Vote 30—Agriculture (Resumed).

Mr. Fagan

At the beginning of the harvest last year we saw notices in the papers intimating that the county council and local bodies were prepared to help farmers in connection with labour in their harvesting operations and we were also informed, through the same medium, that, if we wanted military assistance, we would have to contact a military man. The county council arrangement was satisfactory. The men available were sent around to the farmers. As regards the military scheme, to get the necessary assistance took three or four weeks. That was bad business on the part of the Government. By the time the military man was contacted and the arrangements made, the harvest would be over. The Government showed no foresight in that regard. These are all things that should be taken into consideration by the Department of Agriculture if they want to get the farmers to produce food for the people. I pointed out last night that the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures told us that he would not give us military, that it was only the lazy farmers who wanted military help. The Government did not set out to help the farmers.

We have had Fianna Fáil Deputies getting up in Dublin and saying that the farmers are making plenty of money in the present drive. If they are making money, they are not making enough to clear the debts which they incurred owing to the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government in 1937 and 1938. It will take some years to clear off the debts due to that mistaken policy. It is very unfair for a city Deputy—what I would call a Dublin "jackeen," if it is allowable—to say that the farmers let down the people of Dublin, as Deputy McCann said. The farmers did not let down the people of Dublin. They worked tooth and nail from dawn to dark and it is very uncalled for for Deputy McCann to say publicly that the farmers of Ireland let down the people of this city. The farmers went out wholeheartedly to provide food for the people. It is a bad thing for the the Government to allow one of the members of its Party to say such a thing. When I read that statement I was faced with a big harvest task. We had a big retinue of men working from dawn to dark. If Deputy McCann had been down that day helping to save the food of the people, he would not make the statement he did. It was a most unfair statement and the Government should have recalled it. Things such as that discourage the farmers.

It is all right for the Government to say that we must till 37½ per cent. of our arable land. My own opinion is that 25 per cent. was enough if the Government went about the task of getting the 25 per cent. done in a businesslike way. They chose the lazy way of doing it. We all saw that tillage was, in some cases, not done in a proper way, but the Government did not help the farmers concerned to do it properly, as it was their business to do. This 37½ per cent. which they want done has broken the camel's back. I know a good deal about tillage. I have been working at tillage all my life. I have been working my own farms and I have been managing other farms. Last year, we could not deal satisfactorily with the crop where a large amount of tillage was done. On one farm of 90 acres of tillage, we had the implements and the labour ready and in the second week of August it looked as if we could get the harvest in but the weather went against us. We had continuous rain. That crop was standing up in the last week of August. We would have saved the harvest but for the fact that the weather went against us. The oats and wheat which we had not cut by the 1st September fell flat down. I was managing this place and had a certain amount of labour and equipment but, as I have said, when the weather went against us, what was uncut was flattened out. When we came to the last nine or ten acres we tried to get help to finish it off, but could not. The military were not available then, but were in a week or ten days afterwards. I said to the men, when we came to the last nine or ten acres, that we had better go back and save what we had in stocks. If at the time we had a squad of men available I think we could have saved these nine or ten acres. I had 15 men on that farm and two binders. Most of the nine or ten acres, when cut later on, was lost. In my opinion, if the military had been available in time I could have got them out and kept the binders going. In that way all the corn could have been saved. Numbers of other farmers in Westmeath were in the same position. All that, I think, was due to bad organisation and lack of foresight on the part of the Government.

As regards tillage, we in Meath and Westmeath are differently circumstanced from the people in the south. That, I am afraid, is not generally understood. Though our land is situated in the heart of Ireland, the truth is that our crops do not ripen as early as they do in other parts of the country. They ripen late, and as a consequence we are running into bad weather all the time. Therefore, I do not think we are properly treated. I think that as regards Meath and Westmeath, the Government should look for 25 per cent. tillage. Personally, I am all out for the production of food for the people. I honestly think that if the Government helped the farmers, and went out for 25 per cent. tillage, we would get enough food. I think the Government did not help the farmers, and therefore I have tried to point out what has happened. If any one were to make a personal visit to Meath and Westmeath he would find, I think, in the case of almost every farm that there is an acre or two that has not been saved this year. The Minister may challenge that statement, but if investigation is made, I think that will be found to be the position. Therefore, I do not think it is right to expect the people to do 37½ per cent. tillage. Better results would be got if the Government helped the farmers to do 25 per cent. tillage.

I am not against tillage; I realise that it is necessary for the country today. I pointed out yesterday that the Government are not helping the farmers, especially those in the Midlands. Take beet as an example. We are absolutely debarred from growing beet. My opinion is that the Minister and his Department do not want the farmers of Meath, Westmeath or Louth to grow beet. I grow it, but if I do it costs me 17/5 per ton to deliver it to the Carlow factory. That is the cost of delivery to farmers in Meath, Westmeath and Louth. I get a subsidy of 2/- per ton from the Carlow factory. At Moate, there is a line drawn, and below it the farmers who grow beet can have it delivered at the factory for 6/- a ton, but the cost to those above that line is 17/5 per ton. If the Government do not want to have beet grown in the area I speak of, why do they not encourage the growing of potatoes? That is a proposition I want to put to the Minister. We are prepared to grow potatoes so that we may have a proper rotation of crops. If it is not considered economic for the beet factory to have beet grown in the Midlands, then why not encourage the farmers to grow potatoes? We have the most suitable land in all Ireland for the growing of potatoes, and why not give the farmers £10 a ton for doing so? In a time of an emergency, the safest and best crops to grow are potatoes and oats. If the people can get plenty of oatmeal and potatoes, they will not starve. If the farmers were given £10 an acre for the growing of potatoes, you would have an abundance of them in the City of Dublin, and people would be able to get cheap food at 2d. and 3d. a stone. In addition, that method of rotation would help to bring the land back into fertility.

I would like to stress this point on the Minister, that it is not easy to grow wheat on the lands of Meath and Westmeath. I think, the Minister should have a talk with some of his inspectors about that. They are very good men, and I have not heard any farmer object to them. I saw wheat grown on some of the best land in Meath and Westmeath and, for some reason or other, it fell down. That may be due to some acid in the land. There is something short anyway. For years I advocated an increased application of lime to the land. My land was supposed to be short of lime. I got 30 cwt. of it from Wicklow, and put it on an eight acre field in which I grew a second crop of wheat. I got the soil tested, and was told that there was a shortage of lime in the land. This year I grew beet in that field and it suffered from crown rot. Now, the inspectors tell me there is too much lime in the land. A good deal of caution needs to be exercised in regard to application of lime. People in my county tell me that in the old days when there were numbers of lime kilns there was too much lime put on the land, with a result that the land got worn out. I am not against this lime business, but I just want to say that.

Personally, I am all out to produce food for the people. I think that the Minister would be well advised to go easy with regard to the Midlands. Many people may think that the rich lands of Meath and Westmeath are the proper lands on which to grow wheat and other crops, but I think if the Minister consults his inspectors he will find that that is not so. I think, if the inspectors' reports are consulted, it will be found that the growing of wheat on Mr. Purdon's farm near Killucan, which the Department took over, was not a success. You went to all the "rounds" in the world to sow oats on part of the lands taken over from Mr. Banim, somewhere near Slanemore, Mullingar. You had a great crop of oats, but it fell down. You put it up for auction, but no one took it. The parish priest took 30 acres for something like £30.

The Minister should take into consideration the experiments carried out by his inspectors and also the reports of his inspectors in Meath and Westmeath, and should bear in mind that the farmers should not be asked to try to do more than they are able to do. Certain farmers no doubt did not carry out the tillage which they should have carried out, but I understand that in Westmeath that applies to only 1 per cent. of the farmers, which is a great credit to us in Westmeath. I do not know the returns for Meath, but the Minister will find from the inspectors' reports that he should not try to make the farmers do what they cannot do. This 37½ per cent. tillage demand is going too far. If the Government had kept to the 25 per cent. tillage, and so much grass, and helped the farmers to carry that out properly, enough food would be produced to feed the people.

Deputy Corry last night mentioned many things. I do not agree with Deputy Corry on many points, but I thought he made last night the most sensible speech he ever made. He spoke of how a profit is made by the merchants on turnip and mangold seeds, and his remarks brought to my mind the real policy of the Government, which seems to be a policy of helping the manufacturer and industrialist more than the farmers. He showed how the farmers got so much a pound for turnip and mangold seeds and how the merchants and other people handling it got hundreds per cent. more. That is the real policy of the Government, and I am glad Deputy Corry brought it to the notice of the House. I find, however, that Deputy Corry says many things over which he does not stand when it comes to a vote. These are matters which the Government should look into.

With regard to turnip seed, the year before last, numbers of farmers in my county set turnip seed and got half rape and half turnip—mongrels. I understand that that happened because certain farmers growing turnip seed grew it close to land where there was rape seed, with the result that they got mixed. If you propose to have turnip seed grown by the farmers it will be necessary to see that it is grown in such a way as will ensure that mongrel seed will not be produced. Hundreds of farmers in Westmeath last year got nothing but mongrel crops—half rape and half turnips —due to the bungling of the Department. I hope the position has been improved this year, and I agree with Deputy Corry that we should go into this question of having our own seed grown here and give the farmer the benefit of growing that seed and so keep the money in the country. There is no use in giving a man in America the benefit. We ought to be well able to grow the seed. The Beet Association are well able to get their seed grown, and they see to it that if they give out a contract for the growing of beet seed, there is no other seed within half a mile of it and that there are mongrel results. A business group like the Beet Association sees to it that mongrel seeds are not produced and the Government, surely, ought to be able to see to it.

The Government's policy seems to be to give the manufacturers all the benefit and to ensure that they will get the biggest profit while the farmers get only a certain percentage. That is the sort of thing that is going to kill the farming industry. No forethought is shown in the efforts made to encourage the farmers to produce. It is all done in a haphazard way and the same applies to the tillage programme. The farmers are told: "Till 37½ per cent. of your land and take a chance that there will be enough food for the people," but if they kept to the 25 per cent. and saw to it that that 25 per cent. tillage was done properly, we would not see stooks of oats every 100 or 200 yards in the country. It should be done properly, if it is done at all.

Deputy Cogan spoke about committees appointed in each county, but I am very doubtful about these committees. My experience of them is that there is too much politics about them. I think it would be better to keep away from them because there is too much favouritism in them. My experience of county councils is that if a man has a grievance and comes up to the meeting, even though he is in the wrong, he gets the benefit of the doubt. If necessary, let there be a local committee whose views can be got, but with whom the final verdict will not lie. The verdict should be given afterwards by the inspectors. The local committees are working well in England, but I am sorry to say that our people are not built that way. What you want is an honest committee, and, if necessary, as I say, you can have a local committee which, however, should not have the right to decide. Get their opinion and their advice, but leave it to the inspectors to decide afterwards.

The Minister mentioned that the chairmen of county committees of agriculture might be appointed to these new consultative bodies, but that is a matter which he should look into. The chairmen of certain committees may be very good, but they may not be agriculturists. They may be men from the local towns or men like Deputy McCann, city men—that is what I want to avoid. The Minister will need to be very careful in regard to the chairmen of county committees whom he appoints because, though quite popular and decent men, they may know nothing whatever about agriculture and may have no agricultural outlook.

The Government have muddled practically everything all along. They muddled the potato situation, and, with regard to binders, we are told that a certain number, of these came into the country this year. I remember that, during September this year, when I was busy harvesting, certain people who were getting binders came to me and said that the binders had arrived two days previously in Dublin. I do not blame the Government for being so late, as it was not their fault, but the binders arrived on the 7th or 8th of September. I knew where there were acres and acres of corn awaiting the arrival of these two binders. I got on the 'phone from Collinstown to the Department and said that I understood that a certain number of binders had come in the day before, and asked if those binders which had been allotted to the two men who approached me could be sent down to Mullingar to be assembled. I was told that they could not, that a certain man in Carlow or somewhere else had the contract for the assembling of these binders. The official said to me that there was only one man in Ireland who could assemble a binder. I remember in the last war a certain number of binders came into Mullingar and were assembled in Mullingar. I pointed that out to the official. Fifty binders came in. I asked when could these two men get their binders, and the official told me that the man could assemble one, or at the most, two a day, that everybody would have to take his turn and that it might be three weeks before the binder would reach the farmers in the Mullingar district. I think that cannot be denied. I think that was real muddling. I pointed out on the 'phone to that man that in the last war binders came in and were assembled in Mullingar. The result was that one man got his binder 14 days afterwards, when all the grain was lost, and the other man got it three weeks afterwards. If these binders had been sent to the town of Mullingar, there were competent men in the town to assemble them. We are not duds in Westmeath, though we are not supposed to be tillage men. We have engineers. If the Minister for Agriculture had seen the rain that was falling and knew that 50 binders had arrived at the North Wall that were for different parts of Ireland, surely he would not have them sent to Carlow to be assembled at the rate of one or two a day and then transported all over the country. I know that one of those binders never reaped a sheaf this year. It could have reaped acres of corn if the Government had been alive to the position. These are all instances of the muddling that is going on.

In regard to tillage there is no organisation whatever, no forethought. As the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures said, he does not want to help the farmers; they are a lazy lot. He said in Westmeath: "We are not going to help the lazy farmers." If the farmers of Westmeath did 99 per cent. of the tillage they are asked to do, they are not lazy. That is the point I wanted to bring to the Government. All this shortage of wheat and everything else is the Government's fault. I do not want to be personal; the Minister for Agriculture is doing his best but I personally think that no doctor can be Minister for Agriculture. I am in agriculture all my lifetime and I cannot see how a man who has to go to school until he is 21 or 22 and study for his profession can know agriculture. To know agriculture one must be reared to it and one must be all the time on the land. I give the Minister credit for certain things. He knows a good deal from the experience he has had but he has been a student for a certain number of years. A man who wishes to be Minister for Agriculture must be a straight, honest farmer who has been on the land all the time.

Why did not the Minister go in for more rye cultivation? Deputy Donnellan said here yesterday that the people of Connaught could not grow wheat. I agree with him. A great deal of the land in Connaught could not grow wheat but if you had an alert Minister for Agriculture he would grow rye. If we had rye we would not be short of pigs now. There are thousands of acres of bog that are being tilled at the present time which would grow the best rye and the greatest crops of rye ever known. Rye is the greatest food that could be grown. I grow all the rye I can possibly grow to feed my stock. There is no food as good as rye for stock. If you mix rye with barley the cattle and the pigs will thrive on it. If you are short of food you could have rye to mix with the wheat. Rye has been forgotten. All the people in the poor lands wanted a cash crop. I paid £4 10s. 0d. a barrel for seed rye last year. If the poor farmers of Connaught could get £4 10s. 0d. a barrel for seed rye they would have a productive cash crop. There was great lack of foresight there. You require a Minister for Agriculture and a Government that know these things. If one wanted two or three barrels of rye to grow for seed at the present time, it is not available in the country.

All these things show that the present Government is taking the lazy way of getting the tillage done. They are blaming the farmers. I do not think they should blame the farmers. The farmers went all out and worked from dawn to dark to produce food for the people, but they were not recompensed. As regards wheat, I did not vote for the £3 a barrel proposed for wheat two years ago, because I thought then that if we went out for £3 we would not get it, and I thought 50/- was a paying proposition. Since then I see it is not a paying proposition. I see that 55/- a barrel at the present time is not a paying proposition for wheat, because we can grow other crops that will yield a better profit. If the Government want wheat, I advise them to give £3 a barrel for it. Let them not be afraid to pay the farmers. There seems to be some "edge" against the farmers all the time. You want the food. Give them the price for it and they will produce it. At the present time 50/- for wheat and 35/- for oats is the same thing. At that price I would grow oats in preference to wheat. If you want wheat you should give £3 a barrel.

At the Ard-Fheis, the Taoiseach said that the farmers in 1935 and in 1936 were in the front line trenches. I do not remember his saying that in 1935 and 1936. Now he says it, and he advises the people of the towns to stand behind them. I have been in politics since 1932. I went all through this thing in 1935 and 1936. I know what the farmers suffered in 1934, 1935 and 1936. I say it will take them generations to recover the losses of those years. But I never heard the Taoiseach saying that he advised the townspeople to stand behind them at that time. I remember when the farmers of Westmeath were harassed for their annuities. I remember that they went into the sheriff and offered £4 or £5 when they were asked for £20 annuity, and it would not be taken, but their last cow was taken, and they were brought into Mullingar by the flying squad. That was going on for eight months. At that time Deputy Ruttledge was Minister for Justice, and I remember coming to him at the time and saying that this was wrong, that the farmers were unable to pay, that they would pay if they were able. I said, "If a farmer owes £20, and if you will take £4 or £5, you will get your money." He saw my viewpoint, but it was only after a six-months' campaign, and after the farmers were beaten off the fields, that he saw it. I remember at the time there were sales in Mullingar, and the townspeople were asked to shut their shops, but they did not do so. There were no local townspeople to stand behind the farmers at that time.

Though the Taoiseach said at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis that he advised the industrialists to stand behind the farmers when they were in the frontline trenches, they were not behind them. Now he says: "I advise the farmers to stand behind the industrialists." What about the poor men? I know poor men who were batoned in Mullingar and who went home bleeding.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy were to go back eight or nine years, there would be a long and acrimonious debate. On the Estimate, Deputies are supposed to discuss one year's administration of the Minister responsible for the Estimate.

Mr. Fagan

I am sorry, but I wanted to bring that point out. They were not properly treated. Another point I should like to make is that the Minister should find out the costs of the crops taken over by the Government in Westmeath this year. I think it would teach him a lesson as to what the farmers are earning on tillage. I am managing one farm on which there are 90 acres of tillage. Last year after everything was done we lost £200 on those 90 acres of tillage. He will find that tillage is not such a paying proposition as Deputy McCann seems to make out. As to beet growing in Meath and Westmeath, I want to impress on the Minister that if he finds it is not a paying proposition for the beet factories for people in the Midlands to grow beet he should switch them on to potatoes. He should give them a subsidy to grow potatoes. I am growing beet but I do not grow it for a profit. A Deputy opposite laughs at that. He is the secretary of the Tuam beet factory and he is getting so much per week. I say that I am growing beet but not as a paying proposition: I grow it as a rotation crop. I would grow it in order to have the tops to feed to stock. It is not a paying proposition. It cost me 17/5 per ton this year to deliver beet in Carlow. If I were allowed to, switch over to the Tuam factory, I could get it away for 6/-. There is victimisation of the people of Westmeath, Meath and Louth, who were switched on to the Carlow factory. As a matter of fact, our beet goes right into Tuam on the way to Carlow. It goes from Mullingar to Tuam and then on to Carlow. I get my pulp back from Carlow. Is that a businesslike proposition? That shows that the people in the Midlands were treated badly and were not looked after properly. The people in the Midlands should be encouraged. If you do not want beet grown in the Midlands, switch them on to potatoes. If you give us £10 an acre of a subsidy we will grow potatoes. I heard yesterday for the first time about the subsidy for early potatoes. It may be due to ignorance, but we never heard of that in the Midlands.

Mr. Larkin

We heard of it in Dublin.

Mr. Fagan

I never heard of it until yesterday. If I knew of it, I would have advised the farmers to go in for potatoes. As to the question of pig production, there has been a muddle. The Minister has reason to hang his head, over the pig question because we on this side of the House pointed out all along that the policy of the Minister with regard to pigs would be detrimental to the industry. In March or April, 1942, when we asked about pigs, I remember the Minister saying that never before did so many sows go to the boar as went that year. I wonder what happened them.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

He did not say that.

