the breaking up of common lands and park lands, and, in fact, land that was rapidly deteriorating and going back into forest or semi-forest conditions, with a view to producing food for the nation. Nothing has been done in this country with regard to that.

In the past, I have taken the opportunity of suggesting to the Minister that in those districts where they find it almost impossible to provide the necessary quota of tillage because of lack of equipment, there was a responsibility on him to make some effort to provide equipment so that an inspector going on to any farm in a grass county would be in a position to say, if the farmer pleaded the excuse that he had not the equipment or could not hire it: "I will send you a tractor and plough on Monday morning and leave it with you until your quota of ploughing is completed." Outside of that consideration altogether, the Minister should realise that in those districts where equipment is lacking and where the work is rushed it is invariably inadequately done. The necessary cultivation is not secured. The necessary depth of cultivation, the necessary compact seed bed that is so essential to good production, the necessary rolling and after-cultivation when the crop is in a rather delicate state of growth, are lacking, with the result that in a great many districts partial failure has occurred and occurred on the richest land where we had tremendous reserves of fertility and where we should, in an emergency like this, be in a position to draw considerably on that store of fertility. That fertility, to a great extent, has not been used effectively and properly, I contend, through lack of proper organisation, through not providing the proper equipment, and through lack of proper attention and proper technical advice in counties where practical experience is lacking.

I think every farmer Deputy must agree that the best results so far as cereal production is concerned are got on partially worn land, simply because of the vast amount of experience and practical knowledge in those districts that is so essential to effective production. I think that there again the Minister and his Department have failed to provide some sort of practical advice in the critical period, say, in the months of April and May, when we invariably experience in this country a period of drought and east winds and frosty nights which severely test a crop that is in a delicate stage of growth. The experienced man can hold that crop on the land by the necessary amount of rolling and top soil cultivation so as to ensure that the roots will get sufficient moisture and, at the same time, cut off at the top soil that tremendous amount of evaporation that occurs in a dry period of that sort with east winds and good deal of night frosts. I suggested before that it would be very easy to arrange at a very reasonable cost that young fellows from the tillage districts, with ample knowledge of the methods of handling a crop at that stage, would go round on bicycles in the non-tillage areas to advise people how to handle crops in that delicate stage of growth.

To my mind, this whole question of production has an inevitable effect on the fertility of the land of this country. The future prosperity of this country is bound up with the preservation, conservation and building up of the fertility that exists in the land. The Taoiseach, quite recently, at a food production meeting down the country, said that he had no doubt, even if the present emergency were to continue for a number of years, that we would have ample reserves in the fertility of the soil to secure the necessary food for our people. I have no doubt that we could continue to produce the necessary food for our very small population, but I suggest that that is not sufficient. Our whole economy is built on the foundation of a surplus production of agricultural goods. That surplus is the only medium of exchange we have. We can exchange for that surplus production essential requirements and raw material for industry. If that surplus production should disappear, then the whole economic structure of this country must, inevitably, undergo a change.

I do not think anyone can view with complacency the position into which we are slowly but surely drifting. Not so many years ago, we had a considerable export trade in many agricultural commodities, not only live stock but live-stock products. To-day, our only export of agricultural goods is cattle. The pig industry, so far as exports are concerned, has disappeared; we are now unable to supply our own requirements. Butter is in the same position. Exports of eggs and poultry have almost disappeared. We have not exported any mutton for over 12 months. We find this country at the present time with an export trade in cattle only.

I think that is a most alarming position and I dread the position in which we may find ourselves in a post-war period if we have to try to win back the market in which we have sold in the past, when we have failed to maintain our quota trade with that market and with those people in the most critical period of their history. If they have to look to other countries to supply the quota of goods that we failed to give them, it is very hard to expect that they will make room for our produce in a post-war period. I have suggested in the past that we should strain every muscle to ensure that we would maintain our quota of export trade with that country so that we would be in a position to say to them after the war that, no matter how they might judge our attitude in other respects, they were very glad to get that quota of food from us during the war and that we were entitled to at least that quota of trade in a post-war period.

To revert to the question of fertility. I do not think the Taoiseach was right in saying that there was no danger to the fertility of the soil. I think that in many intensive tillage districts and in districts which are not intensive tillage districts, the fertility of the land is considerably reduced and is continuing to diminish. In many districts, there is old turf with a very low nutritive value, mostly weeds and vegetable matter of a poor type, bent grass and agrostis, that have a very low animal feeding value. Because of that, its power to build up fertility is almost negligible. Nothing has been done in regard to examining that problem.

I asked a question of the Minister to-day as to the basis on which the lime subsidy is allocated to the various counties. I was told the lime subsidy was based on the demand for lime in the various districts. It appears to me an extraordinary fact that in some counties the amount of the lime subsidy available is only about one-quarter per ton of the amount of subsidy that is available in other counties. It appears to me that, long ago, we should have made a proper survey of the soil condition of this country. There are huge tracts of land in a very sour condition and, because of this sour condition, it does not give its maximum production and cannot be used properly and efficiently. I suggest that in the matter of providing lime to correct that acidity the first and most essential thing is to make a survey of the soil, so that we may ensure that for those lands which have become highly acid lime would be provided immediately to correct that condition and restore the fertility of the soil.

