Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 6 Jun 1946

Vol. 101 No. 11

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. — (Deputies Hughes and Blowick.)

In all the debate on this Estimate, there has not been one word of appreciation of the excellent work which, I hold, was rendered by the Committee of Inquiry into Post-War Agriculture. Any references made to it were in criticism of the personnel of that committee. It was alleged that they did not go to any great rounds in making out their reports, that they did not call witnesses to hear evidence of any kind, that they worked partly on their own. There is a background to that committee of inquiry. It started away back in 1938 when the Commission on Agriculture was set up, in response to many appeals to the Minister, to examine the whole question of agricultural policy.

That commission sat for a considerable time and heard a large volume of evidence. Every agricultural interest in the country—agricultural committees, farmers' associations, and so on —was, in the main, heard by that commission. They were given any amount of time to prepare their memoranda for submission to that commission on which varied interests were represented and which examined these witnesses at length and in great detail.

When the war broke out in 1939, the work of that commission had to cease, because it was a well-known fact that in the circumstances which had arisen, they could not prepare any report which would be a true indication of what future agricultural policy should be. As the war proceeded, I remember hearing appeals made to the Minister in this House and criticisms of the Minister for not setting about the preparation of a policy for the post-war period and for not being quick off the mark in that respect. The Minister, in view of these appeals, decided to set up this committee of inquiry. I am sure that that committee went into all the worthwhile evidence tendered by the representatives of the different interests before making out their report. It is true that they did not come to a unanimous decision, but, from my experience on the Commission on Agriculture, I am quite sure that, if it had been composed entirely of members of the agricultural community, they would not have come to a unanimous finding, either; that there would be majority and minority reports. No matter what we think about the majority or minority reports in this case and no matter whether we agree or disagree with them, I hold that the people who acted on that committee gave very good service to the country and deserve the gratitude of the agricultural community.

They reached agreement on many matters as set out in the reports and in the White Paper circulated by the Minister. They reached agreement on such matters as soil fertility—a very important matter, because everybody knows that, as the volume of evidence which came before the Commission on Agriculture showed, a great deal of the land was starved of fertilisers—the necessity for efficient production and the bringing of production up to a high standard of efficiency. They also agreed —and it was borne out by the evidence which came before us on the Commission on Agriculture—on the great necessity for the better feeding of live stock in winter. They also fairly well agreed on the reservation of the home market for home produce. There are small points of difference regarding the export market. The No. 1 minority report gives a warning and urges caution to ensure that there will not be over-production to the extent that placing it on the foreign market in competition with world goods will impose too great a burden on the taxpaying community here who are using the same commodity.

I was here yesterday evening and I heard Deputy Hughes, Deputy Blowick, and some other Deputies protesting against the suggestions made in the White Paper regarding the continuance of compulsory tillage. I do not like compulsion of any kind. I do not like compulsory tillage either. But we here have to throw our minds back to the years 1939 and 1940 when it was found necessary to bring in compulsion for the first time and when, in fact, we were very nearly late; at that time we were in a position whereby we might have found ourselves—were it not for what had been previously achieved—in a position where we would be short in the one really essential commodity, namely, bread. Since 1914 the world has been rapidly changing and rapidly moving. It might not take another war to place us in a very awkward position. There are other factors which might dominate the future as far as our food supplies are concerned. All over the world you have unions of various kinds whose claims are being resisted; you have periods of stagnation and stoppages in the food producing countries of the world. Consequently, it is vitally important that we here should continue some form of tillage. I think the best form of compulsion, if compulsion is really necessary, is that in cases where people fail to till their land, or refuse to till their proper quota, the Land Commission should direct its attention immediately to them and that land should be given over to those people who do not require compulsion to make them till the amount laid down. After all, the amount outlined in the No. 1 minority report is a very small percentage of the whole; it is something in the region of three-twenty-sixths of the arable land in a holding —that is, three acres out of every 20. There are a vast number of farmers who require no compulsion in this direction. There are others, unfortunately, who do require compulsion and it will need compulsion to make them till any land at all. There are some farmers in the country who would not even till a garden plot. Had not circumstances driven them to tillage I doubt if even to-day they would till a cabbage plot. Prior to the war they were going into the market and buying cabbage in competition with the townspeople. Is it right that those people should be allowed to continue to hold land and set that bad example? In my opinion there is no farm operation so simple as grass management.

In this House yesterday we had a considerable amount of criticism on lea farming. I do not profess to know very much about it, but I do not think that it was clearly defined by anybody as to whether it was to be a long-term or a short-term policy. If I remember correctly, I think that the Minister was criticised on a number of occasions for not carrying out experiments in connection with lea farming. Experiments have now been carried out. If those experiments are a failure then the matter should be dropped. But it is rather disconcerting for the farmers to have these experts advising them in a certain way and then to discover that the advice will not achieve the desired results.

As regards wheat, the Minister indicated a figure of 250,000 acres. I think that is on the short side myself. I think it should be extended by another 50,000 acres. To be really safe we would want an acreage of 300,000 acres. I presume the idea is to get the 250,000 acres by giving the farmers a price which will induce them to grow wheat.

The question of beet was mentioned and I think the Minister indicated that we would need 40,000 acres to keep the factories going. He did not actually limit it to 40,000 acres. Now, in the factory areas I would like to see those people who kept and maintained the factories during all these years—both when the price was low and when it was fairly reasonable— favourably treated, particularly in relation to the cost of freight. I think with all the experience we have had in beet growing over the past 20 years the people themselves will not be inclined to go out of production unless production is made worthless to them. One of the most profitable parts of beet growing is, in my opinion, the by-product—that is, the beet pulp. It is particularly useful in the feeding of cattle with an admixture of crushed oats, and it is an excellent form of feeding for cows.

With regard to fertilisers, everybody is looking forward to the day when they can purchase plenty of them. I hope that when fertilisers do become plentiful the people will have the same keen desire to avail of them. There was a time when fertilisers were pretty plentiful here and not too costly, but the people in many parts of the country did not avail of them to the extent which they would lead you to believe they would now if they were available in any large quantity.

Regardless of a subsidy or anything else, I believe that fertilisers should cost the same all over the country. I understand that at the present moment if I were buying manure from a Dublin firm it would be cheaper for me to allow that manure to go down to the City of Galway, be taken off the wagon there, reloaded and sent back to Woodlawn, or Ballinasloe, rather than that I should take it off the train on the way down at either Ballinasloe, or Woodlawn, station. I think there is something radically wrong in that. Possibly it is not the fault of the Minister or the manufactures, but some adjustment should be made by the railway company.

The question of lime and ground limestone was dealt with at some length and the relative merits of both were discussed, not merely here but in other places, by Deputy Hughes. Whether one is as good as the other or better than the other, in the parts of the country where it is impossible to get limestone locally, lime should be available just as cheaply as it is available to the people beside the lime-kiln. There is one matter to which I wish to refer in regard to lime, and I am sure Deputy Killilea or any of the other Galway Deputies will mention it on this Estimate, that is, the lime from the Tuam Sugar Factory. Galway Committee of Agriculture made application to the Department of Agriculture for permission to give a subsidy on that lime, the same as is given on burnt lime. That was refused—for what reason it is difficult to understand, in view of the fact that we were permitted to make a subsidy available on coral sand on the western seaboard. The value of factory lime is well known now to the farmers of County Galway, particularly to those farmers who use it. In my opinion, the farmers who are prepared to use that product, who are in the main beet growers, wheat growers and potato growers, are as much entitled to a subsidy on it as are the people who take away that lime and use it on pasture land—as has happened in some cases.

The question of machinery is very important. Lack of machinery was a great handicap during the emergency. That is one of the things that must be taken into consideration when the question of allowing in imports is under consideration. I do not think it is altogether a proper basis to take production during the emergency as an indication of what the farmers of this country are capable of doing in the way of tillage. There were many very serious handicaps to increased production and the provision of foodstuffs for the people of this country comparable with those normally obtainable by imports. Lack of machinery was one very serious drawback. In areas where there are large and very large holdings it is perhaps easier for individual farmers to procure machinery but, in the western counties, where tillage is as plentiful and, in my opinion, more intensive, some of the farm machinery and agricultural equipment that is now required is beyond the reach of any individual. I may be told then that two or three or four people should combine to purchase machinery or else form a co-operative society. I should like to emphasise to this House and to the Minister for Agriculture that for very good reasons the idea of co-operation or the establishment of co-operative societies in the west of Ireland is almost impossible of attainment. The reason for that is that the co-operative movement was not directed on proper lines or placed on a proper foundation when it was inaugurated in that area in the years 1918-1920. Co-operative societies were formed and organisers went all over the country telling us of the great advantages to be achieved through co-operation but they were not at all careful enough, in my opinion, in seeing how the co-operative society would be founded. Perhaps that was not the organisers' duty but the people at headquarters should have shown greater care than they did exercise. The co-operative society was formed. A secretary or manager had to be appointed. We know how that was done. It was the man that had the greatest pull, naturally enough, either through relatives or some other form of influence, who was appointed. His business capacity or training was not taken into consideration at all, with the result that people who were quite incapable of carrying on that work and keeping the society on proper lines were in many instances appointed. That would not have been so harmful if it had not been allowed to continue, if there had been a check, if there had been an audit of the accounts within the first three months of the formation of the society.

If that had been done, things would have been fairly right in most cases. But that did not happen until everything had gone wrong. Then there was an audit, in a year or a year and a half, when it was very difficult for an auditor to examine the accounts at all. The result was that, not merely had the farmers to pay up their full share of the capital in many instances but three or four of them who acted as guarantors were sold out and some of them were left on the roadside. In view of all that, it would be very difficult to start co-operative societies in the west of Ireland again, even for the purchase of machinery. That being so, farmers in the west of Ireland and the small farmers should be given very special terms for the purchase of machinery that is essential and which will be not merely a labour-saving device but a hardship-saving device.

The farm improvements scheme was one of the best schemes ever initiated in any country in the world. The Minister for Agriculture has not been sufficiently complimented or thanked for that scheme. There was a time in this country when no farmer believed that for carrying out improvements to his own holding he would be recouped 50 per cent. of the work. It is an excellent scheme and I am glad to see that it is the intention to continue it. In respect of field drainage, the inspectors who are going about should be helpful to the people. They are helpful, of course, so far as figuring out an estimate is concerned, but not everybody knows how to make field drains properly and I think there should be some assistance given in that way. One will find field drains made at right angles to the river. That is not the best way. The drain should flow with the river and come into it in such a way that it will flow with the sweep of the river. There are many matters like that in which farm improvement inspectors could be very helpful when they are put on a permanent basis, as I hope they will be. They could be of very great assistance, not merely in regard to drainage, but in regard to the whole layout of the farm.

The question of farm buildings, I understand, has been considered by a committee. There are many farms and homesteads where there are not proper farm buildings, or sufficient of them. I have often wondered why the Land Commission and the Department of Agriculture and others concerned would not combine to draft some uniform plan for farm buildings. There is another matter that is most essential to the farming community, if we are to relieve those who are carrying on the household duties of the drudgery of their work, which is greater than for any other section of the farming community, that is, the provision of properly planned kitchens. We have very few of them in this country. A few years ago I saw an advertisement in the newspapers requesting architects to submit plans and specifications for the new Department of Industry and Commerce building in Kildare Street, and a prize was offered for the best plan. I think in this matter it would be a good thing for the Department to offer a prize so that we could have some uniform plan. There is nothing wrong in having them all uniform. They can be increased in size according to the size of the dwellinghouse. If they are uniform they will fit in very well in the farmhouses all over the country. That, I think, would save a lot of money to farmers and be an incentive to them to get on with the work, instead of having to wait for an engineer to come out and prepare blue prints, etc. Very few of them will face an ordeal like that.

A lot has been said about the fixing and guaranteeing of prices for this, that and the other commodity. In the South of Ireland, of course, and in other parts of the country the butter and creamery industry is of very great importance. There are other industries of importance, but to a lesser extent. But we have one industry in the West which is of very great importance to the farmers, particularly in the Counties Galway, Roscommon and portion of Mayo. It was mentioned by Deputy Heskin last night when speaking on behalf of the mountainy farmers. I refer to the wool industry. I know that it is a difficult thing to deal with, but I think the Department of Industry and Commerce should take a hand in the matter to see that as much as possible of the home clip is reserved for the manufacture of home cloth. This whole question of the buying of wool is a gamble, with the result that the small farmer comes badly out of it nearly every season. At present a price of 1/6 per lb. is being paid for the best wool in the West. Of course last year, when the price was fixed, it was 2/6 per lb. I have backed up the Minister for Industry and Commerce in order to ensure that there would be no black market carried on in wool. Nevertheless, these men are as much entitled to their share as every other section of the community. There is no reason why something should not be done to stabilise the position.

I notice that the Deputy referred to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in that connection.

I did, but it is an agricultural product, I submit.

The submission is correct, but whether the Minister for Agriculture is responsible for the price is another matter.

When we want somebody to fight our case in the secret counsels of the nation we look to the Minister for Agriculture to be the spearhead of the attack anyhow. I should like to see something done to stabilise the price of wool. Of course we may be told that that is a question for the farmers themselves. Unfortunately, when the farmers in my part of the country were given a good chance to do that they failed; they let themselves down. Nevertheless, the people that I have in mind are the poor unfortunate farmers who want the money at this time of the year and have to sell their wool. They have many calls on that money. They are offered 1/- or 1/3 or 1/6 per lb. and they have no alternative but to sell it. Perhaps in a fortnight afterwards it will be rumoured that anyone who holds his wool for the next few months will get 2/- a lb. or 2/6 a lb. for it. That is being rumoured now. That might be harmful to the people who hold on to the wool. In view of what the Minister for Industry and Commerce has stated, it is hard to visualise wool realising 2/6 per lb., except shipping is held up in such a way that the surplus wool cannot be released. I should like the Minister anyhow to take this matter up on behalf of the farmers in the West who are particularly concerned, because I am sure that almost one-third of the entire wool clip is produced in the West. The Minister should see that they can dispose of their wool at a price which will be satisfactory to them and not leave them in the grip of the gamblers.

In regard to oats, no price is being fixed. The law of supply and demand is to govern the price, according to what has been set out in the White Paper. That is easy to understand, but I think the people who have been sowing oats habitually as a cash crop should be taken into consideration. Having an abundant crop one year and then such a bad price that the farmers almost go out of production the next year is not the proper way of handling the situation. I think there should be a buying agency established for oats the same as for the maize imports from across the water; that granaries should be set up and the surplus oats of one year stored in proper condition, and that before the sowing season begins the Department of Agriculture should be able to indicate to the farmers approximately the quantity they should sow for the next season. That would be a way anyhow of keeping a proper balance so far as those growing oats are concerned, and they are a pretty important section of the community.

This is the first Estimate for the Department of Agriculture we have had since the conclusion of the war period, and I think that we can congratulate the Minister and the farmers for carrying the people of this nation over the emergency period during the last six years. We have had our various complaints and, perhaps, at times we have criticised the Minister and the Department but, on the whole, things have gone on fairly well in face of many difficulties and the foodstuffs essential for the people have been provided. At the end of the emergency, however, we all hoped that the Minister on the Estimate we are now considering would take the opportunity of outlining a policy for agriculturists in future. In the last week we have had presented to us two or three White Papers. Many people in various districts are rather perturbed by the contents of these White Papers. I am not quite certain whether we are to take it as a definite outline of the policy for the future with regard to agriculture, or whether it is, as the Minister hinted in one part of his speech, just to put before the House a programme that might be considered and modified, if necessary, so that a policy would be put before the country eventually which would meet with general agreement. If that is the position, we can fairly well criticise it. I can only hope that this matter will not be looked upon as a fait accompli and that we must take it that it is the set policy of the Minister in regard to the future operations of farming. If that were so, there would be very great criticism all over the country of the Minister's intentions.

If we were to take it as an accomplished fact that this will be the policy —the White Paper with regard to things generally, taken in conjunction with the White Paper on pigs and bacon—it would appear that the Minister was about to embark on a policy relating to agriculture with no consideration for time-honoured customs or for the various forms of agriculture carried on in different localities. There is no small country in the world with such diversity in its forms of agriculture as this country has. In Limerick, Tipperary and other counties, farmers for years have founded their policy on pasture; they carry on dairying and the raising of live stock. In Wexford, because the soil is suited to it, they carry on extensive tillage. In the West of Ireland, as Deputy Beegan stated, because it suits them best, they go in largely for the production of sheep and wool.

We have very diversified forms of agriculture. The people who, by custom, carried on a certain form of agriculture, were good judges; it worked very well. For years we produced all the essentials required here and we also produced a great deal for export. For years we produced all the pigs and bacon necessary and we had a large amount for export. Pig production was so general that the Irishman was caricatured with a pig. When we built labourers' cottages, a pig sty was considered essential and one was provided for each cottage. They have not been used for years and probably never will be. This may have been partly due to world causes, but it is due to a great extent to Government interference. The same applies to butter and milk. We had at one time all the butter we needed and we had a large export trade. That was because the farmers were allowed to carry on in the manner best suited to them, without any Government interference. If we attempt to break up what generations have proved to be the best policy, then we are embarking on a very dangerous policy.

Compulsory tillage has been referred to a great deal in this debate. I hope the Minister has not said the last word on that. I hope he will not embark on a policy of compulsory tillage all over the country. If he does, it will be unfair to the tillage districts and more unfair still to districts that have not a tillage tradition. Deputies have said compulsion was necessary in 1939 and later years and that we would not be able to carry on otherwise. We were going through an emergency period. Although we may have criticised certain aspects, we must congratulate the Minister for carrying the country over a very grave period. It is not fair for any Deputy to suggest that because compulsion was necessary during the emergency it should be continued in normal times.

There are some of us who will not agree that it was necessary during the emergency. I agree that the Minister has handled a very grave situation, probably in as good a way as, and perhaps better than, some of us who have criticised him would have done it. There are, however, some of us here who argued in 1939 and 1940 that a guarantee of a good price would have sufficed to bring up production and that we would have all the wheat our people could eat. I still believe that. I believe that if we said in 1939 and 1940: "We will give you £3 a barrel for wheat," we would have all the wheat we wanted. However, I may be wrong in that opinion. We cannot regard the policy pursued in an emergency as a criterion for what we should do in normal times.

The Minister said compulsory tillage is necessary in order to produce good tillage and good pasture and it would be arranged that all farms will be broken up eventually and that there will be rotational tillage until every farm is broken up; in other words, we are to go in for an intensified form of lea pasture and in that way we will ultimately secure better tillage and better pasture. I do not agree with that outlook. I have stated that farmers went in for various forms of agriculture because their districts suited that. In my county we went in for dairying because we had the best pasture in the world, because we could feed dairy cows on grass better than any country in the world. I defy criticism of that. We had the best pastures in the world but, within the past few years, we have destroyed a good deal of that pasture. I agree it was necessary. People had to be fed and it was necessary to break up even the good land. But we should not proceed further than is necessary in destroying that great asset.

We have had several debates here about lea farming. I think speakers went rather far because we now have reached the position that even the experts are confused. As Deputy Beegan says, they put us all thinking that if they cannot agree among themselves it is difficult for the common farmer to know where he stands. I will not criticise scientists and others who advocated lea farming. I believe in certain places it is a good policy; it is good for the farmer and good for the land.

In other aspects it would also be disastrous. Except in case of dire necessity, I believe it would be madness to break up land that I own and to embark on a policy of lea farming. I am not saying that because it is my land. It is immaterial to me who owns the land. I am speaking for the general good of the community. It is absolutely detrimental to the economic working of land in certain places that it should be treated as if it were land in tillage areas where, perhaps, lea farming might be necessary to produce the best pasture. I am rather fortified in that statement by the Majority Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy, which consisted of experts. Speaking of lea farming, they said:—

"To effect an appreciable and lasting increase in soil fertility the farmer requires patience, knowledge and, above all, enthusism. Any attempt to bring about an increase by coercive measures is foredoomed to disappointment and failure."

In another portion of the report they go further and say:

"In districts where soil texture is unsuited to tillage operations the maximum production of human food can be obtained more profitably by the surface improvement of grassland than by deep cultivation."

They go on:

"Old pasture grass on traditional grazing lands has virtues residing in qualities which science has not yet revealed."