Mr. Fagan

I think he made that statement in 1942. The boars must not have been productive at that time. If the Minister looks up the Official Reports I think he will find he made that statement. The Minister has done now what we wanted him to do. He has half-done away with the Pigs and Bacon Board and is letting the factories seek their own level. About three weeks ago at a sale of yearlings in Ballsbridge I met a certain pig curer who had just given £500 for a yearling. I said to him: "You must be getting on well." He said: "The Pigs and Bacon Board is being brought to an end. It is a good thing for the farmers. I made a good bit out of it. Only for that board I could not pay £500 for a yearling." We discussed the matter and he said: "The board is coming to an end next Friday." He knew more than I knew. It did come to an end on the Friday. We discussed it further, and he said: "I made a lot of money out of it. The idea was that I was supposed to kill less pigs than I killed at such-and-such a time, but I was able to get the same profit. The Department averaged it out that if I killed 500 pigs before and I only killed 100 now, I would get the same profit as if I killed 500." But the poor farmer was forgotten. The Government was concerned with the bacon curers. That was their chief point. The pig industry looks as if it is gone. They went all out to do away with it. They seemed to think that if they did away with the pigs they would have more wheat. I know people who buy bags of flour to feed pigs because it is a paying proposition. At 2/6 per stone it is the cheapest food for a pig or a horse. There is no cheaper food on the market than wheat at 2/6 per stone. If you give a handful or two to any animal you will see a return for it.

If the Government wants to bring back the pig industry they should allow 10 or 15 per cent. of pollard and bran to be extracted from the flour. If they did that they would have more flour and more bread for the people. If a Government official goes to any local bakery and inspects the bread taken out of the oven he will find that many of the loaves fall asunder owing to dampness. Quite a good number of loaves never reach the people. One baker said to me: "After a week or ten days' baking you could bring a horse and cart full of bread out of my shop which never reaches the people." If you take 10 per cent. of the pollard and bran out of the flour you will have bread that the people can eat. If you are bringing home a dozen of loaves from the local town the smell of them in the car would turn you sideways. It is not fit food for the people. If you extract 10 per cent. of the pollard and bran from it you will have less waste. If you keep bread in a larder for three or four days, you cannot go into the larder with the smell of it. It is only waste. If you extract 10 per cent. from it, you will have pollard and bran to feed pigs. The shortage of pigs is due to the fact that the ordinary small cottager cannot buy pollard and bran in the local shop. The small cottager in the country used to have one or two pigs at the local fairs twice or three times a year. Now, what has he to go into the shops to buy? He will not get oats, as the farmers use it for themselves. By taking 10 or 15 per cent. out of the flour there would be more food and more bacon. The ordinary labouring man does not know the taste of bacon and has to go into the country towns to buy a bit of mutton, which is the reason why it is so dear. The cold weather has come and he can go in and buy his beef, and that is the reason for the slump in beef. The country butchers can now kill 12 or 15 sheep a week to try to feed the people. If the Government take at least 10 per cent. out of the flour, the people will have wholesome bread to eat, and the cottager will have something to buy to feed to pigs.

It is the Government's business to see that the number of pigs is kept up, and they must give some subsidy for that. There is no use in giving a subsidy for keeping the sow. I saw that before. You bring home the sow, but the sow may never produce the pigs. The Government should give a subsidy of 5/- for every bonham produced, when he is three weeks old; there is no use in giving it when he is finished or when he is born. That would increase the pig population and give the labouring man and the townsman a chance to buy pigs. A subsidy should be given to the farmers who grow potatoes, and then you would have potatoes at 3d. or 4d. a stone and a really happy country, with no such cries as "No pigs" and "No potatoes" in the City of Dublin.

In regard to the shortage of cows, some people seem to think that the export of heifers is the cause of the shortage. I was in at the end of the Minister's speech yesterday, and I think he said that there is an increase in cattle. There might be an increase at present. I am in the cattle trade, and I can safely say that I know as much about it as any other Deputy, being in it day in and day out. I have seen a certain overflow at fairs at the present time. I can give this warning: I foresee a shortage of cattle in 12 or 18 months' time, but not through the shipment of our good heifers. I was very glad to see that the Department of Agriculture turned down a deputation which tried to stop the shipping of certain heifers, because I think that would be a great victimisation of certain people. If you prevent the export of shorthorn heifers, you prevent the farmer from breeding the shorthorn, as there would be a certain premium on the whitehead and the blackhead, and naturally the farmer would switch over to them.

I am glad to see that the Department has increased the premiums for bulls. In my opinion, to increase the shorthorns is the real secret of the increased production of cattle. The shorthorn is the real basis of production— it does not matter about the whiteheads or the blackheads—and if you have not the shorthorn cow to breed from first, you will not get the good store beast, and our chief asset of export is the store beast. You may get a certain class from the black or the whitehead crossed, but any farmer who knows his business knows that the result of crossing first with the shorthorn is a good store beast, and that if he goes to the whitehead or the blackhead he may have a good one at first, but after that he will only have a bastard. My own opinion is that the way to increase the breeding of shorthorns is to increase the premium paid to the people who keep the bulls. As far as I see—being on the committee of agriculture—if you give a certain price for keeping shorthorn bulls, they will be kept, and although they are not popular with the small farmer, if he has a shorthorn bull a certain number of cows will be served and there will be a certain amount of stock afterwards.

Last year, in speaking here, I advocated the killing of the cattle and the canning of the cows. It is only lately, I admit, that I see at certain fairs all through the West there are 40 or 50, and sometimes 200, strippers or cows in milk lined up at the station, all going to Dublin to be canned. I can guarantee that of 200 cows, 80 per cent. were in calf, and if they were not being canned at the present time there would be 80 or 90 per cent. of their produce back in the country. Those cows are being killed and canned, and when they are killed their calves are taken out and canned too. That is going to cause a shortage of cows in the country. I warn the Minister about that.

There is also a shortage of milk, because there is a good price for those cows and if they were not being killed the dairyman would get the milch cow or old cow of 10 or 14 years of age and would have more milk; but the price being given for them now is better than the price for the milk. I do not wish to do away with anyone's business, but in certain fairs in Connacht and other places I saw 150 cows lined up going to the station. The farmer wants money and when the cow has gone three or four months in calf it is brought out and sold. He gets a good price, not only for the cow but for the calf, which he is selling as well. That is the real reason why there will be a shortage of cattle in a year or two.

I wish to deal with the question of thistles. Many farmers in our county are being prosecuted for not cutting them. I happened to go to see the authorities concerned and I heard that there were 4,000 or 5,000 summonses awaiting issue in Westmeath, for that offence. I know it is all right to summon the farmers if they do not cut them, but the way these summonses are being issued is very wrong. Last year, there were only 18 summonses in Westmeath for that, and I know I counted 300 or 400 in one book of summonses in Mullingar the day before yesterday, which were either going out to farmers or had been heard. The Department should not be harassing the farmers in that way, when they are trying to save their crops. Now, that is no way to be harassing farmers who are trying to save their crops. It is all right in the case of certain farmers who do not cut their thistles, but I know of a case of one farmer who was summoned for not cutting buck-thistles on his land and was fined 10/-, although he cut the thistles two or three days afterwards, whereas another farmer, who had good cattle on his land, was also fined 10/-, because he had not cut the thistles in time. In my county, several farmers were summoned for not cutting thistles on their land. The Gárdaí came about the matter and, within two or three days afterwards, these farmers cut their thistles.

Goodness knows, the farmers have been hard put to it this year to deal with the tillage problems and everything else, without having to deal with this question of the cutting of thistles. I should like to say that I always cut the thistles on my land, and I should like to see it done everywhere, but this thing of issuing hundreds and hundreds of summonses, to the farmers in my own and other counties, to cut thistles, when they have so many other problems to deal with, is, in my opinion, an undue harassing of these people. If the Minister can find the case of a bad farmer who, wilfully, is not cutting his thistles, well, then, summon that man, but in other cases, where the farmers cut their thistles, two or three days after the Gárdaí come on the farm, some allowance should be made.

These are the points that I wanted to make, and I should like to say that if the Minister wants 37½ per cent. tillage, the farmers are out to help him to achieve that, but they also want the Minister to help them, instead of going on in this haphazard way. For instance, we have had military manoeuvres going on all through the country, and surely it would be possible to make the services of the military available for the farmers. The farmers are willing to pay the military. They do not want to do the labouring man out of his job or out of his wages, but everybody knows that in a season of wet weather, one good day means hundreds of thousands of pounds to the country, and if the military are there, and if their services could be availed of by the farmers, it would mean a lot to production in this country. The farmer is prepared to pay these men, and I would ask the Minister to give some forethought to this question. If he does not want the farmers of Meath and Westmeath to grow beet, we shall grow potatoes or other root crops, but we want a fair price for the crops we grow and, if we get a fair price, then we will put thousands of tons of potatoes into our land, so long as we are guaranteed a fair price for such produce.

Mr. Beegan

Agriculture and agricultural problems loomed very largely in the recent election campaign, and I had expected that when we came back here to discuss the Estimate for Agriculture we would hear something that would simplify our agricultural problems and ensure the necessary production of food here, but we have been listening now for several hours to this debate and I have not heard anything new. I do not think that either the Minister or the Government has gained much inspiration from anything that has been suggested here. We heard Deputy Hughes, who moved that the Estimate be referred back, and he gave us nothing new. Of course, we had the periodical rehearsal of lack of organisation, lack of fertilisers, and the depreciation of soil fertility.

We have heard that several times before, but the Deputy did not make any practical suggestion whereby production could be made easier, or to show the Minister how the difficulties concerned could be got over. Now, as far as fertilisers are concerned, I would be inclined to say that, so far as a great many parts of this country are concerned, it was a great blessing that they did not get fertilisers, because if they had got fertilisers to the extent that they expected, it would have meant that no corn or cereal crop would have been saved this season. In the rich lands, had fertilisers been used the corn would have gone down early in July and remain in manure on the fields.

Seemingly, the only solution put forward for the increase of agricultural produce in this country and the increase in food production in this country is the keeping on increasing prices for the producers and, as has been suggested by one speaker here, a corresponding increase in the wages of agricultural labourers. I am not opposed to the getting of a fair wage by the agricultural labourer, or to the getting of a reasonable price by the farmer for his produce. I happen to be a farmer myself, and although I may not be as practical a farmer as some of the other people who have spoken here, still I believe that many of the people who have come here for years cannot possibly be attending to their farms in a proper way, because farming is a whole-time job and requires the whole-time attention of those engaged in it; but when it comes to a question of increased prices for the things produced by the farmer or of increased wages for agricultural labourers, it seems to me that some people forget that the end of this war must come some time. I am optimistic enough to believe and to hope that it will come to an end. I also believe in the theory that history repeats itself, and that the aftermath of this war will be no different from the aftermath of all the other wars in history; in other words, that the aftermath will mean a lean period, not alone for this country but for all the countries in the world, and, after all, if prices of agricultural produce are allowed to increase, and if the wages of agricultural labourers. are allowed to increase correspondingly, and if we are allowed to go along that road of inflation to a very considerable extent, it will mean that we will be driven back all of a sudden to a depression, such as we have seen in former years, and the people who will have to bear the brunt of the impact of that depression, in the first place, will be the farmers. Neither the farm labourers nor the industrialists will have to meet that depression nearly so soon as the producers of the raw materials.

That has been our experience after the last war, and so I believe that the Government is acting as the best friend of the farmer in the long run, by pursuing its present policy, in view of the fact that the farmers are better-off to-day than they can hope to be for some years to come after the end of the war. If the prices of agricultural produce and the wages of agricultural labourers are to be increased, where is that money to come from? I heard Deputy Fagan talking about industrialists and about cheaper food, but there are a great deal of other people in this country, other than the industrialists. There are a great many people in this country with very slender incomes, and when prices are allowed to increase, and wages to increase correspondingly, we will have numerous motions, such as we have had on the Order Paper to-day, or in Parliamentary Questions, requesting the Government to increase old-age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, blind persons' pensions, food vouchers, and to further subsidise the loaf. Is not the farmer going to pay his full share of that? That being so, I believe, as I have said at the outset, that the Government is following the proper policy.

Now, as I have said, the period after the war is going to be a difficult one. We hear a great deal in this House about post-war planning, and I am sure that the Government and the Department of Agriculture are not unmindful of that aspect of the question, and that they will realise that the producers of this country are going to be in competition, within a very short space of time after the war, with other countries which are now producing instruments for war and which will be capable of having those factories reconstructed into producing implements for agricultural purposes. In other words, we will be up against mechanised mass production by outside countries, and one of the things that I should like to have kept in mind here now is that such agricultural machinery as is possible to be got would be either imported into the country or that plans should be made for the purpose of assembling here, as soon as possible after the war, those parts of machinery that would enable us to continue the policy that, I believe, after all, has the support of the majority of the Irish people.

As regards compulsory tillage, I observe that under the new Order the acreage has been increased. It is now two years ago since I advocated that it should be increased to one-third of the arable land of each holding. On that occasion I also suggested that a certain percentage of rape and new hay might be allowed for. I am glad that that idea has also been adopted. I am afraid, however, that a number of farmers must have evaded the tillage Order. It was alleged here yesterday that it was all big farmers who did that. To be fair to the big farmers, I do not think it is all big farmers who have evaded the tillage Order. After all, they seem to be fair game for everyone, and inspectors give them particular attention. If there has been a reduction in the tillage acreage, and if we have not got the 25 per cent. which we were called upon to provide last year, I believe it is the farmers holding between 20 and 50 acres who have not fully responded. It is not an easy thing for them to do, I admit. There is no doubt that they are labouring under difficulties, and to bring them all into line by inspection is very difficult. I believe that even if you had twice as many inspectors as you have, unless some machinery is set up locally to co-operate with the Department and the inspectors, a number of farmers will still be able to evade their responsibilities. It is, in fact, too bad that people who are inclined to till and who have done their duty during the past three or four years, have again to be compelled to increase their acreage, if those other people or any of them can escape their responsibility. I should like very much that a keen eye would be kept on them because I do believe that a number of them must have got off without fulfilling their obligations.

A wheat area has been fixed and I am glad that that is so, but I thought it strange to hear a Deputy from my own county stating here yesterday that we in East Galway are capable of producing only two barrels of wheat to the acre. I suppose he meant that that happened in some instances, but I challenge that statement if it was meant generally, because I hold that we have land in East Galway capable of producing as much wheat as land in any other part of Ireland. I produce consistently 11 barrels of wheat to the statute acre, and spring wheat at that. I have done so over a number of years, and I am sure I have not the best land in East Galway, although it is pretty good land, nor do I claim to be the most expert or practical farmer in East Galway. Alongside that, Deputy Donnellan advocated the acquisition of the ranches and their division by the Land Commission. I am all with him in that, and have always been so, but if we are capable of producing only two barrels to the acre, and at the same time he advocates the division of the ranch land in East Galway, the two things do not run on parallel lines at all. In fact, they are direct opposites. If the land in East Galway is not capable of producing much more wheat than two barrels, it is certainly unsuitable for the Land Commission to take over at all.

I believe the Minister has discriminated very unfairly against East Galway and Roscommon in fixing the area to be devoted to wheat at one-sixteenth of the arable land, whereas in my opinion it should be one-tenth. After all, in 1835, 18,000 tons of wheat were sold in the public markets in County Galway apart from what the people used for themselves. When they were capable of producing that quantity 108 years ago, when they had only the spade or the laidhe and none of the present up-to-date, modern machinery, I do not see why we cannot produce a much greater quantity to-day. There is a distinct prejudice, of course, against the growing of wheat on the part of a number of people, as can be plainly seen. We had a Deputy from Westmeath stating that the land of Westmeath is unsuitable for wheat. He also referred to the Connaught people, but all he knows about the Connaught people is what he learns when he comes down to buy cattle at Ballinasloe or Loughrea. We had a number of his class in Galway on the big farms until they were driven out of it. I can assure him that the people of Galway and of Connaught generally are quite capable of producing any amount of wheat.

I think one of the big problems mentioned here in regard to agriculture —and it was just mentioned; it was left to the Government to formulate some plan—is the difficulty of procuring labour for harvesting purposes. It is quite easy to sow a very large area of tillage, particularly of cereals. If the land is ploughed an old man or an old woman can sow the seed, but it is quite a different matter to raise that, to reap it and to harvest it. The difficulty arises in the procuring of sufficient labour. I believe that the labour is there. I hold that instead of looking to the Army to come to our assistance, that we have labour beside us which could be organised. The Army can do a certain amount, but I think it would be unfair to the Army to deplete it altogether, to send members of the forces to one farm or another and to leave the barracks and points of defence without anybody. I do not think that would be right.

I think that instead of having a register compiled with the local employment exchange in the big towns covering a wide area, such a register should be compiled in the local Gárda station. After all, we have to go to the local Gárda station for the sugar ration card, perhaps a distance of seven or eight miles, but nevertheless it is much nearer, perhaps, than the town where the labour exchange is. If you got the names of men willing to accept work during the harvest season, and if they registered at the local Gárda station and so give an opportunity to the farmers to recruit them through the Gárda station, I believe the farmers in every area would find sufficient men to do their work. If you travel through the country on a Sunday you will see the L.D.F. on parade in any parish; you will see 80 or 100 fine young men in a parish on parade and they represent only one-third of the total number of physically fit men in such a parish who are quite capable and prepared to do agricultural work.

I hold also that a "harvest period" should be fixed from about the 20th July to the 20th September and for that period special rates of wages should be paid. A special rate of wages for agricultural workers should be fixed. I suggest that a maximum wage should be fixed and that it would be illegal for any farmer to pay more. If any farmer were permitted to pay more than the maximum rate, then the well-to-do farmers would be able to get away with it because they would be quite capable of giving a bribe; it would be much easier for them to do so than it would be for the poorer farmers who also might require labour. This should apply particularly in districts where the three-eighth and one-sixteenth quotas are demanded. I suggest that the rate of wages should be a generous rate and that it should be on the same basis as that for county council workers and that overtime should be paid at the same rate.

I suggest that during that "harvesting period" all public works should be suspended, but perhaps a small percentage of men might be kept in the bogs to remove the turf saved prior to that period. There is very little turf cut after the 20th July and it is nearly all ready for handling at that time. There is one thing I am going to mention and perhaps it might be regarded as unpopular to mention it, but I do not mind unpopularity at all. I believe that all amusements likely to interfere with harvesting should be suspended during that "harvesting period." Commercial dance halls should be closed on week nights in every part of the country during that period and they should not be permitted to open save on Sunday nights, and even then only until 1 a.m. We all know that there are dance halls all over the country and that there is dancing every night in the week and no matter how people may try to make out that they are able to work after a night's dancing, I say that they are not able to do it.

In addition, I would allow no horse racing or dog racing during the harvesting period. That might appear to be very drastic and perhaps I will be taken to task the next time I go to Galway City. I know numbers of people who go to race meetings there, losing two of the finest days in the year. Then they go back home and the weather is wet and they wind up by blaming the Government for it. If they stayed at home and did their work—if they did the primary work in the existing emergency of producing food—we would have a much better country. I think it would be better for them to set about their work as earnestly as possible rather than to let things go drifting as they are. If some of those people who are responsible for promoting race meetings were short of a meal, they would be the first to express resentment. Still, these centres of attraction are being organised during a period which is of very great importance, during what is really a very critical period for our crops. In my opinion that condition of affairs should be altered.

Reference has been made to seed wheat and the difficulty of getting it. The Minister and the Department ought to have very good information in that connection. The type of seed and the mixing of varieties was also mentioned. I believe that it is more important to have seed with a high germination than to have it true to type. Very great assistance is given in the vocational schools all over the country in this respect, and the farmers are availing of it to a very large extent. The necessity of doing so should be further brought home to them. Wheat is a very tricky crop, and while it may have a very good germination at a particular time when it is threshed, if it is not properly stored and put aside under proper conditions, it will deteriorate from the point of view of germination. There are various ways of testing seeds, and I am not sure if all farmers are well acquainted with those methods. It would be well if the agricultural instructors informed the farmers on that point.

So far as the agricultural instructors are concerned, they are doing very fine work, and I should like to see more of them through the country. There are three in County Galway at the moment, but one is only a temporary instructor. I wish there were three permanent men there, because they could do very useful work. There is one thing I would like to see so far as the training of agricultural instructors is concerned. We are living in a machine age, and I think it should be part of their training to learn something about agricultural machinery. Let me take the reaper and binder as an example. It would be very advisable if the instructors were trained in the mechanism of these machines, so that if anything went wrong they would be in a position to trace the trouble and to indicate the parts necessary for replacement. If a farmer were using a reaper and binder and it went out of order, say the timing or something else went wrong, and if the agricultural instructor was not in a position to offer advice, I wonder what opinion would the farmers have of that instructor? Probably they would have to go to some man who never passed through an agricultural college in order to have the damaged part repaired.