Deputy Belton stated that the volume of our production can be determined only by the amount of manure that is produced in the country. Manure is the great medium of inducing fertility and providing humus matter in the soil, but it is a most expensive way of doing it. The Minister is probably aware of the amount of experimental work and pioneer work that has been done at Aberystwyth by Sir George Stapleton in recent years in the cultivation of grass and the use of grass as a medium for inducing fertility. It seems extraordinary that both Stapleton and Davies have made a grass survey in Great Britain and have come to the conclusion that of the total acreage of arable land in Great Britain only about 250,000 acres of grass land is really first class, that all the rest of the grass land needs to be broken up and rejuvenated. Their system of rejuvenation is simply turning over the old grass, which has a very low value as far as animal food is concerned, testing the soil for acidity and, where it is present, correcting it, and making up any deficiencies there may be of potash and phosphates. Then, if a cereal is not put in as a nurse crop, grasses should be sown. Those grasses are put in, say, in the month of April, before the rainy season ends, and a compact seed bed is secured by ample rolling. By the month of June that land is able to carry a very much increased amount of stock and there is a tremendous medium for the provision of fertility. That land will take the droppings of the animals it is carrying; the animals will compact the soil and that compact soil will promote rapid vegetation and the production of foliage and leaf matter and, in that way, rapidly build up fertility. That sod can, in fact, be ploughed down and provide any amount of organic matter for the production of cereals.

It required an emergency to bring about in Great Britain a situation where farmers began to realise the advantages of this new technique in agricultural production. It has brought about revolutionary methods in British agriculture. This pioneer work has been going on for a number of years. They have decided in Britain that it is necessary to breed their own grasses, as many of the imported grass seeds were not suitable for their conditions. Already they have bred a variety of grasses and clovers suitable for their soil and climate, some very suitable for hay and others suitable for grass-feeding their animals. In New Zealand ten years ago they developed this system. I have always connected Stapleton's visit to New Zealand ten years ago with the expansion of the dairying industry in that country. They adopted the advice given to them by Stapleton, and they went in for the cultivation of grasses.

I say that that development has revolutionised agriculture in the countries that have adopted it. I do not want to convey any wrong impression with reference to this new technique in grass cultivation. I merely point out that you cannot continue to produce cereals without considering the grass factor, the right type of grass and the right mixture of legumes that will take the nitrogen from the soil and help to feed the grasses that are so essential to agricultural production, whether they be Timothy, Cocksfoot, or the basic grass, rye-grass. I think it is time that something was done in this connection. We have a technical staff, sufficient facilities and all the advantages of good land, with a moist climate, proper weather conditions, and everything else necessary to operate a system of that sort with advantage. This method of farming will secure, not only that we can carry a much greater quantity of stock on the land, but that we can produce more and better cereal crops.

I raised this matter last year on a somewhat similar motion and I am glad to observe that the Minister has made a provision that next year a first-crop meadow will be recognised as part of the land that is tilled under the Compulsory Tillage Order. It is unfortunate that that provision was not introduced at the very start because, in my opinion, that is the type of thing that will have a very important bearing on the future prosperity of agriculture here. We must recognise that in the post-war period competition is going to be far keener, and those countries that had to extend their production enormously, countries that were manufacturing countries and that have, in fact, mechanised their systems, will be among our chief competitors. We shall have to compete against highly efficient methods of production, methods largely brought about by mechanisation, resulting in reduced costs of production.

If we do not wake up to the situation, we will simply fade out. We are drifting and we are quite complacent about the situation. The few people who look to the future must view with alarm the position into which we have drifted. There is a complete disappearance, from a valuable market that we have supplied for many years, of a considerable volume of our agricultural production. Of course, in this matter of food production our people are very seriously handicapped by the fact that they are limited in regard to supplies of artificial manures. The amount of nitrogen and phosphates at the disposal of the producer is almost negligible, and people are handicapped by reason of that fact, particularly in the districts where there is no reserve of fertility. The Minister endeavoured to suggest that Deputy Cogan was satisfied with this year's beet price. I do not know that that was Deputy Cogan's attitude.

I made it clear that I was not satisfied.

The Deputy's argument proved that the farmers are satisfied.

It would appear from the acreage contracted that the farmers are satisfied.

That is right.

But there is probably another explanation.

Very probably there is.

And a very satisfactory explanation. I believe the price fixed this year is not as good as the price fixed two years ago, taking all the relevant factors into account.

I hope Deputy Corry will support that.

I have no doubt he will support it. There is one thing you must have for a satisfactory beet crop, and that is early establishment, and it is hard to have an early establishment and a good stand if you have not a certain amount of nitrogenous manure. How far the Government have tried to secure supplies of sulphate of ammonia by way of a barter agreement, I do not know. They have been advised here and in the Seanad that some effort should be made in that direction. We have been told that the Government have tried to secure a quota of artificial manures. It appears to be a short-sighted policy on the part of Great Britain definitely to turn down our quota of sulphate of ammonia, of which they appear to have a surplus. In my opinion the greatest handicap to the production of beet here is the fact that we have such a small amount of nitrogenous manure. It may be argued by the Minister that a very considerable acreage of beet has already been contracted for. I do not think that is the position. We have an increased amount of land under cultivation for the past two or three years, and a good deal of that land has now grown three cereal crops and is due to be put under a root crop. Farmers decided for beet again as it is the only crop that will secure them 4 cwt. of artificial manure. We must have roots to clean the land, and coupled with that is the bait of a half-cwt. of sugar. I agree that the idea came from Deputy Corry. It is a poor compliment to Irish farmers if the Government decide, that by merely handing out a carrot like that, the farmers will fall for producing beet at an uneconomic price.

Did you support it?

I did not.

Did you support the demand for a half-cwt. of sugar?

I did not. The demand for sugar came from Mallow and Tuam areas only. I believe the company for the first time recommended an economic price for beet. I have no information whatever about it. That was kept strictly secret at the time. Nobody but the Government know what the recommendations of the company were. I am satisfied from discussions that took place between representatives of the beet growing association and the sugar company that more than £4 a ton was recommended by the company. However, the Government, regardless whether or not it was profitable for farmers to produce beet at £4 a ton, have secured the necessary acreage to meet the sugar requirements of the country for the coming year. The price this year, taking all relative factors into consideration, increased cost of production, of labour, of machinery, of horse shoes, and the serious handicap of a shortage of essential artificial manures, is definitely worse than it was two years ago. We ought to have a common policy on this question on all sides in a country where agriculture is the primary industry, so that agriculturists will be rehabilitated and made financially strong for the bad years that must inevitably come in the post-war period.