The commission puts the matter very well. They know the reasons. I do not know them. The Minister does not know them. There is better land in Limerick, Tipperary and Meath than any land in the world. It can produce more food per acre than land in any other country. Except in dire necessity it would be a tragedy to destroy such land, as long as it is well used. Custom has shown the farmers how to use it well. In Limerick and in Tipperary farmers use their land for the feeding of cows and for the production of milk and butter. They produce probably a greater quantity of milk and butter on a given quantity of land than any people in the world. There has been talk of increased butter and meat production, and it has been held that in milk production 400 gallons or less per cow is not an economic proposition. It is not. By way of emphasis, I want to say that we have only to look at the statistics to see what our grandfathers knew about local conditions. There is a low production of milk, but it stands out as an authentic fact that while the average production in the country is under 400 gallons, in Limerick the average milk production, in the case of farmers who supply the creameries, is 600 gallons. The reason for that is that they have the finest pasture in the world. It is not that they feed their cattle intensively, but that their pasture is such that it gives the biggest milk production.

There is also a White Paper dealing with the pigs and bacon industry. I stated that at one time we produced all the pigs we needed and had a considerable export trade for bacon and pork. We have none now. We have not enough for ourselves. I do not say that the Minister is responsible. We have not helped the position by the attempts that were made to cure it in the last few years. It was the reverse. I do not want to criticise the original Pigs and Bacon Board or the subsequent board. Circumstances have borne out my statement, that they were not a success. I doubt if the new proposals of the Minister will effect an improvement. It is a dangerous proposition to interfere with private enterprise. The intended abolition of certain factories and doing away with competition is not going to help the Minister's hopes. Interference with the manner in which farmers have been accustomed to sell their pigs is not going to be for the general good.

In the long run it does not pay to regiment people. A certain amount of freedom is necessary in farming operations as in other businesses. We do not say to industrialists: "You have to produce such and such things in the form we desire, and at a certain price or otherwise go out of business." Neither do we say to them you have got to go about producing an article in such a manner. We leave industrialists a considerable amount of freedom. We do not tell Deputy Dockrell or any other businessman that he has got to do a thing in a certain way, and that the Minister wants him to sell at such a price. Deputy Dockrell would not remain long in business if subject to such directions. If what the Minister is applying to agriculture were applied to business generally there would be such a "to-do" in this House that the Government would have to flee. They would be swamped by the capitalists and by businessmen, but because farmers although in the majority are scattered all over the country, and without proper organisation, they are going to be trampled upon, and to be subject to the will of the Department of the day. They will have to farm their land not as custom has told them, but on such lines as the Minister and the Department direct. In God's name, let us consider what we are doing. Let us look at things in the light of reason. Take the position in Wexford where for centuries farmers have gone about tilling their land and producing good crops without interference. The dairy farmers in Limerick will also go on producing good butter. We will not have the present position, not having sufficient for our own people. Farmers will provide all the butter that our people need and some for export if their business is not interfered with, and if the price is right.

Perhaps I might as well deal with the question of price now, because, on prices, depends the success of the dairy farmer, the tillage farmer and the man who produces wool up in Connemara. I have already said that the farmer in the past produced all this country's requirements in the various localities, and produced them well, without interference. He had no fixed prices and no subsidies. He had his lean times and his good times, and he went through them and survived.

We came then to another era, an era in which subsidies and fixation of prices became necessary. Why? Because we adopted a new policy. We began to subsidise one section of the people against the other, because we believed—and maybe rightly—that it was necessary to build up manufacturing industry in this country, that a balance between agricultural production and industrial production was necessary for this country's economy. Perhaps that was right. I believe that in a certain respect it was right that manufacturers should be encouraged, and that could not have been done, it seems, without high tariffs, protection and a restriction of imports of certain commodities, with a consequent rise in price.

So the wheel revolved and the farmer began to find his overhead charges jumping day by day, so that he reached a position in which he could no longer continue to produce his goods as he used to produce them, to supply all our requirements here and to provide a surplus for export at the price, unless there was some quid pro quo for the charges inflicted on him through the help given to another section. To their credit, the industrialists who got that assistance through tariffs and subsidies came to see that it was just that the farmer should get a quid pro quo, that fixity of prices for him was a necessity if he were to continue in production. They soon came to realise that, although their industries were built up and protected by tariffs, if the farmer's economy decreased, as it was decreasing, the time would come when he would not be able to buy their commodities. So the tune changed and we had an agitation by the industrialists for fixation of prices for the farmer, made perhaps more strongly than the farmer could make it for himself. It came, to some extent, during the emergency, and I believe that, so long as we continue a policy of protection, fixation of prices for the farmer will be necessary, and, if it is necessary, it must be done on a just basis.

That brings me to the question of costings which was raised by two or three Deputies—I think, by Deputies of all Parties. I am glad that it was raised because I have been raising it for almost 20 years. I raised it when my own Party were the Government, and, year by year, since the present Government came into office, I have stressed the desirability of arranging for costings in respect of farmers' operations. I have said time after time that what the farmer asked for was neither more nor less than what is given to the industrialist.

When it was sought to start an industry here, what happened? The Minister went to some group of people and said: "Will you start making so-and-so?" and the people then asked: "On what terms?" The Minister said: "We cannot expect you to make it without assistance. We will put a tariff of 50, 60 or 70 per cent. on the import of the goods you make, so you will have that protection." The people approached by the Minister replied: "That is a very fine argument, but we want our cost of production," to which the Minister replied: "Yes, that will all be settled. Your capital will be so much and we will see that you get 6 per cent. on it. We will see that provision is made for your workmen getting a fair wage, that a liberal wage will be available for your workers and that certain allowances will be made for depreciation and so on." They arrived then at the cost of production and gave a tariff on that basis.

The farmer asks for the same. Once that policy has been adopted, the farmer asks that it should apply to him as well, that costings should be made in relation to the production of agricultural commodities in the same way a costings are made with regard to industrial products and that the value of a man's farm, the capital invested in it will be taken into consideration. That is never done. A man has 30 or 40 acres, but nobody assumes that it has any value. It has a value, however, because he, his father or somebody else bought the farm originally, and it has a commercial value if it is sold. It ought to be assumed to be worth something. Costings in respect of a man's farm should be made out on the basis of his expenses and of a fair wage for his labour, which that labour does not get at the moment. That is another point to which I intended to refer. A small margin of profit on the capital should be allowed, as well as some kind of salary for the managing director, the farmer himself, so that he or his children will not have to work for nothing. That is what they expect, but that has never been done, and if we are to continue a policy of protection for industry, we shall have to get down to that sooner or later. Unless there is a system of costings for farmers, we cannot get the correct figure for costs of production or the fair price for any commodity.

I come now to the question of dairying and cattle production, and I should like to congratulate the Minister and the committee which he appointed on the production of this interim report which is very illuminating and which, on the whole, bears out much of what some of us have been advocating for many years. I believe that the production of milk and butter can be increased. I argued a few moments ago that it was not right to interfere with the pasture lands of Limerick and Tipperary, and I hope that the Minister will consider what I say. I ask the Minister to think twice before seeking to put over on the people a system of compulsory tillage and of breaking up in rotation lands which have been used for the production of milk and butter and which are the best pastures in the world. We have proved in this report what was known to everybody before, that the milk production of this country is something under 400 gallons per cow, and that, despite all attempts by cow-testing associations to bring that production up, there has been very little variation in the past 15 or 20 years. Some slight improvement has been made perhaps but very little. Probably the only thing which has resulted from the activities of the various people interested in the improvement of dairying and cattle breeding has been in the type of cattle produced. It has been argued here that we have tremendously improved the type of cattle in this country. The improvement depends on the way in which you look at it. If by improvement is meant that we have improved the foundation stock—that is, the type of cattle used to produce the best butter and the best store—then I say we have not improved them. If you mean by improving the cattle in this country that you produce the type of mongrel beast so common in the midland counties—that is, the beast with the white face and the black body that fattens early and makes a nice handy beast—if you say we have improved our cattle along that line, then I agree with you. If anybody tries to tell me that, taking the shorthorn, which was the foundation of our cattle-breeding stocks in this country and the foundation of any stock we have to-day in dairying, we have improved it, then I say to the man who tells me that that he lies and that he cannot advance one single proof of what he says. Everybody who knows anything about shorthorn cattle in this country knows that is so.

I was glad to hear one Deputy last night who knows the position and who, because of his experience and his industry, is competent to speak on this subject—that is, Deputy Fagan—say that he hoped some attention would be paid to the shorthorn. It is lamentable when one considers the extent to which the Hereford and the shorthorn are being used to cross—the Hereford with the shorthorn and the shorthorn with the black. Because of that situation, I fear very much for the production of our cattle in the future. We can go on for a long time admittedly producing a mongrel beast. As I said, we have a cross now between the shorthorn, the Hereford and the black; later on, the progeny of that will be crossed with the Kerry until eventually we will reach the position when only God could know what the breed is. It reminds me of the story of the man who showed a nice dog at a show. He was asked what the dog's name was and he said "Heinz." He was asked why he called the dog that and he said it was because he had 37 different varieties in him. We will come to the same position with regard to our cattle. If anybody in County Limerick asks me in ten years' time what breed a certain cow is I shall honestly have to tell him I do not know. I hardly know now. I myself have gone to tremendous trouble to try to keep my own and I have lost heavily by doing so. At the present moment I have from 10 to 15 heifers worth from £30 to £35 apiece. I am keeping them at a loss until next year in the hope of getting them in calf. I am keeping them because I am anxious to follow the Minister's advice and set an example to the other people in an effort to preserve the shorthorn in this country. The Ministry are taking all the care they can to send down a shorthorn bull to my district. We do not always agree that we get the best bull, but, unfortunately, our cows are not always protected and no care is taken to prevent intermingling of the beasts. There are as many Herefords and blacks sold as there are shorthorns and that in the very society which is there to preserve the shorthorn and whose secretary is a member of the Farmers' Party.

One would naturally assume that that society would take every care to ensure the preservation of the shorthorn in all its purity. I have seen as many Herefords sold as thoroughbred shorthorns. You have one farmer with a shorthorn bull; his next-door neighbour has a Hereford and a third farmer has a black. You have the poor farmer who cannot afford to put his hand in his pocket to buy a good cow, and he has a Kerry. Then a man sets up in a different part of the district with a herd of Friesians and he tells the other farmers they are all wrong. Between the Friesians and the Kerry, the Hereford and black we have arrived now at the position that we do not know where we are. It is time the Minister gave some consideration to that problem.

We can improve dairying in this country, just as we can improve anything else in this country, by giving to the farmer a considerable amount of freedom. I believe myself that we can instruct him in certain ways. If a thing can be shown to the farmer to be a good financial proposition then he will adopt it and follow it out. If we can convince the farmer that cow-testing is the best policy we will have gone a long way towards increasing production. In this report some recommendations have been made regarding the preservation of certain heifers—that is a thing which I have been advocating for many years—and the extension of the help to cow-testing societies and more pay for cow-testing officials. I agree in great measure with the recommendations in regard to cow-testing in this interim report and I hope they will be put into effect very shortly and that, before another season passes, we shall see the main bulk of them in operation.

Some question was raised with regard to costings. I have already made some remark on that and on how necessary it is to make up costings. Deputies on the Labour Benches spoke about wages. That is a matter on which we all feel very deeply. Hitherto in this country the agricultural labourer has been very, very rarely referred to as a skilled labourer; in effect, he is the most skilled labourer in the country. He is possibly the most skilled worker in the country; he has to be a bit of everything; he has to be a bit of a vet., something of a carpenter, something of a nurse—in fact he has to be able to turn his hand to anything and everything.

I venture to suggest that the ordinary intelligent agricultural labourer, if he were put into a factory, would in two days be the best operative in the place, because he is intelligent. Always in this country he has been referred to as an unskilled worker. It is time we changed our ideas with regard to that, and I sincerely hope that we shall see the day when the agricultural worker will be paid as good a wage as any worker engaged in any industrial pursuit. That again, of course, will depend on the capacity of the agriculturist to pay him a proper wage, and that is a matter which would enter into the question of costings, to which I rebou ferred a moment ago. Even to the limited extent to which we have gone in for costings, proper attention has not been paid to them.

The Minister made some reference to costings and showed how they had arrived at the price of milk and butter. That was all to the good. I do not agree altogether with the Minister. I do not say that I am the best feeder of cattle, but I feed them fairly well. I give them more than the Minister is allowing and I am not at all the best feeder in County Limerick. The Minister's one and a half cwt. would not go very far with me, and I venture to say that taking half the Dublin market price for hay is not the correct way of seeing what hay is worth. That is a small point. The question I am really interested in is that the Minister said that wages do not count, that wages had not been taken into account in arriving at the proper price for butter. I should have thought it was the first question. I should have imagined that when you came to find out the correct price for butter, the first thing that would be considered would be wages, because wages have the greatest bearing on the cost; it is the biggest item, in fact. It is, I should say, five-eights or seven-eights of the costing. Any reduction or increase in wages has a great effect on the price. There can be no question of a reduction but there should be, and it is vitally necessary, an increase in the wage cost if the agricultural worker, particularly the milker, is to have a decent life. He is engaged in probably the most arduous and most difficult task. He has to work hours that other workers do not work, in conditions that other workers do not suffer. He deserves a good wage and should get it.

There is another aspect to wages which applies particularly to the milker, that is, the effect on production of a satisfied worker as against an unsatisfied worker. Can anyone estimate the effect on the milking of a cow if it is done by a milker who is really satisfied with his position as against a man who is unsatisfied, who knows he is underpaid, who feels he is not properly treated? It is impossible to estimate that. I hope that any consideration that is given to improving the position of the farmer by fixity of prices will be accompanied by better provision for wages for agricultural labour.

I have rather rambled through the various items. If I were to give them all the attention that is necessary I would keep the House longer than I desire. I should like to enlarge on the White Papers on pastures, fertilisers and feeding stuffs and on pigs and bacon, but we will have an opportunity in this House in the near future of discussing these in their entirety and of criticising or applauding them as appears to us necessary.

In conclusion, I would ask the Minister to drop the policy of general compulsion, to remember that we built up the agriculture of this nation by diversity of occupations and that any attempt to make a general policy of any kind for agriculture in this country must and will fail, to remember that it has been the custom to produce milk and butter in Limerick, tillage in Wexford and the other counties, wool in the west of Ireland, and that these things will be produced in these localities in the future. An attempt to have a general policy in this country must and will fail. I believe that general compulsory tillage will necessarily fail. We had in normal times an acreage under tillage probably greater than any amount that would be fixed by a compulsory method. I do not say that tillage would be carried out in the places that the Minister or perhaps his advisers have in mind. It would be in the places where the people were accustomed to till, where custom and the quality of their soil led them to till. It would be in those places and they are the best place in which to have it. In other places there would be increased production of milk and butter, which was restricted greatly in the last few years, to the detriment of the country generally, restricted in more than one way. I will tell the Minister one.

There was a policy of tillage. That was necessary. I do not say that it restricted the number of cows greatly in my county. It did to a certain extent. Of necessity, farmers have to have less cows, but not to the extent that one would have anticipated considering the amount they tilled. The average farmer had a certain number of cows. He would almost prefer to lose his life than to lose a cow. The farmer had built up eight, ten, fifteen or twenty cows. He was afraid that if he reduced them by two or three, everyone would consider that he was going down the hill. It was the last thing on earth that he wanted to do. He felt that if he got rid of them he would never get them back. Therefore, even though he had to till his share, he kept the same number of cows and was not able to feed them, he had not land enough to feed them. He tried to carry eight, ten, fifteen cows on a less amount of land than used to carry them or was sufficient to carry them. That has had a detrimental effect on the milk and butter supply. That policy was perhaps necessary in the emergency but it would be suicidal to continue it in normal circumstances and I hope the Minister will consider that point.

I do not wish to delay the House in giving detailed statements on various points that I consider necessary for the future agricultural policy of this country. One would expect that, the war being over, with normal conditions in sight, the Minister and the officials of his Department would have been able to formulate a future agricultural policy for this country that would be acceptable to all and which would place our agriculture in the important position that it should occupy in our economy, as one of our predominant industries. But, despite what we have heard of post-war planning for the future agriculture of this country, nothing concrete has been produced so far. We have had conflicting reports from the Post-War Agricultural Commission, and we have to find now, if possible, which of those reports would be conducive to a proper system of agriculture. When we are confronted with two opposing or confliciting reports, it is very difficult for us, and it is perhaps difficult for the Minister, to determine which is right. He must take into consideration many things.

We know that the Minister has a leaning towards compulsion. We know that definitely. In handling the question of agriculture, he is entirely mistaken if he resorts to these extreme measures. He understands, and I presume the officers of his Department understand, the temperament of the Irish people in general. The Irishman resents very vehemently anything in the nature of compulsion even though it may be for his good or his welfare. He resents compulsion. The attitude of the farmers might be aptly described in the words of the very popular song, "Don't fence me in." That is his attitude at the present time. He does not want compulsion or dictation from anyone. The farmer is an educated man to-day. He is not the farmer of a hundred years ago. He is an educated man who bases his figures of profit and returns on actual facts. He has got into some style of simple book-keeping of his own, and he knows exactly what is the best rôle for him to adopt in contemplating farming conditions on his land. We have a diversity of interests in this country, as Deputy Bennett stated. We have the dairying industry in the south, the store cattle, the sheep industry and the pig industry in the west, and the beef industry in the midlands, in rich counties such as Meath. I say that if, through the interference of the Government, the activities of farmers in these areas are interfered with, it will unbalance our agricultural economy and upset it entirely. No man will be allowed to work out his own destiny in his own way if we have anything like dictatorship or interference on the part of the Government. For that reason I advise the Minister to abandon the idea of compulsion.

I shall now come back to my own constituency and let the Minister know what my experience of compulsory tillage there has been. We have no regrets for what we have done; we have done our best in very difficult conditions in Roscommon. We find that in the greater part of Roscommon particularly mid-Roscommon, intensive tillage has not been profitable. We cannot get the return that, say, the people in Wexford or other counties can get from intensive tillage. Together with that, we find that our land has deteriorated very much as a result of intensive tillage. We feel that in 20 years' time that land will not have recovered the fertility which it had five or ten years ago.

The impression has been created that the farmers on the whole are prosperous. Undoubtedly, they are prosperous up to a point. But in my county we cannot attribute any prosperity or any balances we have to our credit to intensive tillage. We attribute our happiness and our prosperity, if it is there at all, to the raising of live stock. In that connection we say that our county is admirably suited for the raising of live stock, but not for intensive tillage. When I say the farmers are comparatively prosperous, I do not mean that that is general. I say that the reaction will set in in the years to come. We all know that the lands have been deprived of much of their fertility as the result of intensive tillage during the last five or six years. That reaction will set in any day now. The fertility of the land is gone and in order to bring it back to a normal healthy state again a considerable outlay must be incurred in the purchase of manures. If we have something in the nature of artificial prosperity presenting itself, I think that prosperity will dwindle away in the next four or five years, because we will be faced with the terrible problem of bringing our land back to a proper state of fertility.

I presume it will be acknowledged by all Parties that the farmers did respond cheerfully and manfully in many cases to the responsibilities placed on them in the emergency, but I feel that there has not been a proper recognition of the services the farmers have rendered to the State. I feel that the farmer had not the protection or the guarantee that he is naturally entitled to. The manufacturer in this country is protected in many ways. He is protected by tariffs, quotas, etc., and also by a Prices Commission established for the express purpose of inquiring into costings. The Government did inquire into agricultural costing in a halfhearted kind of way. It was just a case of thinking of a number, doubling it, and taking something from it. I do not think the Department of Agriculture ever seriously went into the matter of costings. It is, of course, difficult to estimate what an acre of beet costs to produce and what would be the profits accruing from it. I say, however, that the Minister and his Department should have experimented in that matter throughout the country, say, on farms in the hands of the Land Commission, to see what the position was in relation to costings and what it took exactly to produce either a barrel of wheat or a barrel of oats. That has not been done I regret to say. In connection with lands taken over under the compulsory tillage regulations some attempts were made, but they were not creditable. I must say that in my county the results were deplorable.

With regard to the importation of maize, I would favour that up to a point, but I would object so far as it would interfere with our home products. I say that maize should be imported free of tariffs or duty, but should not be imported to an extent that would interfere with the growing of barley or oats here. There should be some restriction imposed on the importation of maize. I would say that since maize ceased to be imported we have experienced great difficulty in feeding pigs and other live stock. There is nothing that puts condition on pigs or other live stock as fast as maize. Our own products are just used as emergency measures. If we are to produce live stock quickly we shall have to resort to maize to do it. As I say, while restrictions should be placed on its importation, it should be imported free of duty.