I believe that the Order relating to threshing is a bit too elastic. There is an Order whereby the owners of threshing sets are permitted to charge 12½ per cent. on the charges that applied in 1942. I suggest that the type of machine, the size of the drum and the power attached, should be taken into consideration, and the threshing price fixed on that basis. In some parts of my county 25/- or 30/- per hour is being charged by persons with threshers having a drum only 3 feet 6 inches in width. I hold that that is too high, and I suggest there should be a uniform rate all over the country.

As regards threshing sets, I understand a number of them came into the country and it is expected that steps will be taken to have as many as possible imported from now on. I believe the best way to have them allocated would be by reference to the local agricultural instructors. They would have a fairly good idea of the districts where the need for sets is greatest. If a list of applicants is submitted, the agricultural instructor will have a pretty good idea of the persons who will work sets to the best advantage.

I fear there is a tendency nowadays to expect too much from the Government. If, instead, we made up our minds to rely upon ourselves a little more, to have a little more inclination to be thrifty in our habits, we might perhaps get much farther, no matter what Government may be in office, than if we are always looking to Kildare Street for assistance.

Mr. Dillon

Once a year we discuss the Agricultural Estimates, and I do not think we ought to allow the occasion to pass without calling to mind that we are in the presence of a most remarkable man, the present Minister for Agriculture who, I should say, is unique in history. He is the only man in Irish history, not excluding Cromwell and Queen Elizabeth, who has precipitated in this country a famine in butter, bacon, eggs and oatmeal. It is an astonishing achievement. Fire and sword could not do it, invasion could not do it, persecution could not do it, but the Minister for Agriculture could do it.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

The Deputy should go round in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of his life.

Mr. Dillon

There is one of them gone and I have only begun to deal with their record. It is a fascinating record. We have just listened to Deputy Beegan's plan of reform, that when he is making up his crops nobody in County Galway is to dance, go to races, play cards or conduct a flirtation. The Deputy thinks that the best way to secure that is by setting up a local Gestapo that will control the roads in County Galway to ensure that nobody will take part in these entertainments until his crops are saved. I heard some of my erstwhile colleagues in these benches pray for a plan, but what is to happen if the people choose Deputy Beegan to do the planning? In this country we have had enough of planning when we remember the planning that the present Minister for Agriculture did on pigs and bacon. He has planned every pig out of the country. Three years ago he planned and there is not a pig left because the sows, according to Deputy Beegan, have gone on strike, have resorted to birth-control and there are now no bonhams. That is the fruit of planning. That was the plan instituted by this Government that had the largest majority accorded to any Irish Government. No Government in the world has secured a clearer majority than the Fianna Fáil Government from the Irish people at the fairest election ever held on the basis of proportional representation. This Government which was armed with unquestioned authority proceeded to plan. So far as the planning affected pigs, there are now no pigs.

I want to dwell briefly on the situation that confronts us at the present time. It divides itself into two clear divisions: (1) The policy necessary to meet the emergency with which we are at present confronted, and (2) the policy that this Government should have for the post-war period. These two divisions are as different as chalk is from cheese. To grow wheat in this country in times of peace is suicidal lunacy. To grow wheat in this country during the period of this emergency is essential if the people are to survive. It is prudent and necessary to grow wheat now, but it is suicidal folly to grow it in peace-time, when the seven seas are open, and when the resources of the world are available to us. I advised the Minister for Agriculture last year to introduce a system of compulsory wheat growing at a reasonable price and I am glad to say he has done it. It is the proper thing to do. It is ridiculous to expect men to grow wheat voluntarily in this country. As Deputy Fagan pointed out, farmers in their daily lives are not inspired by lofty patriotism, and I am surprised that any section of the community should think so. At times any section can rise to the occasion and achieve prodigies for certain specific purposes but even for patriotic purposes such ecstasies of national service are difficult to maintain. If wheat is necessary to maintain the people then those who own land owe it to the community which supports their security of title to provide them with food without which they cannot survive. At the moment the Minister is perfectly right in his policy of making the growing of that crop compulsory in every county where it will grow.

I think he would be well advised to establish advisory committees for each county, consisting of the agricultural instructors, the agricultural surveyors, and the secretaries of the county committees of agriculture to whom individual farmers could appeal if any peculiar difficulty arose. I do not mean to suggest that any farmer should have the right to claim exemption in this cereal year. I think every farmer in the scheduled area, whether his land was suitable or unsuitable, should sow wheat this year. I understand that there may be a loss in growing the crop, but that would be a small sacrifice having regard to the sacrifices that the rest of humanity are making. Everybody should sow wheat this year, but there should be a system of appeal so that skilled persons could determine whether it was reasonable to demand that similar crops should be grown in the ensuing cereal year.

If adjudication cannot be completed in the present year on the claims of farmers, all dispatch should be employed to have their appeals considered and decisions given as to whether they should grow wheat in the ensuing cereal year. But until the farmers are satisfied that they have got exemption compulsion should continue. I believe the vast majority of farmers agree with me that compulsion is now necessary, and will agree that if a tribunal is established ample justice will be done to their claims. I warn the Minister now that while we accept the policy of compulsory wheat-growing for the period of the emergency, we must recognise that it would involve farmers in certain potential loss and that they are entitled to legitimate compensation. If they are going to grow wheat for the community they are entitled to ask in respect of their other crops that they should be free to get the market price.

Why should farmers be constrained to sell barley to Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Son at 35/- a barrel when Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Son are willing to pay them 70/- a barrel? At present malting and millable barley is worth 75/- a barrel in Great Britain. That being so, why must the farmers of this country present £1,000,000 sterling to the shareholders of Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Company? Do not blame Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Company. They are willing and anxious to pay the farmers, but the Minister for Agriculture will not let them. Who is emptying the pockets of farmers into the pockets of the shareholders of Messrs. Arthur Guinness and Company? The Minister for Agriculture. He will not let Messrs. Arthur Guinness pay them more and, as I pointed out in this House on a previous occasion, when the shares of Messrs. Arthur Guinness stood at 84/- on the Dublin Stock Exchange, word went round that the Minister for Agriculture would not let Messrs. Guinness pay more for barley, Guinness's shares went up to 120/-. Why should they not? Nobody that I know was consulted as to why this firm should get £1,000,000 from the Irish farmers. I do not blame Messrs. Guinness. Guinness is one of the best firms in Ireland. The firm is one of the best employers, and one of the most valuable assets that this country has, and I think they are prepared to pay the farmers a fair price for barley, but they will not be let do so.

Is there any Deputy in the Fianna Fáil or any other Party who can tell you the reason for that? Heretofore, it was said that, if farmers were allowed to get that price, they would all give up growing wheat. Now that they are compelled to grow wheat, why must we continue to deprive them of the price for barley to which they are legitimately entitled? If they are to be deprived of that price, why put the saving into the pockets of the shareholders of Arthur Guinness and Co., and not into the Exchequer? I have raised that question time and again in this House, and I suspect that a large number of Deputies on the opposite side do not believe that what I say is true. I do not ask them to believe me. They can get the current price of barley in Great Britain and find out for themselves. Then, they can go to the Minister for Agriculture in secret and ask, "Why is it that farmers in Britain are getting 75/- a barrel for their barley while we are allowed to receive only 35/-?" That is daft.

We have taken the control off the price of oats. That is a very sensible thing to do. If it had been done 12 months ago we should now have a surplus of oats. I begged the Minister to do it every year for the past three years. If we had done it from the beginning of the war, we should have an exportable surplus of oats. But let us not imagine that, by taking the control off the price of oats, we are going to get oatmeal for the people, with the control still remaining on the price of oatmeal. You will not get the oats into the oatmillers' premises under these conditions. The only effective way to bring down the price of oatmeal is to create a surplus of oatmeal. You may haye a fixed price for oatmeal, but there will be no oatmeal for the people to buy at that fixed price. You may say that it is a dreadful thing to have dear oatmeal, but dear oatmeal is better than no oatmeal at all. If it becomes urgently necessary to provide oatmeal for the poorer sections of the community, let the Government buy the necessary oatmeal and supply it to those sections of the community. If oatmeal were allowed to find its own price, if all restrictions were taken off it, we should have, within two years, an abundant surplus of oatmeal. That is the only way to control the price effectively— to make the supplies available.

See the result of the Government's attempt to control the price of oatmeal during the past few years. There is no oatmeal for anybody. I want to have an abundance of oatmeal for everybody. If we had taken the control off oatmeal two or three years ago, we should have plenty of oatmeal for the people and for the hens as well. But now the hens are all on strike and we cannot get sufficient oatmeal for a pot of stirabout. The Fianna Fáil plan has been tried and it has been found to be a rotten plan, as have their other plans. Try my plan and do it openly. Do not do it under the rose. Say: "We have been wrong, as we have always been wrong, and in view of the great emergency, we are prepared to back-pedal and do what is right while there is still time." Now that the compulsory wheat principle has been adopted, I urge the Government to withdraw all control from eggs, barley, oats, pigs and all other farm produce and I assure the Government that, if they do that, we will produce an abundance of all commodities and an exportable surplus of many commodities, if the Government desires to export them.

Deputy Fagan suggested, very sensibly, that the Government should reconsider this policy of 100 per cent. extraction from wheat. That 100 per cent. extraction is bad for the children who consume the bread. This brown bread, unless calcium is added, is bad for the children who consume it and the Government has set its face against adding calcium. This is a highly technical question and I do not propose to do more than skim over it. In the final 10 per cent. extraction of wheat, there is a substance known as phytic acid. That phytic acid prevents calcium metabolism. That helps to produce rickets in children. It helps to injure the health of expectant mothers. I am not saying that alone it will do either of these things but it helps to do them. If you abstain from adding calcium to the flour under present circumstances extracted from wheat, albeit the bread may be palatable, it is not good. Could we not reduce the extraction and provide animal feeding stuffs? At least 10 per cent. of the total flour output was fed during the last cereal year to pigs. Part was fed to pigs in the form of stale bread, unfit to eat. A very considerable part was fed to pigs out of the bag, surreptitiously, by unscrupulous or short-sighted people who did not understand the magnitude of the crime they committed in giving human food to animals under present conditions. It is only silly people or ignorant people or thoroughly bad people who do that sort of thing. The vast majority of people who do it do it out of ignorance; they do not understand.

I must now touch upon another highly technical question—that of rope. Rope is a disease of bread. It is caused by bacteria which occur upon the husk of wheat. If you bring wheat into your bakehouse which has on it the husk, you are likely to bring the bacteria of rope into your bakehouse. If you do, you get loaves which, as Deputy Fagan said, would nearly turn you sideways in the car with their smell. The smell at first is pleasant enough. It is like the smell of raisins or dried fruit. In the next stage, it is disagreeable, and, in the final stage, it grows a green fur. That is rope. Rope has greatly increased but that is not exclusively due to the employment of 100 per cent. flour. Through the agency of rope, you get a large quantity of bad bread. On the other hand, so long as there is an unlimited quantity of flour available to everybody who chooses to go in and buy it, you are open to the danger that an ignorant person who is finishing off half a dozen pigs and who has no meal for them, will go in and buy a 10-stone bag of flour and, in the darkness of the night, mix some of it with a pot of potatoes and feed it to the pigs in order to get them finished. In that way, a very considerable quantity of flour was used in the past 12 months, and will be used in the coming 12 months if we do not prevent it. There is only one way of preventing it—to ration flour and bread. We are in a very delicate position because, owing to the loss of some of our transatlantic ships, it is highly unlikely that we shall get any wheat from America in the next 12 months. With Portugal in a state of dire distress, it is not likely that she will allow us to transship wheat which goes to Lisbon. Our wheat would, therefore, have to be brought direct from America by oceangoing cargo steamers. I understand that we have lost two or three of our ships and that the British are repairing a third one for us in Glasgow. I do not know whether or not it will be ready in time for our purpose. Our supplies of foreign wheat may, accordingly, be non-existent and we may have to depend on the domestic crop. Therefore, I recommend the Government at this stage boldly to ration flour for the purpose of preventing its misuse and securing that everybody, rich and poor, will get their allocation at the rate of 5 lbs. of it, or 8 lbs. of bread per head per week. If we do that nobody is going to feed his own breakfast to the pigs and will not have the opportunity of feeding his neighbour's breakfast either. Everybody will get his fair share and none will be misused. If anybody chooses to throw his own breakfast to the pigs, let him. I do not mind if somebody prefers to eat swede turnips and give his bread supply to the pig provided he does not give mine, or his neighbour's bread, to the pigs. Turning for a moment to the manure question, can the Minister say if our small steamers can go to North Africa?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think so.

Mr. Dillon

If they cannot go to North Africa, I recognise that it may be impossible to buy phosphates in North Africa. A mighty war has swept that territory and possibly circumstances are such, transport and so on, that these considerations may make it impossible for anybody to get phosphates there. Can anybody tell me what is the position with regard to the Clare phosphates? Is there any Deputy who can tell us the truth about them and where they are? I am told that the supply is almost unlimited, and that the reason they are not being used is that there are no transport facilities for getting them out. The last story I heard about them was that the phosphate rock is so hard that it breaks up the grinding machinery, and that when you have it ground, although the phosphate content is very high, the soluble phosphate content is very low. What are the facts? If the phosphates there are very valuable, then it is a great scandal if the Government has not done something about them, but low as my opinion is of the capacity of the present Minister for Agriculture, I assume, by his complete failure to avail of the deposits, that they are not of great use and that it would be a waste of time to grind them.

If that is so, there is no use in Deputies coming in here baiting the Minister for artificial manures. Where is the Minister to get them? If he had nitrogen fixation plants he could get them out of the air, but he has not. What are farmers doing themselves to enrich their land by the use of clovers? Is every bale of straw on every farm going to be trampled into manure this year, or are we going to see dirty stacks of straw smouldering into dust because farmers are too lazy to take the measures necessary to reduce that straw into suitable manure? Of course, the best thing would be to buy a dozen of two or three-year-old bullocks, put them in the yard and let them trample that straw into manure, or to put the straw so near the manure heap that the liquid manure will run into it and horse and donkey cars travelling over it will trample it down. If the straw is put there it will soak up the liquid manure.

I know many farmsteads where farmers assiduously go out and dig drains to let the liquid manure run away instead of gathering it into a reservoir and dumping the straw into it. It is surprising the number of farmers who do not understand the urgent necessity of doing that at the present time. They allow stacks of straw to moulder away into dust, straw that could be converted into an invaluable manure. How many farmers make a compost heap in their farmyards in which leaves, old roots and other waste material lying around could be converted into manure? I do not think we farmers have the right to upbraid the Minister for his shortcomings if we are conscious that we ourselves are not doing all that we might do in regard to this matter of providing manure for the land. Is there a compost heap on 10 per cent. of the farms of this country? I doubt it, and if there is not then thousands and thousands of tons of valuable fertilisers are being wasted every year. Perhaps the Minister could help by propaganda, by explaining the plan for the making of compost and by having leaflets dealing with this distributed amongst the community. If he could help in that way, and has not already done so, then I think he has been gravely remiss.

Dr. Ryan

A leaflet has been issued.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister knows about the leaflets and I know about them. In every general election every Deputy in this House sends out election literature free to electors because he wants to get their votes so that he may be able to plant his posterior on the seats of this House. Is it not much more important to get the community fed? If it is considered worth while sending out the rubbish that we all do once every five years to every elector in the country, would it not be worth while sending out, post free, a leaflet on compost manure to every farmer? I know that the leaflets are good. They are excellent. I want to make a suggestion to the Minister whereby these leaflets could be sent out without a penny cost to the farmers of the country. My suggestion is that, with the collaboration of the Land Cbmmission, these leaflets should be enclosed with the receivable order when it is being sent back with the receipt to the farmer for the half-year's rent next December. That work could be done by the employment of the 25 girls who were dismissed by the Irish Insurance Company to-day. They are temporary workers and are all looking for jobs. Unless the Minister is prepared to help in that way, then we are not going to get this essential information into the hands of the farmers. The position is that those who know how to get the leaflets very often do not require them. It is the farmers who do not know how to go about getting them that really require them and would derive benefit from them.

Did Deputies hear Deputy Beegan? My heart went out to him when I heard him talk about agricultural machinery: that he wants to see all the agricultural machinery that can be got assembled in this country. Deputy Beegan was one of those who voted in this House for an absolute prohibition on imports of agricultural machinery. He is the warrior who marched through the Lobby day after day and week after week to ensure that we would not be allowed to import agricultural machinery when the machinery was there to be got. He is the warrior who, in company with Deputy Allen, protested against the suggestion that the tariff restrictions should be taken off machinery at a time when there was plenty of it to be got. He was one of the warriors who proclaimed that we had plenty of agricultural machinery in this country and that there was no necessity for imports. It was only when he discovered that the horse was gone that Deputy Beegan rushed to slam the door and nearly pushed the front out of the house. He is swaggering about now with his prescience and wisdom, after shutting the door upon the empty stable, wanting to buy a horse to put into it when there is no horse to be got. Their impudence fascinates me, because they are all perfectly certain that everybody forgets in October what they had been saying in the previous August. They have lived on that for the past 15 years and have grown brazen on it. Every folly that Fianna Fáil perpetrates, by some astonishing development, is forgotten. They have the effrontery to get up here and swallow their own words and nobody seems to pass the slightest comment on them.

Where did the tractors come from that we got this year? Where did the reapers and the binders come from that we got? Was it from the base, bloody and brutal Saxon? I wonder would it be regarded as an ungraceful thing by some of the sea green incorruptible patriots over there, to place it on record that it was the base, bloody and brutal Saxon who sent us the machinery which enabled us to save our crops this year? I do not think it would, but I suppose it would not be a popular thing to do. It would asperse their reputation as genuine patriots and devotees of Cathleen Ní Houlihán. The fact, however, remains that but for the fact that we got from Great Britain the agricultural machinery we did get, the harvest this year would not have been gathered, and but for the fact that we got the threshing machines from Great Britain we did get, the harvest could not have been threshed. We got them at a time when Great Britain was hard pressed to save and thresh her own harvest. I wonder did the Danes or the Poles get that from the Germans? Some day perhaps Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party will have an opportunity of travelling abroad to make that inquiry.

Do Deputies realise that we are faced with a very serious crisis in respect of rope? We never realise how necessary rope is until we have not got it, and unless steps are taken to augment our supply of rope, pretty soon this country may find itself with virtually none. We know what an extraordinarily difficult thing it was to get binder twine. Here again, the base, brutal and bloody British Saxon stepped in and provided the binder twine; but it must be added that he got a fair consideration for it. We sent some flax products instead and he was glad to have it. Why can we not do something like that in regard to rope, because I foresee a very serious situation if we have not got rope, and that situation is not very far distant? Would the Minister consider making some proposal to the British that they should send us the raw material of rope and let us manufacture it for them and retain, say, 20 per cent. of the finished product or some scheme of that kind? That would provide employment here, and at the same time give us a limited supply of a very necessary requisite for the farming community.

We have gone so far as to strip the Pigs and Bacon Marketing Board of practically all its functions. It is a purely decorative body now. Why not go the whole hog and get rid of it? It was a rotten body from the time we started it. It has broken down completely; it has done inestimable damage; and the sensible thing to do, if we want to revive the pig industry, is to relieve that industry of all restrictions whatsoever. If the Minister wants to give the members of that commission a life pension of their present salaries, it would be a cheap deliverance to give it to them and to be rid of them forthwith, and I am perfectly certain that there is not a Deputy who would not cordially approve a plan to buy them off at that modest cost. To retain them may cost us hundreds of thousands, because God knows when they will become active again, and, if they do, God help those in the pig trade. I would cheerfully pay them a life pension of their present salaries to do nothing but to keep quiet. That would be the only condition. They could commit felonies, go to jail or anything else— I would guarantee their pensions provided only that they kept quiet and kept as far away from the pig trade as they possibly could. Will the Minister consider making that proposal to them?