I hope not.

We all hope not, but it will upset the history of post-war effects if things are going to change after this war. I would be very glad if we could guard against such dangers, but I am very much afraid there will be a period of depression and difficulties after this war.

There is no use in looking for it.

There is no use in sticking our heads in the sand. We ought to provide against that period. We may not be able to avoid it, but we could strengthen the position of our people by adopting every possible safeguard. One of the things that might be done is to have our people made sufficiently strong financially to be in a position to meet any difficulties that may arise after the war. I have always supported the provision of remunerative prices for farmers and for their workmen. No sections of the community get a poorer return for their efforts. In certain grades of society in this city no sections are looked upon with more contempt. I do not think Deputy Belton made any contribution in this debate towards securing a higher price for wheat. He went out of his way to publicise the return he got from wheat last year.

Why not?

I do not think the Deputy made the situation more helpful by going out of his way to publish the financial results of his acreage.

But they were true.

I am not questioning that, but why make that public?

If Deputy Belton could do it, anybody can do it.

No. I do not agree with the Minister there.

I hope the Minister did it.

I kept a good record.

I would remind the Deputy that there is only one hour left for this motion, and that the Minister may wish to intervene before Deputy Belton is called upon to wind up the debate.

I would like to speak, also.

We have made suggestions on all sides with regard to the price of barley. I think it is unfortunate that Messrs. Guinness are tied to a fixed price for the barley they want, when one considers that they intend to pay 70/- a barrel for barley for the production of stout on the other side of the Channel, while a considerable quantity of the product of the barley they get here is shipped to Great Britain. There is no reason why farmers here should be asked to produce barley at the low price of 35/- a barrel. I do not see why the Minister does not fix a quota for this firm, and leave them free to select the best samples of barley suitable for malting and to pay a much higher price for it. I believe the company would be quite satisfied to avail of the opportunity if they were given permission to pay a higher price.

The Minister may suggest that any differentiation in price as between one individual and another might give rise to difficulties and create problems that he wants to avoid. The Minister, however, should remember that the real barley land, the sharp, light land that produces an ideal sample of barley, is not suitable for wheat production. The results, therefore, will not be satisfactory. In fact, you will get poor results. The people in the barley-growing counties who have been providing that firm with barley for years should not now be denied the opportunity of continuing to grow it at a satisfactory price if that firm wants the barley and are prepared to pay for it.

There are some other points that I would like to touch on, but since the time for this debate is limited, and since there are other members of the House who wish to take part in it, I do not propose to say anything further. In conclusion, on the fundamental matter of examining the fertility of the soil and of what can be done to build it up, as well as what has already been done in that regard by pioneers, I want to put it strongly to the Minister that all that ought not to be lost sight of by him or his Department. Some experimental work in that direction ought to be undertaken now. Indeed, we should have been engaged on it before now. I want the Minister to bear in mind that when we talk about prosperity, so far as agriculture is concerned, the basis of it is the preservation and building up of the fertility of the soil. If these who are charged with the responsibility of government succeed in that direction, then I believe they will be doing a good day's work for Irish agriculture.

Deputy Belton, in moving the motion, announced that he does not propose to put it to a division. I take that as a very sincere compliment. He assumed, I take it, that I will answer his arguments as satisfactorily as I have done in the last two years, when he was induced to withdraw motions that he had down. His first argument, which he made here on former occasions, was that every farmer should be compelled to put a certain percentage of his arable land under wheat. As the Deputy himself said, we have dealt with that point very fully in the last couple of years. I have already given my views on it. It would be an extremely difficult Order to carry out. As I said here before, if we were to attempt to carry it out I imagine that about one-third of our farmers would appeal against it and say that, although they had arable land, it was not wheat-growing land. We would need to have some tribunal for the hearing of the appeals. Deputy Belton complained about all the inspectors that are going around. I imagine that he would hardly see the door with inspectors if we were to try to put an Order of that kind into operation.

Could the Minister not give them a discretion under the Order to say how much wheat one was to grow?

I think the Deputy will have to admit this, that if you were to take the counties along the western seaboard, from Donegal to West Cork, the big majority of farmers there would probably appeal on the ground that their land was not suitable for wheat growing. They would say that they did not object to tillage since their land was suitable for the growing of oats and potatoes. Therefore, they could come within the tillage Order. I think the best way to get wheat grown is by inducement, which is the system that has been adopted; by appealing to farmers to grow it because it is the most important item of food for the nation, and at the same time paying a price that will induce farmers to grow a good acreage.

Under the tillage Order of this year we have made two new provisions in that direction. The first is, that an inspector can object to the particular land that a farmer is tilling under the Order. He can say that it is not arable land or suitable land, and that the farmer will have to till more suitable land in order to comply with the Order. The second provision is that he can go to an individual and say: "You must grow wheat." If the individual is not agreeable to do that, the inspector can say to him: "You will grow it in that particular field." Anyone with experience in administration will agree that provisions of this kind have to be very drastic since people have a way of finding loopholes if exceptions are put in. The best thing to do, therefore, is to make the provisions drastic, and in the administration of them try to be reasonable. I know that in a number of cases inspectors have gone to farmers—in all cases big farmers—who have very good land and who were not growing wheat. They were obeying the tillage Order, but they were not growing wheat because they had the idea that to do so would be bad for their land. They were men who had more regard for the fertility of their land than they had for the feeding of the population. From the reports that I have seen in these cases, where an inspector went to one of these men and showed him his powers and told him that he would have to grow wheat, he got that done by agreement. It was not necessary for the inspector to serve an Order.