We are all very nervous about the pig industry. We have had our ups and downs in that industry for a number of years and, I presume, we will have our ups and downs for some years to come, because the pig industry is gone off more or less and I think it will take years and years to re-establish it. Until the industry gets more or less on its feet again, I think the Government should not interfere with it. It should be a matter of hands off the industry so far as the Government are concerned. It should be allowed to go through a more or less experimental stage. The industry should be left in our own hands and we should be allowed to carry on in our old-fashioned way. We are not going to do any harm to the industry for two or three years. We are not going to have over-production or a surplus for export. Therefore, for the next two or three years I think the Minister and the Department would be well-advised to leave the pig industry in the hands of the producers without any interference from the Department of Agriculture or any other Government Department, because there is not the slightest danger that we will have a surplus. If, at that time, things are running smoothly, if we find we have an excess to home requirements and that the export market is able to absorb the surplus, it might be an advantage at that stage for the Government to interfere and regulate supplies in such a way as to establish both an internal and an external trade.

I mentioned already that there should be co-operation between the Minister for Lands and the Minister for Agriculture so far as tillage is concerned. There is not sufficient co-operation in that connection and, where there are any signs or symptoms of co-operation, the results achieved are not by any means good. I know in County Roscommon of three instances where there are farms in the hands of the Land Commission and I am aware there are quite a number of arable acres on each farm. The compulsory tillage quota has not been carried out on any of the farms. That is not fair, in view of this great drive for tillage. Farmers everywhere have been asked to undertake certain responsibilities and it is too bad that Government Departments should shirk their responsibilities and should not do their bit the same as the plain farmers have to do.

I will give the House one example which was brought to my notice quite recently. I am one of those individuals who does not wish to be too extreme as far as these things are concerned but, nevertheless, I consider it advisable to bring this case to the Minister's notice. It may not have been brought to his notice so far. There is in South Roscommon a farm of land in connection with which there was some agitation recently. I do not wish to go into the whole history of this farm. There was a cattle drive and men have been imprisoned. There is a hope that at some future date this land will be acquired by the Land Commission for division among uneconomic holders. The present owner declined to till his quota. The quota was 51 acres. The result was that the inspectors of the Department were forced to enter his land and they requested people in the neighbourhood to take conacre. This happened on Holy Thursday, not a very good time of the year to start tillage operations on any farm. A committee was formed and the people of the county were told what happened with regard to the farm and that officials from the Department had entered the land.

The inspectors told the people in the district that they could have this land for tillage at 1/- an acre and it was agreed by the people there that the full quota of 51 acres would be tilled. In fact, it was agreed that a total of 70 acres would be tilled. Those people were anxious to get this tillage, because they are poor people in that locality. The tillage inspector stipulated that there were certain conditions, one of which was that a particular area would be devoted to wheat, something in the neighbourhood of eight acres. That was a barrier at the time, but eventually the committee agreed to till ten acres of wheat. The inspector told the people to be there the following Monday morning to start work and that everything would be O.K. Two tractors arrived on Monday morning and several teams of horses and there was a big number of interested people. They were told by the inspector that there was yet another stipulation, and that was that the men imprisoned in connection with the agitation would be debarred from getting tillage. That meant further consultation with the committee. They had the consultation and it was decided that those men would not ask tillage on the farm. In addition to that, it was mentioned that the people who assembled there proposed to have 100 acres of tillage. They had all the machinery and equipment to cultivate this land at 1/- an acre, the sum mentioned by the inspector.

When the inspector had got them to that stage he said: "Gentlemen, there is no use in leading you up the garden any further; you are not going to get this land for conacre tillage. The Department is going to do this tillage itself." The result was that the Department took over the land and, failing to find suitable machinery in County Roscommon, they went to Mayo, brought over two tractors and had the tillage done. I want you to recollect that I said the quota was 51 statute acres. To-day there are only 16 or 17 statute acres tilled on that farm. I must censure the Department in that connection. We are out on a big tillage drive, we have been for some years past. In view of what I have mentioned, is there any sincerity in this tillage drive? We had men in County Roscommon anxious and prepared to till 100 acres of this farm. We see that the Department of Agriculture deprived them of little concessions and, instead of 51 acres of tillage, there are only 16 or 17 acres tilled.

It is unpleasant for me to say all that, and I am sure it is not a bit pleasant for the Minister to hear it, but these are the facts. My sole object in rising was to bring to the Minister's notice the condition of affairs on that farm. I hope sincerely that where there is a desire to do tillage by neighbouring farmers or uneconomic holders, anxious to get land to till at a reasonable price, there will not be a recurrence of what I have described, at least in my constituency.

I wish to bring to the Minister's notice one matter that has been overlooked by Deputies who have already spoken. I have in mind a small section of the farming community who have for a number of years suffered under a very great disability. I refer to the farmers residing in urban areas. I raised this point some years ago with the Minister for Agriculture and I was told that those farmers have certain amenities that the farmers in the rural areas have not, and consequently they would not come under the Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Act of 1939, whereby they would be entitled, as a rural farmer is entitled, to certain reliefs for his employees and also for family labour. The only reason I was given for that was the proximity of the market.

That might have been all right 20 or 30 years ago when we had horses and carts and asses and drays to take a load of cabbage or new potatoes to the market. We know that proximity to the market means very little to-day when we have modern transport such as motor lorries. It is admitted that produce from a distance of 30 or 50 miles could be put on the market at an earlier hour than the produce of the man who lives within a mile of the market. I think that is no reason why this section of the farming community should be excluded from the benefits of the 1939 Act.

The case may be made by the Minister that they have certain amenities that the rural farmers have not got. I may be told they have a sewerage scheme and electric light. Speaking for at least ten or 12 farmers in my area in Dungarvan—and I am sure there are farmers in other urban areas who find themselves in the same position—they pay an urban rate of 21/9 in the £. Only one out of the ten has sewerage laid on. Admittedly they all have water, perhaps from a stream or some other such source, but they have to pay a water rate. The farmer in that area has no electric light, even though he is within the urban area. A lot of them have not electric current laid on, as the ordinary shopkeepers have.

I do not know of any reason why urban farmers were not brought under the Act of 1939 dealing with rates on agricultural land. Those affected are worried about their position. Certain reliefs given farmers in rural areas in respect to rates do not apply to them. We were all delighted to hear that relief of rates was given farmers in rural areas. That was a praiseworthy gesture. Farmers were justly entitled to such relief, but I think it is wrong to exclude urban farmers. I should like to hear the Minister's view on the subject. Farmers in urban areas have to work just as hard as farmers in rural areas. Their rates may be 21/9 in the £ in comparison with rates in rural areas of 12/6 or 12/11 in the £. Farmers living in urban areas should be given the same relief as farmers just over a borough boundary get. As the matter is one that is causing some agitation in urban areas, it would be well if the Minister made a statement on it. These people have a genuine grievance.

I wonder if it is a matter for the Minister for Agriculture to deal with?

I raised the matter some years ago as being the concern of the Department of Agriculture and I asked the Minister to give it favourable consideration. If it is not one to be dealt with by his Department, it might be dealt with by the Department of Finance. Otherwise the two Departments might consult with a view to affording relief to urban farmers. What strikes me about the White Paper is that it is a genuine effort to deal with the present position of farmers. The farm improvements scheme has been of great benefit to the community and the advantages that will follow from it will show good returns throughout the country, in improved land and buildings. I suggest that the staff on that scheme should be appointed on a permanent basis. I hope they will get full-time employment with pension rights. It was unfortunate that in the past some inspectors had no security. I suggest to the Minister that the staff should not be on a semipermanent basis as was the case on some other schemes. Men who were employed for years on housing schemes were there so long that they were too old to apply for positions as county surveyors and other appointments.

The matter that Deputy Morrissey referred to is one that affects my constituency. It also affects many other constituencies, because the rates on land in urban areas is an excessive burden on farmers, especially where a large portion of a county is in an urban area. It is a source of considerable hardship. As far as I am aware, the Act of 1939 did not improve the position of farmers in urban areas as they were excluded from it. I understand that under the Local Government Bill, now before the Seanad, provision is made for certain alleviation of that burden. The Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy, paragraph 271, page 82, states:—

"The burden of rates on farmers has substantially increased since 1935. The poor rates collected in county health districts have increased from £2,728,988 in 1935 to £4,132,106 in 1943. Of this increase, approximately £1,000,000 was collected from farmers; the tendency is towards a still further increase in the burden."

That report was most prophetic, as the tendency is for the amount to increase. Under the new Public Health Act there will be a further burden. I want to ask the Minister about the position of the export trade under the 1938 Agreement. I understood from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that a revision of that agreement is likely to take place. He stated that he could not say what form the revision would take, but that the matter was being reconsidered. The Minister was over in England with the Minister for Industry and Commerce earlier this year, but so far we have not been given any indication of the result of the conversations which took place, with the exception of matters relating to the Air Agreement.

In paragraph 63 of the Report of the Committee on Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy, the committee say that the trade agreement

"which is part of the ‘Agreements between the Government of Ireland and the Government of the United Kingdom' of 25th April, 1938, removed the disabilities suffered by Irish agricultural exports, with the exception of the above-mentioned price differentiation and the principle of quota limitation. The latter, though temporarily in abeyance, nevertheless still possesses legal existence."

As Deputies are aware, the price differentiation was one of the factors which operated against a better price for cattle in this country and operated largely against breeders of store and fat cattle. The three months' limit in respect of cattle in England was reduced during the war to two months, but paragraph 47 of the interim report on the cattle and dairying industries, says:—

"The fat cattle subsidy paid to British farmers applies not only to animals bred and reared in Great Britain but also to cattle imported for fattening provided that they are at least three months in the country, before being offered for sale as fat animals. (Since the outbreak of the war the period has been reduced to two months.)"

It goes on to say on page 23:—

"(1) There is an increased demand for forward stores requiring the minimum time to fatten on British farms....

(2) The better quality store cattle are therefore greatly enhanced in value as they are eligible for the higher subsidy when fat."

They further say that, as a result of this differentiation in price:—

"there is a tendency for a greater proportion of the type of cattle which were formerly exported as young stores or as calves to be retained in this country for a much longer period."

I should like to hear what are the Minister's proposals in connection with this agreement, because it is an undoubted fact that this price differentiation has operated unfairly against farmers here who have been placed at a disadvantage in competing with farmers on the other side, with particular reference to the time limitation, which has forced a number of farmers to keep stores until they are in a better condition than would normally be the case, involving a longer period of keep with higher cost. I should like to hear the Minister's views on that portion of the 1938 Agreement.

In connection with the recent White Paper on compulsory tillage, the prime objection I have to both White Papers —that on tillage and crops and on the pig and bacon industry—is that they represent a continuation and permanent extension of State intervention. We have had now for a number of years a continuation by every Department of State of interference by inspectors or officials of one kind or another, all operating to control, to regulate and to restrict in some measure or other the freedom of the individual, either industrialist or agriculturist. The prime objection to this form of interference, in so far as the permanent position of agriculture is concerned, is that the measures which were deemed necessary, and which were necessary, to compel certain farmers to till an adequate proportion of their land and to put an adequate proportion under wheat during the emergency, are now deemed desirable for normal times.

So far as I am concerned, this further extension of State interference is obnoxious. We ought to be able to secure from the farmer in normal times an adequate output of all crops. The primary essential is wheat, and, if we give the farmers a fixed price for wheat and guarantee that a certain quota of wheat which they produce in two years time will be taken from them and if we allow the farmers complete freedom to decide what they will grow or will not grow, the farmers will be induced to grow it. It is agreed by Deputies on all sides that if we can get the quota of wheat produced on the basis of the inducement of a satisfactory price, the result is likely to be far better not alone for the farmer but for the country. The Minister should consider long and carefully the question of compulsory tillage, because it would be quite possible within the next couple of years to give a temporary trial to the price inducement in order to secure the wheat quota. The same applies to other agricultural crops, but particularly to cereal crops.

So far as dairying is concerned, I must say that I have come to the conclusion, after considerable experience of dairy cattle, that the dual purpose animal is not satisfactory in practice, that the system on which the Department has worked for a long number of years since the introduction of the Live-stock Breeding Act is, in theory, most satisfactory and, in theory, produces good results, but Deputy Bennett to-day and other Deputies have said that they find that this policy of trying to produce a dual purpose animal does not give satisfactory results. My experience is that if you have a high-yielding, or even an average-yielding cow—but particularly a high-yielding cow—giving 1,000 or 1,100 gallons a year, in the normal run, one expects the heifers from that cow to give 600 or 700 gallons, and probably more.

Without regard to the pedigree of the sire?

That is what I am coming to. The situation is that for a long period the result of mating even cows of as high a yield as 1,200 gallons with beef bulls or single dairy shorthorn bulls, in nine cases out of ten, is that the progeny will revert to beef.

As Deputy Dillon says, a goat. You will have an animal of considerable beef potentialities but of little use so far as milk is concerned. The tendency, as the Department have found and as I have found after careful examination and after discussing it with farmers and Department inspectors, is for shorthorn cattle always to revert to beef, with a very occasional tendency in the other direction. With high-yielding cows, it is safe to say that two-thirds of the effect is produced by the bull, so far as milk is concerned, and unless you get a bull of proven dairy ancestry, that is, with a dam which has given about 1,000 galons, in nine cases out of ten, the progeny of the cow revert to beef. I think we shall have to abandon entirely this attempt to get dual purpose animals. It is satisfactory enough to produce a bull or heifer from a cow of 750 gallons, and so far as the individual breeder is concerned, he will get a remunerative price for the single dairy bull, but the result, from the point of view of the country and particularly in view of the fact that these bulls are being distributed all over the country by the Department, is that the ordinary farmer who brings his cattle to them finds that he does not get dairy stock.

It would be far better to concentrate here on producing dairy cattle in certain areas, inducing farmers in traditional dairy counties, or wherever they have the inclination, to keep better standard animals and cows of a better milk record and to hold the progeny of these cows for use in that area. The Department should encourage that, and should abandon entirely the attempt made for a number of years to produce dual purpose cattle of average milk qualities by distributing these bulls all over the country.

What would the Deputy say if the term single dairy bull were confined to the progeny of double dairy bulls, that is to say, insisting on a single dairy bull, where the cow was a beef cow or a milk cow, the sire must be the progeny of high-yielding cattle over a long period?

I think the result would probably be good after the second generation and might even be good enough after the first. But the experience I have—it is a personal one and probably comparatively limited but one I think that is borne out by experience elsewhere—is that the main dependency must be placed on the bull and that, of course, ultimately returns to the yield of the dam of the bull. The situation that has developed here is that a number of the Department's bulls, or the bulls purchased by the Department at Ballsbridge and other sales, are only single dairy and the result is that when these go out all over the country and are mated with the dairy cattle the progeny return in all probability to beef.

The milk will not travel on the distaff side.

No. There is an indication in the interim report on dairying that the Government proposes to breed from what are described as designated cows. If they are mated with beef bulls the result is more than likely to be that you will have a beef animal; but, on the other hand, if the result is satisfactory from the milk point of view, my experience is that the cattle are usually unsuitable for beef and you have then an inferior type of animal from the point of view of conformation. I suggest considerable care should be taken in the working of that scheme; and an examination of the results of it should be made before it is adopted on a widespread scale.

In so far as the report on pigs and bacon is concerned, I must say I think it was the "Irish Independent" which had a leading article on it and that leading article sums up this situation pretty well. This, I think, is the fourth board in which the name either Pigs Marketing or Bacon Marketing is incorporated and our experience is that for a number of years, so far as the Department and the Government are concerned, it is just another effort to try to improve the basis of the pig and bacon industries.

The first thing which strikes me as undesirable is the suggestion that at certain times a limitation should be put on production. Surely, we have had sufficient experience here to show us that, whatever else is the case, we should encourage the maximum production of pigs; and it is the responsibility of the Government and the Department to secure that whatever pigs cannot be taken by the factories here an export market will be found for them. In view of the present world food situation, I think it is only reasonable to assume that for the next five years at any rate an adequate market will be found for whatever agricultural produce we produce in this country. At this stage, without getting a further indication of the Government's policy on the matter other than the Minister's statement, I must say that the Minister's statement with regard to the pig and bacon industry is just another attempt to improve a situation which would be better if the Government allowed a greater measure of freedom to the producers. I remember a time—and I think it was Deputy Dillon who described it in glowing language here—when a pig producer sold a pig in Limerick, or possibly further down—in Kerry; that pig was railed to Claremorris to the bacon factory there. There may be very sound reasons for such a form of industrial development, or industrial usage, but on the face of it, and without having any information as to the factors contributing to that situation, it would strike one as being simply daft to rail pigs all over the country. The Minister suggested there might be a case for reducing the number of bacon factories in certain areas. Whether that is desirable or not, so far as any sane person is concerned, there is no single reason, why pigs should be railed all over the country thereby ultimately contributing to increased costs to either the factory or the retailer.

Those were the days of the pigs' tourist board.

The only other matter to which I would like to refer is the National Stud. The Minister made a brief reference to it. I think we have been very slow in dealing with the National Stud and the board has taken a long time to get under way. The Minister has given the House no indication as to what the position is at the moment. The National Stud, unfortunately, came into our hands at a time when the price of bloodstock had just begun to rise; ever since we have had control of it here the price of bloodstock has risen rapidly. Anyone now attempting to purchase bloodstock is doing so at a very high price. Nevertheless, I think we should attempt, even if it involves a larger capital expenditure than in the ordinary way would have been contemplated, to set up the nucleus of high-class thoroughbreds here. It is apparent to everyone that for the last number of years, and particularly this year, Irish horses are still superior to any others in the world. An Irish horse was placed in the Grand National this year and yesterday, in a limited field, an Irish bred horse won the Derby.

At fifty to one, God bless him.

I think the Minister should endeavour to finance the board of the National Stud to enable us to set up here as soon as possible—even at a very high cost—a stud of horses of high breeding and speed potentialities. In purchasing bloodstock, it is difficult to know whether a cheap or a dear horse is going to give the best results; but, taking it all round, if the board which has been set up is put into operation quickly enough, I think we ought to be able to provide a stud which will reflect great credit on ourselves and on the rest of the country. I would appeal to the Minister to give the House some indication, when he is concluding, as to what the policy of the National Stud Board will be for the coming year.

Sir, I read this White Paper with considerable satisfaction, because, of course, when one reads the reports on which it is founded, one realises that this represents the strategic retreat of the Minister for Agriculture from the Fianna Fáil policy for agriculture as enunciated during the last 15 years. The majority report of the commission on which this White Paper was founded condemned that policy, lock, stock and barrel, but felt constrained, in all the circumstances and out of the natural courtesy which is so characteristic of our people, to make some graceful gestures towards the notorious codology of wheat and beet. This decrepit Party opposite is now driven back to the position of defending the wheat policy on the basis that we are to cultivate the land of Ireland for evermore on the assumption that there is a world war around the corner. Every decision relating to the agricultural industry in this country is to be made on the assumption that we will be living in a state of siege before the agricultural year is over. You can picture up in Grangegorman a particular section of that institute—a group of citizens— hurrying around with the obsession that they must put padlocks on all the doors and padlocking every door; and, on being asked why they wish to use all that ironmongery, being told: "Oh well, at any moment a burglar might try to break in." Having conducted themselves like that, in their home town, they have been put in Grangegorman. Our attitude in this Dáil is that we must grow habitually on the land of this country a crop which a commission, set up to examine the agricultural industry, has declared to be uneconomic and undesirable, for fear at any moment a burglar may break in. The poor creatures that put the padlocks on the door at home and hurt nobody as a result thereof, but conferred a fortuitous benefit on the hardware merchant from whom they bought the unnecessary padlocks, are locked up in Grangegorman and the poor, decrepit, old, political wreck which we know as the Fianna Fáil Party, which advances exactly the same doctrine in the sphere of national economics, is sitting on the Government Benches of this House. Is not that a strange situation?

Now, having been obliged under pressure to admit the absurdity of that theory as a general foundation for our agricultural economics, in order to save their face, we are constrained to accept the pious declarations in this White Paper, that every year a certain sum of money must be spent and all the evils attendant on the wheat scheme maintained in perpetuity because Fianna Fáil is afraid that a burglar might break in. The only people that ever made anything out of the wheat scheme in this country were the fly-by-nights who exhausted their land growing wheat on it and then sold their farms to the Land Commission, moved on to another place, exhausted that, sold it to the Land Commission, and then set up a stylish establishment on the proceeds of their devastations— and the millers; the restricted class of persons who devastated the land committed to their care and the millers who have grown richer since Fianna Fáil came into office than they did in the previous 100 years of activity in this country.