I have raised again and again the question of seeds. Various Deputies have pointed out that persons in certain parts of the country got grossly inferior seed last year, or could not get seed at all. Of course they got rubbishy seed—and why? Because very largs numbers of farmers could not get seed from the retail distributors, and had to buy the best they could in the markets from their neighbours. I saw seed oats sold last year and you would not feed it to hens. If you did, the hens, being discriminating creatures, would eat about nine out of every 100 grains. But farmers went out, dug their land, harrowed it, and sowed that seed. They could have let loose all the hens in the country and not 10 per cent. of what they sowed would have been picked up, because there was nothing in it but husks and rubbish. Why did these people buy that rubbish in the open market? Because the shopkeeper had no seed to offer them.

The same was true of wheat. Why had the shopkeeper no seed wheat to offer to the farmers of the district in which I live, at any rate? It was because when the shopkeeper came to contemplate selling wheat, he realised at once that there was a fixed retail price for wheat. There was a limit to what he could charge for it—I think it was 3/- a stone or 60/- a barrel. He applied to the wholesale wheat distributor, that is, the assembler, because bear in mind that the average shopkeeper who sells seed wheat in rural Ireland is not himself an assembler. The retailer had to apply to the assembler for supplies, and he was informed that the price which the assembler proposed to charge him was 60/- a barrel, and, on top of that, he had to pay carriage from Dublin, Sligo, Galway, or wherever he located his supplies, and, having paid carriage in addition to the 60/- a barrel, he was required to sell at 60/- in small quantities, with the result that no small shopkeeper would buy any seed wheat to sell. I wrote at once to the Department of Agriculture and pointed this out. They hummed and hawed for some time, and ultimately said they knew that was the case, but they could not do anything about it.

Everybody knows that the assemblers of cereal seed in the last 12 months have made a very good thing out of it. The retail distributors did not want much. If they had given them 2/6 or 2/- a cwt., it was all they wanted, to break it up into small quantities and resell to farmers. What the Minister should have done was to fix a price from the assembler to the retailer and from the retailer to the farmer, with the proviso that if the assembler sold direct to the farmer, he should get the fixed price of 60/-, and if the assembler sold to a registered retailer, he should sell to that registered retailer for 60/-, less 3d. a stone, which would be 55/-, or even make the difference less, but at least make the difference between the price the shopkeeper paid for the wheat and the price at which he had to sell it, sufficient to pay for the freight on the wheat from where he bought it to where he sold it, and for the labour in breaking bulk in order to sell to the small farmer in the quantity in which the small farmer wanted to buy it.

So far as the present situation is concerned, I do not know that there is very much more the Government can do for the farmers. Let us be clear on this: it is all "cod" for farmers to come in here and pretend that they are poor, oppressed and downtrodden at present. The farmers are making plenty of money at present, and they know it. It is all "cod" to be coming in here and saying that the production of oats, of live stock, of this and that does not pay. It pays well, and any farmer who works hard at present can make a middling good living. I know it; I am a farmer myself and I deal with farmers. I know when farmers are well-off and when farmers are poor. Nobody knows that as quickly or as well as the shopkeeper who is supplying them, and the farmers of this country have plenty of money at present. I warn them that the time may come when they will have too much money and too little to buy. That is the great danger which presents itself.

Mr. Flanagan

If they paid their debts, they would not have very much left.

Mr. Dillon

I take damn good care that they pay their debts, and they are well able to pay them, thanks be to God. My experience of them is that if you have to wait five, ten or twelve years, when they have the money, they will pay you, and if they are not paying you, it is because they are not able to pay you.

Mr. Mahony

Perhaps it is debts outstanding for the last eight or ten years that are being paid to you.

Mr. Dillon

More power to their elbows. It is a credit to them that they come in and pay.

Mr. Mahony

That does not leave a balance to go on with.

Mr. Dillon

If they keep at it, let me tell them that they will have a good balance. If the Deputy wants a bit of good advice, let him buy a couple of cattle at present and in the spring he will thank me for the counsel. Let him not be throwing up his hands in despair. Let him not be over-persuaded by the eloquence of his leader and deputy leader. Things are bad enough, God knows, but they are not as bad as some people would have us believe. If we could hammer a bit of sense into that decent man's head here, we could get along all right. Instead of getting up and "Wirras-thru-ing", get up and give the Minister some good advice. Get a bit tough. Do not be so mild and gentle as you were on another occasion. The best way is to make him afraid of you. Do not be saying with your leader: "This is no time for criticism". Criticise him plenty and the hotter you give it to him the better hope you have of getting a change.

Mr. Flanagan

The better he likes it.

Mr. Dillon

It is good for him, and I suppose he does like it. Being a doctor, he likes what is good for him, unlike the ignorant sections of the community who do not like what is good for them. When he is given castor oil, he licks his lips. He does not think of the taste but remembers that it is good for him. Give him plenty of it. If we can make a sensible man of him we have a clear road ahead of us to a reasonable measure of prosperity. If we cannot reform him and if we go on letting him throw spanners into the works, as he has been doing for the past ten years, he will make an end of us all. Let us be sensible. Let us not be "Wirras-thru-ing" when there is no necessity to "Wirras-thru".

There is a real danger. I say deliberately there is a real danger for farmers and every section of this community of having too much money and too little to buy with it. This country stands in desperate peril of inflation unprecedented in its history. Should that inflation come, I admit, the farmers may not be those to suffer the most heavily in it, but we shall have to make demands on the farmers if that situation does develop, for the protection of the poor in our cities, that will stagger the farmers. Inflation will not hit the farmers of this country first but it will hit the poor and, in defence of the poor, demands must be made on those who own the land that will astonish them and give them ample cause to "Wirras-thru" for many a long day.

I want to turn for a moment to post-war. I hear with consternation on all sides of me sensible men clamouring for planning. What does planning mean? Planning is lovely so long as I do the planning for the other fellow. But suppose the other fellow starts to plan for you? Have not we had enough experience of planning for the last ten years? Have we any reason to believe from our experience of the past ten years that planning is going to bring benefit to any section of the community in this country? Did the planning in regard to pigs and bacon improve those in the pigs and bacon trade? Did the planning in regard "grow more wheat" improve the people who grew the wheat or those who ate the bread? It did not. It put £2,000,000 per annum into the pockets of the flour-milling gang in this country which was taken out of the pockets of the producers of wheat and out of the pockets of the consumers of bread. Did any branch of planning that was introduced in this country in the last ten years confer benefit on anybody but the bureaucrats who did the planning and the vested interests who were cute enough to take advantage of it? Did the plain man, the simple man, the individual whom Deputies in this House are supposed to represent, derive any benefit from these plans? I never saw any that did. Our fathers and grandfathers reared good families in this country without any plan. They adapted themselves to circumstances as they arose. They had bad years and good years but, hopping and trotting, they fed us all, educated us all, raised us all, and we are 165 T.Ds.

Mr. Fogarty

You are wrong—138.

Mr. O'Leary

Our fathers had no standstill Orders in regard to their wages.

Mr. Dillon

Was not that a beautiful plan? You see how that has worked. If anybody at the present moment is without a day's wages or without a means of livelihood it may not be exclusively due to the planning but it is very largely due to the planning. One of the best plans you ever had was the tariff plan. Who benefited out of the tariffs? Do you think the farmers got any benefit out of the tariffs? There was a plan for Irish industry, to put a tax on the shovel and the spade and a tax on the mowing-machine and on everything the farmer uses, the feeding-stuffs, the fertilisers for his land. Who got the benefit out of that? We were told that, even if it was a burden on the farmer, it was going to call home the exiles from abroad, provide employment for every living creature in the land. The tide of emigration is flowing out of this country as it never flowed before. The emigrants are more inclined to stay where they are than ever before, and the only ones that have grown rich are the tariff racketeers who stayed at home, the vultures who saw the bare breast of our people and who buried their beaks in it while the going was good and who are now swaggering around this town wearing diamond pins and stomachs on them as big as Mount Vesuvius.

I will tell the Minister all the plan I want for post-war: Get us markets. Get us a place where we can sell our stuff. Give up Advertising to the world that, in the judgment of the Minister for Agriculture in this country, we are incapable of producing anything economically in Ireland. Give us free, open markets and we will produce from the soil of Ireland produce which will compare favourably with that of any other soil in the world, and we will meet competitors from any part of the world and beat them in that market and make a good living out of it, as our fathers did before us. It has become fashionable in this House to argue that we cannot produce eggs economically, that we cannot produce bacon economically, that we cannot produce meat economically. Recently the Taoiseach found it expedient to compare our meat, in Smithfield, London, unfavourably with the frozen product of the Argentine. Is not that so? Did not he say here that when the question was raised about our meat supplies in London, the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Supplies in London said: "Come down to Smithfield. I will show you meat that can be sold at 2¼d. a pound," and the Taoiseach lent himself to the fraudulent identification of that disgusting product with the finest meat that you can find in the world which the farmers of this country are in a position to offer on the British market.

Of course, if we go into the markets of the world with our heads bowed and our minds bewildered by the conviction that nothing we have to sell is worth the price we ask for it, we cannot prosper. Nobody could. But is it not daft for anybody in this country, with our history as one of the finest agricultural countries in the world, with opportunities unrivalled by those of any other agricultural country in the world, to proclaim ourselves to the world as incapable of earning our living upon our own land? I tell the Minister that, post-war, if he will secure for us access to markets, that is all we want, if he will give us a free field and take the tax off the raw material of the agricultural industry.

It is perfectly true that if we have got to buy all our raw materials in a protected market, and sell our finished product in the open market, neither we nor any other body of farmers in the world could earn a living. We are forced by circumstances to sell our produce in the open market because there are 12,000,000 acres of arable land in this country and the produce of 5,000,000 acres will fill every stomach in this country as tight as it can be rammed with a ramrod. Five million acres of our arable land can produce all that is necessary to pack every stomach in this country—rich and poor—three times a day, 365 days in the year, with every conceivable variety of food they desire to consume. The produce of 7,000,000 acres remains for disposal. On the successful disposal of that the raw materials for every other industry and every other occupation in this country depends, because that is the fund from which we must pay for all the imports we require. The produce of that 7,000,000 acres must be sold abroad every year. I want an open free market in which to sell that produce. It is the Government's job to get it for us. Let them get that market. They cannot get us a protected market for all our produce. Let them get the only market they can, and that is an open one, and, in the knowledge that that is the best market they can get, let them take the taxes off the raw material of our industry.

We cannot carry on our backs every other section of the community if we have to earn the entire external assets of the country. If it is just for a manufacturer of cotton textiles to bring in raw cotton free of all taxes into this country, why is it reasonable to ask a man whose business it is to produce live pigs to pay a tax on the feeding stuffs he gives to the pigs? Are not feeding-stuffs the raw material of the pig industry, just as cotton is the raw material of the cotton industry? If the industrialist is entitled to protection for his finished product and a fancy price for it and, having got that, is also entitled to get his raw material free of taxes and restrictions, surely the raw material for the finished product of the farmer, who has to sell abroad in an open free trade market, should have the same privilege too. Therefore, I say, post-war, take the taxes off the raw materials of the agricultural industry, off shovels, spades, machinery, feeding-stuffs and everything else that the farmer requires to buy in order to work his holding. The farmers will do the job. Give them the three F's, because without them they cannot subsist. The farmers of the country if they are to do their job must have fixity of tenure, free sale and fair rent. I shall return to that before I finish.

I want to say this, that after this war you must give us something in addition to the markets and freedom from taxes on our raw materials. At present, if a farmer's son wants to go into an agricultural college there are no vacancies. All the colleges are full. That is a monstrous scandal. There ought to be sufficient colleges teaching agriculture to accommodate every boy who wants to go into them. Any young man who seeks an agricultural education is a national asset, and it is a monstrous thing that he cannot get it. Therefore, I urge on the Minister to ensure that there will be accommodation in agricultural colleges sufficient to accommodate every boy in this State who desires to have an adequate agricultural education. I want to sec post-war demonstration farms. I admire the work the Department of Agriculture has done and I know the vast ability of a great many of the men working in the Department. But in regard to some things, I and most of my neighbours preserve the privilege of being doubting Thomases. It would carry conviction to our minds much more readily to have certain theories demonstrated before us rather than inculcated in us by precept.

If the schemes that the Department advocate are good schemes, then let them take demonstration farms down the country and put these schemes into operation there and invite farmers and anybody interested in agriculture to come and see how they are done and to see the results, and, if they are satisfied, to send their sons to help in the next year's work, and after the experience gained during that apprenticeship they can go back and put into operation on their fathers' farms successful plans demonstrated on these farms. There is no need to say that this will involve an undue expenditure. If these schemes were successful—and I believe most of theta would be—those farms would pay for themselves. If a farmer can rear a family on a 20 acre or 25 acre farm, surely an instructor ought to be able to feed himself out of it, if he knows better how to farm 25 acres than the farmers he is trying it upon. If agricultural instructors, some of whom are excellent men, and invaluable assets to rural Ireland, have information to give us which would increase the productive capacity of the land, let them demonstrate it in the presence of the farmer. That farmer will be only too glad to pick up any information he can get.

Veterinary research is a matter of vital consequence to our people. I do not know whether other Deputies have the same experience, but I am sure Deputy Meighan will agree that in and around the area where we live small farmers are persecuted with cattle going again and again to the bull and being unable to get them into calf. I believe that that is due partially to that most insidious complaint called catarrhal vaginitis. I do not believe it is due to contagious abortion. It is an extremely intractable condition. It is difficult to cure and it results in small farmers having staggering losses. If the total losses from the cows that do not come into calf every year were examined, it would astonish a statistician who examined the problem. Deputy Fagan was dwelling on the diminution of cattle in the immediate future. I believe that whatever evil trend he has detected in the cattle trade at present would be more than compensated for if we could eradicate catarrhal vaginitis in this country. The trouble is that this disease does not seem materially to affect the general health of the beast that has it. It is not contagious to any degree and there is no danger to the person who consumes the milk of the cow. But it seems to be an effective block to conception by the cow, with the result that a farmer who may have such a beast on his hands is obliged to sell it dry. That is a staggering loss to the small man who may have only three or four cows. I do not minimise the difficulty of running the cause of that complaint to ground and providing the proper remedy.

There is also streptococcal mammitis. Everyone knows that a peculiarly heavy milking cow is liable to get inflammation of the udder. I believe that material progress has been made in other countries in the treatment of that disease by the employment of sulphonamide drugs. I am told that we are doing little or nothing here in an effective way to reach a conclusion in regard to that matter. I could go on indefinitely cataloguing animal complaints which require investigation and which ought to be investigated. I say that the standard of veterinary education and research in this country is deplorably low, and reflects no credit on the Minister or those responsible for it. It is the Minister's duty post-war—nothing very effective can be done at present beyond the preparation of plans—to establish in this country a veterinary institute which will be second to none in the world and, by offering adequate remuneration, to secure for that institute the best skill that can be obtained in America or on the Continent of Europe, or anywhere we can get it.

It should be a veterinary institute based on the capital city of this country which should be known throughout the world as being the greatest centre of learning in that particular branch of science that the world knows. I believe there is a wide scope for research and survey relating to soil and seed varieties. Deputy Hughes has dealt with that. I think that most farmers and those interested in the farming industry in this House will agree that our level of knowledge in regard to varieties of seeds suitable for our land and soil condition is astonishingly low from the scientific point of view. I know that people who live on the land have a remarkably empirical knowledge of their own particular farms. A farmer can tell you with a great deal of precision that one field will grow one crop and another field will not. But if you ask why, they do not know; and if you ask what steps might be taken to improve the general capacity of their land to produce, they would be at a loss for a proper answer. I would like to see every farmer in this country at least afforded the opportunity of getting—if they wanted to acquire it-that standard of scientific information which would enable him to get from his holding the highest standard of living it is possible to get.

There is one last matter, which is, perhaps, the most important of all. I solemnly protest against the acceptance by this House or by this community of 36/- a week as an adequate wage for the agricultural labourer. I have considerable experience of mercantile, industrial and commercial employment in this country and I say that, with the exception of the most highly paid worker in industry and mercantile pursuits, there is no worker with a higher degree of skill than the agricultural labourer and there is no worker in this country at the present time in any industrial pursuit—no one over 21 years of age, a man—who is in receipt of 36/- a week. Yet that wage is accepted philosophically by the bulk of our people as adequate to the agricultural worker. What astonishes me is why they go on working, and what fills me with utter fury is the proposals made by certain Fianna Fáil Deputies, that they should be prevented from going to England, that they should be made stay at home and take their 36/- for doing the class of work they have to do, when they know that, by going over and doing work which requires virtually no skill at all they can earn £5, £6 or £7 a week or, if they go into trade unions and get some industrial pursuit, vastly enhanced wages for doing work which calls for far less skill.

That is a grave problem and one which ought to be faced—certainly, post-war; and I say post-war because I do not think there is any means of grappling effectively with it now. Has the House ever asked itself this question: "Why are agricultural labourers at the 36/- a week level?" I will tell you: it is because we are trying to carry on the agricultural industry with the methods of 1850. If you compare the methods at present employed on the average farm with the methods employed by our grandfathers, the difference is not radical or fundamental, it is very slight. If, however, you compare the industrial processes of 1850 with the industrial processes of modern Detroit, they are not the same thing at all. If you produced a motor car by the industrial methods operative in 1850 it would cost about £2,500 per car. Henry Ford, by using the methods of 1943, can produce it for £100. What we are trying to do is to obtain agricultural produce with the methods that produced the motor car at £2,500 per car, and we are trying to sell the finished product of that operation in a market where Henry Ford is selling motor cars at £100 per car. The result is that the worker in industry is getting a craftsman's wages in an industrial era. That is not going to continue for long. Let us examine what that means.

What are the modern, 1943 methods of agriculture? They are the big combines, that will reap and thresh 40 to 60 acres of corn in a day, they are the agricultural processes based exclusively on machinery, the big milking unit that will milk 100 cattle in the time it would take one man to milk four cows, they are the big silos, big groups of farm buildings, where the live stock and produce of a vast area of land can be gathered into one centre and processed and dispatched for sale in the most economic way possible. They are the processes that enable the individual labourer to do with the aid of machinery what it takes 20 men to do at the present time. Set one man on a big combine and put him into a sufficiently large field of wheat and he will do as much work as 20 men with the small fields and primitive machinery that we use there. And if he does as much work as 20 men, it will pay the farmer well to pay him twice the wages he is receiving at present, and that is what his work is worth.

If that is true—and I think it is true—and if, in order to secure for the agricultural worker a wage commensurate with his skill, we equip him with the most modern machinery, so that his skill can be used to the greatest effect and thus raise his earning power, what is going to become of the small farmer, what is going to become of the peasant proprietor, what is going to become of all the people for whom we fought the Land War? I think they will have to vanish, I think their day is done. I was born into the Land League, and I believe in the small farmer, I believe there is more in life than money and cash and the things that money can buy. I believe there is happiness and decency and security and, I suppose, If the truth were told, I believe there is the Catholic way of living and that it is the best way, a way in which families keep together in their own small holding, a way in which families have their own castle, inside which none may put his foot without the permission of the head. I believe that the preservation of our way of life is worth a great endeavour, even if it means that we are not going to be as rich as otherwise we might be, even if it means that those of us who, perhaps, are a little better off than many of our neighbours, should be required to contribute substantially of their surplus and cut down substantially on their standard of living, in order to provide security for the rest. I do not think it is a way of life that will attract people from abroad, and I do not think we need apprehend that, if we choose and opt for that way of life, we will be inundated by a flood of miscellaneous persons from the far ends of the earth, anxious to share it with us. I think the modern, industrialised, tin-canned kind of life will, perhaps, attract the urban population more than the style of life I have in mind; but I believe that the children of men who fought the Land War for fixity of tenure still love the land and want to own it as well as live upon it.