If the Minister had embodied that provision in his earliest Orders he would have got the wheat grown during the last three years.

I should say that that provision is not being applied generally. It only applies in the case of large landowners.

That is what makes it vicious.

It is not vicious because it is only being applied against those who were not growing wheat up to this. The Deputy need not have any fear that an inspector will go in on the land of a farmer who has been growing wheat for some years, even since the beginning of the emergency, and compel him to grow wheat in a particular area of his holding rather than in the area in which he had been growing it. I suppose that legally an inspector could compel a man to do that, but, administratively, it is entirely for application in the case of those who were not growing wheat at all.

I quite appreciate that an inspector should not have that power.

We have some extraordinary powers.

Is it not true that an inspector has the power to compel a man to grow his entire tillage quota in wheat?

That is tough.

But he is not going to do that.

He has the power, and the Minister does not know what he will do.

In all these cases, where we take exceptional powers, an inspector has not the discretion to do what he likes. He must refer to somebody above him and get authority before he takes any drastic steps.

Where a dispute arises between an inspector and an individual, what happens?

The inspector has to have the last word in that case.

Would that apply in the case of a junior inspector?

I do not know if the Deputy is clear as to the type of inspectors we have. About half of them are from the Land Commission, men of great experience as administrators and so on. The other half were recruited as helpers. It is the inspector who would take a decision in the case the Deputy puts, but even he, on his own, would not take a decision of a drastic nature without referring it to some one higher up.

Deputy Belton and Deputy Cogan raised a point about tillage crops being immune from seizure for rent and rates. That, of course, deals with legislation that was passed here in 1925, long before this Government came in. I think that although at the time it looked to be a very drastic provision it would be very hard to carry out this Order without some measure of that kind. You would entirely vitiate that whole scheme of legislation if you were to allow the ordinary conacre tenant, taking land from a farmer, to have his crops immune from seizure because there would, in certain cases, be complicity between him and the owner of the land. Undoubtedly, in that way he could escape if he wanted to. Luckily in this country we have a very small proportion of dishonest men, but there are some. The dishonest man could escape paying rent and rates by arranging with his neighbour to let his land in conacre, and then the whole thing would be immune from any seizure.

But you yourself went in on the land.

As an inducement to the man to take it from us. The next question which Deputy Belton asked was this: he said it is provided in the Order that the Minister can take over buildings as well as land, and he wanted to know if that would enable the Minister to take over a dwelling. I am not very clear on the legal position there, but I can assure the Deputy that we have no intention of ever taking over a dwelling.

But does it not read that way?

I do not think it does. It is very doubtful if we could do it. I think it would be interpreted as a farm building. I do not think it would be interpreted as a dwelling.

If that is the Minister's intention, I suppose there is no danger.

The next point we come to is a very big one, and that is the agricultural wage. Deputy Belton spoke quite a lot on that point.

Because of the difficulty in getting agricultural workers even at a wage higher than the fixed wage.

First of all, Deputy Belton did not make it clear that this is a minimum wage fixed by the Agricultural Wage Board. It is a minimum wage.

Are the prices based on that wage?

The Deputy should allow the Minister to make his own speech.

I will deal with that point later. As far as any stand-still wages Orders are concerned, they do not relate to agricultural wages, so the farmer will not be committing any offence if he pays his agricultural workers double the minimum.

We know all about that.

He is wishing he could.

Now, I wonder could he? I do not think it is at all an advisable thing for farmers to raise this matter, because I do not know that the agricultural workers have got all they could from the farmers. The farmer is getting 90 per cent. more for his goods than before the war started.

Was he getting enough before the war?

In the greater part of the country—I am not referring to County Dublin—he was paying a very low wage before the war—27/6 a week. If he could pay 27/6 before the war, he could pay more than the minimum wage now.

Is it not ridiculous to say he is getting 90 per cent. more?

It is not.

Net profit?

No. The total amount he gets is 90 per cent. higher.

What about the prices he got during the last war?

What about listening to the Minister?

The total amount which the farmer got for his cattle, sheep, pigs and everything else was 90 per cent. higher. Out of that gross amount he will have to pay his workers only 33? per cent. more in wages than he paid in 1939. I do not think farmers should raise this question about the labourer's right to get more, because I think the labourer, if he studies the figures, will see that the farmer could afford to pay him more.

On the basis of what wage did you fix the prices?

The other costs of the farmer, apart from wages, have not gone up very much. Rent and rates between them have gone up only 10 per cent. A number of small items was mentioned by some Deputies, like the cost of putting a set of shoes on a horse. Those items may have gone up 200 per cent., but they are very small items.

They have gone up more than that.

I would not say more.

What is the cost of a set of shoes?

I know that in my own particular place it has gone up from 10/- to 24/-.

You never paid 10/- before the war.

Well, you were being robbed.

Those are small items. A man will till, say, 20 or 25 acres, and might get his horses shod three or four times a year.

He might have to get them shod twice a month.

It depends on what he is doing.

It depends on the state of the horses' hooves.

At the outside, there are only a few thousand smiths in this country, and, if every farmer is getting his horse shod twice a month, and is paying 200 per cent. more than before the war, then the blacksmiths must be paying income-tax because they must be earning £500,000 between them.

They have to buy iron.

The gross income of the farmer has gone up about 90 per cent. as compared with pre-war, so that, as far as agricultural wages are concerned, he could afford to pay a little more, if he had to, rather than come here sympathising with the agricultural labourer.

On what wage did you fix your prices for agricultural produce?

The Deputy is breaking out again. Farmers have the reputation of being calm and philosophical. Their advocates should try to be likewise.

I will have to give Deputy Belton time to reply.

The Minister's speech is far more important than mine.

The Deputy might listen to it.