There is not a single Deputy living in rural Ireland who does not know in his heart that 90 per cent. of the wheat grown under compulsion was uneconomic, should never have been sown, and never yielded anything comparable to the cost in money and labour involved in putting it in. Time and time again, you will hear Fianna Fáil Deputies in this House asking the Minister for Agriculture, would he not consider exempting their constituency from the obligation to grow wheat, that, of course, they are in favour of the policy of "grow more wheat" but they want to qualify it—"grow more wheat on my neighbour's land"— because they all know that, with the exception of those parts of this country where wheat was always grown and will always be grown, mainly for the convenience of those who prefer to use it in their own homes, as a cash crop, wheat in this country is a robber, not only of the man who grows it but of the community for which he is a trustee of the land he occupies, and a robber of the poor in this country in so far as it is the confederate of the millers of this country who, all through the period that Fianna Fáil has been in office, have used the "grow more wheat" scheme for the purpose of robbing the poor of this country, for the purpose of getting fat on the substance of unfortunate creatures who were earning 21/- a week as agricultural labourers.

Ordinarily, Sir, we should not look back, in discussing an Estimate of this kind, beyond the 12 months which have just passed but we are contemplating here, at the Minister's invitation, a White Paper, which announces that he is going to bring back, in this attenuated and shame-faced way, the cod, the Fianna Fáil cod, of "grow more wheat." It does not matter a snap of the fingers about the growing of wheat because there are very few farmers left in this country who are so idiotic as not to have learned by bitter experience the futility of that operation as compared with other operations that they could carry out on their land if they were competent men. But, if that scheme is perpetuated, it is going to be availed of to justify a closed economy here for the flour millers and we will have repeated in this country what we saw in 1939, 1938 and 1937— the millers of this country taking from an agricultural labourer in rural Ireland more than his entire week's wages for a bag of flour when the same miller was selling the same flour to the comparatively wealthy industrial workers of England at two-thirds of the price that they were charging in Ballaghaderreen and Ballybay.

If the Deputies of this House, in order to sustain the vainglory of the Minister for Agriculture, stand for that, it is a disgrace and a shame. If I cannot dissuade them from the ignominy of sacrificing the real interests of our people to the purpose of maintaining their own prestige, then at least I ask them to insist that the entire milling industry of this country will be taken over by the State and operated by the State so that the milling racket will not be permitted to avail of the shelter of the "grow more wheat" scheme for the purpose of further depredations on our community.

Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to tell me if I am right in saying that the total consumption of sugar in this country is approximately 200,000 tons per annum?

No, 110,000 tons.

About 100,000 tons.

We will call it 100,000 tons. Do Deputies realise what the beet sugar is costing this country? The present price of beet sugar consumed by the consumer in Ireland, without any customs and excise duty of any kind, is 5d. per lb. and that price is based on the present rate paid for beet. Does any Deputy anticipate that the price for beet is going to be materially reduced in future or does he not agree with me that if the cultivation of the beet crop is to be maintained in this country, the price must be raised, if not at least maintained at the present figure? Do I exaggerate when I say that, prior to the war, the price of cane sugar, refined, delivered free on quay, Dublin, was about 1½d. per lb. and that, postwar, we may anticipate, when things have settled down, it will fluctuate around 2d per lb.? If that estimate is correct, the cost of the beet scheme in this country is 3d. per lb. of sugar; call it £30 per ton; £30 per ton on 100,000 tons is £3,000,000 of money per annum. Give me that money and to-morrow morning we can increase the family allowance going into every house from 2/6 to 7/- per child. Is there any Deputy who would argue with me that our community is getting better value in the maintenance of that daft scheme at a cost of £3,000,000 per annum than it would get if we were in a position to raise the family allowance in every poor house from 2/6 to 7/-? Every farmer in this country who had four children in his house could receive for the benefit of these children 14/- per week in lieu of the 5/- he is now getting; 14/- per week every week in every year, until those children had passed the age of 16, with the money we propose to squander on maintaining the beet sugar crop.

Then I am asked: "What would we have done if we had not the beet factories during the war"? We would have gone without sugar in our day, except that, if we judge from our experience in other scarce commodities, the poor old stupid British would have given us as big a ration as they had themselves. We would have done about sugar what we did about wheat, depended on the poor old British to bring us supplies that we were unable to purchase ourselves. We would have done about sugar what we did about oil, depended on the poor despised old British to bring it in when we were unable to bring it in ourselves. We would have done about sugar what we did about the coal we got, depended on the poor old British to give it when they had very little themselves. We would have done about sugar what we did about the lubricants that kept every wheel of industry in this country turned and without which not one single industrial activity could have proceeded for an hour and not one lb. of beet could have been refined in this country; we would have depended on the poor old British to bring it into us when we could not bring it in ourselves. What would we have done with the beet sugar factories during the war, what good would they have been to us, if we had not the wherewithal to work them? Where did we get the essential commodities that we had not got and without which we could not have refined one single beet root? From those who brought it into us.

We boast of our self-sufficiency, knowing in our hearts that it is dependent from day to day and from hour to hour on the willingness of one of the belligerents to give us the means to be self-sufficient. In order to enjoy that boast, we are to deny the families of the difference between 2/6 and 7/- per week in respect of each child after the second child for ever. We are to bestow on those who grow the beet an agricultural wage approximately 50 per cent. of what the negro is getting for growing cane sugar in Hawaii. Do not argue with me about that. I have seen them growing it; I have watched them at work, I have asked them their pay; and, at a time when we were paying agricultural workers here 21/- per week for growing beet, the negroes in Hawaii were getting 5 dollars per day for growing cane sugar, and we could buy it at Dublin Quay at 1½d. per lb. or less.

But the poor old British are maintaining about 40 beet factories of their own.

There are lunatics in Great Britain and in the United States of America.

And beet factories.

There are beet factories in America. There are three States, Colorado and two others, and they have six Senators who spend most of their time going around blackmailing their fellow-members to vote for what everyone admits is pure cod. But the boys in Colorado want it and the Senators say: "If you vote for Colorado cod I will vote for Kansas cod."

It is all cod.

I quite agree. Here is a Daniel come to judgment at last. From Kansas to Kanturk, it is all a cod. Observe the lofty status to which we propose to raise that invaluable comestible in this country; research is proceeding to see if we can extract industrial alcohol from it. Do I see Fianna Fáil Deputies shrivel at the mention of the name?

Is it in this Vote?

Yes, Sir. It is one of the minor triumphs of the Minister's mighty mind that research is inaugurated to discover whether he can substitute sugar beet for potatoes in the industrial alcohol factories.

It was not ordered by me.

I regard the Minister as omniscient in respect to every activity that takes place within the ambit of his Department.

The Deputy said it was in this Vote. What item is it?

Does the Minister say that the matter of a test of sugar beet as a medium for industrial alcohol is not relevant to this Estimate?

It is not.

Why is it mentioned in his White Paper? It is in the White Paper and you put it there. This is your White Paper.

The Minister wrote the White Paper and circulated it. I say that there is a reference in the White Paper to experimentation on sugar beet for the production of industrial alcohol.

We are discussing the Estimate for Agriculture and that item is not in it. If there is no money for that item in the Estimate, well then it does not arise.

Surely the Deputy is entitled to discuss what is in the White Paper circulated by the Minister?

Which White Paper?

The policy in regard to crops, pasture, feeding-stuffs, etc. It is in it.

What is the paragraph?

You ought to know where it is in your own White Paper. The Independent saw it.

They, too, see things that are not there.

I cannot find it at the moment, but I know it is here. There is no reason to delay the House by looking for it, but I will refresh the Minister's memory. During his introductory remarks I asked him if it was true that it was proposed to use it for the purpose of producing industrial alcohol. He said that so far as he knew it was not, but that experiments were going on in the factories with the view of determining its suitability for that purpose. Does the Minister remember making that rejoinder to me?

Yes, but it is not under my Department.

And the Minister disowns responsibility?

I do not want the Deputy to misrepresent me. I do not want to disown any responsibility. The Ceann Comhairle asked was it in this Estimate and I said it was not. I do not object to the Deputy talking about it. I am not a bit afraid of his talk.

Either you are responsible or not, and the Ceann Comhairle wants to know.

The Ceann Comhairle said that if there is no money in the Estimate for that item, it does not arise.

May I suggest that there is money in it for him? If he has responsibility for beet sugar, it arises; if he has not responsibility, let him say so.

"He" being the Minister for Agriculture should be referred to as such.

I did not know that the use of personal pronouns was prohibited in the House.

According to the Standing Orders, Ministers are to be referred to as the Minister for so-and-so. I presume the Deputy is bound by these Standing Orders, the same as other Deputies.

Not only by Standing Orders, but at any time by any advice you care to tender to me. I am aware that the third part of the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to rural Ireland is not in the Minister's Vote. He has not any responsibility for peat?

So I cannot deal with the turf bags or with the process of the hand-winning of turf. Do you remember the gala day we had in the Dáil, the day it was launched, when we were told that 136,000 workers were to be employed?

Is that on this Vote?

It is all so buried in my mind—wheat, beet and peat. The peat I reserve for another occasion and another Minister. I often think White Papers are very largely prepared for the purpose of obscuring the fundamental matters that really require attention. The farmers were earning a good living before Fianna Fáil were ever thought of; the farmers were earning a good living on their land under a system of unrestricted free trade, in competition with every country in the world. The farmers, given a free field and no favour, fought their corner in the British market before Fianna Fáil was ever heard of and wiped the eye of every competitor who came against them. Is that true or is it not?

There is not a man in this House, representing a rural constituency, who was not reared by his father out of whatever could be made on the bit of land on which he was born, and there were no White Papers at all. There was this provision, that when the farmer went out to buy his implements, his machinery, his seeds, his manures, his feeding-stuffs and all the things that he required to produce the finished product which he intended to sell, he had not to pay a toll to United Seed Growers, he had not to pay a toll to the tariff racketeers, he had not to pay a toll to the manure ring, he had not to pay a toll to the men who make buckets, he had not to pay a toll to the mills who had to get all their raw materials free of cost and who insisted there should be no tariff put on maize. That would be a crime, because that is the millers' raw material. But, when the maize was converted into yellow meal, the farmers' raw material, then the sky was the limit and the receptacle for the plunder was the miller's pocket.

Take the tariffs and restrictions off the raw materials of the agricultural industry; get out of the farmers' light and light your pipes with your White Papers. There is a simple policy and a simple remedy and it will be a better remedy than all the codology and inspectors and bureaucracy that we have in this country to teach the people in our rural areas how to farm their own land. The impertinence of a bureaucracy in this city who are living on the farmers, living in villas around this city out of the farmers, going down to tell the people who own the land, and out of whose pockets every penny of their weekly wage or their annual salary is coming, that they must till the land in accordance with the directions given to them by the warriors sitting in Merrion Street!

Can you imagine the feelings of a man who spent his life on the land, who was reared by his father on the land, who saw his brothers and sisters raised on the land and who knew that some of the white collared gentlemen above in Merrion Street were educated on the land, seeing one of these warriors with a white collar coming back to tell him that he must till this part of his land and, if he does not, Mr. White Collar will go in on the land and till it himself and lose money, of course? But who would expect a Government inspector to make money? No harm at all for him to go in and spend £10 cultivating an acre and sell the produce for £5 10s. 0d. The Exchequer pays the difference. There is not a Deputy here who does not know that in very many cases where the Department went in to cultivate land compulsorily, when they came to sell the produce they lost money on the transaction.

The compulsory tillage provision that Fianna Fáil Deputies will vote for is a simple, unadulterated alibi for their own follies over the last 15 years. Does Deputy Allen think the farmers in Wexford would need to be required to till their land where tillage is a desirable operation? He will vote for it; he will vote for a proviso that entitled a Departmental inspector to go round to every one of his neighbours and tell him he must run his farm, not the way he thinks it ought to be run, not the way he believes he can make it yield the maximum, but the way some rule of thumb gentleman sitting above in Dublin has ordained for farming conditions, not in Wexford alone, but in Wexford, Donegal, Limerick and Cavan. Without any regard to the different circumstances which obtain in these counties, there must be a common ratio of compulsory tillage. Are we never going to tire in this country of providing every civil servant who wants to meddle unnecessarily with a man's business with a latch-key into our neighbour's house?

What right has a man to break in my gate, to walk on my land and tell me how I am to deal with it? Does anybody in this House claim that the Government has a right to go into a grocer's shop in town or city, to tell the owner that the shop is kept in a dirty condition, and that if he put in new shelves and fittings he would save on losses that he had been experiencing? Nobody claims the right to do that. Does anybody claim that we have a right to go around inspecting the consulting-rooms of physicians, and to tell them that if they put in more modern equipment they could better diagnose their case? Nobody claims that right. Is there any other occupation where it is thought desirable to empower civil servants in Dublin to go and tell a man who is earning his living out of a business how to do his job? Not one. It is an astonishing fact, but it is true, that the man out of whom the doctor is living, the inspector is living, the Minister is living, the shopkeeper is living and everybody else is living, is to be told by his own employee how to run his business, in the knowledge that for 100 years he has kept them all, and kept them in a much better style than he was able to enjoy, without anyone from Merrion Street instructing him.

Simply because it is necessary to maintain the fiction that Fianna Fáil was right compulsory tillage must be upheld. We all know that the compulsory element in it is going to be a dead letter from this time on except in so far as it concerns persons with an itch for bureaucracy, who want to invade the homes of farmers, when such a right is claimed in respect of no other section of the community. I do not know how it comes about, but practically everyone in this House was born on a farm or one generation away from it. Why must we always treat people who live on the land as if they were ignorant peasants? Why must we always assume that they are incompetent, that they are a match for no other group of farmers, and that unless they are propped up, tutored, guided, and protected the Danes and the New Zealanders will beat them?

I heard Ministers on the opposite benches say that there was not a single agricultural product we could produce that somebody else could not produce cheaper and better. It is that rotten mentality that produces White Papers of this kind. I controvert that proposition. I say that there are a few cereals that could be produced better or cheaper outside this country than inside it, but there is no perishable product of the agricultural industry as conducted in temperate climes that cannot be produced as good or better in this country than in any other country. Given the same facilities that are given to farmers with whom our farmers compete, I say that without subsidy, protection or assistance of any kind, we can meet that competition in the British market, and beat it, quality for quality and price for price. It is in that conviction, and in that certainty that I think the agricultural policy of this country should be founded. I said provided there are the same facilities and that farmers have access to the same facilities. The first is to give them access to the same sources of raw materials that other farmers have. Take the tariffs and the restrictions off the raw materials of our agricultural industry. Until you do that you can get nowhere. Make up your minds on that. No agricultural community, groaning under the burden of tariffs and restrictions, can go into a free trade market to meet competitors without absolute freedom of access to the cheapest raw materials and the most efficient machinery that the world produces. I do not care if our people are super-men, they could not carry that burden.

The next thing is to establish in every diocese an agricultural college of equal standing, and with an equal standard of learning and equipment to that of the academic colleges already there, but devoted exclusively to the training of farmers' sons in the methods of agriculture best suited to the areas whence they come. We could found an Institute for Higher Learning to prove that there were two Saint Patricks or that there is some question as to whether God exists, but we are told we cannot find money to build a college in each diocese, which will teach boys who are going to work on farms the most modern methods that our competitors are employing, and which our boys would be perfectly competent to employ with the maximum efficiency if given the opportunity to be acquainted with them.

In the second place I want to see people who live on the land looked up to and to be esteemed as any other worthy and honourable section of our community. The first step towards that is to provide for people who live on the land a standard of living which enables them to maintain an exterior that will command the respect which is their due. We cannot get that until the girls who are marrying into the houses, and become the wives of our agricultural community, learn from competent teachers the highly skilled craft of keeping a house and rearing a family. The wives of professional men and of prosperous people in a large number of well known families are given the benefit of a year or two at a college of domestic economy. There is an Ursuline College in Waterford and various other ones scattered throughout the country, where middle class girls habitually go at the end of their academic education for the purpose of equipping themselves to be either competent housewives or spinsters, if it is God's will that they remain spinsters; but the unfortunate girl down the country, who wants to pull her weight in the newly established home, has to undertake the task of cooking, of bearing and raising children, of keeping the house clean, of feeding fowl and doing all the other chores that a woman has to do around the house, and, in a strong farmer's place, of controlling servants, male and female, and seeing that the place and its surroundings are kept as they should be, without a day's training from anybody, unless she has had the now exceptional blessing of a mother who has made her learn in the domestic circle such measure of domestic science as the mother herself was mistress of.

Am I unreasonable if I suggest that a virtually indispensable requisite of a satisfactory agricultural economy in this country would be to ensure that in every married farmer's house, there could be at least, if she herself wanted to be, a competent housewife to pull her weight in the business in which he and she are partners? Am I unreasonable if I suggest that every girl attending the national school in rural Ireland will be compelled to attend, not to the age of 14, but to the age of 15, that, at the age of 13, her education will pass from the jurisdiction of the Minister for Education to that of the Minister for Agriculture, who will be responsible for the maintenance in each parish of a central school of domestic economy to which the girls of the parish will be brought in a school bus every morning from the outlying schools where they ordinarily attend and where they will spend their day cleaning up the school, cooking, learning the lessons of scientific housekeeping, learning to sew, to mend and to do all the other chores which every man's mother or wife does from time to time in her own home, so that at 15 she can go home to her mother, trained in the ways of good housekeeping, and, under the guidance of a prudent woman, grow up a competent housekeeper on her own, either to keep her own little room as it should be kept or to confer the infinite blessing of competent housewifery on the man fortunate to get her?

I put it to Deputies: have they not had my experience of going into the house of one man whose financial circumstances were virtually identical with those of a neighbour and finding the house dirty and uncomfortable, the children dirty and the woman dirty, and the man depressed and spiritless at the thought of the home he has to go back to after his hard day's work, and of going into another house down the road where the income is the same, or a little less, and finding that, because there is a good woman there, the man of that house finds it hard to finish his day in the field, the attractions of the home waiting for him are so great as the result of the exertions of the woman who presides over it?

It is not for want of spirit, it is not for want of the knowledge of how to form every home in rural Ireland. It is for want of the knowledge of how to do the job. I am not pretending that every woman in rural Ireland is an angel down from heaven. There will be "streels" no matter what we do; I am thinking of the good women who want to do their best and who at this time are working fourteen hours a day in their own shuffling and getting nothing done, who, if they had been instructed in the methods of housewifery, could, with less effort, produce a countryside that would rival any countryside in the world.

What is wrong that we do not enable them to do that? Why is it that when we go to Switzerland, to Bavaria or to the rural areas of many continental countries, we are constrained to say: "Is it not wonderfully clean?" What a horrible comparison to make between one's own countryside and that of the foreigner—that the foreigner's countryside looks clean. How grim it is that we have a Public Health Bill before this House which seeks compulsory powers to disinfect our country people because it emerged that seventy per cent. of one category examined were verminous and nearly sixty per cent. in another category. Note well that it is not seventy per cent. of the entire rural community or sixty per cent. of the entire community, but that of a category of our people chosen at random seventy per cent. were found to be in that condition, and, of another category, sixty per cent.

Is that because our people are different from any other people? Is that because our people like to be dirty? Is that because our people are indifferent to such things? It is easy to test that, and I have made the test. I am not speaking from hearsay, but from my own personal knowledge. I followed our people to every land in the world to which they have emigrated—every land in the world—and I have seen them living there side by side with emigrants from other countries, and I could name on the fingers of one hand the dirty peoples of the world, the people who bring their dirt with them whereever they go. But follow the Irish emigrants, whether it be a slum room in New York or a log shack in the remotest prairie, and you will find them clean people. Ask any emigration expert in any country in the world—America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. I have asked them all and I have gone to see our people in these countries, and you would be proud of them.

That is the test. Given the chance and given the opportunity, we are a great people; but when we are corrupted, when we are left ignorant, when we are denied the means to use the gifts God gave us, we have a quality of valiance but unfortunately we have sometimes too much of the quality of patience. It is not to America, Australia, New Zealand or other places abroad that we should go for the amenities which we know how to use and which we ought to be able to enjoy in our own country, because we have the resources to provide them, if our Government but had the will. Perhaps I should not, by implication, charge them with lack of will, because I believe it is because they have not yet realised the need, because they do not understand the problem, that they have remained inactive so far.

As Deputy Cosgrave said, the pig trade in this country has become like the transport industry. Every time it breaks down, we have a new Bill, and every Bill we pass makes it a little worse than it was before. I should have thought that the Minister's tongue would have cloven to the roof of his mouth before he dared suggest to this House the setting up of another Pigs and Bacon Marketing Board. Of all the blights that ever fell on the agricultural community, save only the supreme blight of Fianna Fáil, the Pigs and Bacon Marketing Board is the greatest affliction we have ever known. The greatest economy we could effect in Ireland at present would be to confer Nelson's pension on the three members of that board, on condition that they and all they stood for disappeared for ever out of the life of this country—a pension in perpetuity to them and their descendants for ever more—and it would be a bargain at the price.

