The Minister for Finance, I think, struck the right note in the first sentence of his Budget speech when he said that the task confronting him was not an enviable one. After listening to part of this debate I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Minister. A Budget of £40,000,000 is a terrible imposition on this country, especially when we see that our buying in the first three years of the war exceeded our selling, as far as visible transactions are concerned, by over £17,000,000. It has been stated here that the £170,000,000 or £200,000,000 that we have in foreign securities are far from being gilt-edged. Now, if they are not that, or if we lose a substantial portion of them, how are we going to meet the difference there is between our buying and selling in the last three years, a difference that is put down at £17,000,000, and if, on top of that, the Minister has to borrow more? I think he has been taken to task for not budgeting to borrow still more. In view of all that, one can endorse the words uttered by the Minister himself, that his task is not an enviable one. The position is that we require £40,000,000 to keep the machinery of State moving in a country where production is gradually dwindling.
Deputy McGovern and Deputy Hughes dealt with the Budget largely from the agricultural standpoint. I was speaking recently to a man in the faculty of agriculture who has a first-class theoretical knowledge of farming. In fact, his theoretical knowledge is so good that he can give one a practical demonstration of farming. He knows his job. We discussed the question from this angle. It is claimed that in 1942 we had 675,000 acres of land under wheat. The Minister for Supplies, when speaking here on his Vote on the 14th April last, in referring to wheat said: "I think the maximum quantity that we can now expect to receive from last year's harvest is 270,000 tons out of a crop of 675,000 acres." That, I should say, represents about the worst farming in Europe. It would not be a great crop to get 270,000 tons of wheat from half that area, or even to get 270,000 tons from 270,000 acres. The Minister's statement reveals a very serious situation. It reveals this that productivity is contracting.
I am not going to criticise or blame the Government for its policy last year or the year before now that it find itself confronted with a potato shortage. I am quite satisfied that the potato shortage is, in the main, due to local productivity which, in turn, due to a shortage of fertilisers. Neither am I going to harp very much on artificials, though I am a very strong believer in them. But let us face the facts. We had not artificials last year and we have not got them now. We really had not them during the first or second year of the war. It will be till enough later to blame whomsoever blameworthy. Let us face the fact that we have not got them. The only manure we have is farmyard manure. It does not take an expert on farming to realise that the numbers of live stock are contracting. The area under tillage has increased, but artificial manures have disappeared. Therefore, the limitations on our agricultural productivity are the limitations on our manure supply. What I most blame the Government for is for failing to pick out that important point and attend to it. I do not believe in control—I suppose I am about the hardest-controlled man in the House—if it can be avoided, but more attention should have been given to procuring all the manures possible, making all the manures possible and conserving any good substitute in order to cultivate the land.
I remember reading ten or 15 years ago an address by Signor Mussolini to Italian farmers. He said, in effect: "We want so much more wheat but the country cannot afford to put any more land under wheat. It is up to you to increase the yield. Any credit or manures you want, the State will provide. We want one more quintal per hectare this year." They met the following year and he congratulated the farmers on producing not one more quintal but two. I think the Government should aim at that. I am, I suppose, as practical a farmer as is knocking about. My whole problem is to get manures and that is the problem of every farmer. On that depends whether we can carry on or not. Attention should be given to the live-stock population and live stock should be housed in the winter so as to collect all the manure possible. I do not think that it is a great economy to divert straw from the manuring of land to industrial purposes. There, again, you will have to strike a balance and see which is more important. The man on the land and the man in the town must "work in." They are complementary to each other in the times through which we are passing.
It is a shocking revelation that out of 675,000 acres of wheat—if we had such an area under wheat; it would be casting a reflection on our statistics to doubt that we had—there should be available for bread only 270,000 tons, which represents only four barrels to the acre. No land will pay on that basis. The State would have to subsidise production of that kind. If the State did so, the citizens would have to pay the subsidy. If you feed a dog on his own tail, the tail will disappear quickly and the procedure to which I have referred would be equivalent to feeding a dog on his own tail. I hope to have an opportunity, before the dissolution, of having a discussion on agriculture with the Minister for Agriculture and to bring out that point. It is dangerously important. Let us take that as the key and discuss the position from that angle. What hope is there for this country, an agricultural country, getting out of debt if its fertility and productivity are reduced to that extent? What about the millions spent on our Agricultural Department for over 40 years? I do not want to go back on history, but I am afraid that we are now paying for our neglect of agriculture from the setting up of this State in 1922 to 1937. The fertility of the country had been raised by the increased use of artificials during the 30 years that preceded the Treaty. That use reached its peak just before the war 1914-18. Land was growing meadows that never was able to grow meadows before. Pastures were improved by top-dressing. I knew the banks of the Shannon well at that time and there was a constant stream of steamers on the Shannon bringing artificials from Dublin to the harbours along the river. The Great War made artificials scarce and, before things were righted, we had rumours of war and wars begat other little wars here. That stopped the use of the artificials. Then we had the depression in agriculture, due to the rush back to the gold standard in 1925. The farmers ran into debt and were not able to buy artificials. The depression continued until 1931 when Britain went off the gold standard. That was followed by the economic war, so that the land of this country has been starved.
Here we are with the fertility of our country very considerably reduced as compared with the time when we were boys. The Minister remembers the "cross of gold" referred to by Arthur Griffith about 30 years ago. Ireland, he held, stood crucified by Britain's over-taxation. If the over-taxation were arranged in sovereigns, these sovereigns would stretch from Dublin to Galway and from Antrim to Cork. On that cross of gold, Ireland stood crucified, as Arthur Griffith contended. I wonder what would Arthur say if he saw his old friend, the present Minister for Finance, introducing a Budget for £40,000,000 in a country which has since become poorer. That is a situation that does not call for election speeches but for serious thinking. It is a time for sitting down and grappling with the problem. I fail to see how there is any hope of our paying our way.
As to the shortage of potatoes, that is inevitable. This flippancy of blaming this Minister or that Minister, blaming shopkeepers, blaming farmers, blaming everybody will not produce potatoes. There is one thing which will produce them, there is one thing which will avert famine, there is one thing which will preserve our neutrality and only one thing, and that is manure to retain the fertility of the land so as to give us sufficient food. I hope the Minister for Agriculture will pluck up courage—I am afraid he will not—to come in on this Budget debate and enlighten us as to this mystery about the wheat. If I could not grow eight to ten barrels of wheat to the statute acre I would feel that I could not carry on. The average for the country is a little better than four barrels. If the individual cannot carry on, how can the country as a whole carry on? That is what we are up against.
We had an increase of tillage last year and it was natural to find more corn grown, more oats, wheat and barley, because once you roll your corn crop in the spring you can shut your gate until you take in the reaper or binder or whatever tackle you have to reap it. You may have to pull up an odd thistle here and there. You have not to put in manure. You expect the residue from the previous crop to give the corn crop. If you have to manure land which has been manured for a previous crop in order to give a wheat crop, the rotation and the general farming are not very sound. You cannot grow potatoes without manure, but you can make some attempt at a corn crop. That is the reason why you have a larger area under corn crops last year and less under potatoes. I have not got statistics to justify my saying this—I do not know that anybody has— but I am satisfied that the yield from potatoes last year, owing to the fact that there was not sufficient nourishment for the crop, was less than the year before, that the yield of the year before was less than the previous year, and that this year the yield will be less still—all for the want of manure.