Deputy Belton raised the point that we paid a whole lot for wheat which came into the country, and if we gave the same price to the farmers here we would get plenty of wheat.

I do not care what we pay for imported wheat, and I never did. I did not care in 1933 and 1934 and 1935, when we were getting Canadian wheat in here at 13/- a barrel; that did not influence what we paid to the Irish farmer, because we paid the Irish farmer what we thought was a decent price for him. That is what we should do now, too. We should pay him what we think is a fair price, and, if the Irish farmer does not do his duty and grow wheat at a fair price, then we must bring in wheat from Canada. The point raised was a ridiculous one, because we do not know what the Canadians might charge for wheat or what reason they might have for charging £10 a barrel. We cannot fix our price in relation to their price. We must fix what we consider a fair price, and after the war when the Canadians are again down to 13/- or 15/- a barrel we will continue to fix a fair price for wheat here and not bother about what the Canadians are charging. I think Deputy Belton would have been of that opinion eight or nine years ago—that we should not mind what the foreign price was.

I agree.

A fair price is what we want.

Why pay more to the foreigner than you can get it for at home?

Why not grow it at home and not mind about the foreigner? The price of wheat was 30/- before the war. We were paying the Irish farmer 30/- then. We are paying him 50/- now. That is 66 per cent. increase. He is paying an increase of only 33? per cent. in wages. His rent and rates have gone up 10 per cent., and the increase on small items like horseshoes would not come to 1 per cent. of the whole lot. As far as the growing of wheat is concerned, the Irish farmer is infinitely better off now than before the war.

That is arguable.

Does he wear any boots or clothes?

I hope so.

I hope so, too. Have they not gone up in price?

Of course. They have gone up very much, but the fellow making the boots and clothes has to pay more for his bread, too. Lest Deputies here may think that we were unjust, let us refer for a moment to the price which the English farmer is getting. I am sure that Deputy Hughes reads the English farming papers—the Farmer's Weekly and others. I have never seen in any of those papers any complaint expressed as to the price of wheat in England. The English farmers are paying double the wages to their labourers that we pay to our farm labourers and they also give them a half-day in the week.

We give them a half-day a week, too.

Yes, in County Dublin, but we do not get two and a half tons to the acre down the country.

You should try to do it.

I agree that if Deputy Belton does it, we must all try to do it. What does the English farmer get for his wheat? He is paying double the wages and his rent and rates are about the same as those which the Irish farmer has to pay.

He has derating.

I know that, but the rents and rates combined would be about 30/- on the average per statute acre in England, much the same as here. He gets £3 of a subsidy for every acre of wheat, and he gets 14/6 per cwt. for what he sells. Here we get 20/- per cwt.

What about the price of potatoes he grows?

I am talking about wheat now.

If the Deputy expects to get a reply, he must allow the Minister to proceed without interruption.

Deputy Belton says that the price of wheat is not sufficient, and I want to deal with the price of wheat. The English farmer, as I have said, is getting £3 per acre and 14/6 per cwt. for what he sells. Our farmers get 20/- per cwt. for what they sell. If they get a crop which averages 12 cwt. to the acre, they get as much as the English farmers for their wheat, but if the crop averages more than 12 cwt. to the acre they are getting more than the English farmer. Deputy Belton on his own figures must be getting £40 an acre more than the English farmer.

Is that worked out on average production?

Let us deal with the facts.

Our yields are at least as good as those of the English farmer.

Taking the subsidy into account, their price is as good as ours on average production.

If the production here is higher than 12 cwt. to the acre, we are doing much better.

Taking the average returns in Britain and the subsidy there into account, I think the farmers there are doing equally as well as ours.

Take the people who grow wheat for sale. I think the Deputy will agree that they are getting at least 18 cwt. to the acre.

I do not think so.

I think they are, and that is putting it very low. On that view I say the Irish farmer is getting about 30/- an acre more than the English farmer for his wheat. I should like to mention this fact too. I am sure that Deputy Belton knows that if you go out into County Dublin, Carlow, Wicklow, or even into County Wexford to look for land on which to grow wheat, you will get farmers to bid up to £10, £12, or £20 an acre against you.

I will get you 100 acres of land for £5 an acre in Wicklow.

It would not be good wheat-growing land.

It is as good as there is there.

The farmer, after all, has a good head and he is not going to pay that price for land unless he makes money on it. If the farmer can pay £10, £12 or £14 an acre for land for wheat-growing away from his own home and make it pay, it must be a paying proposition on his own land. I think that taking all these facts into consideration, Deputies must agree that the price of wheat is a fair price and that nobody can find fault with it. Deputy Cogan and Deputy Belton suggest that because there was not enough wheat grown that is proof that the price was unsatisfactory. I do not think we could argue that is the absolute truth, as there are other considerations. If you pursue that argument and say that is the only consideration, then we have to admit that the farmers are very satisfied this year with the price of beet. There are, however, other considerations to be taken into account there also. I think myself that the fact that farmers this year are getting an allowance of artificial manures for beet-growing has much more to do with the increased area under beet than the price of it. I thought last year that the price of beet was attractive. I know that when the price was announced last year I heard no complaints about it, although I did hear complaints about this year's price. I did not hear any complaints last year, yet we did not get a large beet acreage because the farmers could not grow beet without artificial manures.

As well as that, the time has come when they must put down roots.

Our total root crop acreage is not increasing at all.

New land is coming into cultivation.

There are other considerations besides price that we must remember. That brings me to the big point which Deputy Belton mentioned. I think he said, for instance, that the Taoiseach stated earlier in the campaign that if there is a shortage of food, animals must be sacrificed. He went on then to say that we had now changed our tactics and that we were telling people we must get food for animals. I do not see anything inconsistent in that. The very first meeting I addressed in the food campaign about three years ago was in County Dublin, and Deputy Belton was there to welcome me. If Deputy Belton would go back to that time and get a copy of the newspapers—I do not ask him to do it because perhaps it would entail too much trouble—he would find that I made exactly the same speech—not perhaps using the same words, but expressing the same ideas—as I have been making this year.