Therefore, to preserve that way of life, albeit that I know it is not the most efficient way, albeit I know it is not the most economic way, I believe the effective method is to view our community in parishes and, with the help of some central authority, to provide in each parish or group of parishes the most modern machinery that can be used in the size of fields into which our holdings are ordinarily divided. We must allow that machinery to do for the farmers of the country the saving of their crops and, if needs be, the tilling of their soil, annually, on a contract basis. That is nothing new. It is in practice in many parts of the world and can be put into practice here. I believe that, if we put a Ford-Ferguson tractor or two into each parish, provide a threshing set and reaper and binder in each parish, and establish a team of men highly competent to work and maintain that modern machinery, and allow it to go around the parish much as the threshing mill does at present, and get the work of the parish done, we will be able to get the work done and pay the labourers who do that work a decent living wage and at the same time be able to retain our way of living, in which we own the land we live on.

I warn this House that, if that problem is not faced, we will embark upon the road which leads to the elimination of the smallholder and to the restoration of the system of huge holdings, operated exclusively by hired men. I never want to see that in this country. I am convinced that the only means by which we can avoid it is to provide that every agricultural unit will have centrally located a body of labourers equipped with the most modern machinery that money can buy, so that they can do the work that requires to be done, of a manual character. Then we shall be able to pay those labourers, for what they do, a wage commensurate with their skill, and in that way, we may keep the system that we know and that most of us desire to preserve.

I do not pretend that I am certain that that effort will succeed. I do not pretend that I am certain that we are not under pressure from an inevitable development which may destroy much of what we hold dear; but we should be prepared to fight for the things we want to keep, we should be prepared to spend money and lose it in the effort to preserve fixity of tenure for the people on the land. We spent blood for it, we spent much in suffering and in struggle, and we can well afford to spend money now. Let us act in concert to that end, before it is too late. Let us watch, as the barometer of our failure or success, the level at which agricultural wages stand in this country. On an agricultural wage of 36/- a Week, the agricultural labourer cannot survive. If we can devise a plan which will secure for the small farmer a modest standard of comfort and for the agricultural labourer a wage commensurate with that of his industrial brother, we shall have saved the day.

If the barometer of industrial wages, as against that of agricultural wages, shows a wide discrepancy, then the day is lost, and so farewell to all that makes life worth living. I do not think we would fail if we were all agreed to do our best. If we did our best, and then failed, at least we would have the consolation of knowing that the failure was not due to us not having done our best. It must be remembered that our people have fought and struggled for fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free sale, and are we to surrender these things now? I hear Deputies in this House talking about taking over the lands of their neighbours and dividing those lands amongst the people, but on every occasion on which the Land Commission goes into a homestead, be it large or small, and divides it up, they do a disservice to the Irish people. Every day that the Land Commission goes into a farm worked by its owner, large or small, and divides it up amongst the neighbours of that farmer, that means a disservice to this country, and I warn this House against the activities of the Land Commission in that regard, because it seems to me that it is bringing about a condition of affairs such as existed in the past, and which our people fought against.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister for Agriculture is not responsible for land division.

Mr. Dillon

I agree, Sir, but what many people do not see is that the wealth of the land for the last 40 or 50 years has resulted from the preservation of the fertility of the soil. These people, as soon as they were put into possession of their holdings, began to build up the fertility of the soil. Before that day, it was good policy, of course, to allow the land to go derelict, to let the thatch fall in, because if you dared to make improvements on your land you brought the bailiff or the agent down on you, demanding an increase in rent as a result of these improvements. It was only when such elements were beaten down that the farmers of this country were able to secure fixity of tenure, free sale and so on, and eventually to secure the freedom of this country. I say: beware lest the activities of the Land Commission are not going to inaugurate in this country a new system of grabbers and bailiffs, such as we had in the past. If you are creating a situation in which you excite the jealousy of the neighbours of a farmer in order to have his land divided, and if a political cumann is to be formed for no other purpose except to incite such neighbours to take the land from the man concerned, then the result will be that such conditions will arise in rural Ireland as those that obtained when fixity of tenure was first fought for.

Mr. P.J. Fogarty

What about the ranchers?

Mr. Dillon

I do not care whether a man has 50 acres, 100 acres or 500 acres; my point is that that man's fixity of tenure should be as sacrosanct as anything in this country. Once you presume to challenge the question of fixity of tenure, then, whether it is the question of a man with 50 acres, 100 acres or 500 acres, you will challenge the right of any man to keep his holding, and later the day will come when the man with 50 acres or 100 acres will have his land divided up.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Land Commission does not come into this Vote.

Mr. Dillon

I agree, Sir, but I hold that this question of fixity of tenure on the land has much to do with the question of the preservation of the fertility of the soil.

An Ceann Comhairle

Quite, but the Land Commission can be discussed on another Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, but my contention is that we shall only be able to provide the necessary fertility of the soil if we are given the conditions necessary to create that fertility. God preserve us from Government plans, but we want the same freedom for the marketing of our produce as is enjoyed by the products of every other industry in this country. We also want facilities for education, and if we are given these things, such as facilities for education, fixity of tenure, and so on, we can do the job. Deny these facilities, and then the agricultural industry in this country will collapse. If we can raise the level of the wages of agricultural workers in this country to that of the industrial workers here, then we can save the day, but if the agricultural labourer is to be doomed to poverty for all his life, then the land is going to pass out of his hands. I want to see a system preserved, such as that in which we were brought up, which would mean the preservation not only of the livelihoods of the smallholders of the land but those of every agricultural labourer. I look with confidence to the Deputies of this House to enforce on the present Government, or whatever Government may exist in future, whatever measures may be necessary to secure the common purpose that we all have in mind.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

I am glad, indeed, to notice the seriousness with which the debate on this Estimate has been taken. That, of course, is all right.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Kissane)

I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but I understood that there was a tentative agreement that the House would adjourn to-night if the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture were dealt with, and also that of the Department of Fisheries. Seeing that the Minister has to reply on this Estimate, as well as on that for the Department of Fisheries, I think that Deputies might consider the question of giving time for the Minister to reply. I do not think there is much more room for debate on this particular Estimate.

Mr. P.J. Fogarty

What about this Estimate?

Mr. Dillon

It means that Fianna Fáil wants to shut up in order to get home to-night.

Mr. Cosgrave (Junior)

How long does the Minister think he would take to reply?

Dr. Ryan

I suppose it would take me about an hour or an hour and a half to reply on this Estimate, and I suppose it would take another hour to reply on the Fisheries Department.

Mr. Dillon

I think that if the Minister gets the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture through to-night he should be very well satisfied.

Mr. Donnellan

I should like to point out that there are at least one or two Deputies on our benches who would like to speak on this, and therefore I think it would be better to sit to-morrow.

An Ceann Comhairle

Very good. Deputy O'Reilly to continue.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

As I said, it is all right that the House should take a serious view of this particular Estimate, because our position in this country is extremely serious, if not dangerous. The Department of Agriculture has always been of the greatest importance but at no period in the history of this country was it of such importance as at the present time. The bad season we have had seems to have brought home to the public, especially to people in the cities and towns, how much they depend on the farming community for their maintenance. In fact, as things stand to-day they depend entirely on the farming community. I do not see any hope whatever of our being able to import anything until after the conclusion of this war. Consequently I welcome what Deputy Dillon has said. He has changed his views a great deal indeed. It is heartening to hear him state now that the position is serious. Such statements will possibly encourage farmers throughout the country to do their utmost. That is not to say that they have not done their utmost since the war started. I think it must also be borne in mind that Deputy Dillon and others did their little share at one period to demoralise the farmers.

I had the honour to be chairman of a meeting in Navan addressed by An Taoiseach, when the campaign for increased food production was opened, and in my opening statement I told the farmers of Meath that they were faced with a colossal task. The farmers of Meath, even more than the farmers of Westmeath, were undoubtedly faced with a colossal task. A considerable amount of land had been recently divided in the county, and we had quite a number of new farmers who had not much more equipment than a wheelbarrow, while the large farmers of the county were not equipped with agricultural machinery. The severe depression which followed the last war forced them to dispose of any machinery they had on hands. Consequently it was quite true to say that they were faced with a colossal task. They undertook that task, and I am very glad to be able to say that they contributed as far as was humanly possible for them, to the food stores of the country. They had very many difficulties. As I have stated, these difficulties were mainly shortage of machinery, and they have continued up to the present time. Now that a further increase in tillage is asked for, their difficulties will be accentuated. I do not think we can import anything more in the line of machinery except five or six Ransome threshing machines. They may not be here for some weeks.

I want to say that, as far as I know, both workers and farmers of Meath have made every effort to overcome the enormous difficulties with which they are confronted. At the present moment there is a shortage of threshing machines. The season was a bad one, and wheat and oats were not put together in a good condition. Consequently, the grain is in a bad state in the showery weather that prevails at present, and undoubtedly there will be considerable loss in that direction. I cannot subscribe to the view that the farmers are going to make any great profit out of tillage. I think the farmers of Meath have, in fact, suffered considerable loss in some instances. Even those who did not utilise their own land, but set it for tillage, had to set that land at £3, £4, or £5 per acre less than land set for feeding cattle. Notwithstanding these losses, the farmers of Meath have faced up loyally to the task set them.

In the past we had many statements from various quarters that this campaign was not serious at all and that the Government, if it wanted, could by some magic device fill this country with foreign wheat. The farmers were told that all this foreign wheat was just across the way, that if the Government took certain steps they could flood this country with wheat, and that all this trouble was being unnecessarily imposed on the farmers by the Government. I note signs that that attitude has been changed and it is a good thing that it has been changed, for these statements were not founded on fact. We are an independent country and we are neutral, but as sure as our food supplies fail, that independence will go, more quickly than some people think. Therefore, everything should be done, not to impede the farmers but to help and encourage them. I have actually seen farmers this season and last season working from 12 o'clock at night right on to morning by the light of the moon, trying to get their harvest in.

Mr. Mahony

And they tell us that we do not need anyone to defend us.

Mr. O'Reilly

That is my job, to defend our farmers. They need defence because many mis-statements have been made about them. I am trying to defend them and to explain that they did their best in very difficult circumstances. They have now imposed upon them an extra task, but they will have only to face up to that task as best they can. A real difficulty is that the farmers are not able to plough sufficiently early, because of a shortage of tractors and ploughs. Tractors are engaged up to a very late period in driving threshing mills. There is another difficulty connected with wheat growing which is not always borne in mind by instructors. There is no use in telling farmers that they can grow winter wheat in spring. Winter wheat can be sown only in the month of October and winter wheat will give a good crop only on cultivated manured land, even in County Meath. Any other method is simply one of chancing or of ranching wheat, as it is called. That produces an abundance of weeds and thistles owing to the failure of the crop and the land is left almost completely useless. Every farmer knows what occurs when a crop fails, and most of these failures are due to the fact that the crops are put in at the wrong time.

I should like the Minister also to pay some attention to the question of the provision of seed. I do not know that the merchants, millers and all the other people concerned in handling seed have discharged their duties with very great efficiency. I saw an instance in my own county where three acres were put under a crop. The land was manured but the whole crop was a failure. I am not going to mention the county from which the seed came but that is one of the things against which the Minister will have to guard in future. He will have to take steps to ensure the purity and freedom from disease of the seed because seed is undoubtedly getting mixed. Quite an amount of it was not even dressed. If that is allowed to go on, a very serious state of affairs will result. I do not know any instance in County Meath in which seed got within the county was a failure; the seed to which I refer came from another county. Some steps will have to be taken to ensure that the seed with which farmers are supplied is sound and pure. I shall not delay the House much longer because I think this debate has already lasted for a considerable time. I am glad to know that some very valuable suggestions were made in the course of the debate. The question now resolves itself into one of getting the farmers to put their heads together to see what they can do to produce here all the food we require under the best possible conditions and with the least hardship or damage to our agricultural economy.

There are, of course, some things that, I am sure, the Minister will look after. One is the matter of milk-producing around towns. Around some of the towns in Meath, much the same as in other counties, there are people who have paddocks or small fields and they produce milk for the townspeople. These people, if they have the average amount of land, and if it is nearly all arable land, will be compelled to till their quota. That means that they are going to produce less food, because milk is undoubtedly a most valuable food and no people in the world should realise that more than the Irish people. Milk sustained them through great difficulties. As a food, it is even more valuable than wheat and, consequently, I ask the Minister to investigate these cases and to see that whatever wheat is produced is not produced at the expense of milk. There are cases where hotels and other places of that sort have small plots of three, four, five and even ten acres which they use in order to keep up a supply of butter, milk and eggs. Those institutions should not be interfered with.

I think that if we acquire the proper technique in the coming year we will get over a lot of our difficulties and we will be able to produce all the food that will be needed here on, perhaps, less than the specified 37½ per cent. I do not think it is right that the people to whom I have referred should be unduly interfered with. So far as County Meath is concerned, the southern portion is flat and the northern portion is quite hilly. There is some unfairness there inasmuch as inspectors, perhaps filled with over-enthusiasm, laid it down that some of the land which was at least 600 feet in elevation was quite arable. It might be arable in some areas, but in most parts of the County Meath the high land is quite sour and it would be foolish to try to get crops to grow there. I think that is a matter that should be investigated. When you have horses fairly willing and you impose certain hardships on them, you are likely to make them stubborn. I should like the Minister to investigate these cases, and wherever hardships exist they should be removed.

I doubt very much if the specified 37½ per cent. is necessary. If we have a good year next year, we can produce a good deal more than we will require. Even if we went back to the former acreage I believe that, with the improved technique and better organisation, we could produce quite as much as we require. We have had some little faults in our organisation— everyone realises that—but things cannot be done properly at the first or second attempt. I do not deny that the organisation was short, but when it is tightened up I have no doubt the crops will be fairly good. With the extra threshing machines that are coming in, farmers will be enabled to thresh the harvest in a more satisfactory manner. It is essential, if we are to get good returns from the winter wheat, that we should have suitable machines with which to plough and that wheat seed will be available. I know places where there is excellent wheat in stacks and it will not be threshed in time. There would be no purpose served by throwing that into the ground at the end of December and in January. It is a pity we are not able to overcome those difficulties. These are some of the difficulties with which the Meath farmers are faced. If it is possible to establish better organisation, I have no doubt that in the coming year we will be able to surmount most of those difficulties.

Mr. Liam Cosgrave

In concert with many other Deputies, I agree that this is one of the most important Estimates we have to discuss; in fact, I believe that the only people who do not fully realise its importance are the members of the Government. I regret to have to say that the Government's approach to the subject of food production has been wrong but, be that as it may, it will not make any difference now if they adopt the right policy in the future. I think the Minister for Agriculture should adopt a long-term policy. Up to this he has been dealing with the matter one year as against another, in a sort of piecemeal fashion, and the result has been that when he found himself short of one thing, or when he found that tillage was not being properly done, he increased the acreage.

It is now possible that we have reached the end of the extensions of the acreage under tillage. This year farmers are required to till 37½ per cent. of their land. It would have been better if, at the beginning of the emergency, a definite increase was laid down for each year. It would have been better if, the number of acres for the first year having been ascertained, and allowing for the experience which would have been gained, the Minister made an Order operative for two, three or four years, so that the amount tilled in each year would be increased progressively, until we would reach a definite stage. At the same time a progressive policy of lea farming could have been put into operation. This is the first year in which first-crop meadow will be allowed as tillage. If that had been done in the first year, in the same way as they did it in England, it would have helped in some way to offset the decline in soil fertility. I dislike having to turn, as we have done in this country, for some of our improvements to the country across the water. Unfortunately, in some instances we appear to have adopted the worst of the British methods and put them into operation here. We have not adopted the methods from which they are getting best results. They adopted a long-term policy, or at any rate a moderate policy, in the matter of agriculture, and in putting that into operation they realised that if they cropped their land in a certain way they would be able to maintain fertility on a certain level.

There is no one connected with agriculture here who does not realise that cropping continuously with wheat or cereals or any crop, without manuring, will reduce the fertility of the soil. In Great Britain they tried to offset that decline of fertility by a progressive policy in relation to cropping. If we are to have compulsion we might as well have it the full way. The farmers should be compelled to crop a certain percentage of their land with new grass each year and, if necessary —and I think it will be necessary this year—to grow a certain percentage of potatoes. It is quite likely, looking ahead, that we will be short of potatoes. Judging from past experience, we happen to be short of potatoes one year and through some chance or other we may have a surplus the next year.

While Deputy Dillon may not agree with planning, I think it should be possible to have some idea of what we will need and what quantity should be grown in order to satisfy our minimum home requirements. According to the figures which Deputy Hughes gave here yesterday, and which I believe are correct, only 19 per cent. of our potato production is required for home consumption. When only 19 per cent. of our potato production is required for human consumption, it is difficult for those in cities and towns to understand why we had a shortage of potatoes in Dublin last May, and why, as the Minister admitted yesterday, it cost the State over £24,000 to buy and distribute potatoes in order to ensure that queues should not continue. Even now it is not too late for the Minister to adopt a long-term policy with regard to agriculture, by going so far as to announce that a percentage of certain crops should be grown each year, as is the case with the wheat crop, and to have a balanced rotational system, instead of drifting along, as some farmers are bound to do this year if they grow wheat on land that is absolutely impoverished. In that way they will be fulfilling their obligations. There will be plenty of farmers in that position. because they had trouble and loss with land that was under wheat for the last two or three years.

There are matters to which I wish to draw the attention of the Minister for Agriculture, but, as he is not in the House, I should be grateful if the Minister who is taking his place would take a note of them. I learned from the Minister for Agriculture last night that the dairying industry is the keystone of our agriculture. I remember that a few years ago a colleague of his, who has now been well rewarded, Mr. Connolly, publicly expressed gratitude to God and to Fianna Fáil because the British market was gone, and gone for ever. No doubt, farmers and those who have their interests at heart, are gratified that even at the cost of rewarding that gentleman he is a good riddance as far as agriculture and our national policy are concerned. We got over the stage when any connection with any foreign country which oppressed us is regarded as unnational and unpatriotic. Having listened to some of the speeches made in this debate, I hope we are not going to have a spate of them from the farmers. We have had ten years of the type of clap-trap that Fianna Fáil and Mr. Connolly talked at Kilcock on a famous occasion. We have secured for farmers a market that, so far as most people are aware, is the only market that will take live cattle—the British market. I do not care where cattle are sold, provided we get a good price, whether from the Chinese, the Germans, or anybody else. As far as we can see, the only market in which we can sell our cattle is the one across the water, and for that reason I urge the Minister to secure, if possible, that that market will take more of our cattle, and that a higher price will be secured for beef cattle than is now the case. What is happening at present is that "stores" are in many instances being bought because they are higher in price than beef cattle, as certain discrimination is allowed in England if the cattle are there for three months. English farmers find it better to buy the cattle here at low prices, seeing that they can sell them later at higher prices in England. I believe that position could be overcome if the Minister for Agriculture went across to England. So far as we can gather, it is regarded as a dangerous practice for a Fianna Fáil Minister to go abroad without being accompanied by the Prime Minister. It might be possible for the Prime Minister to go over and to secure that Irish cattle will be given priority in the British market, not only now, but after this war.

I should like the Minister to consider the question of allowing dairy and milk suppliers in towns and cities certain concessions under the compulsory tillage Order. The Minister may not be aware that numerous milk suppliers, particularly about Dublin and in other cities and towns, are reducing the number of their cows, while some of them are going out of business. While the production of wheat is very important the position would be worse if we were faced with a shortage of milk because of a reduction in the number of cows kept by producers. Some of these people have gone out of production because of the high cost of feeding-stuffs, and the high cost of producing milk, and others will go out of production unless certain concessions are made in their case under the compulsory tillage Order. Fearing that it may become a racket to get away from compliance with the compulsory tillage Order, I think if the Minister set apart about 60,000 acres amongst milk suppliers in towns and cities, he would find that the loss in tillage would be offset by the gain in milk production and in the supplies available for cities and towns. As far as milk production generally is concerned, we are not unfortunately up to the standard which we should attain, because the average milk yield of most cows is not alone not creditable but is below the economic standard. The compulsory tillage Order may force dairy suppliers to sell their best cows and to keep uneconomic ones, leaving the cities and towns short of milk. I would be grateful if the Minister's attention was directed to that position.