The Minister proposes now to provide us with another board. The establishment of such a commission will secure for our people nothing but the worst of both worlds, with all the evils of the ring and the cartel coupled with all the evils of bureaucracy. I believe that the pig and bacon industry in this country has now been reduced to such chaos by the fumbling and bungling of the Minister for Agriculture that there is now no other way out of it except to nationalise it, take it over and place it in the hands of a body analogous to the Electricity Supply Board, and trust to God that we may get, for the management of that great industry, a body which will do the job even comparable with the job which the incomparable Electricity Supply Board has done in this country. Personally, I would much sooner that we had never got mixed up in this business at all. I believe that the Government has now made such a haims of it that the only way to get it straightened out is to take all the factories over and place them under the control of a body like the Electricity Supply Board, operated for the benefit of the producers and consumers, and allow them to take such measures as they deem expedient for the most efficient processing of the pigs of this country and the most efficient marketing of the products of their work. When you do that there will still remain two things to be done. One is to provide for the legitimate interests of the pig jobbers of this country—a body of men to whom the farmers of this country owe a great deal. I have never known a dishonest pig jobber and I have very seldom met an honest donkey jobber. Furthermore, and perhaps budding merchants in this House might bear this in mind, you can always cash a pig jobber's trade. I have cashed hundreds in my day. I wish I could say the same for jobbers in every other variety of live stock. Amongst the rest of them you will meet decent men and you will meet the other kind too; but there is that queer quality about the pig jobbers that I have never met a rogue amongst them, and I met a lot of them in my day. I believe they would have a very valuable function to discharge as the servants of such a body as I envisage; but if it is determined that the buying of pigs can be more effectively done in some way other than the normal practice of buying at fairs, then it would be difficult to maintain open pig fairs where there is no competition in the purchasing of pigs.

In that eventuality I think the pig jobbers are entitled to this much consideration, that their occupation will not be swept away without some reasonable provision being made to compensate them for the livelihood of which this reorganisation will deprive them. That is the first thing that will have to be done in the process of reforming the industry and that is the first thing that should be done to meet some of the consequences of reforming the industry.

The second thing that should be done is to take the tariff off bacon. The only effect of the tariff on bacon is to make bacon dear for the countryman, and it has no other effect—none whatever. If we raise the output of pigs in this country to the level to which it ought to be raised of four to five million pigs a year we would have then a fine surplus for sale in the British market. It is the price which we may get in that market which will ultimately rule the price that is paid in this country; and the more we sell there the better it will be. Take the tariff off bacon and let the farmers of this country, who are producing the bacon, make up their own minds whether they want to eat their own pig home-cured in the kitchen, or American long-eared, or fat-backed from Canada, or Wiltshire bacon, or smoked. The mothers that reared the senior civil servants in this country to-day knew well what to give their children for breakfast, dinner and tea; and if some of them liked a bit of fat bacon now and again, it was not perhaps such a stylish victual as is served in Rathmines and Rathgar, but the bureaucrats living in those aristocratic quarters to-day would not be such healthy men if their mothers had not given them a bit of fat bacon now and again when they were growing up. I remember being told that I was trying to make our people live on Chinese bacon. Chinese, my foot! I was trying to get for our people the fat-backs that a lot of the aristocrats in this House to-day ate with a spoon when they were young, only they are ashamed to admit it now; and good victuals it was for those who liked it; and those who did not like their cabbage so greasy bought long-eared, and grand bacon that was too, and they bought it for 4d. a pound. I sold it to them. Many a day my hand was sore with the saw after cutting it up for them; and I never had to apologise to anybody inside or outside my own counter for selling fat-backed to the people of this country because they were getting good value for their money and a pure wholesome food in those households that cared to eat it.

I used to be proud of the fact that, while they were raising their pigs to produce bacon that was selling at 2/- a lb., they were able to buy the best of bacon for the purposes for which they required it at 4d a pound across my counter; and God send the day when we shall see it again. When I see some of the traipeses going around the country now with their hands out for doles and grants, and softness of one kind and another, too lazy to work and trusting to God that they will be afforded an opportunity of living on their neighbours, and compare them with the men who would have been too proud to beg charity from either neighbour or State, but who were reared on the fat backs at which the aristocrats of to-day turn up their noses, it makes me laugh.

I think Deputy Cosgrave is altogether on the wrong track in his assault on dual purpose cattle. If we want to go into the kind of dairying industry in which Denmark and New Zealand engage then we ought to go in for the Friesian cow. As a milk machine there is nothing to compare with her. Take them by and large, if you want to have cattle merely as a means of producing milk it is fantastic to compare any existing breed with the Friesian cow. But our people do not want that particular type of cow and that particular type of cow does not belong in our economy. The late Mr. Hogan was perfectly right. The live-stock industry of this country should be squarely founded on the shorthorn cow. I have seen the Hereford and the Aberdeen Angus and the Jersey and the Guernsey and the Friesian all tried out in the conditions obtaining in this country and they all flourish for a short time, but end up as exhibition herds in the homes of half a dozen old cranks. Wherever you get cranks they usually do a good deal of harm, but most of the mixing can be quickly eliminated if we can only make up our minds on the right policy to pursue.

I was surprised to hear Deputy Cosgrave talk about the single dairy bull and the dual purpose cow. It is a source of amazement to me to hear that the Department of Agriculture ever send out a single dairy bull bred of a beef cow and a double dairy bull. I thought the very essence of our breeding of a bull for milk was the milk yield of his dam and the milk yield of the dam of the bull by which he was got. There is a disease which afflicts human beings, called haemophilia, and the son can get it from his mother, but a daughter can never get it from her father.

The capacity to yield milk is analogous to that fell disease because, so far as I know, the offspring can get it from a sire that came of a deep milking strain but, no matter how deep-milking the cow is, if she is mated to a beef bull, the tendency is for the progeny to revert to beef. However, I do not doubt that Deputy Cosgrave spoke advisedly and, if he did, the remedy for the difficulty which he referred to is to abolish the single dairy bull and send out to the country only the double dairy bull. I do not think that it is necessary to do that. I believe that if we ensure that single dairy bulls are consistently the progeny of proved double dairy bulls, being less solicitous about the milk yield of the dams, we will tend to raise the milk-yielding capacity of the shorthorn stock of this country steadily and consistently.

I have put to the Minister time and again the simple, and some day inevitable, remedy for the present situation of shortage of milk and the chronic complaint of the inadequacy of the price. We never can prescribe a price for milk in this country which will be reasonable to the consumer on the one hand and profitable to the farmer on the other, until we refuse to recognise as a milk producer for dairy purposes any cow that is yielding less than 500 gallons or more than 800 gallons. I know, as well as Deputy Bennett or any other dairy Deputy, how hard it is to maintain in your herd a general average of 500 to 800 gallons. Cows seem to have a passion for allowing their milk yields to dwindle. But, everything worth doing is difficult to do. Every other part of the farming business is a very difficult thing to maintain. If we confine the distribution of bulls in dairy areas to double dairy bulls and, where we get a bull of exceptional quality, the stock of which is of a Hyperion class—to borrow a term from racing—establish an artificial insemination centre where he can be used for a very much larger number of cattle than he could be in the normal way, I believe the difficulties that at present confront us could, in a reasonable time, be overcome.

The key to the situation is this: that the co-operative creameries should compel their members to be members of a cow-testing society and, if they are not members or cease to be members, the co-operative creamery should refuse to take milk from them. The records of their cows should be produced at regular intervals to the creamery committee. There is no compulsion on them to remain creamery suppliers. If they want to maintain in their byres a lot of "goats" that are yielding from 100 to 250 gallons per annum, they are welcome to do so, but they ought not to be encumbering a co-operative dairy society which is trying to conduct an economic business and they ought not to be cluttering the place up, groaning, moaning and lamenting that they cannot make ends meet with the wretched price the society is paying for milk.

No price will compensate a farmer whose cow is a 200-gallon cow. I think Deputies would be astonished if they saw some of the cows tested, who start off with a flood of milk and, after the first month, begin to tail away. If you examined the total milk yield of such a beast you would be astonished. The farmer, including myself, is a queer creature in that he does not like to depreciate his own cow. When he sees her milking an ocean he likes to pat her and say: "Isn't she wonderful?" and closes his mind to the fact that she was wonderful a month ago but does not look so wonderful now. When she begins to tail off, he is reluctant to admit that she is tailing off much too soon. Whereas, there is no respect for a poor old warrior, that never astonishes the neighbourhood, but who is milking as briskly as a bee the day before her next calf comes, if she be let, and, if tested, is yielding an average of 500 gallons of milk per annum and worth three of the old "goat" that was performing miracles in the first month and living on her reputation in the remaining eight.

That is the solution—cow-testing societies. You will never get the farmers of this country to belong to them or collaborate with them until the dairy societies submit that, if they do not, their milk will not be taken by the dairy, and that the society will use all the pressure at its disposal to persuade its members to get rid of manifestly uneconomic cows. It is unnecessary to emphasise that some silly-billies go around this country advocating that we ought to get 1,000-1,200-gallon cows.

That is all nonsense. A 1,200-gallon cow is all very well to be flourishing around Ballsbridge, but would break the man that would keep her. He might as well keep two wives as keep a 1,200-gallon cow because she would eat you out of house and home. I would sooner keep a Great Dane. But, we should get a good average of 500 to 800 gallons a year and I say, with special reference to Deputy Halliden, that it is the co-operative creameries that have in their hand the key to that problem because the Minister cannot do it if the co-operative creameries will not help. The only way they can help is to say: "No cow-testing society: no creamery client," and in two years the most irate and irascible member, who most bitterly resented that condition, would come back to bless the committee that forced it on him. I can see Deputy Bennett shaking his head as much as to say: "That may be true, but it will be difficult to get the farmers down the country to see it." I think Deputy Bennett will agree with me that what I am saying is true and that until that is done the dairy farmers are going to be the chronic paupers of the rural community, whereas they have within their grasp what is the very keystone of our whole agricultural art. I think the greatest boon that the Minister for Agriculture could confer on the agricultural industry would be to go for a long holiday to Bermuda and to stay there. I cannot persuade him to take that advice.

Why do you say that?

Because he is such a nice decent man that I should like him to enjoy a holiday.

That is very charitable.

If he is not prepared to do that for his native land, the next best thing he could do would be to peruse carefully the speech I have just made, as it will be reported in the Official Report, and carry out the recommendations, in so far as he is capable of doing it, that I have made to him and stand back and observe the astonishing improvement he will see in the rural amenities and economics of this country.

Somebody remarked early in the afternoon that this was the first Estimate for the Department of Agriculture we have had since the emergency. For my part, I expected bigger things from the Minister on this Estimate for the most important industry in the country. Many matters have already been dealt with, but there are one or two things that I want to deal with. One is the question of the pig industry. The White Paper which has been circulated has caused a certain amount of alarm, as I am sure the Minister is well aware by now, amongst the people in the country and those of us in the Dáil who have the interests of that industry at heart. In years gone by practically every person in the country districts had a pig in the pig-sty. It was regarded as a little nest-egg for the woman of the household. The cost of rearing it was not felt and when she came to sell the pig she had a cheque to get.

For one reason or another, particularly I think the setting up of the Pigs Marketing Board, the pig industry has come to the ground. As I and some others envisaged when the Bill setting up that board was introduced, it has almost finished the industry. Unfortunately, we were prophets and we were right. People have been knocked out of their livelihood through not having sufficient competition in the industry and the industry itself has almost failed. Without speaking in any spirit of vindictiveness or bitterness or wanting to deprive the Minister of any credit due to him, I think we have all realised fully for the past couple of years that we could not expect to get bacon from the shopkeepers. Actually, it has been a compliment to get the amount of bacon that you normally got from your usual supplier. Instead of having a surplus, as we had in the past, to send to other countries, such as Great Britain, we find that we have not enough for our own consumption. Therefore, there is definitely something wrong and we want to find out what is wrong. We do not want any more White Papers or any more Bills dealing with people's business which they are quite capable of dealing with themselves, if they are allowed to do it. We want to call a halt to that, if possible.

I want to ask the Minister to consider this point very carefully. The industry has not gone on as he thought it would under the Pigs Marketing Board. On the contrary, the pig is no longer part of the household, so to speak, as it was in other days. People have given up feeding pigs because they thought it was not worth while. It may be said that, owing to the war, we had to contend with the difficulty of getting feeding stuffs. That is true to a certain extent. At the same time, before we had a war we had a scarcity of pigs and people were less desirous of keeping them because they knew it did not pay. So far as I can understand from this White Paper, the idea is that we are no longer to have fairs in the country. When we were all very young children many years ago there was a very true saying: "Competition is the life of trade." Now it is intended, so far as the pig industry is concerned, to have no further competition. Our fairs are not what they were and that is due to the interference of this new board. Now we are no longer to have these fairs and therefore competition will be done away with.

What about the people who earned their livelihood out of this trade and who had been brought up in this trade? It is a most honourable trade and, as Deputy Dillon said, it is representative of the most honourable men in this country. They are men of principle, whether dealing with pigs or anything else. They are a decent lot of men and I think they are entitled to their way of living. With all respect to the Minister, it is a very serious thing to take away anyone's livelihood, no matter whether he is a pig dealer, a businessman, a bookmaker, or anybody else in this community. Up to the present these men have been taxpayers. Like any other citizen they are entitled to the right to make a living for their families and themselves. That right, apparently, is now to be denied them, if what is proposed in this White Paper is put into operation.

I want to make an appeal to the Minister for these men. After all, they have a right to live just as much as I have or as much as he has. I would ask him to reconsider this matter. We have been told a lot about this commission which has been set up. These people gave us the benefit of their time and knowledge, but, nevertheless, I would say: "Give me the knowledge of the men who have carried on the trade for generations and made a success of it." These are the people who are the best judges and who should be asked for their opinion. Before anything further is done with regard to the pig industry, I would ask the Minister to think carefully about the matter, because if what is proposed is put into operation it will mean doing away with competition and doing away with the livelihood of hundreds of decent men. If it has to go through, then something must be done to provide compensation to these people. We hear a good deal about pensions, but I have not heard of pig dealers being included for any pensions. They have given good service to their country as taxpayers and citizens, just as good as anyone else. I ask the Minister to consider this matter carefully and not allow himself—I am sure he will not— to be rushed into this business, because it will have very serious repercussions on the pig trade and ultimately on the industry of which he has charge.

Then we have this business about the amalgamation of factories. It is all very well if you happen to be the one who owns a factory that comes off well, but perhaps it is not so good if you have to take just what you are given and, as they say nowadays, lump it. It is not so good when you are amalgamated with somebody else and bought out, perhaps against your will. That is an important point from the factory owner's point of view.

There is another matter which has been discussed at great length by people who perhaps are more competent than I to speak about it. I agree with the remarks of Deputies who have referred to compulsory tillage. We realise that it was necessary when there was a war on, that it was essential to give our people bread. I, for one, will genuinely congratulate the Minister on his splendid efforts in those very trying years. He had much to contend with, criticism for one thing, but that was not the worst, I suppose. It was the gravity of the situation that one thinks of; he dealt with it splendidly and I heartily congratulate him. Now that that situation has passed, I think he would be very wise if he took counsel from people up and down the country who genuinely want to do the right thing so far as the farmers are concerned. The Minister should cut out compulsory tillage where, in his opinion, it is not necessary. There are certain lands which lend themselves to tillage, but that is not so with regard to other lands.

As has been pointed out by other Deputies, there are certain places, such as County Limerick, which were renowned for dairying. In time of emergency the land there was good enough for tillage, but that situation should now be altered. It is because of the position in Limerick at the moment that we are now going short of butter. Surely no sane man can say he has the interests of the farmer at heart, that he wants to make him progressive, well-to-do and well-off and, on the other hand, declare that he does not want an export market, that it is sufficient to supply the home market? Let us throw our minds back to the time of the first great war. Was it not through the export trade and the general influx of money that this country did so well? Why turn our backs on a market that everybody else in the world is trying to grasp? Why should people say that we are satisfied to meet her home consumption, to cater for the requirements of our own people and that we can forget about the people outside who are willing to pay for what they can get? It is not a question of feeding the people on the other side; it is a question of the farmers here getting a good price for any commodities they have to sell. Any agricultural produce is welcome on the other side and the money is waiting there for the farmer if he has surplus commodities to sell.

No matter what the experts who have dealt with this situation may say, I think there is something wrong with them mentally if they can persuade themselves that we should attend only to the home market. I am not an expert by any means, but it would be hard for me to convince my constituents that they would be better off without an export trade and that they should be satisfied to meet only the home consumption. It would be difficult for me to convince them that that is a better policy than to have the quays of Waterford lined with boats filled with agricultural produce and heading for outside markets, as was the position in other years. It is time that we awakened in this country. We should cut out compulsory tillage in the counties where tillage has not been satisfactory because of the unsuitability of the land, and we should allow the farmers in those places to run their farms as they think best and in a manner that will be beneficial to them. If they can make a financial success of farming, the country will benefit in due course.

I think there is something very wrong in this report, and the same thing goes for the report on the pig and the butter industries. This country is still rationed in the matter of butter supplies. That was unheard of some years ago, and it definitely shows you there is something wrong. Now that the war is over and there is not such a desperate need for compulsory tillage— we can have all the wheat we need from other countries—I do not see why we have to carry on with this compulsion. The people of this country do not like compulsion, whether it is related to farming or anything else. I think, rather than have our people suffering as they are, slaves of the land, it would be much better to take the manly course and tell them that now the emergency is over they can live their lives in their own way, carry on their farming as they please and make the best of it.

It is very easy for people in Dublin to lay down the law for the farmer and tell him what to do with his homestead and how to carry on his farming, but it is a different thing to have to do it. We see people in the country striving to make a living and to keep within the law. That is what it amounts to. Between inspectors and regulations of one kind and another the farmers do not really know whether they are coming or going. That is the position in remote parts of the country that I have visited, but I think the same can be said for the country in general. It is time to cut out State interference as much as possible and to realise that long ago the farmers made a good living for themselves, that they are still the mainstay of the country and that they should have the Government's first consideration.

The Minister should revise the regimentation of this country because our people are not of the type who like to be regimented. We have seen what regimentation did in other places and we do not want anything like that to happen here. I am not suggesting it will, but we should remember that people can be driven too far. Farmers were looking forward, when the war was over, to the time when they would again be able to live their own lives and work their farms in their own way. I ask the Minister to reconsider this White Paper dealing with the pig industry and reconsider also his proposals with regard to compulsory tillage. I believe if compulsory tillage were abolished other industries would benefit considerably. We should endeavour to establish a good export market, so that the farmers will be well paid for their labours. It is no compliment to give our surplus commodities to outside markets. Farmers are only too anxious to live in the old manner, in the manner in which their fathers lived before them.

While listening to Deputy Mrs. Redmond I thought I was back in the land of full and plenty and that the black loaf was done away with. I must say that what Deputy Mrs. Redmond said might be all right in five years' time. The world might then have settled down, and we might have got over the effects of the war, and supplies available in all countries. The position now is that the Government was reluctantly compelled to ask people to go back to the black loaf. I do not see how any public representative with a national outlook could advocate anything else but to ask farmers to co-operate to the fullest extent by tilling more land. The Minister was faced with that position during the emergency and he did a very good job during those years. But for the policy adopted by the Fianna Fáil Government for the last six years, which was severely criticised by the Opposition, we would not have had even the black loaf during the war. It was the wise policy of the Government that was responsible for helping us to overcome our difficulties during the terrible war years. Now that the emergency is ending some Deputies advocate that farmers who were not anxious to till at any time should now be allowed to exercise their own free will and do as they liked. Candidly I think that is a wrong policy and I would not subscribe to it. Farmers who were willing to till more than their quota must be paid, as they were anxious to help the national effort and were not concerned about visits from inspectors. They looked upon farming as a business and they made it pay.

There has been criticism of the pig industry. I remember going to a local fair many years ago and hearing of the action of some pig jobbers. They formed a ring in one town when dealing with farmers. One jobber would offer so much for pigs and later another would come along and offer so much, and the unfortunate owners had no way of combating the ring. However, a few enterprising farmers in the district put up the necessary capital to establish a bacon factory at which the producers got the maximum price for pigs and broke the ring. I am delighted to see the Government intervening in the industry. I do not want to see pig jobbers or anybody else victimised but, in view of references that were made during the debate I thought it better to give the other side. I am glad that the Minister has extended the scope of the agricultural grants. I should like him to consider extending it for the improvement of farmers' holdings. I saw some of the work that has been done in County Dublin as a result of agricultural grants. It is wonderful to have grants made to people to improve their own farm buildings and land.