You were under good influences that day.

Maybe so. That is, that we required 1,000,000 tons of grain— 500,000 tons of wheat and 500,000 tons of feeding stuff for animals, and that we wanted to get it as soon as possible. I may have said publicly—and I think everybody will agree I was right—that our big push should be for wheat to feed the people, and that if there was to be a shortage, let it be a shortage of animal feeding, in other words, that the animals might have to be sacrificed. I think anybody in the shoes of members of the Government of that time would have come to the same conclusion. First of all, it was not likely that we would get 1,000,000 tons of grain in the first year. I think everybody will agree that you were not going to get men in County Meath, for instance, where there was no great tradition of tillage, to go straight out for a 25 per cent. tillage. We could not get 1,000,000 tons in the first year, and we came to the conclusion that human food should come first and that if there was a shortage of food, the number of animals must be cut down. I think Deputies will remember that in our public statements of that time we said that pigs and poultry were the big competitors with human beings for grain. The numbers of pigs and poultry have been reduced. Poultry, however, have gone down by only 10 per cent., while pigs have gone down by 50 per cent. In speeches recently made in going round the country, I said that not only should we grow all the wheat we required for human consumption, but that we should also grow a large quantity of animal feeding stuffs in order to get the amount of meat and animal products that we require. Were we sure of a sufficient supply for human needs, we could fulfil all these other wants.

Deputy Belton then made the point that we have reached the optimum in tillage, that we could not grow very much more, that it would not be advisable or economical—I think these were the words he used—to till any more. That is not consistent with another part of Deputy Belton's speech. Deputy Belton gave us the impression in another part of his speech that if we paid enough for grain crops we would have plenty of wheat for human beings and plenty of wheat, barley and oats for all the poultry and pigs in the country. Why should we get more produced at any price, if what Deputy Belton says is true, that the manure position will prevent us from growing more? After all, if the land is not fit to grow any more oats, wheat or barley there is no price that we can offer that will induce the farmer to grow more of these crops on his land.

An improved price for cattle would give us more cattle and that would give us more manure.

That was another point made by the Deputy—that we could get a better form of farmyard manure by more stall feeding. And that we could arrange to get a better market for stall-fed cattle on the British market. I think what Deputy Belton said was that, if we did not get a better price for fat stock, we would lose our only hope. We have done our best, but that is something outside our control. After all, if we cannot succeed in getting anything done that is outside our control, naturally we must try to get something done apart from that. We are not going to throw in the sponge and say that if they do not give us more for fat cattle we must starve. We must do our best to find a substitute.

We have tried to get the British Government to see that, from our point of view and, perhaps, even from their own point of view, they ought to give us a bit more for stall-fed cattle, but they do not agree.

But then you have to produce from unmanured land and need a better price. That is the crux.

I think Deputy Belton made a very serious mistake when he talked about Mr. Michael Redmond. I did not want to interrupt the speech of the Deputy at the time.

That is a small point. The Minister can take it from me that it is true and I am sorry that it is true.

I think he does not want his name mentioned in the House, but Michael Redmond was reared and lived all his life on a very small farm of 25 acres and made a very good living. He reared ten children and has now two sons, as well as himself, who are ploughmen. They are very happy on that farm and are not depending on the drawing of sand or anything else like that. Deputy Belton will find that that is so, if he verifies it.

There would be no one more pleased to hear it, if it is true.

We should regard him here as a national figure.

I agree.

Deputy Cogan mentioned the young inspectors. I explained that point already to Deputy Hughes. Probably, Deputy Cogan was thinking of the assistants to the inspectors. The inspectors are all men who have been many years in the service: they were in the Land Commission before they came to this Department. They have younger men recruited as their assistants, but these younger men never take a decision of the kind referred to, as to where wheat should be sown or anything of that kind.

I agree with Deputy Hughes that my responsibility and that of the Government do not end with making an Order or by going round making speeches. I am sure Deputy Hughes did not mean to deprecate in any way the value of those meetings.

Not at all.

It was not my intention to make speeches but rather to discuss these matters with some of the people concerned.

I think that is very proper. There could be a lot more of it.

The position here is very different from that in England, where you have the parish committees.

The County War Agricultural Committees—C.W.A.C.

They provide equipment for certain farmers. On the whole, they are very big farms where tractors could be usefully employed. In this country, where 75 per cent. of the holdings are under 25 acres, that sort of equipment would be largely misplaced.

Not in the grass districts.

Apart from that, we cannot get the equipment. I was down in County Mayo last Saturday at a meeting and was told that certain people had not got their threshing done, as the thresher had not reached them after the last harvest. What can I suggest? We cannot get any new threshers, though we have tried hard to get them. The only thing they could do there would be to go— or send someone on their behalf—to the County Carlow or County Wexford to buy a thresher and bring it to Mayo, but that would leave Carlow and Wexford at the loss.

Could the Minister not get some sent over?

We tried that.

Does the Minister not know that there are a lot of tractors on pneumatics at present? He could run one across.

A lot of threshing machines this year travelled very much further than before; they went long distances to get a good deal of work done. There is not very much use in setting up these committees to provide equipment when we have not got the equipment. We are doing the best we can.

You could make more use of what you have.

We are trying to provide parts, kerosene, and so on, for them, and I think that is the best we can do at the moment. Deputy Hughes raised a rather big question about maintaining our exports, so as to be in the foreign market when the war is over. That is all right, but, owing to circumstances to which I have referred, and the shortage of foodstuffs, we are not able to get enough of certain articles for ourselves at the moment. We may be better off next year than we are now with regard to bacon and butter; but as long as this emergency lasts we will not have any quantity of those articles for export. Our export position is all right at the moment, in so far as there is plenty of exports for what we import—more than enough, in fact, as we cannot get the imports.