Deputy Dillon referred to a disease that is ravaging our cattle. The Deputy stated that it was more like catarrhal vaginitis than contagious abortion. That may be so. The amount spent on the prevention of that disease is negligible. As far as I can discover from the Estimates only £5,741 is to be devoted to veterinary research in the coming year. That amount is a mere flea-bite and will never solve the problem of disease in cattle. While it is not possible owing to the war to devote much attention to research owing to the shortage of scientific instruments, it is possible in some way to offset that difficulty. I direct the Minister's attention to what has been done in England and Scotland where the largest herds of cattle are going to be immunised against abortion. The vaccine being used is one which was discovered in America. I believe that it is contemplated after the war to allow into England only cattle which have been inoculated or immunised with this vaccine. If that is the case we will then be forced into making use of it whether we like it or not.

For our own benefit, it would be as well if we set about dealing with the matter now, and I think some approach should be made in order to secure the necessary serum so that we may be prepared for the post-war position so far as the rearing of cattle and production of milk are concerned.

Another matter to which I desire to draw the attention of the Minister is also connected with dairying. I ask him to increase, if possible, the amount of premium payable and the number of premiums available for dairy shorthorn and double dairy shorthorn bulls. Numerous herds, particularly around Dublin—though not so much recently—had extremely good cows, cows which were giving high yields. One saw either a Hereford or Aberdeen Angus bull at these places, and the result was that the calves of those cows, which were good milkers, were pretty fair stores, moderate beef cattle, but, certainly, not good milkers except in an occasional case. The Minister, if he does not make it compulsory upon registered dairy suppliers to keep dairy shorthorn bulls should, at least, offer some inducement to them to do so. I know certain instances where people of this class have got good shorthorn bulls, but they are beef shorthorns instead of dairy shorthorns. The milk supply in such cases would not be anything like what it would be if they had a dairy bull. Compulsion has reached alarming proportions in this country, and I think that if an inducement were offered to these registered suppliers to keep dairy shorthorn bulls, and if the benefit to be derived from cow-testing were more widely advertised, good results would accrue.

As regards concessions under the compulsory tillage Order, I presume that the Minister present at the moment does not know what allowance is granted to stud farms in respect of mares. Is there a set figure? Do the inspectors go in, see a certain number of mares, ask what the acreage is and say: "We will allow you a certain amount"? So far as I am aware, that is how it is done, that there is no set acreage. If there is no set acreage or if such is not in general operation, I should like to urge the Minister to allow 15 acres per mare. Deputy Davin mentioned yesterday that a person with one mare was getting out of his obligations under the stud-farm concession.

The compulsory tillage Order should be enforced against such an individual and concessions should be granted only to people who can properly be described as stud farmers. At all events; before the concession is allowed, it should be certain that the farmer has five or six mares. When the compulsory tillage Order was introduced a number of people bought a mare and claimed to be allowed off because they had a stud farm. I think the Minister should make an allowance of 15 acres in genuine cases. People with stud farms were cut down last year on the amount allowed the year before and the result is that they are in dire circumstances now. With the 38 per cent. tillage and the cut they got last year, they will either sell the mares or they will not do the tillage.

I should like to refer also to the question of seed wheat, on which a number of Deputies have spoken. Many of them have more close contact with this matter than I have. I understand, however, that except for the larger firms such as Ranks and Odlums, most of the people dealing with wheat have no proper machinery to screen it or ensure that the wheat has not mixed with it a number of other cereal seeds. I know of a case in which wheat was brought to a firm in Dublin and, because there was a little oats in it, they would not take it for seed. The quantity of oats in it was negligible and it was offered to them not at the seed price but at the ordinary price. After four years of compulsory tillage, it is inevitable that some oats, barley and other cereals will get mixed with the wheat. It is difficult to harvest wheat where you have the winter and spring varieties mixed together. Some provision should be made to ensure that, if there is only a little oats or barley mixed with the wheat, it might be accepted for seed. If it will not be accepted, will the Minister assure farmers that sufficient pure wheat will be available for sowing in the coming spring, so that we shall not find ourselves in a couple of months short of seed wheat?

I believe that a long-term policy would repay any labour involved as far as agriculture is concerned. I think, too, that the agricultural instruction available in some of the agricultural colleges is not what it might be. I have heard grievous complaints regarding the standard of education in certain agricultural colleges—not State colleges but colleges receiving grants from the State. The State agricultural colleges give no cause for complaint but, in some of the colleges which are receiving State grants, the standard of education is low and the methods used are entirely inadequate to the situation we have to meet—in fact, some of them are antiquated.

Deputy Dillon referred to the agricultural labourer. With Deputy Dillon, I believe that the agricultural labourer is not getting an adequate wage in any part of the country under the minimum wage scheme. The cost of living has risen enormously and is rising all the time. In rural areas, in counties other than Dublin, the agricultural labourer may be able to get certain perquisites such as allowances of milk, seeds and potatoes. In County Dublin, many of these labourers have to cycle fairly long distances to their work and, in most cases, they have to buy necessaries at the prices which obtain in the City of Dublin. Even under the system of controlled prices, the cost of living in the city and around it is much higher than it is in the country and I think that in certain areas in County Dublin —I do not want to be too parochial— the agricultural wage should be raised. While these parts are as rural as other parts of the country, the agricultural workers in them are buying their essential goods at higher prices than their fellow labourers in the country have to pay. Nobody in this House believes that 35/- or 36/- a week is an adequate wage for a farm labourer and his wife——

Mr. P.J. Fogarty

That is not the wage in County Dublin.

Mr. Liam Cosgrave

It is the wage in certain parts of County Dublin.

Mr. P.J. Fogarty

No.

Mr. Liam Cosgrave

The Deputy is thinking of the borough and of certain areas with which he is closely acquainted. In what is called the administrative county of Dublin, the maximum wage is 37/6 a week. It is roughly around 35/- to 37/6.

Mr. P.J. Fogarty

It is 43/-.

Mr. Liam Cosgrave

No. That is in Dun Laoghaire Borough possibly, and in certain other urban areas, but in the administrative county of Dublin the wage is not adequate to the cost of living. Of course, I am quite well aware that Deputy Fogarty is paying more attention to the part of the county which he hopes to derive most support from, but I am taking the county in general. Even in his own area, the rural end of it, the wage is only 35/- to 37/6 a week. I would urge the Minister to get his colleague the Minister for Supplies to control prices more effectively than he has done.

The Minister for Supplies lately mentioned the danger of inflation. There is no doubt that if prices are allowed to rise as they have been, inflation is as certain as to-morrow. The Minister for Supplies tried to convey the impression that he was with his back to the wall resisting the flood of inflation enveloping this country, but he has done no more than I have to prevent one point of inflation. The only control, so far as I know, of inflation, so far as this country is concerned, is exercised in Great Britain. A few of the items that are controlled generally are unprocurable. That is the contribution of the Minister for Supplies to control or prevent inflation.

In conclusion, I would like to say that if we are to try and increase our agricultural production and want to ensure an adequate supply of food in the country, it will not be got by the Prime Minister, or any of his Ministers, getting up at the Ard-Fheis criticising or blaming the farmers when they themselves are responsible. Neither will it be got by increasing the number of Fianna Fáil Deputies in this House. The Prime Minister would give the impression that if he had 77 "yes-men" behind him, instead of the number that he has, we would have enough food in this country. When he had 77 "yes-men" in this House emigration was never faster, the plight of the farmers was never worse, and the general outlook for this country was never more disastrous than at that time.

I would like to draw the attention of Deputies and of the country to this: that so long as we have an inefficient Fianna Fáil Government with only a political bias operating in this country, then only during that time will we have a disastrous outlook for agriculture and the danger of a general economic national collapse in the country. Therefore, so far as a food supply is concerned, it will not be got by blaming the farmer. The farmer must be encouraged in the proper way. With the farmer, the person who needs most encouragement and the closest attention is the agricultural labourer. He is doing his job, and at the present time is almost invaluable. We should try to keep as many agricultural labourers in the country as possible. They are fleeing to England as fast as they can. It does not matter how any Deputy in this House may blow over or try to praise the wage which they are being granted under Fianna Fáil, that wage is totally inadequate to deal with the situation which is presented to them now. I urge on the Minister to increase it and thereby enable us to keep some agricultural labourers in the country so as to ensure a fair chance of having sufficient food to meet our requirements next year.

Mr. Norton

In our circumstances the discussion to-day on the subject of agriculture is necessarily a vital one so far as our national requirements are concerned, because we must realise, so far as this country is concerned, that the land is the greatest source of our wealth. The exploitation of that land means wealth and food for our people who to-day are living in the circumstances of a virtually beleaguered nation. We must recognise, too, if we want to face realities, that agriculture represents our greatest source of employment, and that, properly organised, it should provide greater, steadier and more remunerative employment for those engaged in the industry.

Every farm in this country is an agricultural factory. We would be fools if we did not realise the immense contribution which agriculture does, and potentially can, make to the creation of wealth and the diffusion of wealth in this country. Out of every 100 persons gainfully employed here, 55 at present get a livelihood in agriculture. We ought to recognise, therefore, the vital necessity of giving security and a steady outlook to an industry which employs so many of our people, and which is capable, under proper direction and under beneficent State guidance, of absorbing large numbers of our people who to-day are being denied the opportunity of contributing to the nation's wealth.

In some respects it may be said that the recent decision of the Government to increase the area under tillage and to stipulate for the production of certain minimum quantities of wheat, according to the various counties, is a recognition of the value of our land and of the wealth which it is capable of producing, as well as of the debt which we owe to the productivity and fertility of Irish soil. But, of course, what the Government is doing to-day is what it ought to have done four or five years ago. In 1943 it has awakened to the necessity of what it ought to have done in 1939. No attempt whatever has been made by the Government, or by any spokesman of the Government, to justify the procrastination which has resulted in postponing to the fifth year of the war the comprehensive tillage policy now outlined, and which ought to have been in operation in 1939. But in 1939, 1940 and 1941, in completely ironic neglect of the national needs, because the Government, and the Minister for Agriculture in particular, could not realise the tremendous responsibility which was cast upon him, and the overriding consideration that it was on the Government, and particularly on the Minister for Agriculture, to plan and provide our national food needs, the poor and needy of this country suffered, as they have suffered, in a most intensified form during the past few years from a shortage of essential foodstuffs.

What effort can the Government put forward to justify the shortage of wheat in this country? It never has been contended that the land is incapable of producing wheat. The Government's recent Order indicates that it is capable of producing at least twice the quantity of wheat grown this year. Why then were we not getting sufficient wheat during the war years? With that characteristic huckstering which is a feature of many of its activities, the Government wrangled and wangled with the farmers as to what price would be paid for wheat. They said they would not increase the price, and then when it was too late they retreated and said they would increase the price. They had another wrangle with the farmers the following year about the price of wheat. They said they would not increase the price until it was too late, so they retreated again and said they would have to increase the price. We have the same policy this year in respect of wheat production.

If we have had a shortage of wheat during the past five years, the responsibility is not on the farmer and the Government cannot ride away from its responsibility by blaming the farmer for our shortcomings in respect of wheat supplies. The Government, in 1939, could have stipulated what they have now decided to stipulate for the 1944 harvest, namely, that there should be a certain minimum area of wheat grown; but the Government did no such thing. They merely stipulated a certain minimum area of tillage, but it was possible to comply with that Order without sowing one barrel of wheat. As the Minister for Agriculture and Deputies must know, in large areas throughout the country the big farmer with the ranching outlook who never took kindly to wheat-growing, put his land under oats and barley, and very often forced the smaller and more patriotic farmer to go in for the production of wheat, while he, with his beef outlook, saved his land for the production of cattle.

During the past five years, we have neglected in an indefensible way the wheat-growing possibilities of this country. One would imagine that we had some alternative source of supply of wheat. Whatever might have been the position in that respect in pre-war days, we have certainly had no satisfactory alternative in the matter of wheat supplies since. During the past three years, the few ships we own and the few ships we chartered, were used to bring into this country wheat at a much higher price than the Government was paying the Irish farmer for growing wheat, and these ships were utilised for that purpose when we could have all the wheat we required produced here. Yet these ships were allowed to be used to bring in wheat because of a wheat shortage here, when, by good government and good national housekeeping, they could have been utilised for bringing in other goods which were in extremely short supply.

Whatever might have been said, although I have heard no satisfactory explanation of it, to justify the failure of the Government to ensure an adequate wheat supply in this country, no attempt whatever has been made, or can be made, to justify the shortage of potatoes which we experienced last year, and which I think we are going to experience, notwithstanding what the Minister for Agriculture says, in a more intensified form this year. Here we have at our disposal 12,000,000 acres of arable land, land which is the envy of many other countries in Europe and land the productivity and fertility of which over large areas of the country cannot be questioned. Yet in an overwhelmingly agricultural country, with 12,000,000 acres of arable land at our disposal and a population of less than 3,000,000 people of all ages, we experienced a shortage of wheat, of potatoes, of bacon, of butter, of oatmeal and of certain dairy products. A mere casual advertence to these facts must convince any thinking person that our agricultural policy has not been directed along sound and progressive lines. I doubt if any other country in the world in our circumstances, with our land and with our small population, could be guilty of such criminal mismanagement of its agricultural possibilities and its national requirements as to allow a situation of that kind to develop.

I think that everybody, no matter what view he takes of the Government's mismanagement of the agricultural situation, must realise that wheat and cereals are vital to the maintenance of life and health, and that land capable of being used to produce these commodities must be utilised to the fullest. It is, I suppose, inevitable that there will be some hardships in implementing a comprehensive tillage policy, but these hardships ought to be reduced by the State to a minimum, and the assistance of the State ought to be available for all those who are able and willing to co-operate in the implementation of that policy. I want to say frankly that I personally welcome the decision to insist upon the growing of a minimum acreage of wheat. I think it is a wise policy, but even if it were not a perfectly wise policy in normal circumstances, we have no other option now but to insist, unless our people are to go hungry, on an acreage of wheat being grown sufficient to satisfy the requirements of our people.

The production of a small extra amount of wheat will mean more food for our people. It will drive away what has often threatened us, that is, the spectre of famine. It is capable, too, of providing more employment for our people, instead of permitting them and encouraging them to take the emigrant ship as an alternative to the destitution which is the lot of tens of thousands of them at home. From the national point of view, it must be recognised that the production of more wealth, whether in the form of wheat, oats, barley or root crops, will mean that more wealth will be available for distribution within the country, and it may consequently be possible to make available that greater wealth to a greater and growing number of people.

If I have any complaint to make against the recent decision of the Government, it is not on the ground that it is insisting on a greater area being tilled, because I welcome that policy. It is not because the Government insists on wheat being grown in certain minimum quantities, because I welcome that policy. My fear in this whole matter is that the Government is not going far enough, and I think it will not be many months before the Government realises that its compulsory tillage policy must have a financial counterpart, which financial counterpart is sadly absent to-day. You will, of course, find throughout the country large farmers with adequate capital, with perhaps industrial interests, highly mechanised and capable of adjusting their agricultural economy to easy compliance with the recent compulsory tillage Order. For them, very few hardships may be involved, but there is another class of farmer, representing the overwhelming majority of our farming population— the small farmer. I can see very grievous hardships being inflicted on him under a compulsory tillage scheme which is not accompanied by the making available to him of adequate credits, adequate financial assistance, to enable him to co-operate to the fullest in a compulsory tillage policy.

I know, and Deputies from other constituencies know, that the Land Commission have allotted farms of 20 and 22 acres to allottees in various parts of the country. Anybody who has any experience of the life on these farms realises that a farm of 20 or 22 acres is quite incapable of maintaining a man, his wife, and any number of children, that the farms are altogether too small. It works out in actual practice that the allottee in these cases is neither a small farmer nor an agricultural worker. For portion of the year, he gets employment on his farm, but at other times he is driven out to work with somebody else, to try to find employment on the roads, in a malt-house, on a relief scheme, at turf-cutting or some activity of that kind.

The farms which have been allotted to these people are altogether too small, and even on those which in many cases have been allotted in eastern counties to migrants who are used to small patches of land in the west, the people, to whom these holdings must look to be prairies compared with their original habitations, are finding life almost impossible under the conditions applicable to these small holdings. Many of these people who have got land are honest, decent people who are able to work the land physically. They are willing to work the land to the best possible advantage, and, be it said in their favour, they are most anxious to remain on the land.

Their main difficulty is that they have no capital and very little stock and either insufficient or no family labour to carry out an agricultural policy on their holdings capable of sustaining the entire family. The truth of the matter is that in the main, unless the allottees have some other employment to supplement their agricultural activities, they find it impossible to eke out a living on some of these holdings. Many of them will be small farmers all their lives if their ability to rise above that station depends upon the productivity of the holdings they have received.

I think the Minister should have borne these circumstances in mind. To ask a man with 22 acres of land to till 37½ per cent. of his land is to impose upon that man very considerable hardships when one considers the necessity for keeping a horse, a few cows and perhaps a calf or two, because his main difficulty is that he has no financial resources to enable him to face up to the situation. He should be encouraged in every possible way to face up to the situation. He should be told that if he performs this essential national work the State will aid him in every possible way and that he will have the credit resources of the State behind him in an effort to implement a sound national agricultural policy.

Credits are essential to almost every type of farmer for the purchase of stock, seeds and implements, for the building of decent out-offices, for drainage, fencing and the long-term work which is necessary in agriculture. They are particularly essential in the case of the small farmer. If he cannot get credit for stock then you are going to have an understocked farm. If we want to see the land utilised to the fullest extent, the obvious thing to do is to make credits available to the small farmer on easy terms. Give him credits to purchase stock, seeds and implements and generally give him every possible encouragement to utilise his land to the fullest extent, especially in present circumstances when that utilisation means more food for our people, greater employment and resistance to the menace of invasion by famine which would probably be worse than physical hardships of invasion by an external foe.

I am afraid the absence of reference to credits in the Minister's recent broadcast announcement and in his speech on the Estimate will jeopardise the prospects of success of this increased tillage campaign. I do not want to see it jeopardised. I want to see the programme 100 per cent. successful in the hope that, if our people can be got to realise that it is not a double dose of original sin that prevents our land from producing good crops, we can ultimately harness our people to a belief that the cultivation of land and the growing of food here are as vital as the production of industrial goods as part of our national activity.

I hope, therefore, that the Minister for Agriculture will tell us, when he is replying, that the Government is determined, by making available credits to farmers, particularly to small farmers, to give every encouragement to those who want to co-operate to the full in the tillage policy, and that that policy will not be in any way impaired or jeopardised by the withholding of credits to credit-worthy farmers who are cooperating in a national campaign of producing more food.

Reference has been made in the course of the discussion on this Estimate to the wages of agricultural workers. The fact that so many people of different political complexions can be united in a plea for better treatment of the agricultural worker is, I submit, evidence of a nation-wide recognition of the impoverished condition of the agricultural worker class to-day. Although agricultural workers are vital to the nation's food production campaign and although there is probably no class of worker more essential to the community to-day, we find the agricultural working-class ground down as no other class in the community is. His wages are lower, probably, than any other class, having regard to his hours and conditions of work. He has no half-holiday. He has no holidays. The agricultural worker is regarded as an untouchable so far as State efforts to help him are concerned. He works long hours. He tolerates low wages. He tolerates a low standard of life. He tolerates bad clothing. He sees his children going to school badly clad, in their bare feet and under-fed. That is the way in which the community treats the agricultural worker, notwithstanding the fact that he is in the first line of trenches to-day in the matter of producing food and resisting invasion by famine.