I think the Deputy is now referring to the Farm Improvement scheme which comes under another Department.

Mr. P. Burke

I would like to have steps taken to improve the poultry industry, and to see people who have poultry farms getting more encouragement. A few people in County Dublin are anxious to get land from the Land Commission on which to extend their industry. If the Minister receives applications for grants for such work I hope he will give them favourable consideration, so that poultry rearing in the county may be put on a better footing. Many small farmers are in the unhappy position that they keep fowl too long and they become uneconomic. If there were more poultry farms people would be encouraged to make the industry a better paying proposition.

I am sure the Minister will give consideration to applications for fertilisers from farmers who are anxious to till. As far as possible priority might be given in such cases considering the type of land they have to work. In places where people are unable to get stable manure for tillage I ask the Minister to help them to get fertilisers, if the inspectors report favourably on their claims. I wish to compliment the Minister for the beneficial manner in which he has conducted the Department of Agriculture during the last six years. He did a very good job in trying circumstances.

I agree with Deputy Dillon that we have had too much interference with agriculture in the last 20 years. When there was no interference we had plenty of food and plenty of live stock.

And plenty of bullocks.

When Fianna Fáil came along the cry was "the bullocks for the road and the people for the land." What is the position to-day? The people have taken to the roads and the bullocks are there. In the past farmers wanted no White Papers to tell them about their business. They were fit to manage their business in their own way. I am not at all satisfied that there should be compulsory tillage. As far as Meath is concerned that policy has done an immense amount of harm.

The Government as was suggested here before, should have zoned the country. There are three or four traditionally tillage counties—Louth, Monaghan, Carlow and Wexford— which derive their main source of living from tillage and these counties should get special privileges and special prices for their products. A county like Meath is traditionally a grass county. It has some of the best land not alone in Ireland but in Europe, and it is a crying shame that that land should be torn up and left a wilderness. Apart from that, there are in Co. Meath a vast number of small uneconomic holders who get a living almost entirely by tillage. These men have a market at their own doors which the Government now propose to destroy. We do not want to see the large farmer in Meath tilling at all. We want to see him leaving that market for the people who must get their living solely from tillage. It may sound peculiar to some Deputies and they may ask why Deputy Giles is changing around and why he does not want the big man to till. I should like to see him tilling, if it would help the small man, but the small man in my county will be left with no market at all, if this compulsory tillage is put into operation there.

I have found in the past that the big man does not like tillage and will not carry on a system of tillage, because it is not a paying proposition. I suppose he is right enough in that—we all like to have everything a paying proposition—but the small man around these big farms produces oats, barley, turnips, mangolds and so on, and these big people who do not till bought all this stuff from them and could not get enough of it. I know the prices were not very big, but the small man got a fairly good living out of it. The Minister should take each county by itself and if the tillage counties, such as Wexford and Carlow and Monaghan, want it let them have it, but he should let the counties which are not traditionally tillage counties alone.

My county, as I say, is not a tillage county, and the Minister is destroying not alone the markets of Meath but the husbandry of the whole country. Meath is the gateway to the British market, and the British market represents the prosperity of the Irish farmer. We cannot get away from that. Whatever we get in the British market, we must take because we have no alternative. The surplus produce which we have exported to the British market for the past 100 years from Meath has carried agriculture and any upward tendency in agriculture here was due to an upward tendency in that market. If compulsory tillage is forced on the farmers of my county, not alone will County Meath be destroyed but the little fairs of Athenry, Roscommon, Ballinasloe, and the other fairs in Waterford and Limerick will be destroyed. The people of these areas have gladness in their hearts when the Meath farmer goes down there to buy his sheep, cattle and horses. Nearly all the finished products of this country pass through the Meath farmers' hands, apart from Tipperary and a few other places, and I, therefore, ask the Minister to think twice before he destroys the economy of the country. There is no earthly reason for compulsory tillage now that the emergency is over, because the ordinary farmer on 50 acres must till to live and the ordinary farmers in my county always tilled their quota, and more than their quota. No compulsion was ever needed and they tilled as much ten and 15 years ago as they till to-day. They had to do it. I ask the Government to give up this nonsense of compulsory tillage.

Nonsense?

Yes, nonsense. The farmers have done their work and have done it well. They fed the nation and they were told they were great men. They were clapped on the back and told of the reliefs they were to get, and now comes this proposal for compulsory tillage. I do not believe in compulsion. It is mean and hateful to a community which has carried the nation on its back. We talk about agricultural policy, about White Papers and so on, but we know that our agriculture will remain as it always was. There is a hidden hand holding down our agriculture, whether we like it or not. That hidden hand is across the water, and until we settle the political feud between Britain and this country, there will never be stability in agriculture here. I defy contradiction of that. Until some Government bravely tackles this feud and settles it with satisfaction to both sides, there will never be stability in agriculture, and I hope that some Government, even the present Government, will face up to their duties and remove the last obstacle, the disunity of our country.

There is a bright hope at present that it can be done. We see the freedom of Egypt coming and we see the freedom of India coming, and there is no reason why we should not press for the freedom of Ireland. If we can make Ireland one nation, with one Government, one police force, one Army and one Civil Service and with a balanced economy, we can make this country a place worth living in; but while the position remains as it is, in which we have two Governments, two Armies, two police forces and two Civil Services, with the country across the water gripping us by the throat, agriculture must be in a position from which it can never rise. With friendly relations and manly dealings, this situation can be righted. Now is the time to right it and we should not wait until the opportunities which exist now have passed.

I am glad that Deputy Dillon took part in this debate, because up to then it was the most dull and disheartening debate I ever heard in the House. One would think that most of the farmers were half-choked. They were afraid to say what they should say, but Deputy Dillon said things which, I believe, were proper and true. We have gone through many futile years of Fianna Fáil policy, and where have they brought us? They have brought us right back to the position we were in 15 years ago. They are doing their level best now to drag themselves up on to the Fine Gael platform. Having discarded their own platform, they are trying to shove us off our platform. We hear nothing now about the bullock for the road and the people for the land. They are all glad to have their few bullocks on the land in order to make some handy money for themselves.

It is time that nonsense was stopped. Agriculture has had a costly lesson and one thing for which I blame the Minister is that he did not pay more attention to land division when it was being carried out. It is my belief that the Minister should be the man solely concerned with land division, because, if he had kept his eye on it, he would have seen to it that we would not create the agricultural slums we have created for the past ten years and which will be a big burden on the country. It was completely wrong to ask men to live on 22 acres of land and to rear families. The position at present is that these men are not living on their land at all. By hook or by crook, they are buying horses and carts and they are out every day, from morning till night, on the roads, with the result that the land is not giving the return to the nation which it should give. It is from that point of view that the Minister should have paid more heed to land division. It is a crying shame that in my county a vast amount of fine virgin land has been broken up into small scraggy patches.

That is a matter for the Minister for Lands.

It touches on agriculture too.

I do not think so.

Yes, it does. This land was broken up into economic pastures of 30 Irish acres; if you have a proper economy, a man and his family should be able to live on that land. We will see that he does live on it and that he does not have it at the expense of the unfortunate unemployed man who is trying to find work on the roads. To-day we have thousands of these small uneconomic farms, the owners of which are living on the public highways and taking the work there out of the hands of the unfortunate unemployed. I think the Minister for Agriculture has some responsibility there and I think he should interfere in that.

I do not think the Minister for Agriculture has any responsibility for the division of land.

Well, he should have some say in it.

He is not responsible for it.

Now, in connection with agricultural machinery that is a big snag in most small farms. The machinery is too costly. An ordinary mowing machine costs anything from £30 to £40. No farmer with 25 acres could afford to buy that machine. Some system of co-operation is essential between small farmers to enable them to purchase the necessary machinery. Lack of machinery on the land is the root cause to-day of lack of productivity. We must devise some system whereby we can put that machinery on the land and make the small farmers up-to-date. I do not think we should permit a situation to exist in which the small farmer is allowed to lag behind. Some facilities should be provided for him to get machinery to carry out his work.

I come now to the question of fertilisers. I hope that the Government will make every effort to purchase all the fertilisers they can get because the land has deteriorated very considerably in the last six years. Constant wheat growing will produce scutch in this country and that is something which it is almost impossible to eradicate. Unless we get fertilisers in abundance it will take us twenty years to bring the land back to a proper degree of fertility.

I am glad that even at this late hour the Minister for Agriculture has learned his lesson and that in the future there is only going to be one agricultural policy in this country and that is to put the people back on the land and put the bulls there with them; both are very friendly towards each other. They have always carried this country on their backs.

I listened to the Minister's explanation on this Vote and I think that he covered a very wide field. At the same time I think that he could have spoken at even greater length had he wished to cover all the subjects which arise under this Vote. I listened with interest to the debate of the various speakers and to the various policies which they advocated for improving agricultural production in this country. I take it that the Minister's effort and the Government's effort is to raise the productivity of this country.

There is one aspect which so far has not been raised by any Deputy on this debate. We are all agreed that any produce which is raised in this country, the better it is preserved and the better it is served up to the people the better it will be for that produce. I am interested now in fruit and vegetables primarily. That is an aspect to which I think the Minister did not pay a great deal of attention in his statement. It may be that he thought it was comparatively small beer compared with the larger items. I think I am right in saying, however, that there is not enough fruit-growing in this country, or not sufficient fruit raised for the population of the country. I take it that when the jam manufacturers are satisfied, or have got sufficient for their requirements, there is not a great deal of fresh fruit left for the ordinary citizen. The fruit market comes during one particular season of the year. The fruit has to be picked and marketed in a period of a few days. Some fruit which will be under-ripe to-day will be ripe tomorrow, and over-ripe the next day. The growers of such fruit usually send a certain proportion to the market and the remainder to the jam manufacturers. I wish to urge upon the Minister that the methods of preserving fruit should be made more widely known and the people should be educated as to the means by which fruit can be preserved for the winter months.

I am not suggesting that the Minister should set up a canning factory. I merely want to bring to his notice the fact that the ordinary citizen seems to have lost the art of preserving fruit for his own household. Some people make a little jam if sugar is available; beyond that there is no attempt made to preserve fruit. I can remember many years ago when there was scarcely any meal served in a middle-class household in which there was not something taken out of a can, which came from California, or some remote part of the world. Now, Californian peaches are very excellent. Probably peaches could not be raised in this country in the open air, but I am not thinking in terms of greenhouse produce. There are such things as pears and apples, and various other soft fruits, which can be grown in the open air and which can be preserved in a way that will make them marketable over a much longer period.

What I have said in regard to fruit applies in greater degree to vegetables. I think I am right in saying that through the activities of one particular firm peas have now been placed on the market as an all the year round product. Once fresh peas pass out of the greengrocer's hands tinned peas are available over the grocer's counter. If that can be done in regard to peas I can see no reason why it should not be done with other vegetables, such as beans, etc.

During the war there was a tremendous demand for vegetables which could be preserved in some way. I do not know how far dehydration of vegetables ought to be practised as a method of extending the period during which they are available in usable form to the ordinary public. I am sure the Minister will agree that any food, vegetables, or fruit, that goes bad in this country through being kept too long or being stored under bad conditions, is a loss to the country and that every ton of fruit or vegetables that we could salvage, from rotting or from rats, would be all to the good. I am not urging the Minister, as I have said, to set up canning industries or bottling industries, but during the present drive for the preservation of food in all forms, the technical schools could possibly embark on a campaign of courses for the ordinary public of instruction in the method of the preservation of soft fruits and, I suggest, beans. I do not know whether or not it is feasible or worthwhile to dehydrate potatoes but, coming up to the end of the year, I would imagine that the potatoes could be taken out of the pits and put in a more available form and that they would keep better.

I merely put that suggestion to the Minister with the idea of exploring every means of making every ounce produced in this country available for service, either to be eaten by the citizens of this State or exported at a profit. There is no country in the world more favourably situated for the growing of certain types of fruit than this country is. Of course, that brings other difficulties with it but none of them is insurmountable. I put that suggestion forward because I do not think this question has been dealt with by previous speakers.

This is my third year in the Dáil, and this is the third occasion on which I have spoken on a particular subject. My pet subject is that which I mentioned on the first occasion. I mention it with great pleasure again. I thank the Minister, who was the first Minister to whom I mentioned this matter, because from this White Paper, it would seem that he is greatly impressed by my submissions. I refer to a pipe water supply for every farm in Ireland. It was for that purpose that I came into this House.

It creates a smile.

It creates a smile, but the smile is on the other side of the mouths of the poor devils who have to draw the water. I thank the Minister because in one of his recommendations in the White Paper, he accepts my recommendation. From what the Minister is doing in the White Paper, I think he was greatly impressed by my suggestion on the first occasion that I spoke here. In another country, Lord Beaverbrook has taken this matter up and has made an estimate. It is a case of great minds thinking alike. Even though the war was on, he got his estimate, which was £21,500,000. The Conservative Party in power at the time pledged themselves to it. The Opposition Party at the time pledged themselves to it. Now the position has been reversed: the Labour Party is in power, and there is no opposition. £8,000,000 is to be spent in Scotland. I definitely relate Scotland and Éire, or Ireland, if you like. I would prefer to include the Thirty-Two Counties. It may be that a water scheme will bring about cohesion of the Thirty-Two Counties. Water is no respecter of boundaries.

Electricity failed, anyway.

If money is at 4 per cent., £8,000,000 would yield £320,000. You have approximately 400,000 farm houses in Ireland and 400,000 rural dwellings of other kinds. The interest on £8,000,000 could be used to put water into all those houses. I am taking Ireland as almost equal in area to Scotland. Although their rivers may be faster, water exists in both countries in practically equal quantities. I think definitely, the same estimate would apply here. In the majority report it is suggested that it would take £15,000,000. There would be many engineering difficulties. On my estimate, it will cost only 6/8 a time for every house. The wages of an agricultural labourer are £104 a year and, if he spends one-fourth of the day drawing water—which is the minimum where it has to be drawn— that represents £26 a year, whereas I can visualise a pipe water supply costing about £4 in every house in rural Ireland. I brought this matter before another Minister. I said it was a dream of mine. He said he was afraid I would remain dreaming. It has gone further since. It is included in the Census paper. On the right hand margin there are six or seven questions in connection with this matter, and there was a paper read before the Academy on this subject by the compiler of the Census paper, on the 26th April. I congratulate the Minister in putting this matter at the end of his White Paper, but I hope it is in the forefront of his recommendations.

It will never get further than a report.

The hare has been started and it will take a lot of stopping.

You will keep it going.

A proper water supply is of more importance even than arterial drainage and rural electrification. I admit the need of these because we will all benefit by them. These things are as indissolubly bound together as the Siamese twins. But going on with rural electrification and arterial drainage without a proper water supply is like taking off a leg to cure a corn. The Government that supplies us with a piped water supply in the rural districts will be a good Government no matter what name they call themselves. I quite agree with Deputy Dillon's suggestion with regard to cow-testing. I have gone in for cow-testing for many years with very good results. At one time I had 32 dairy cows but, owing to compulsory tillage and the difficulty of milking them, the number is now down to about 18. However, we may come on again. In an English novel which I read some time ago the cow was described as the bedrock of agriculture and the foster mother of humanity. That was a grand description. At the time they were opening the milk bars we had a song on the wireless to this effect: "Let us have a tiddley at the milk bar; let us make a night of it to-night; let us have a tiddley at the milk bar and drink to the dear old cow." The cow is the bedrock of farming. I should like to remind Leinster farmers that their whole economy is based on the cow. That also applies to the good lands in the west and in the midlands. I suppose there are seven prominent dairy counties. In other counties I suppose farmers supply milk to the cities. But your economy in Leinster would fail without our cows.

What about the Kerry cows?

They are very good also. When crossed with bulls of another breed they produce some very good store cattle. They are fairly good milkers. We do not keep them very much in Tipperary and Limerick, but we rather like them.

They would not be much use to the creameries in my part of the country.

There are not many creameries there. Outside of the counties I speak of, I think they have all failed. Even in the great County of Wexford I think there are very few creameries. I do not want to cast any reflection on the County Wexford. It is a county for which I have a great admiration, as I have for those who come from it. But according to statistics made out some years ago by a Deputy who is very keen on that matter there are more people per square mile living in Limerick County than in any other county. The people of County Limerick are supposed to be lazy. There is not a lazy farmer in County Limerick. The farmers there are milking at 5 o'clock in the morning and again at 5 o'clock in the evening. I think mastitis and other troubles in cattle are due to the fact that milking is not carried out at the right time in the morning and in the evening. At present some men come in to milk at 8 o'clock in the morning. I think that interference with the proper milking hours has destroyed dairying in Ireland. At present except you have members of your own family to milk the cows you are finished. A man who comes in at 8 o'clock in the morning is not a milker. That is what is responsible for the decline in the milk supply.

Some years ago a motion was put down by this Party asking for 1/- a gallon for milk in the summer months and 1/3 in the winter. That motion was turned down. I think that members of all Parties voted against it, including the members of the Labour Party, except the 12 members of the Farmers' Party. I think it was turned down by 88 votes to 12. Have the Labour Party examined their consciences since then, because they have been drinking blackleg milk and eating blackleg butter?

What about the poor people?

They cannot get the milk now. I am not adverse to the poor people. As a loyal member of my Party I agreed to the suggestion of 1/- per gallon, which of course is not sufficient. I said that night that I would be coming back to the subject in 12 months' time, which I did, and I am dealing with it now for the third time. You will have to pay 1/3 or 1/4 per gallon before you will get sufficient milk in the summer to meet the requirements of this country. I am not a false prophet; I know what I am talking about. One day last week a man came to my place looking for work, and I told my son to be careful about the Sunday milking. That man had come to live with a sister-in-law of his who had a family. They were getting milk from us, winter and summer; perhaps it was not all paid for. But that man would not milk cows on Sunday.

He would, if you paid him, I suppose.

When we asked for the wherewithal to pay them, you all voted against us. I ask you to examine your consciences. Think again. I believe you are fairly stumped now; the middle stump was put flying.

The farmers are never satisfied.

That is one of the stock cries. Why did you not vote for an increase for the milkers, with the view of supplying the people with sufficient milk and butter? I am not here in the capacity of cadger, mendicant or beggar. I come from stock that never begged from anybody. We are a stiff-necked crowd in Tipperary. The last thing we do is beg or whine. We ask no charity. You will not get enough milk to supply the needs of the nation at 10½d. a gallon in the summer and 1/- in the winter. We cannot get the cows milked. Deputy O'Leary says if we pay the milkers we will.

Or get a machine.

I am very grateful to the Minister over the water business; I am grateful to him for being the first to adopt it. With reference to beet, a very interesting point arose. A penny in the lb. is taken off sugar and that brings the price of sugar to 5d per lb. The average family of four gets three lbs. of sugar and therefore they gain 3d a week. When the carriage is off the beet growers get £3 6s. a ton. If the growers could obtain £4 8s. a ton, that would make sugar 8d a lb. I suggest that if a whisper came through the door that sugar was on sale on the top of Mangerton or Galteemore or in the middle of the Bog of Allen, or some other almost inaccessible part of Éire, at 1/- a lb., there would be hardly anyone here to-morrow; we would all join in the hunt. It I had control of 1,000 lbs. of sugar at 1/- a lb., it would go in quick time.

I suggest the Minister started at the wrong end by taking 1d. off the lb. of sugar. In a first-class hotel this morning it was amazing what a small quantity of sugar was supplied to visitors. Even in the Dáil restaurant one would experience the same thing. You cannot but have pity for the people who have not sufficient sugar to meet their requirements. Picture a healthy youngster of 12 or 14 years with little more than a spoonful of sugar. It is no wonder we have tuberculosis and rickets. Why not pay a decent price for the sugar and give the people enough?

Think of the slavery and the drudgery of beet-growing; it is terrible and only a black man could stand it. Deputy Dillon talked about sugar manufacture in other countries and he referred to men earning five dollars a day—that amounts to £1. If we had not our sugar factories here, Demerara or Jamaica would not be much use to us in an emergency. There would not be much hope for us if we were depending on them. You should pay the men who grow the beet. If you do, there will be sufficient beet grown to supply the wants of the nation in sugar. Deputy O'Leary asks why do we not pay our men. We treat our men well —every decent farmer in Ireland does. Your sugar price is wrong.

It is the beet price that is wrong.