The question of fertility of the soil was raised. Although it is a word used always, I think the word "fertility" gives a person a wrong impression. We are really talking about plant food, and farmyard manure is, undoubtedly, the best from that point of view. As far as I know, artificial manures have no lasting effect; they are good for the time being, for whatever crop is there, and they have some effect in the following year, but by the third year there is no effect.

You must have the humus.

That is so. There is no humus in the artificial manure. So far as post-war fertility is concerned, the lack of artificials will not be as important as is the continuous cropping during the emergency, which will have a very bad effect, if done in a particular portion of land. That is why it would be very useful if the crops could be rotated, and, as Deputy Hughes remarked, the first crop meadow brought in. The good farmer was not in any way prejudiced by not having that included, as I am sure good men like Deputy Hughes did go on with the ordinary rotation, first crop meadow, and so on. By bringing the tillage next year up to 33? per cent. Deputy Hughes will be in exactly the same position, as the first crop meadow will be counted; but we do not want to have the other men doing this continuous cropping, as it will mean much better farming.

That is admitted.

In talking of Sir George Stapleton, we should remember to take credit here for the things we have done. I remember reading Sir George Stapleton's book—Land was the title, I think—which was a very interesting publication. His conclusion was that three big things should be done to improve agriculture in England. The first was a Government control department, very much on the lines of our Land Commission. It did not differ very much in outline from that Department, which we have had here for many years. The second was a scheme of drainage and reclamation—again very much on the lines of the scheme we have here, though his would go in for bigger things. The scheme of grants and so on is very much like the scheme we have here, so we had two of the three points he advocated for England. The third point was mentioned by Deputy Hughes—indigenous grasses, which they have not got to any extent in England yet.

But they have been developing them for some years. Why are we not doing so?

The quantity is very small. The most important of all, as everyone will admit, is perennial ryegrass. We have that indigenous, at any rate: we have always had our perennial rye grass.

We could improve it.

Something is being done to improve it. On the whole, when you take a book like Sir George Stapleton's and read through it to see what is recommended, you find that we have done at least as much as—if not more than—has been done in England. We should not lose sight of that.

I do not agree with the Minister. I think we could do far more.

Certainly, we could do far more, but we should not overlook the fact that we have done something. Regarding the price of barley, Deputy Hughes anticipated my answer. It is extraordinarily difficult to have one price for malted barley and a different price for another type. The maltsters only used about 40 per cent. of the 1942 crop. If more barley is offered for sale than the maltsters will actually take, the difficulty immediately arises as to what sample they will take, what particular farmers they will deal with and whom they will leave out. There will be great trouble and, on the whole, I think the price of barley is better left uniform.

When there was a free market, did that not happen? Did they not pick the market?

They did, but the Deputy will remember all the trouble there was about it.

I agree that there was some trouble. There was some financial effect.

Certain farmers were going in to the maltsters and the maltsters were taking all from one and none from the next. It created a lot of bad blood between individual farmers and between maltsters and farmers, and so on.

But the alternative to that is to give cheap barley for export purposes.

The export business is another matter, which can come up for discussion at another time. I think that I have dealt with all the points raised in the course of the debate.

May I ask the Minister on what wage he fixed his prices for the current year?

I could not answer that. I think I answered it in my speech, by saying that the prices should enable the farmer to pay a higher wage than at present.

Yes, but the prices this year are the same as were fixed last year.

I should like to call the attention of the Deputies to the fact that this debate must finish at 7.40.

I shall not take long but there are a few matters to be dealt with here, and the first is concerned with Deputy Belton's point about the inspectors' powers. I am sure that Deputy Belton has seen, as I have seen, coming up by rail through the country, fine fields which would yield, if not as fine a crop of wheat as Deputy Belton grew, at least a very fine crop of wheat—fields which, at any rate would grow one ton of wheat per acre—and I have seen them left unused or else tied down to the growing of oats, just because of the careless policy that was pursued in this country for so many years, to the effect that the growing of wheat would ruin the land. That can be seen even here in the County Dublin, and I am sure that Deputy Belton realises it, and that is one of the reasons why I am in favour of giving power to inspectors to go into a farm and say to the farmer concerned: "You must sow that field with wheat." However, I should like to say this with regard to Deputy Belton: that he was one of the pioneers of wheat-growing in this country. We had very few friends of the growing of wheat in this country up to some years ago, and I do admit that Deputy Belton was one of the men who stood up and said that we could grow all the wheat we needed here. I certainly will give him that credit, but when we came into power, in 1932, the quantity of wheat that was being grown in this country at that time would not be sufficient to feed our people for a few weeks, not to speak of feeding them through the period of emergency that has ensued since 1939, and it was the work that was done by the present Minister for Agriculture that saved us from starvation, that saved our children from being murdered in Flanders or elsewhere, or being left in this country starving for bread. That was the position, and it was the present Minister for Agriculture who saved this nation, so far as our food supplies are concerned, and he had a lot of opposition to meet with in the doing of that.

The next point that was made here was in connection with farm labourers. I was one of those who fought, tooth and nail, to get at least a minimum wage fixed for farm labourers, but it must be remembered that in the first year that the Minister fixed a minimum wage of 24/- for farm labourers throughout the country, the average wage was 20/-. It is now 36/-. I should like to see it even more than that. I, more than any man here, I think, should like to see it increased, but there is a limit to everything, and I say that the best judges of the prices of farm produce in this country are the farmers themselves. You need only watch what happened last year in the case of the beet acreage, which dropped by many thousands of acres because the farmers did not consider they were getting an adequate price. They are being offered a better price this year, and we are led to believe that a sufficient acreage of beet will be produced, but I think I shall wait to see whether that acreage will be produced until the beet is actually drawn into the factories next harvest, because my opinion is that we did not get the acreage last year because the beet growers proved to themselves that our statements and our beliefs were false. I think that that is very definite. The ordinary farmer has driven up the acreage of beet this year, although I thought it would have gone down.