The Minister, if he is concerned with agriculture and the future of agriculture, ought to take steps, by means of Emergency Powers Orders, or through the operations of that semi-moribund body known as the Agricultural Wages Board, to have the wages of agricultural workers substantially improved. It is nothing less than a crying scandal that an agricultural worker, responsible for maintaining a wife and five, six, and eight children, is being forced to live on a wage of 36/- per week. He could not buy a pair of boots for one and a half week's wages to-day. In the week that he has to buy a pair of boots, there is nothing left for the family for food, clothes or anything else. One can see more clearly, I think, than ever before a general impoverishment of the standard of living of the agricultural worker. At Mass on Sunday in a rural area you can pick out the agricultural worker immediately. I think he is becoming much more noticeable because of the impoverished condition to which he has been reduced by the policy which keeps his wages down to 36/- per week whilst permitting the prices of the essential commodities on which he must live to soar, apparently without any effective check whatever.

I believe it is in the interests of all Parties in this country and in the interests of national well-being that every possible step should be taken to bring prosperity to the agricultural industry. I do not believe you can bring prosperity to agriculture by paying the farmer a low price for his produce or by taking advantage of a time when there is not a demand for his goods. I do not believe you can bring prosperity to agriculture by low prices to farmers and low wages to agricultural workers. If you are going to bring prosperity to agriculture, you must give the farmer security; you must give him decent prices and a guaranteed market. At the same time you must give the agricultural worker a rate of wages which will enable him to live in accordance with Christian and Irish conceptions of human dignity. Does anyone pretend that an agricultural worker can live in accordance with Christian and Irish conceptions of human dignity on a wage of 36/- a week to-day? Does anyone believe that he could keep his wife and children on that wage, having regard to present-day prices? One has only to think of the allowance to realise how little it can buy for a day's sustenance, much less provide for a man, his wife and family.

Mr. Fogarty

The sugar cooks claimed an increase anyway.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy ought to go down and see the sugar cooks and tell them how he manages. I believe that the bringing of prosperity to agriculture is probably one of the best ways in which we can contribute to the prosperity of the towns and cities because if the farmer is getting a good price for his crops, if the agricultural worker is attracted to working on the land by good wages which would keep him in decency and reasonable comfort, then out of all that new wealth thus created in the rural areas you will create a demand in the towns and cities for the goods and services which are produced in the towns and cities. Those engaged in agriculture, whether they be farmers or agricultural workers, will come into the towns and cities. They will there demand from the factories, from the shops, from the offices, and from the various other services which exist there that type of service or of goods which alone sustains employment in the towns and cities. With prosperity, in the rural areas radiating prosperity to the towns, we can then get away from the bleak picture of impoverished agriculturists in the rural areas, with crowded employment exchanges and choked workhouses in the towns and cities.

We have, perhaps, gone some distance towards breaking with the agricultural methods of the past by these compulsory tillage Orders and the step taken this year is a bolder one than we have taken before. It may be easier—and I hope the Minister will recognise this—to take big steps in an emergency and in a war situation which will not beget opposition but rather enthusiasm in the circumstances in which we are living. I plead with the Minister to proceed with a bold policy of agricultural reconstruction and, if possible, with an agreed policy of agricultural reconstruction which will exploit to the fullest the productivity of our soil, which will give our farmers and workers decent prices and decent wages, and which will in that way bring prosperity to the towns and cities and help our people to develop a belief in the essential wealth which alone can be produced from Irish land. Our land is probably capable of giving our people steadier and better employment than any industrial undertaking in this country, particularly as many of these industries are sustained on raw materials which are produced elsewhere.

Agriculture can have a steadying effect on our whole employment situation; it can have a stimulating effect on our economic situation, and if we now take advantage of the situation in which we are living and exploit our land to the fullest, when the war is over and the drums cease to beat for battle we may find in Irish land and in the food produced from Irish land a better weapon of defence for our own people and a better and a surer method of trading with other countries in the post-war years when perhaps we will have very few friends unless such friends as we can make by the quality and the quantity of the goods which we can sell to them or barter with them.

Mr. O'Donnell

The ground has been pretty well covered. This is practically my maiden effort but I will do the best I can. I made a slight contribution yesterday. At the committee of agriculture in South Tipperary about six weeks ago I drew attention to a matter which I think is of great importance in lessening the drudgery on Irish farms. We have the name of being hewers of wood and drawers of water. It is necessary to hew wood, but it is time that the term "drawers of water" should cease to be used. I proposed a resolution there which was adopted by the committee of agriculture, the committee of management of the mental hospital, and the county council. It was sent to the three Dublin daily papers, one Cork paper, and a leading Sunday paper. It got a leading article in a prominent Irish daily and leaderettes in many of the others, while many of the little magazines have spoken very favourably of it. Therefore, as a kind of prelude, I might mention it—that a national survey of the water tables of Ireland be made with a view to putting water into every rural house in Eire. I farm 120 acres in South Tipperary. I am unique in this way, however, that I lived for 20 years in the City of Dublin and ran a business there. Then I went home to take up the old place. I would not sell it for the wealth of Pierpoint Morgan.

I would like to see the drudgery in my native county and in the rest of Ireland lessened to a great extent. I have a supply of the best water in South Tipperary and therefore I have no axe to grind in this matter. I have a never-failing supply from two streams through my farm and a gravitated water supply to the yard. This matter has been taken up so well that some of my friends suggest I have water on the brain. Now between Cahir and Clogheen a distance of about nine miles, we have a drinking tap through the beneficence of a local magnate. We have a well in Tubrid where the famous Dr. Geoffrey Keating was born. When St. Declan came over from Waterford to Tipperary he wished to christen the child of a pagan chief at that place. He struck the rock and performed a miracle by producing water from it. There is a never-failing supply of water there since. It is not unusual at daybreak to see eight or 10 cars waiting for water there and, four miles away, eight or ten cars at the tap. Yet we have the River Suir running idly to the sea through our county. That reminds me of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner": "Water water everywhere and never a drop to drink." If the water tables in the mountains of Tipperary were utilised, they would supply water to half Munster and Leinster.

If this drudgery could be ended in any way as a post-war scheme, it would be well. The Shannon scheme was instituted to give men employment on coming home from England from the last war. It was a splendid idea, though the Farmers' Party on those benches at the time objected to it. They scrapped the gas works and electricity plants for every town in Ireland, which were doing their job well. It took this war to justify the Shannon scheme; it has justified its existence since. I thought at that time that, if the water scheme I suggested were adopted, it would be a much more useful thing than the Shannon scheme. Even when the Shannon scheme ended, if that water scheme were brought on, it was badly needed. It was that water scheme which induced me to go into the county council and to go forward as a candidate for An Dáil.

The boreens and by-roads are a disgrace, too. They are in the stage in which agriculture was 40 years ago when the motor was introduced. I enjoy a motor as well as anyone else, but our main roads are wrong. They were stolen from the people who built them, the men on the land at the time when Dublin was only a small town and Clonmel was a mere hamlet. The main roads are not passable for a horse and car at the moment. They should be surfaced a width or a width and a quarter, to suit horse traffic, at either side. I am not anti-motor in any sense when I say that. The man who designed the roads—whether he was an engineer or not I cannot say— should never take a brush in one hand without taking a boot in the other, as he would be more fit to be a bootblack than abroad designer. I saw that the South of Ireland Asphalt Company charge £960 an English mile.

You want rubber shoes for horses and cannot get them. The second-class roads are running in little streamlets at present. I thought I was pretty well able to ride and drive a horse, and I kept some good ones. I was going to ride into Clonmel with one, instead of using the motor car, but I found soon a gentleman with a stethoscope and a white coat over me, who told me that I had met with an accident and had to have six stitches put in. The roads are a perfect disgrace in some of the Midland counties, and the representatives of those counties are here. Our association suggests that the roads should be taken over, and nationalised. They are neglected at the moment and you cannot put another heavy charge on the local rates.

The best stuff in Ireland lives in the boreens. When the Planters drove the men to the mountainsides, to Hell or to Connaught, those men were driven to the boreens, in order to provide cheap labour for the planters themselves, and they have been there ever since. The best stuff in Ireland is to be found there, yet these men are treated like pariahs, outcasts, lepers, untouchables. Forty years ago the stones were tipped on the boreens and they are backward ever since. I understand that there is a minor employment scheme recently, and if a lot of clergymen come in to the county council and beg like paupers they will get work done, but you must be well in with the powers that be as, like most other things in Ireland, a little bit of wire-pulling has to be done.

In regard to beet, I was the first in Ireland to suggest that 8 stone in the bag out of the statute acre should be given back to the grower. I suggested that at the county committee of agriculture in Clonmel. At that time they adopted the proposal that 4 stone be given back for the statute acre. That was 4 out of 104. I suggested that, if you gave 8 stone out of 208, logically you would have 200 on the market for sale, whereas you only have 100 by what you give now. There is a fair amount of beet grown and we have an average amount of sugar yield, though we have not seen it here in our restaurant as much as at home. If we had taken heart of grass and given the extra amount, there would be sugar for jam and sugar to barter with England for artificial manures.

There is another point which I have been advocating at the beet association meetings. I am practically midway between Mallow and Thurles. I got only £3 8s. 0d. last year, although we were never under the standard to achieve the highest price. Between cartage and everything else I found I was getting 10/- less, that is £2 18s. 0d.

I advocate £5 a ton for beet, as it is a most slavish crop to deal with. There is great need of boots: only for the fine spring last year, the consumptive homes would be full twice over. Unless the cattle water scheme is brought in, you will have cattle drinking from fetid pools, and with the poor people drinking from fetid pools, too, the consumptive homes will be filled twice over. We have not a nailed boot or a rubber boot. If the Government had been looking ahead they would have nailed boots and rubber boots, artificial manures and petrol. But they were not looking ahead: it was "Document No. this" and "Form No. that". I was in the city to-day trying to fill an order from my son, to get a pair of boots. I tried four different shops and could not get a nailed boot. What are we to wear in this future tillage campaign when we go out ploughing? Are we to go in our bare feet? We should have a flat rate on beet. I am told it is subsidised, and that, otherwise, the factory would be unable to continue. That is humbug. It has a guaranteed 5 per cent. dividend for the next 20 years. If it were blown up in the blitz, I understand they, could arrange the price to suit themselves. Unless £5 a ton is paid for it, it is not worth a damn—and I believe a damn was the smallest coin in the Italian coinage.

The question of pigs and of the marketing board has been discussed already. The pig is a funny animal that you can kill and cure, but I will not suggest that about the marketing board. The pig will be as scarce as the dodo, or the Red Indian on the banks of the Manhattan, if the Pigs Board functions again, so I hope it will not.

I am in a wheat-growing district and claim to know a lot about it. I have something more to learn, perhaps. The fool knows everything, while the wise man is learning every day. I knew my honoured and aged grandfather and men of that period, and can go back a long way on the wheat tradition. on the farms where my father and mother were born, one of my grandfathers being an octogenarian and the other a nonogenarian. Therefore, I might mention something about wheat that some Deputies here have never heard. After the Famine, as much food was exported from this country as would have fed 12,000,000 people, instead of the 8,000,000 population. At that time, we were given £300 by Abdul of Turkey and £25 by Queen Victoria, while the wheat was sent out to pay the rack-rents of Irish landlords, and the ships carrying it met the Indian meal vessels coming in. In 1853 and 1854, the Russian war started. and wheat was 3/- a stone. It had gone back to 2/4 when the American Civil War of 1863 started, and it then took another jump to 3/-. It came down about the early 1870's to 6d. a stone. The slated houses were built out of this 20 years' growing of wheat. At that time, during the Famine years, Ireland supplied half of the navy and the army of England with men. They had not the money to go to America in those days, and it was not because of love of England that they joined the army and navy of that country, but because they had no other place to go, and had not the money to bnng them to America. There was a bigger exodus from this country at that time than at any period since, and it was the start of the creamery industry that brought the first relief to Ireland and tended to put a stop to that exodus. Before that, the country could not grow anything but scutch-grass and daisies, and yet I hear people talking here about fertility of the soil, and so on. What is the use of talking like that? It is all nonsense. We have heard all this from our grandfathers, and from the men of that period, and they knew what mattered with regard to the land. When you have done with the growing of wheat and barley year after year, what is going to become of the land? We all know what has happened in the United States of America. We know that the continuous growing of wheat on the prairie lands there has meant the turning of these lands into dust bowls. President Roosevelt urged the farmers there to grow thousands and thousands of acres more of wheat, and the result has been that these vast areas have been turned into dust bowls.

The late lamented Deputy Hugo Flinn suggested 6? acres, but what did we find from all the Parties represented in this House? You walked in there to the Lobby, in many cases, and voted against a price of 50/- a barrel for wheat. Some of you did not go in and help the farmers, but were prepared to leave us in slavery and penury, but when you had agreed to this figure of 6? acres, you found that you were 600,000 barrels short of our requirements. It was not in the mills. Where was it? It was just on the books of the Gárda barracks. Did you not know that if you were getting bread produced it must have been under blackleg conditions? I am sure that many Deputies here have read Professor Murphy's book. A certain very eminent man, whose name I shall not mention, brought Professor Murphy's book to my attention, and he said, with regard to Professor Murphy, that his was one of the greatest brains that he had ever met with. Professor Murphy had made tests of in or about 60 farms in West Cork—farms of from 10, 12, and up to 60 acres. Now, in West Cork you have got some of the best stuff that could be had—I would not say that it would beat Tipperary, but it was some of the best land in the country—and according to his findings the value of production on a farm of under 20 acres of land would be about 21/10 a week, and on other farms it would be about 24/10, and yet, at that time, a demand for 36/- a week for agricultural wages was put on. Since then, there has been an increase pro rata and the wage has gone up.

I was glad to hear Deputy Norton saying, as Kickham said, that the real brains back of agriculture are the brains of the agricultural workers. These people, after all, are brawn of our brawn and blood of our blood, and the 36/- a week is not enough for them to live upon. They could not live on it, with the present price of commodities. Of course, every now and again a man is taken into the district court, and as a result he gets a great deal of publicity, but there is bound to be a black sheep in every flock. In Tipperary, however, we do not treat our people that way. Our workers get a quart of milk and an allowance of potatoes and so on. Of course, I admit, as I have said, that there are black sheep in every flock, and we have more gypsies in Tipperary than in any other part of Ireland; but in Tipperary we have the true idea. We are not mean. You people, on the Labour Benches, are always speaking of the rights of the labouring man, but the labouring men in the country, to the second and third generations, are the descendants of farmers. We love these people; we play football with them; and they love us. I say that if you treat them well and give us a chance to treat them well, they will do their part.

The lime problem is another burning question. Lime has not been in general use in Ireland for agricultural purposes for about 50 years. Every county in Ireland from the poorest land on the mountain top to the most fertile land in the golden vale is badly in need of lime. The land, as Deputy Hughes pointed out in his very interesting speech yesterday evening, has become acid owing to the lack of lime and the extensive use of artificial manures. Hence, you have hoose in calves and other such disorders. I am a member of the county committee of agriculture for my area, and we succeeded some time ago in getting cooperative societies to put some kilns in operation. We have only three in the South Riding, but the young men have departed from these kilns now to engage in turf production. The most economical method of producing lime was undoubtedly where it was worked by a man with his own family, but that method has failed owing to the compulsory tillage. Our county manager now suggests that if sufficient applications for lime are sent in from each area, he will start a lime kiln under the aegis of the county council, to be worked by county council workers. Produced in that way it will undoubtedly cost more, but we are urgently in need of lime. Lime was first introduced into this country about 150 years ago. The English landlord families who inter-married with the Irish landlord families knew the need of lime and used it extensively. Of course, it reminds one of the old saw: "It makes the son rich and the grandson poor." Or again it calls to mind the case of the poor tramp at the corner of the street. If you gave him a dose of the spring medicine which our grandmothers used long ago it would probably kill him. But if you gave it to some Deputies here it would make them jump the benches. The same rule applies in connection with the use of lime on land. I think that if the Minister for Agriculture adopted some scheme whereby kilns could be operated under the aegis of the county councils there would be ample supplies of lime. Some such scheme is very necessary owing to the great scarcity of artificial manure.

I would further suggest that our agricultural instructors might be asked to attend schools, say, once a week, to give lectures to boys from 12 to 14 years of age. A suggestion of that kind was adopted in Clonmel. There is no use in asking boys to attend agricultural classes after a hard day's threshing. The school-leaving age might be raised and more attention paid to the agricultural side of education. I remember years ago when I was attending the national school amongst the reading matter was a treatise prepared by Professor Baldwin for use in the national schools, and I found that the knowledge which I acquired then was of practical use to me when I returned to farming after being 20 years out of it. I think, therefore, that it would be a very good thing if the suggestion that agricultural instructors might visit the schools to give lectures on farming subjects, were generally adopted.

On the other hand, I think there is quite a lot of doctrinaire farming at the present time. I read myself two agricultural papers weekly. I have read quite a lot of literature dealing with agriculture, in fact everything I could lay hands on, but I think for many years past there have been only two really new inventions in connection with agriculture, that is the reaper and binder and the tractor. These have undoubtedly revolutionised the question of labour in connection with agriculture. I heard some Deputies on the other side of the House talk about the question of labour to-day. Well one of my lads cut 60 Irish acres this year. Every farmer is able to work a reaper nowadays. All this business of doctrinaire farming is so much tosh. You have a lot of fellows now writing about agriculture and I would like to take their productions, soak them in petrol and kerosene and blow the whole lot up in the air. Anything of value about agriculture that I know I learned from my father. He came home one evening when I was reading some leaflets issued by the Department of Agriculture. He asked me: "What are you reading?". I replied: "Leaflets from the Department of Agriculture.""Do you find them of any good?" he asked. I said: "It does not do any harm to read them." He then remarked: "You come home here after being away for 13 years and you read about all these breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs, but for the last three years you have been farming along the same lines as I and your grandfathers farmed before you. They were better farmers than you are and they never read a leaflet." It is quite true that I could not improve on their methods.

I think nevertheless a lot of useful information is diffused through the medium of these lectures and I give every credit to the Department of Agriculture for circulating that information, notwithstanding the fact that, as I say, I cannot improve on the methods of my father and grandfather. Judging by some of the propaganda carried out in connection with agriculture, one would imagine that this was a South Sea Island and that the inhabitants were a lot of club-footed savages living on nuts, roots and wild vegetation. These propagandists try to teach us farming but they can never make us any more efficient than our fathers and grandfathers. I hear a lot about secondary schools and education but as far as agriculture is concerned they are of very little use to our people. We are told that the farmers have not any pluck but I say that the members on these benches have pluck enough to face anything. We come here without apology to anybody, not as suppliants but as duly elected representatives of the farmers to put their needs before this House. I thank you, A Chinn Comhairle, and members of the House generally for having listened so patiently to me.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

This discussion has been carried on at some length and it has produced some very long and very irrelevant speeches. I shall endeavour, and I hope I shall achieve my purpose, not to be unduly long, and I shall try to keep to the matter properly before the House. There are a few features which stand out in this discussion. One of them is that this country is in a very much graver danger of food shortage than, I think, was generally recognised before the discussion took place. That there was a shortage of food in the country, I think most people knew, but the difficulties of making up for that shortage, the difficulties of ensuring that in the coming season there will be no shortage, are very much graver than I, at any rate, realised. I gather that not only will the very small amount of artificial manure which was available last year not be available this year —at least, that is what the Minister for Industry and Commerce led us to believe to-day—but that there is also a very much greater difficulty in getting proper seed to put down than I, at any rate, knew existed.

I think the speech made from these benches by Deputy Morrissey, a man who certainly knows what he is talking about, was a speech which the Minister and his Department must not take lightly. Deputy Morrissey has shown that there is a terrible danger indeed of there being a very real shortage of suitable seed wheat in the coming year. And, as Deputy Morrissey stated, if the Minister wishes, as he ought to wish, to reassure this House and to reassure the country as to the position in that respect, it is not sufficient for him to say: "Oh, I am satisfied." He must tell us what steps he has taken to satisfy himself, and what steps he is taking to see that such wheat as is suitable for seed goes, in the first instance, to the seed merchant. And on that question of wheat, around which this debate has so largely centred, I would like to point out again that he has demonstrated the truth of the views which we put forward from these benches, views so contradictory to the views of the present Minister for Agriculture. He now admits that mere cash cannot get the farmers of this country to grow wheat.