If you pay the beet producer adequately you will have a sufficient supply of sugar. You would have 20,000 people in the middle of the Bog of Allen if you had sugar to sell there at 1/- per lb. My suggestion is that you pay sufficient to encourage the beet grower and you will bring the price of sugar to only 8d. a lb. As regards the veterinary service, I believe the Minister has that under consideration. Some improvement is very badly needed there. We had a big lecture about wheat. I am not boasting, but I know more about wheat-growing than anybody in this House. I come from a wheat-growing valley. My neighbours grew wheat when it was not fashionable to do so. It is a big problem. Deputy Dillon has often spoken about it and some young men in the House have said: "We made you grow wheat."

According to John Mitchel more wheat was grown in 1848 than would feed a population two and a half times greater than was in the country. The policy of growing wheat, year after year, on the same land is a bad one. As proof of that I refer to what happened in 1853 and 1854 during the Russian war. At that period the price of wheat was 3/- a stone in my county. After being grown for four or five years the price of wheat from 1853 to 1861 did not fall below £4 a ton. The American Civil War was on from 1863 to 1865 and the price did not go down until then. From 1863 to 1873 the average price of wheat was 2/6 or 2/8 per stone. The growing of it killed the land. If Deputies looked up the statistics they will find that in the 70's emigration was biggest as a result of wheat growing. While it is the most perfect human food it is followed by scutch grass. Land should be kept for wheat growing in a time of war. Pay those who are anxious to grow wheat indiscriminately, but it will kill the best land. I have experience of two generations on the wheat question.

And if we have another war?

There will always be a fair amount grown. We have always had a big amount of tillage. In the Deputy's constituency the land is good enough for wheat growing. Deputy Heskin referred to threshing sets when he spoke yesterday. I consider that they want looking after as some of these machines are not doing the best work. I do not know what to think of lea farming. It is not a new discovery by the officials. Sir Arthur Young dealt with it in his book. I think the original of that book is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and I understand that students of agriculture have to study it. He got smashed on three farms and then proceeded to lecture on how to run a farm. He was a great advocate of lea farming but as the Scotchman says: "I ha'e me doubts." We heard mention of the Old Testament.

The Deputy has gone back a long way.

I am introducing the lea farming question now. In the old days it was compulsory to leave the ground fallow once in seven years, hence the flight into Egypt. Humus can only be supplied from the farmyards.

Mr. Corish

Camels in that case.

Something should be done for the greyhound industry.

There is no money here for greyhounds, and I doubt if they are an agricultural product.

Of course they can be reared in back gardens in towns.

Will the Deputy point out to the Chair on what item in this Vote there is money for greyhound racing?

Bloodstock.

I thought anything relating to products of the land could be mentioned. I suggest that a big stake should be put up for greyhounds at a racing centre. Questions were asked as to the amount of money that came into this country during the emergency from the sale of greyhounds, but the request was refused. As the amount is increasing for the last four years, definitely greyhounds are an agricultural product.

There is no money for greyhounds in this Vote.

There are two types of animals, bipeds and quadrupeds. Some five years ago inspectors went round looking for new ideas in connection with agriculture, and I made what I thought was a very wise suggestion. It was received good humouredly, and it was to supply jackasses. We wanted nine in County Tipperary but only got one. The results are good as can be noticed at every creamery. I heard that 3,400 asses were exported last year. A young animal four years old sells from £7 to £8. Asses were inbred for years and were not big. It is hard to keep a sire ass. Mules and jennets could not be bred from the small animals that were available. Jennets are now coming along and they are very useful animals.

I want to refer next to goats. The goat is the poor man's cow. A lady from Trillick, in County Tyrone showed goats at Ballsbridge show some years ago and, according to the records, some surprising results were obtained. These animals are in-bred and they are bad types, but it is rather a pity that more attention has not been paid to this matter. Kerrymen swear by the goats, and, 30 years ago, it was quite usual to see a goat full of milk coming in at the head of 20 or 30 cows. Deputy Corry, I am sure, remembers that time. They gave a couple of quarts of milk, very much better than the bad cows referred to by Deputy Dillon.

With regard to the colleges and the students attending these colleges, I do not see many of them coming back to the country. I am not against education, but I wonder are these boys in the colleges going to be instructors or performers. Many of them do not come back to the farm. If I sent one of my sons down to the farm of some of the farmer Deputies here—I would not pass Deputy Allen or Deputy Hughes—I suggest that they would come better our of it than they would out of any college. If I got a lad down with myself, he would see our traditional farming and how we carried on, but when the reapers and binders, the tractors and tractor ploughs and all this improved farming came along it was felt that no more instruction was needed. I have my doubts about it and I will back any one of the lads on the farms around me against any college-trained youth.

There are no creameries in Wexford where Deputy Allen comes from.

I refer to general farmwork. Reference was also made to holidays. I rarely heard of a farmer getting a holiday. I know of a farmer who told his first son to come for a week to Lisdoonvarna, telling the second son that he could go the following week and the third son the next week. They thought the old fellow was going mad. Everyone has holidays now but the farmer.

Mr. Killeen

The farmer's life is a holiday.

It is a holiday— working, as I have seen them, until 9 or 10 o'clock at night with threshing machines, and with 15 neighbours waiting for the machine. It is very reminiscent of Uncle Tom's Cabin. We have an Irish Free State with 65 per cent. of the population working 11 and 12 hours a day, when 8 hours is enough for any man to work, but when we ask for increased prices, so that we might lessen the hours of work—on a 30-acre farm one extra man could be put working and, on a 60-acre farm, two extra men could be put working—all we get is a clap on the back and the statement that we are great fellows, that we saved the country.

You got £1,000,000 in the last Budget.

And it was taken back with the other hand.

The Deputy should be allowed to make his speech.

It is not an Irish Free State; it is an Irish slave-state, with 65 per cent. of the population working 12 hours a day while the rest work eight hours a day. An Irish Free State, mar eadh!

I note from the Minister's White Paper that tillage is to be made compulsory. I think the farmer and the agricultural worker have done their work and have done it well, and should get a rest and a chance of putting the worn-out stubbled land which they now have back into condition. Tillage should not be compulsory. Further, I think it is not necessary, because in the constituency which the Minister and I have the honour to represent, the majority of farmers till from 30 to 40 per cent. of their land and, to my mind, it is a big mistake to put the plough into the very good pasture land which we have in some districts. These men with good land are in opposition to the cattle exporters and very often help to get the farmer who is engaged in mixed farming a good price for his cattle.

Some weeks ago, I asked a question here about the numbers of poultry in the country. The raising of poultry and pigs is a great advantage to the people in tillage districts and the Minister for Finance, who was answering for the Minister for Agriculture on that occasion, told me that, in 1945, we had more poultry than we had in 1943 or 1944, but, if my information is correct, poultry raising is going down fast. When poultry raisers have their stocks of laying hens in and put their pullets on the market, they get only the price of old hens for them, that is, 10d per lb. and this is doing harm to the poultry industry.

The agricultural worker and the farmer are the worst paid people in the State and in order to put the farmer in a position in which he can give his worker a living wage, he must get a better price for his produce. I have pulled beet in bad weather—and I am sure the Minister never did—and I know the hardships involved in that work. When beet is being harvested, it is generally raining, sleeting or snowing, but when the men get orders to get out the beet, they have to get it out. There is no such excuse as saying that the day is wet and I have often seen men having to put on wet clothes in the morning again. The price of £4 for beet is a very poor price and the farmer should be in a position to give his farm labourer a bonus when the beet crop has been saved and harvested.

The majority of farmers are willing to give their labourers a living wage but they are not in a position to do so. There is scarcely a farmer in my county who has not two men where he wants three, and five men where he wants six or seven. They cannot afford to pay them. Going through the country, one can see weeds in our crops, when formerly the practical farmer would no more allow weeds to grow in his crops than he would cut off his head. If you have a wet harvest it is very hard to save the crop and you get no return, except weeds.

Our live-stock industry is well worth minding. To my mind, in a county, such as County Wexford, which goes in for mixed farming there is no cow so suitable as the beef Shorthorn cow. When we had all beef Shorthorn cows we had a good yield in milk and butter. It is a ridiculous situation to-day to find ourselves unable to produce sufficient butter to meet our own requirements considering that some years ago we had a big surplus for export.

I would strongly urge on the Minister not to interfere with the pig industry. If the recommendations set out in this White Paper are put into effect they will lead to the destruction of the pig industry. The Pigs and Bacon Board did a great deal of damage; but this would be the last straw. Every man who rears a pig likes to bring that pig to the market and bring his money home. I will give you an instance of what the bacon curers can do when there is no competition. If there is going to be no middleman, pig jobber, or whatever you like to call him, the bacon curer will make his own price and give what he likes for the pig. It is no use saying that the bacon curer must do this, that, or the other. He will not do it. There is no compulsion upon him to do it. The majority of the pig buyers never did anything else except buy pigs. They know nothing about cattle, or they know as much about them as I do about making watches. I think it would be an appalling crime to take their livelihood from these people. When there is a surplus of pigs the bacon curer is in a position to reject certain classes; the pig jobber could get in touch with bacon curers across the water and find a market for our surplus pigs there. I would advise the Minister to let well enough alone. The only thing which he should do is to try to increase pig production. At the present moment there is not sufficient pig feeding in the country. The supply of oats and barley is exhausted. The farmer has now to go to the shop and pay 24/6 for pig nuts. I do not know what is the composition of these pig nuts. If you examine it you will find spiders' nests in it. Obviously it is the sweepings of the lofts. It is certainly not proper pig feeding, particularly at a price of 24/6 per cwt. I am sure the Minister would not like to take away anyone's livelihood. But, again, I ask what is to happen to these unfortunate people who have been in the pig buying trade for generations past? What is there for them to do? Is the Government prepared to compensate them?

Now I would ask the Minister not to enforce the tillage Order. I would ask him to do all in his power to ensure a better price to the farmers for their produce and thereby enable them to pay the agricultural workers a living wage and employ more men on the land. There is any amount of work to be done on the land if the farmers could only afford to pay labour to do it for them. All over the countryside good land is running into marsh for want of labour. All the small rivers in my district are silted up with mud and that means that the lowlands are flooded. It is no use our getting up in this House and abusing each other. What we must do is to co-operate in a businesslike way. By means of cooperation a lot could be done for the farming industry. Agriculture is the staple industry of this country. If the farmer is not prosperous the townsman is not prosperous because there is no money in circulation. For all our industries, with the exception of agriculture and our tanneries, we have to import the raw materials. I would appeal to the Minister again not to enforce the tillage Order and not to take away from the pig dealers their means of earning a livelihood.

I shall be very brief because practically every aspect of the farming industry and agriculture has been debated, to my mind very fully and very adequately. I wish to express, on behalf of the farmers, our appreciation of the Government's attitude in accepting the principle of guaranteed prices and a proper market as essential for the stability of agriculture. The Minister announced some time ago that the price of milk would be guaranteed for the next five years so that the dairy farmers now know where they stand. That will put great heart into them. I hope the time is not far distant when that same principle will be extended to wheat and beet, eggs and poultry. We are told that the dairy industry is the corner-stone of our agricultural structure; that being so, it is most essential that that industry should be laid on a good foundation. Unfortunately, I am afraid that it is drifting rapidly from a position of stability and the time is not far distant when the amount of milk and the amount of butter in this country will be reduced to alarming proportions. Since 1938 there has been a decrease of six million gallons of milk in the supply to the creameries. That is a very serious matter in view of the fact that at one time, even when the price of butter was very low, we exported over three million pounds' worth of butter.

There are various factors militating against the dairying industry. Some of them can be easily remedied. Perhaps the most important factor militating against it is the low price paid for milk over a number of years. Time and again figures have been submitted to the Department of Agriculture and to the Government showing that the price paid for milk supplied to the creameries was far below the actual cost of production. However, these figures have not been accepted with the result that the industry is now going from bad to worse. Another factor militating against it is the incidence of disease amongst live stock. In the third interim report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-War Agriculture it is stated that the loss to the farmers of the country each year, because of the incidence of disease, is over £5,000,000. That is a colossal figure and I think no effort should be spared by the Department and the Government to do everything in their power to reduce that figure to the very minimum. Amongst our dairy cattle we have the diseases of mastitis, tuberculosis and contagious abortion. Now, mastitis is a very serious disease but, as far as I can understand, it is a very easily remedied disease. Recently I was told by Professor Grimes of University College, Cork, that he had successfully carried out experiments by means of which this disease can be combated. Cattle infected with mammitis were cured in a very short time by inoculation with penicillin. It is only quite recently that Professor Grimes told me he had got a cow infected in that way and in a comparatively short time—definitely within a fortnight— the milk was restored to its normal condition and quite fit for human consumption. If that is the position then I suggest that the Department should take immediate steps to have cows affected with mastitis treated with that very important remedial measure.

In the case of contagious abortion I understand that in America there has been a nation-wide endeavour to reduce contagious abortion and tuberculosis to the very minimum—contagious abortion by a vaccine known as Strain 19 when the calves are from six to eight months old. So successful has this method been that recently the Minister for Agriculture in England issued an important statement to the people advising them to vaccinate their calves and young heifers because of the urgent necessity for them in that country for an increased supply of milk. To put his ideas into practice, the English minister arranged that all calves in the country should be inoculated with this vaccine at the cost of 1/- per calf. In the farm attached to University College, Cork, under the supervision of Professor Boyle, the animals are being treated in that way with, I understand, very satisfactory results. The Department and the Government should see to it that this particular vaccine is more generally used because we all know that animals affected with contagious abortion are a dead loss to farmers. The amount of milk is reduced by 15 to 25 per cent., the number of calves may be reduced to 40 per cent., there is a general lowering of the health of the cattle, and another virulent disease, sterility, is very often the result of contagious abortion.

Another factor that is militating against milk production in this country is the difficulty of providing milkers. I have been at many meetings throughout the country recently in connection with my work as Secretary to the Dairy Shorthorn Breeders' Society and the general cry through the country is that the farmers cannot provide milkers. The result is that the herds are being reduced very considerably. The man who in former years kept 30 or 35 cows is now down to 18 or 20, the man who had 18 to 20 is down to 12 and, unless they have members of their own family capable of milking, the tendency is to disperse the herds at the very first opportunity. Dispersal sales are quite common throughout the country. Herds are being reduced and, consequently, milk yields are going down, supplies to creameries are going down, and the whole position is very serious. I appeal, therefore, to the Government, to take steps to stem the downward trend before it is too late. It has gone very far. The Government know best what is to be done.

In order to arrive at a proper figure for the value of milk, the Department should set up a costings department. There are various schools run by the Department of Agriculture and it should be possible in those places or on certain farms, selected by the Government, to find what is the cost of producing one gallon of milk under various conditions and circumstances. I know that it varies from one part of the country to another; it varies even from farm to farm; but the general consensus of opinion is that the figure arrived at by the Department, and on which they base the low price for milk at present, cannot bear close actual investigation. The cumulative effect of all these factors—the low price for milk, the incidence of disease, the difficulty of getting milkers—has militated against the dairying industry and we appeal to the Minister and to the Government to effect remedial measures before this industry, which is the keystone of agriculture, disappears from this country altogether.

It is very important that the farm improvements scheme, which I admire very much and for which the country owes a deep debt of gratitude to the Government, should be extended to the provision of houses for live stock. If that is not feasible, long-term loans, at low rate of interest, should be available for the building and renovation of houses for live stock. Some of the houses in farmyards are dark, badly ventilated, with bad sanitary arrangements. If the farmers got any encouragement, by long-term loans at low rate of interest, just as they got in the case of hay barns, the effect on our live stock generally and on the health of our live stock would be very remarkable and would well compensate the Government for any expense incurred.

As regards the education of farmers, generally, the majority of farmers' sons and farm workers who leave school at the age of 14 have no further means of improving their education. A good deal of work has been done, and well done, by the agricultural instructors, through winter agricultural classes subsidised by the county committees of agriculture. These are very effective and, if they were more numerous, it would be very beneficial. However, the attendance at these classes is not always as good as might be expected. It would be well if some kind of mobile cinema apparatus could be made available in each instructor's area so that films could be shown depicting the various activities of the farming industry. Recently, at the Dairy Congress in Thurles, we showed a number of films sent to us by the Irish Film Company, Dublin, and the interest shown in them was amazing. In view of the fact that farmers have not adequate opportunity of keeping in touch with everyday activities, it would be well if mobile cinemas could be established in each agricultural instructor's area, which the instructor could take to lectures and classes. They would be very useful in imparting most valuable information.

There are other aspects of the farming industry that I should like to touch upon, but it is getting late and I know that they have been debated, in great detail, for the past two days. Every effort should be made by the Department to ensure that the dairying industry is not allowed to decline into a state from which it cannot be restored.

I want also to put the question of dairy bulls before the Minister. Views have been expressed about cattle generally. In my opinion, the greatest drawback at the moment to the breeding of good dairy cattle is the lack of good dairy bulls. We must aim, I think, at having in the country more proven sires—these sires that we know are producing heifers with good milking characteristics. Quite recently I found that a creamery committee in Mallow, where they have established an insemination centre, were anxious to get proven sires, but they could not find them in the country. That is unfortunate. For the past four years I am aware that a cup competition fell through because sires like that had either been slaughtered or exported. The Dairy Shorthorn Society had a cup competition for the best heifer which was judged by yields of milk and butter fat. They also gave a cup for the bull which sired that heifer. For the past three or four years the society have not been able to carry on that competition because the bull which sired the heifer was not available, as it had either been slaughtered or exported.

I think that our live-stock inspectors, when they go around each year to inspect bulls for continuation premiums, should mark out a certain number of these bulls which are likely to produce good milking heifers and that these should be distributed amongst other farmers or taken up by the Department and retained until it is known whether or not their heifers are good milk yielders. As I said, we have in the society 1,000 gallon heifers but, unfortunately, the bulls that sired these heifers are no longer available. These bulls, if available, would I think be a national asset and I appeal to the Minister and the Department to lay more stress on the desirability of having those proven sires reserved and distributed through the country.

With regard to the insemination centre in Mallow, the creamery society are doing a great deal of research work. I think that research work should be done by the Department of Agriculture and financed by the State. I should like to know what the Minister's views are on this A1 insemination centre in Mallow. Is it likely to develop the scheme, and is it likely to be a great success? I understand that insemination centres have been found to be very valuable assets in the dairying industry in America, New Zealand, England, and elsewhere. I should like to know what are the possibilities for them in this country, how far it would be possible to have these centres spread all over the country, and how far it would be possible for them to be subsidised by the State. I should like to emphasise to the Minister the desirability of examining again the fixed price for milk, with a view to helping farmers to induce workers to milk their cows by paying them a proper price. It is a very serious matter.

I should like to take the few points made by Deputy Halliden first. I think Deputy Halliden and Deputy O'Donnell gave the House the impression that there is a continuous decline in the number of cows in this country and in the milk supply. That is not true so far as we can judge from the figures, because we have very accurate figures so far as the output of creamery butter is concerned. For the last four years there has been practically no change. In the year ending 31st March last, the output was 607,000 cwts. That was better than the year before and better than the year before that again and almost the same as it was four years ago, when it was 611,000 cwts. We may say, however, that production is practically at a standstill.

How does it compare with 1935?

It is lower than that, definitely.

Twenty-five per cent?

I do not remember the figures, but I would not say it was so much as that.

The milk supply is down 20 per cent. this year as compared with last year.

I am always hearing these stories, but if we go over the last four years, we will find that there is no great change. There is a definite decrease, of course, compared with pre-war, but that was to be expected because, very naturally, we cannot expect farmers to get the same yield from their cows now when they cannot get cake and nitrogenous food for winter feeding. Deputy Halliden asked about artificial insemination. The Department has been alive to this matter and they are making investigation into what has been done in other countries and sending officials to study the system in other countries. We must only wait for the report of these officers to see what we may do. I could not really say how the centre in Mallow may stand. That, of course, as the Deputy pointed out, is being financed by the creamery society and not by the Department.

As well as the allegation that milk production is going down, Deputy Keating spoke of poultry. There, again, the indications are that poultry are not on the decline. There were more eggs produced last year than the year before. The price of pullets and cockerels was regulated with a view to encouraging farmers to keep their good laying hens. We have arranged for a very good price for cockerels, so that when the hatching is over and when the chickens are sorted out into pullets and cockerels the farmer's wife will get a very good price for cockerels if she sells them early and a very bad price for pullets, because she should keep the pullets to lay later on. We also give a good price for old hens later on in the year.

And a bad price for pullets.

We are doing our best to get them to keep more of them by not giving too attractive a price. Deputy Dockrell spoke of fruit and vegetables. I agree with him that we should make every possible use of them, that we should use what we can of them and preserve the rest, whether in the form of jam or by bottling or canning them. I have no further comment to make with regard to Deputy O'Donnell's proposals about a water supply for the rural areas. I absolutely agree with him that it is a most important item. It would be a great amenity to the woman of the house to have running water for household purposes and, undoubtedly, it would be a great economic benefit to the farmers to have running water in the cow byres and for all the other animals. I think that one of our aims should be to see that the farmer is facilitated by some scheme or other in getting running water to his farm. It would be easier to do that when we have the rural electricity supply scheme put into operation. If there is any necessity for power pumping, the electricity will be available.