One thing I should like to say to the Minister is that I do not agree with his statement with regard to barley. We are entitled to Guinness's market for barley without control, if Guinness is entitled to turn out stout here and to sell it across in Britain where they are getting 70/- a barrel. That is one of the points in respect of which I lock horns with the Minister. Another point on which I disagree is that, instead of having a price fixed by the Government for what we produce on our land, we should be put in the same position as the industrialist who can go to the Prices Commission, prove his case and get his price. We are the industrialists of the soil and we are entitled to the same whack as the artificial industrialist outside who gets his 6 per cent, rain, hail or snow. As beet growers, we go to the Sugar Company and put our case, and they then thrash it out with the Government. That is an unfair way of doing it. We have at least equal rights with any iron or steel owners in the country, and we should insist on those rights. It is unfair that the industrialist should have the Prices Commission before which he can prove his costs, have his profit added and get his price, when we do not get the same treatment. Let us be given the same treatment as the industrialist, and then there will be no fight as to whether we are getting enough, too much or too little.

I entirely agree that we should not get, and are not entitled to get, to-day the price which has to be paid for imported oats and wheat. We embarked on a policy of insurance in 1932 to ensure that the people would not be dependent on Britain or other countries for bread in time of war, and that we would not have any outside country taking us by throat and saying: "You want bread for your people. Give us 500,000 men and you will get it." I know there are Deputies who hoped to see that condition of affairs brought about. They failed, thank God, but that insurance policy meant that the farmers here got more for their wheat from 1932 to 1939, than they would have got in the ordinary way if the foreign grain had been allowed in. They cannot now say: "It costs so much to bring it over in time of war and we are entitled to the difference here." Let us get a fair and honest price—that is all the farmers ask. I say that I am as much entitled to speak for the farmers as any Deputy, and I say that we do not want too much.

I am sorry that the Minister did not deal more specifically with what I consider to be the most important point in the whole debate, that is, the wages we are to pay for the production of this food. Quite obviously, the Minister must have taken the cost of production into account in controlling prices. He must have had regard to the wages item, but he did not explain how he could fix 50/- a barrel for wheat last year and 50/- a barrel for wheat this year and increase the wages by 3/- a week, giving a wage which is entirely inadequate for a man to live on and give a return in work. He did not face up to the principal point at issue.

He has given to an inspector the power to tell farmers to grow wheat. Why did he not tell them himself? Why did he not put in the Order that a farmer must put a percentage of his arable land under wheat? The Minister said that a farmer might not have land fit to grow wheat. In that case, he has not wheat-arable land and would be automatically exempt. He has given to an individual power to do what he would not do himself, which I think is altogether wrong. The Minister spoke of what was done for wheat growing in the pre-war period. We know all that; we know that in 1938 and 1939, one could buy as much first-class foreign wheat here in Dublin as one wanted at 15/- per barrel, and perhaps less. The Minister said that 30/- per barrel was being paid here in order to encourage the growing of wheat. That is true and it was necessary in order to encourage the growing of wheat here, but when he reaches the point at which it is cheaper to grow wheat here than to import it, why does he not grow it here? Why pay 65/11 per barrel for wheat when you can get it grown here for £3 per barrel? I cannot understand the Minister's action in importing wheat at a higher price than that at which it can be produced at home. The case has often been made here that our ships which run all the risks of importing that wheat would be better employed economically in importing artificial manures.

And leave our people hungry?

No, we would grow it here.

Why do we not grow it?

We would grow all the wheat necessary if we got the price paid for the foreign wheat. The Minister made a very poor case, in my opinion, on that point, but the poorest case he made was that in respect of wages. I genuinely fear the danger of a shortage of labour for handling the crop. It must inevitably be so when they are paid so badly.

The Minister did not agree with me on the question of manures. The reason he did not see my point is that he did not want to see it. He talked about the prices of crops in England and about what they were getting for wheat. When I asked him what they were getting for the potato crop, he said he was dealing with wheat, but, as the Minister knows, you cannot separate the prices of two crops. Potatoes are the best crop to precede wheat, and covering two years of expenditure and takings in respect of two crops on the same land, and ascertaining what your aggregate takings, expenditure and net profit are, is the only way you will arrive at a business method. The Minister knows that a subsidy of £10 per acre and a guaranteed price of £8 per ton for potatoes are given in Great Britain. They have unlimited quantities of fertilisers, which we have not got here. He knows quite well that the conditions over there are much better. If we had unlimited artificials here we would get heavier yields and a less price would do, because there is the same outlay in cultivating the land for a good crop as for a poor one.

We are not putting this motion to a division. It was put down for the purpose of having this discussion on agriculture. One thing I am disappointed with is that the Minister did not face up to the fixing of prices for agricultural produce and in fixing the prices make provision for a wage which would induce people to work on the land; induce the best labour to work on the land. The best labour is now clearing out of the country, if they can get half a chance to clear out, and there is a migration from the land such as we never had before. The Minister for Agriculture will have to bear a very large responsibility for controlling prices at a figure that will not enable a wage equivalent to the wage paid in industry to be paid in agriculture. When men do not get a living wage in agriculture they migrate to the towns, and the countryside is being denuded of the rural population. The Minister and his officers will have all the responsibility of that on their shoulders, because they are not giving a chance to agriculture to pay a wage that will enable people to live in any sort of decency or comfort on the land. The Minister is gambling with agricultural production and not ensuring that sufficient labour will be retained on the land to produce food for the people.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
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