I heard speeches made around this House to the effect that the farmers of this country had some prejudices against growing wheat, that, owing to some prejudice arising from I do not know what, the farmers were refusing to grow wheat. To my mind that statement is absurd. The farmers of this country are intelligent men. They wish to make the most they can out of their land and, if wheat-growing were a success financially, then it would be absolutely unnecessary to introduce anything in the nature of compulsion. Now that compulsion has come—and upon compulsion I will say something in a moment—it has demonstrated that the old policy which the Minister enunciated so often in this House, the policy of Fianna Fáil, the policy that wheat-growing should be made the basis of Irish agriculture, has completely broken down and I sincerely hope that that policy will never be again revived and that no obstinacy or anything of that kind will induce the present Minister or the Fianna Fáil Party to go back to the view that wheat-growing can be made the real basis of prosperity for the Irish farmer. No doubt in parts of the country it can be. Certain areas are suited to wheat-growing, but other areas are not, and the larger part of the country is not. What we have said again and again, that there cannot be one agricultural policy for the whole country, has been completely demonstrated.

I have heard a good deal in this debate about labour shortage and about the difficulty of getting labour during the harvest to save the cereal crop. Does that not show the complete folly of the line which Deputy Norton has pursued when he stated that wheat-growing, cereal-growing generally, gives employment. It is because wheat-growing and the growing of other cereal crops docs not give much employment that there is a shortage of labour at harvest-time. Wheat-growing gives casual employment for a very short period of the year; it does not give permanent employment. It has been calculated that if you use the most up-to-date machinery the allowance is a half-man per annum per 100 acres.

Wheat-growing gives comparatively little employment and, of course, there is then a shortage. For a few days extra labour is required for harvesting and threshing. But if wheat-growing is mixed with the growing of green crops, which necessitate the keeping of men in permanent employment through the year, then you have very little difficulty with your wheat crop. If you employ a man with a pair of horses or a tractor in the spring, to plough, harrow and seed, and then you do nothing until August, employ nobody until August, you have no right to complain that suddenly casual labour cannot be got: Men will not be waiting for months to get the week's or fortnight's casual labour that you are giving to them.

Turning to compulsory wheat-growing, I recognise that it is a necessity. I do not agree with Deputy Cogan that it becomes a very great hardship in any particular county. No doubt certain persons will lose, and lose heavily, by compulsory wheat-growing, because there is land upon which wheat will not grow. These people will now have to make an effort to grow wheat, and they will lose a certain acreage, and possibly have no crop. One thing I should like to learn from the Minister is this: suppose a farmer sows a couple of acres of wheat, and if the crop is a complete failure, he finds it necessary to plough that land, what will be the position? The Minister must know that this year a certain acreage of wheat had to be ploughed up owing to the failure of the crop, as the seed did not germinate or germinated so badly that the crop failed. In such a case, will that count in the wheat acreage, or must it be left there unploughed? While it is very hard to get any figure to work upon, I imagine that in my immediate neighbourhood something like 5 per cent. of the wheat sown was a failure. That may be quite wrong, because, while one hears that so-and-so's wheat failed, and had to be ploughed up, one does not hear of wheat that was a success. It is very hard to form an estimate as to what percentage of land had to be re-seeded with oats this year. I think I am right in saying about 5 per cent. Even if it were only 1 per cent., the question must arise and should be dealt with by the Minister in his reply.

If my view is correct, there will be a great deal of bad seed this year, because there are likely to be areas where wheat failed. It is likely that more wheat will fail each year as the land gets more and more run down. Unquestionably, land that is continually under a corn crop must be exhausted, as far as the humus is concerned, and wheat, especially winter wheat, makes a much greater demand on the humus in the soil than any spring-sown crop. If cereals are to be grown as a spring grain crop, the stubbles have to be grazed by sheep. It is astonishing what an effect that has. The humus in the soil does not perish so quickly as is the case when stubbles are not grazed.

There is the further disadvantage of the loss of humus in the soil, that the seed is not as well able to withstand disease as seed grown in soil which has the full humus. I do not know if the Minister has come across some experiments which were carried out by the county council in Cheshire on wheat and other seeds. They found that though farming methods in Cheshire were of the very highest, and though they had an abundance of artificial manures, while corn crops were seemingly very good to look at, yet when analysed they were found to be deficient in food value and had not the necessary vitamin B. They were wanting in that vitamin owing to the fact that the crops were grown on soil which did not contain sufficient humus. I have not got the report but I read an article that appeared in the New Statesman and Nation, a reputable weekly, and I take it that the statements in that article are accurate. If wheat or oats, as the case may be, has lost a great deal of its vitality by being grown on land which has been run down, it is obvious that the germinating power and also the power of resistance to disease will be very much less than is the case with seed grown on land in a full state of fertility.

The reason for a great deal of the failure which has taken place in wheat and, to a certain extent, in oats this year in County Mayo is the fact that the land has been given too many successive corn crops. I do not know if the Minister is aware that there seems to be very great danger of the oat crop in parts of Connaught being a failure owing to a new disease which has attacked oats. It is not so very widely-spread at present, but it has spread in a mild way over a considerable area. Occasionally one sees grains through the crop which are simply hard black grain. That is not blind oats. I understand that the disease which has come to the oat crop lately is a very grave danger to the growing of oats. Possibly the Minister, when he is replying, may refer to the question, because I know that some of the inspectors in the Department have been dealing with it, and have actually burned some of the affected oats. On an Estimate which has been so fully debated I do not wish to say anything further.

Mr. Corish

The last speaker told us that the debate which has been going on for the past two days was a very unreal one. He said that he proposed to bring it back to reality but he started off by making a most unreal statement. He spoke about Deputy Norton in years gone by advocating the sowing of wheat and our support of the Government that came into office ten years ago.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I did not refer to that.

Mr. Corish

Everybody knows to what the Deputy was referring. He said that the fact that there was more tillage was responsible for more people being unemployed and for the scarcity of labour. There is a tinge of unreality about that statement, to say the least of it. A great deal has been said about labour shortage in harvest-time. It will, I think, be found on examination that the real reason for the labour shortage is that, up to now, neither the farmers nor the farm labourers have been given sufficient inducement to stay on the land and till it. Two or three years ago, the Government offered a price of 40/- for wheat. Gradually, because of agitation and for other reasons, that price has gone up to 55/-. I suggest that the Minister should have, at the beginning, conceded the amount he is prepared to give for next season's crop, because it was just as expensive on the farmer to produce wheat two or three years ago as it is to-day. If one is to judge the importance of the agricultural industry by the wages paid the agricultural labourers and the margin of profit derived by the farmer, especially the small farmer, then, that industry is, indeed, in a very bad way.

The Minister for Agriculture spoke on the radio about a week ago and he told the country that, for the coming season, the price of wheat would be 55/-. One wonders why, on an occasion like that, he did not give some lead to the farmers as to the wages that should be paid the agricultural labourer. The question of the agricultural labourer's wages is left to a tribunal set up by the Minister. That tribunal takes months and months to deliberate as to what the agricultural labourer's wages should be. So far as I can see, its principal engagement is that of procrastination. Months and months are wasted by members of that tribunal in trying to arrive at a wage for the agricultural labourer. The small increases which have been conceded are out of all proportion to the cost of living which the labourer has to meet. This Party has always advocated that the farmers should be given sufficient for their produce to allow them a decent margin of profit—such a margin as would permit them to pay their labourers a decent wage. During the past two or three years, the Government have applied themselves to this problem in an indiscriminate manner. As Deputy Cosgrave, junior, said this evening, there was no planning in evidence from the beginning. The Government merely made an Order that there should be a certain amount of tillage without stipulating what proportion of that should be devoted to wheat. After all, the wheat crop is of major importance. It is absolutely necessary, if this country is to survive, that a decent percentage of wheat should be grown and that the farmer should be satisfied with the price he is to obtain for it. That would ensure his entering wholeheartedly into its production.

Deputy Beegan also referred to the scarcity of labour. Deputy Beegan would go so far as to prevent people in the rural areas from having any dancing, football matches, horse-racing or other entertainments. Surely, we have not arrived at the stage when it is necessary, in order to secure the production of the food necessary for the people, that the Government should prevent people from enjoying themselves. I say that it is absolutely necessary that the people of Ireland should have relaxation, as the urban population have. It is a slur on the people of rural Ireland to suggest that it is necessary to place a ban upon their amusements and I am surprised at such a suggestion coming from Deputy Beegan or any other Deputy representing a rural constituency. I do not think that such a ban is necessary. It shows a mentality which suggests that the people of rural Ireland think of nothing but amusement. I do not think that that is a proper reflection of the situation existing in rural Ireland and I am satisfied that, if the farmers are given a decent price for their produce and the farm labourers are given a decent wage, we shall get the necessary wheat to enable us to feed our people properly. Is there anybody in any part of the House who will suggest that a farm labourer could meet the present cost of living on the wages he is receiving? I believe that the Government should set up another of their commissions properly to examine the whole question of agricultural economy, to ascertain what margin of profit, if any, the farmer has and, if he has not a margin of profit sufficient to keep himself and his farm labourer in decent comfort, the Government should again come to his aid. We, living in the cities and towns, must admit, whether we like to do so or not, that agriculture is the fundamental industry. The cities and towns depend on agriculture for their existence. We must find out what is the actual position of agriculture, whether it is paying the farmer for the drudgery he puts into his farm and whether he is able to pay the farm labourer the wage he is entitled to get to maintain his wife and family as they should be maintained.

During the last war, the British Government passed what was known as the Corn Production Act. Under that Act, it was stipulated that a harvest bonus should be paid to farm labourers. I suggest to the Minister and to any farmers who may be listening to me that the Government should revert to the position that prevailed then. A harvest bonus is being paid in some parts of the country still, though it is not compulsory by law. That bonus was looked forward to during the last war by farm labourers to enable them to get boots and clothes for their children. It is an incentive to the farm labourer to give greater help and co-operation. I suggest to the Minister that he should insist that the Agricultural Wages Board stipulate that a bonus of some kind be paid to agricultural labourers during the harvest season.

Last year we had the spectacle in this agricultural country of ours of being without potatoes, bacon, butter and oatmeal. The butter situation was ludicrous in the extreme. Nobody ever thought we would reach a situation in which this country would not be able to supply butter to the people in the cities and the towns. Just before the general election it was ascertained, by means of a parliamentary question put down by Deputy Norton, that a good deal of the milk that should have been converted into butter was being converted into milk powder, and was being exported to the other side of the Channel. When the Minister for Agriculture was asked why that was being done, he said it was necessary to do it in order to ensure that certain patent baby foods would be sent back to this country from Great Britain. There are not as many babies in this country as the Minister for Agriculture thinks —that is if he thinks he is going to get that across. I hope that is being stopped and that the milk produced here is being used for the manufacture of butter. I hope also that we are not going to witness during this winter the pitiable position we had last year of the poor in our cities and towns queueing up week after week endeavouring to procure butter and unable to get it. I believe that if the Departments concerned took an active interest in this matter our people all over the country could be served with butter.

The potato situation last year was serious, and it looks as if it is going to be more serious this year. I have been speaking to farmers who had large supplies of potatoes two years ago, due to the special effort that was made by everybody at that time, in response to the advice received from the Department of Agriculture, to plant more potatoes than usual. But I understand that because of the fact that the Government did not lend the necessary aid to farmers two years ago to market their potatoes properly, large quantities of the potatoes were allowed to rot in the ditches. It was not the farmers' fault that transport facilities were not provided. The result of that, however, has been that last year and this year we had not as large an area under potatoes as in the previous year, the consequence being that we had a shortage last year. There will be a shortage this year, and that coupled with the fact that the blight has made its appearance in some, parts of the country will, in my opinion, be responsible for a still greater shortage later on.

I would ask the Minister to try to secure that we are not going to witness in our cities and towns this year the position that we had last year, of people having to go without butter. We were told that perhaps more butter than ever was being produced, but that people were consuming more of it.

Now I do not think that is true. I am not suggesting that anybody is deliberately telling lies, but anybody living in the large cities or towns, or even in small towns, during last autumn and winter could see that the butter was not available. The statistics given by the Minister for Supplies indicated very definitely that the number of cwts. of butter available last year was considerably less than in other years, while figures quoted by the President of the I.A.O.S. showed that the production of butter was much below what it had been in previous years. In face of these facts, there is very little use in the Minister telling us that more butter than ever has been produced, and that because of the absence of other fats the people are consuming more butter. I ask the Minister to see that in the coming winter steps will be taken to ensure that butter and potatoes will be made available for the poor people in our cities and towns.

Mr. Mahony

A good many Deputies have expressed their opinions on this vital question of food production. To my mind, the question is quite simple. It would not need the brainiest person in the world to settle it. It can be settled by giving the farmer a fair price for what he produces, and to the farm labourer who helps in the production, a decent wage. They are the people who have always been responsible for the production of the nation's wealth. In addition you will be increasing the spending power of the community. We remember when, reluctantly enough, the price of wheat was put up to £2 a barrel. The Taoiseach thought that he would get the increased acreage without giving a shilling more, but he found that the farmers would not sow the crop at the price offered, as it would be unremunerative. The ultimate result was that the people stuck out for 50/- a barrel. On many a platform in my own county I advocated the price of 50/- a barrel. I appealed to the farmers not to sow an acre until they got the price they were definitely entitled to. Later the Taoiseach agreed to give the 50/- a barrel, but said that he gave it under duress. At that time the country was threatened with the danger of invasion, but a still greater danger faces it to-day, one of hunger and a shortage of essential food commodities.

I am a 72-acre farmer myself, and last year had a three-days' threshing. Ever since 1932 I never had less than a two-days' threshing, at the same time contributing the milk of 25 cows to the local creamery. Deputy Pattison, who represents the Labour Party in my constituency, can verify all I say on that. The executive of the farmers' association in Kilkenny, which I represent, have instructed me not to be shy in demanding the price of £3 a barrel for wheat. We make no apology for demanding that price. It is essential that we get it, particularly in the County of Kilkenny, where we have been in wheat production during the last 11 years, since 1932. In view of the demands which wheat-growing makes on the fertility of the soil, I think we are quite entitled to make that demand. This year, in a field in which I had wheat sown last year, the wheat crop was struck by a disease known as "take-all". Wheat-growing takes a great lot out of the land, and if you want the people to produce wheat, then you must give them some inducement to do so. You must give them a fair price to compensate for the sacrifices that have to be made in producing the crop year after year. The fact is that, in order to get a decent return in wheat-growing, you must break fresh land.

With regard to the butter position, we all know that the production of butter is as essential as the production of wheat. In July, 1942, I made a statement on the butter situation which appeared in all the daily newspapers. I stated then that, if the farmers did not get an adequate price for the milk they were producing and supplying to the creameries, in the course of a few months you would have a rationing system. That came along in the following October. Is it any wonder that it did in view of the fact that the price that was being paid at that time to the producers of milk was only 6d. or 7d. a gallon—not 1d. a pint? Let us take the position in County Kilkenny. In 1936, the quantity of milk in that county that was being supplied to the creameries was 12,394,862 gallons, while the quantity that was being supplied in 1941 was 7,464,244, a drop, in the course of a few years, of over 5,000,000 gallons of milk.

Is it any wonder that we have butter rationing here to-day—butter rationing in a country where previously we supported and gave butter to a bigger population and had at the same time a surplus for export? I do not want to increase the cost of living to the ordinary poor. The poor, and particularly the agricultural labourer, have my sympathy. The agricultural labourer has not got a decent wage and that class to-day—I say it without fear of contradiction—is almost on the border-line of starvation. These men are definitely entitled to a good wage, to the best wage in the land, but how can the farmer give him more than he is giving unless the price of what he produces increases? The farmer, I think, would be agreeable to pass that increase on to the workers. The farmers and the workers are the pillars of the State. They are the wealth producers, and, if these people have money, your towns and cities will all be quite safe. There is a little surplus of money throughout the country to-day, but where is it coming from? A lot of it is coming from across the water, and, as Deputy Dillon said, when he was putting forward a case for the farm labourers, more of that money is being spent in his county and in that quarter of the Twenty-Six Counties than in any other part of Ireland.

With regard to potatoes, in Northern Ireland they have a different system of working from that in operation here. If we want to ensure an adequate supply of potatoes, so that the people will have ample supplies at popular prices, why should we not adopt the same system? In Northern Ireland, they get £16 per Irish acre or £10 per statute acre for potato production, and, at the same time, I understand they have a fixed price of 15/- per barrel, which is equivalent to 9d. per stone. We are not afraid to work. We are ready at any time to take off our coats and work. To some of us it is nothing new. I have often had to work, and during this year's harvest did work 14 and 16 hours a day. I do not mind, nor did the men who worked with me mind—these men who are tools and slaves, as are our sons and daughters. It is these people who work from morning until dark, who have no half holidays and who very seldom get a chance of basking on the seashores of this country who are producing this food. We had men speaking here to-day like Deputy McCann who, a few days ago, said the farmers were never better off and that they had not played the game by the townspeople and industrial workers. They always played the game by the people, but this country has never played the game by the farmer.

Deputy Corry spoke about seed prices. We know what seeds cost during the season before last, when turnip seed cost 8/-, and in some cases 10/- a lb. It depended on the type of merchant whom you dealt with whether or not you could buy it for 8/- a lb. You could buy at that price from one merchant, but another merchant, if he was a bit of a racketeer, could push the price up to 11/- and you had no alternative but to buy at that price. The price of seeds as produced by the producer is not at all in accordance with the price which can be got by the wholesaler and retailer, and it is the bounden duty of the Department to see that there is a proper relationship between the price the producer gets for what he produces and the price at which the wholesaler sells, and that the seller should not be able, so to speak, to surcharge the buyer and to charge a price which bears small relation to the price he pays for the seed.

We have then the position with regard to binder twine, binders and spare parts, all of which are essential to food production. We know that at the moment it is not possible to get binders. We know the difficulty in respect of spare parts, but there is still the great problem of binder twine. Last year the controlled price was roughly 8/- per ball. I know—and if the Minister for Supplies wishes, I can give him the name of the people who charged this price and the people who paid it—farmers who paid 15/- a ball for that twine. I know farmers who paid £1 a ball for that twine, and I have been told by other farmers that it cost in some cases 25/- per ball. Does that help production? Who got control of it? If there had been proper control of that twine, and the ordinary merchants had got supplies and we could buy through those channels, the position would be all right, but, instead of that, we find the twine in hucksters' shops and public-houses— something like the cattle licences a few years ago.

Turning to the pig position, we find that we have practically no bacon in the country to-day. The price of bacon produced by the farmer was something in the region of 1/1½ per lb., but at the same time any poor man who wanted a few pounds of bacon was charged anything from 2/6 to 3/- a lb. by the retail shops. Is it any wonder that pigs are gone as they are gone to-day? Does that reflect much credit on the Pigs Marketing Board? As some Deputy said, it would pay this country—and I think every member of the House should openly advocate it— if they were pensioned, no matter at what price, to ensure that they never again have a say in production. They have destroyed one of the greatest industries—an industry on which the poorest type of farmer always depended, that is, the selling of his load of pigs on the open market, which very often relieved him to a great extent in the matter of the payment of his taxes, his grocery bills and so on. Some people seem to think that if farmers get a few acres, they have what is called a "bonanza". I am 45 years of age, and I have worked on a farm since I was 14 years of age. I know what is to be got out of a farm, and I know very well that if you do not strip to the waist and put all you have into it, there is very little to be got out of it.

I appeal to the Minister to take these matters into consideration and to see to it that the farmer gets an adequate price for what he produces. I also ask him to see to it that the agricultural labourer gets a fair and decent return for his work, if we are to have production at its best. People ask where the money is to come from, but where does the money come from for the Defence Services? These services cost the State, roughly, £11,000,000, and if the people of the country were falling in the streets from hunger, as they are in Calcutta to-day, the money to help production would be forthcoming. It does not matter where the money comes from. You will certainly do the greatest act of charity ever done by helping to give the people food at popular prices and let the people who are best able to pay for that development pay for it.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 21 Oct 1943