The only note I took during the speech of Deputy Giles was that he accused Fianna Fáil of trying to get on to the Fine Gael platform. I think we would be very foolish if we tried to get on a platform that has such poor footing at the present time. Apart from that, it is very hard to understand how any Deputy on the other side would make a suggestion of that kind. If we go back almost 20 years, and if we read the debates that took place here, we will find that it was proved conclusively, and, I think, with the greatest honesty, by some of the Fine Gael speakers, that wheat could not be grown in this country, that it was foolish to suggest wheat-growing and, therefore, they did not bother about it.

One matter that was spoken to by a good many Deputies was compulsory tillage. It met with a good deal of opposition, but it was the sort of opposition where Deputies merely said they were against it and they did not give very convincing reasons. Deputy Hughes said it was unnecessary. I think that is not a very great reason against it, because if every farmer does the tillage that would be expected from him under a compulsory Order, say 25 or 30 per cent., then compulsion does not enter into it.

I object to regimentation.

The Deputy objects to regimentation. As regards Deputy Cogan and Deputy Blowick, that was their big objection, too. They said there was too much compulsion and they spoke of bureaucracy and even of Communism. I suppose I should not object to a person being over-religious, but I do not think it was necessary for Deputy Cogan and Deputy Blowick to be so sensitive about the religion of this country that they are afraid that if Fianna Fáil brings in compulsory tillage, religion will go. That is going a bit too far with the game, and I advise them to keep this religious charge up their sleeves. A well-known English writer said that religion is the last refuge of a certain individual—I will not say who he is. At any rate, it should be kept for the last argument.

Deputy Blowick said it was a poor recompense to the farmer who had stood by the country during the emergency. I do not think that there are very many who will be affected by the compulsory tillage proposal. Practically every Deputy expressed the opinion that it is hardly necessary, that we will have the tillage in any case. So if we do bring in this Compulsory Tillage Bill, it only means that we will compel a very small remnant of the farmers. That is the very remnant that did not do very much for us during the emergency. What they did was done under compulsion. The overwhelming majority of the farmers did their tillage willingly during the emergency, and they are to be thanked. They are not concerned whether or not we bring in compulsory tillage.

So far as White Papers are concerned, this is my conception of a White Paper. The Government, instead of bringing a Bill before the Dáil, issued a White Paper. In the Bill you have the whole plan laid out and it is very hard to alter a Bill in a big way. If you try to alter it you put your scheme out of order. You can make only slight alterations at the best. When a White Paper is issued it represents the Government's intention to do a certain thing. The White Paper is issued so that those concerned can read it and submit their objections to, or their suggestions for improvements of, the scheme outlined. There were, for instance, a few suggestions made that I think are worthy of consideration. If suggestions are put up that did not previously occur to the staff in my Department or to myself and other members of the Government when we were considering the matter, they are carefully considered and there is ample time to make a change before legislation is introduced.

I do not think there was any very strong objection put up to this proposal about compulsory tillage. There is an objection to regimentation and Deputies say that compulsion is a bad thing. If it can be avoided, compulsion should never be resorted to. I pointed out that in 1939 there were big areas where tillage was completely gone, where the farmers did not know how to till, where their men did not know how to till, where they had no horses, tractors or equipment, and it took two or three years at least before these areas got into their stride in the tillage programme. If we had not such a slow-starting war, we would have been in a very bad way. Deputies will remember that in the recent war there was very little fighting and very little interference with transport during the first one-and-a-half years and, therefore, we had good time in which to prepare and get our tillage programme working.

It would be a dangerous thing to allow ourselves to get into a position like that again, especially if we are not going to inflict any great hardship on the great majority and if we are going to make it unpleasant for only a very small number of farmers. If we are to pursue this argument that compulsion should never be resorted to, why do we agree to a law for the early closing of public houses?

It is not a very good analogy.

It is only a very few who will do themselves or the country any harm if the public houses were open all night; the great majority would not be affected by it, but still we compel people not to go into public houses during certain hours. It is the very same with the farmers. Every speaker, except Deputy Fagan, admitted that it was a good thing for the farmer himself to do tillage and it was a good thing for the country. If it is a good thing for the country and for the farmer himself, and if there are a few obstinate, foolish farmers who cannot see the good for the country and themselves, we are only doing them a kindness by saying: "You better do your duty."

Will the Minister confine the regimentation to the areas that did not carry out tillage hitherto?

I do not think that would be fair.

The Minister said that the majority of farmers did not need it.

The great majority of farmers, I admit, but if you take a tillage area like the Deputy's constituency in East Donegal, or my constituency in County Wexford, where there will be only a few who will not do their duty in the matter of tillage——

The number is not worth talking about.

It is easier for them to do the tillage than it is in an area like part of Roscommon or Westmeath, so I do not think we should neglect to look after the few, even in the tillage counties.

I do not know why there has been talk of regimentation. I think it was Deputy Blowick who said that a man could not walk into his farmyard without knocking up against an inspector. What inspector? I did not know that there were so many inspectors going around. I took over a certain number of inspectors in the Department—livestock inspectors, potato inspectors, and others. I suppose some of them have gone and others have taken their place. I do not know how many inspectors were appointed since I went to the Department. There are inspectors under the Tillage Act and under the farm improvements scheme.

And the rural improvements scheme.

That is not my Department.

And the potato scheme.

The inspectors under that were there before I came. I do not find fault with criticism if it has anything to do with live stock, but one would imagine, after listening to the Clann na Talmhan Deputies, that numerous inspectors had been appointed; that they were all over the place. I do not know who they are. I should say that the total number of inspectors does not amount to hundreds. It is not thousands. If they are able to appear so often in farmyards they must be great men. If they are able to make their presence felt amongst the downtrodden followers of Clann na Talmhan, they are great men. It is a great compliment to me that members of Clann na Talmhan could talk about things that do not exist—inspectors and bureaucracy. I suppose I should be complimented that anyone said such things when criticising what I did not say. They did not criticise the policy of my Department to any great extent. Deputy Hughes and Deputy Cogan said that there was no sound policy laid down for agriculture. I did my best. All I can say is that I am going home regretting that I did not get the slightest help from Deputy Hughes or Deputy Cogan, except in one matter.

What about soil improvement? You took five or six years to appreciate it. I suppose you will do something about it in another five years.

Deputy Hughes talked for over an hour and I ask any Deputy except himself, to say if he made any impression on them. Can they remember any suggestion that he made? Were they so impressed by anything Deputy Hughes said in the way of amending my policy that they could stand up and say what it was? I was not. The Deputy did say that I had no faith in the future; that I was not preparing for exports, and that I had no faith in increased production. That is not true. As far as I can, I am trying to look to the future. I want, if I can, to see what the future will be like in four, five or six years, because I think it is fairly evident to any Deputy that we cannot expand our produce until we get an export market for the surplus. It will not take very long to satisfy the home market with butter, bacon and things that are scarce. If we are to have any considerable increase in production we must find an export market. Some Deputies are likely to say: "Go on with production, and you will find an export market." I do not think that is good enough. We should look around. If we can induce farmers by fair prices to produce more pigs, and if we find that we can only place a certain amount of bacon in the home market, and that there will be a surplus, what will we do then? Some Deputies may say "don't bother". I do not think that is good enough. I go to a certain amount of trouble to look into the future and to prepare, but Deputy Hughes says I have no faith in the future because I do not say as he does: "Produce 1,000,000 pigs and you will find a market somewhere." The Deputy's plan is to say to the farmer: "Produce twice as much and you will get a market."

You will not get a market if you do not look for it. The Minister is not prepared to look for it.

I am not going to adopt the easy and complacent policy of the Fine Gael Party when they say: "You will find a market somewhere."

Will you be able to get back the despised market, the market your Party thanked God was gone?

Deputy Keating should not interrupt. I did not thank God for these things.

Did not your Party thank God that the British market was gone?

When I was making a desperate attempt to try to keep up production and to hold on to the little bit we had, I did not get much help from Deputy Keating or his colleagues. We looked in every country in Europe for alternative markets. Deputy McMenamin cannot help laughing at that statement. Deputy Hughes says that we did not go and look for markets, and Deputies on the opposite benches laugh at us when we look for them.

Why not look for the market you lost?

I am going to talk about that, and probably the Deputies will give me little sympathy.

I suggest that the Deputy should not interrupt the Minister by asking questions at this stage.

Possibly Fine Gael are right. But supposing they are not right, what then? I wanted to prepare for the alternative, when we might have a little competition to meet in the British market in five or six years' time. It is because I thought we might have a little competition to meet then that I thought it would be a great pity if we did not take pains to put ourselves in a position to meet that competition to the best of our ability. We should not be driven out by competition through not making the necessary preparations. Take the example of pigs. For fear I might accuse Deputy Dillon, if he is listening, of despising our own products, I pointed out that, probably, we would get a higher price for our bacon than the Canadians, but that there was a limit to that; that we might be driven by big supplies of Canadian and Danish bacon to accept a certain price, and that it would put us to the pin of our collar to compete. That is the position I have in mind. If we do it, well and good. Therefore, we should prepare to produce pigs and to put them on the foreign market at the lowest possible cost.

We commence in one White Paper by saying that when feeding stuffs are available, maize and so on, we will bring them in. We say that in order to get farmers to produce pigs as cheaply as possible, after giving feeding stuffs at the lowest possible cost. The next point that arises is that farmers must have a price for pigs announced well in advance. That price should be based on the cost of feeding stuffs. Every farmer should be in the same position. We want to see that feeding stuffs reach every farmer at the same price, as far as we can do so. How can that be done? If we want to achieve that, feeding stuffs must reach all farmers at the lowest possible cost, and at a level cost over a long period. The only way in which that can be done, so far as I can see, is by having some sort of importing agency. I do not mind whether it is a co-operative society or not. If Deputy Cogan prefers a co-operative society, and if it can be done in that way, I personally would prefer it, but I do not know how you can organise a co-operative society of that kind. If it can be done, however, well and good. There must be some sort of agency—whether a board, a department, a director of feeding stuffs or a co-operative society—which will bring in all the maize and have the maize delivered to all the mills, whether proprietary mills, co-operative mills or the farmers' own mills, at the same price. That means, I think, that practically all the farmers will have their maize at the same price. That agency which imports all the maize can keep it at a level price, because if the maize to it is going down, it can accumulate a little money, lower the price after three months, keeping it low for three months and so on; but if everybody is importing maize and the price differs from day to day, it is not possible to have a level price over a very long period. That is why I think we should have this importing agency.

What about transport costs in the distribution of maize?

Let the transport costs be included. Let this agency have the maize delivered to the miller. My idea is that they will pay transport costs.

The vital question is what will the transport costs be.

I do not know what they may be.

But that is the essential question.

I know what they are at the moment.

Does the Minister mean that those transport costs——

I will not permit any more questions to be put to the Minister.

My idea is that the importing authority—I do not want to call it a company or a co-operative society— will deliver the maize to the mill, whether it is inland or at a port—perhaps by railway and perhaps by boat— and that the maize will be the same price all round. The next point is that the price to the farmer for his pigs will be fixed on the price of feeding stuffs. Assume that we get the pigs, that we have satisfied the farmer. We say to him: "You will be paid for your pigs on the basis of the cost of feeding stuffs." We have a certain standard ration and suppose we get the pigs. The next thing we want to ensure is that every farmer will get the same price. At that stage, I cannot see— and I have a lot of experience as Deputies will admit, of trying to manage this pig business—that it is possible to get every farmer the same price for his pigs, unless there is one buyer. We have tried other methods over and over again in various ways, and have always failed.

It is all very well to say: "Drop the whole thing." That is the only alternative—to drop the whole thing and go back to the 1931-32 basis of letting pigs take whatever they get. There must be one buyer. What does that mean? It means that this board will have to buy all the pigs and I should say at this stage that that does not prevent the dealer in pigs from buying pigs from the farmer and selling to the board. It only means that the factories must buy from the board; in other words, the board will have a representative at the factory gate and at every fair and market who will take all the pigs offered to him—no pig will be turned back—at the fixed price, whatever it may be. That is the only way in which we can ensure that the farmer will get his price. If any other way can be suggested, it can be considered.

Are they to be bought on a deadweight basis?

We might give them the choice of liveweight or deadweight. For instance, if we can have liveweight facilities at all the fairs and markets, the buyer could say to the farmer: "There is your liveweight price. Will you take it, or will I tag them and send them on to the factory where you can get your price?" That is why there must be, in my opinion, central buying.

Deputy Cogan talked about a co-operative society to deal with this maize and barley business, and may I say again that I see no objection to it. I do not see much hope, however, of organising a co-operative society of that kind. If, however, the people interested in the co-operative business say to me that they will organise a society, I will say: "Very good; if you can organise a co-operative society, representative of all the consumers of maize and representative of all the barley growers, go ahead. We will make it a co-operative society", but we cannot wait too long.

Other things follow in the matter of this pig business. The next step is to make the factories as efficient and as economical in their working as possible. That is the point of this amalgamation and so on. Deputy Dillon comes in here and throws out his usual sarcasm and perhaps even a little scurrility with regard to this pig business, but we have to do our best. There is no use on going back on the past, except to this extent, that this scheme was first brought in in 1933. It was brought in, as Deputies know or ought to know, because we could not export any more bacon, unless we did so. The British adopted a scheme under which they fixed a quota for the country. We had to agree to the quota, as every other country had to agree, and we had to export through a single agency to fill that quota, and therefore we had to regulate our business. That was the commencement of it. There was also a demand, as a result of the findings of a tribunal which sat—the Pig Industries Tribunal —for fixed prices of pigs, and that was all done.

Deputy Dillon was in this House at the time and was a member of the special committee which went into the Bill. He supported the Bill, not reluctantly either, but enthusiastically. He can repudiate it all now; I cannot. He can repudiate it, wash his hands of the whole thing, blame me for everything, walk out of the House and go home. I need hardly say any more to Deputies because I do not think any Deputy would take Deputy Dillon with him if he were going tiger hunting. He would be a very bad man to take.

He can stand up for his opinions in this House.

For his opinions to-day but not for his opinions a few years ago. He will not stand up to what he did a few years ago. He will repudiate it and blame somebody else.

Was not every one of these boards a fiasco?

They did not succeed, but they could not succeed. Any Deputy who wishes may tell me, as I go along, where we could have done otherwise. Were we to stop the export of bacon to England when the British authorities said we must regulate? Were we to refuse the farmers a fixed price for pigs in 1933 when they were able to point out that, on the same day, pigs were 6/- per cwt. cheaper in Limerick than in Dublin, and so on all over the country? It was all agreed to unanimously by every Party.

The next step was a decision as between the factories as to who was to get the pigs, because they could not compete for them. A board was set up to divide the pigs on quotas, and it was the quotas which caused all the trouble, because, when a curer filled his quota and had pigs to spare, he had to send them from one place to another. Some Deputies said it was a shame that pigs had to be sent from Tralee to Claremorris. It was, of course, but it was part of the scheme. Why was the board blamed for that, when the House passed the Bill in 1933 and when every member of the Fine Gael Party voted for it, having seen what was in it, when Deputy Dillon was a member of the special committee which drew up the details of the Bill and supported the Bill enthusiastically and when the board was set up and told to operate the Bill? Because things went wrong, the board was blamed.

We were not told what was going to be done with the hypothetical price fund.

That was in that Bill. Let the Deputy go back and read the Bill.

But the hypothetical price fund was for the producer and he did not get it; that was a crime.

He did not get it because there was a big debt due and it was overdrawn. That was why the producers never got it, because it was overdrawn. I think if the producers had got that they would not thank you very much for it, because you would be putting a debt of a few pounds apiece on them. That is what it amounted to. The Fine Gael Party have a habit of supporting things in this House, as they supported the Pigs Bill, and, having supported it, later on their eyes are opened because something occurs, and they immediately blame the Fianna Fáil Party, the Government, and everybody else except themselves. They have a splendid reputation for doing that.

It was not the Bill which was at fault; it was the administration.

The board was set up to administer this Act, which was passed through this House with the consent of the Fine Gael Party. It was subsequently found that there were defects in the Act and we tried to remedy those defects on two or three occasions. The board is now blamed for those defects. Everybody would have a much greater respect for the Fine Gael Party if they would say: "Blame us, but do not blame the board", but I think it is not very likely that they will do that.

Why did the Minister, when he discovered those defects, allow it to go on?

I have come here on two occasions since to try to remedy the defects. But, fundamentally, the Act was wrong and that is why we now have to change it to a considerable extent.

Why blame the Fine Gael Party for that?

I blame myself just as much as I blame you.

You were the responsible Minister.

Did not the Fine Gael Party tell you that you could not get alternative markets?

The Fine Gael Party is like the boy who cried "wolf" too often; the Fine Gael Party has warned me so often that things will go wrong that I no longer listen to them. Perhaps there is an alternative market?

The pigs have disappeared.

We have talked here at considerable length about the good of the country. It would be a splendid thing if some Deputy had given me a bit of good advice. I have asked some of the honest Deputies here to give me their impressions of Deputy Hughes's speech and the suggestions that he made here. He cannot have made a very big impression on the other members of the House.

They are hardly entitled to give that here under Standing Orders.

I knew there would be no reply, in any case. I am sure if I asked Deputy Hughes to give me a résumé of Deputy Cogan's suggestions he would not be able to do so. But Deputy Cogan did make one constructive suggestion which I was glad to get. That was his suggestion that there should be a co-operative society to deal with barley. I do not want to criticise unduly because it was a constructive suggestion and I would myself prefer a co-operative society if I could get it. I am quite prepared to admit that. In the last analysis, when I put it definitely to Deputy Cogan, he admitted that really there was no great necessity for such a co-operative society to deal with malting barley because the maltsters are there and if we fix the price the farmer brings in his barley and gets his price, and there would be no necessity for a co-operative society to interfere between them. We have then the barley that is left for feeding, which might be quite good malting barley. Deputy Cogan does not agree that we should pay more than the economic price for that barley. I do not think that gets us very far but at the same time I am prepared to consider it to see if anything can be done in that direction.

Again and again, I have been attacked by Deputies for not mentioning such and such. I was accused by Deputy Hughes of having no interest in the Hot Springs Conference because I did not mention it specifically. I spoke in this House for two hours and 20 minutes and, quite candidly, I was unable to go on any longer. If I were to mention everything connected with agriculture I would want to speak for a very long time indeed. It is very difficult to mention everything. Deputy Hughes advocates fixed prices for all agricultural produce. I think Deputies in this House have agreed with me before that in order to have fixed prices you must have certain conditions. You must have a market, for instance, over which you can exercise control, and not necessarily the home market either. In the home market it is a relatively simple matter to control. If you have a negotiated price on an export market I think perhaps fixed prices could be managed. We have a fixed price for eggs. But the first important essential is that you must control the market and, secondly, you must have a standard article. You could not fix a price for store cattle because they vary in quality and so on.

It is a relative price in any case.

You can have a fixed price for butter, or wheat, or anything that is of a uniform standard. The third essential then is that you must have control of the market at some particular point. We are able to fix the price for butter because we can fix the price as it leaves the creamery. We could have a fixed price for bacon because we could fix the price either at the point of entry into the factory or when the bacon is actually leaving it. One respect in which we failed in the matter of oats is because there are so many different ways of selling it and so many different places to sell it. You may sell it to an oatmeal miller; you may sell it for seed; you may sell it to a horse breeder; or you may sell a few stone of it in the local market.

You fixed the price of oats in 1944 and you killed the oat production for 1945.

I understand. That is what I am now trying to prove. It is not easy to fix a price for oats and, therefore, I am afraid it cannot be done. On the other hand, if the present system goes on for importing maize and there is a surplus of barley for feeding it may be possible to do something in regard to this trade too. I think, however, we should leave oats out of consideration until we see if we succeed with the others first.

I have been criticised also for setting up a committee to deal with a number of matters which were not dealt with by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-War Agriculture; I was criticised for appointing three civil servants, as they were described here, to do that work. Now, the commission itself said that it took them so long to deal with the question that the matter would never reach finality unless a full-time body were appointed and they suggested a small full-time body which would deal with these subjects with which they themselves were unable to deal. Where could we get a full-time body outside of the Civil Service? After all, I cannot take a good farmer and say: "I want you full-time for three years and when you are finished you can go back to your farm." There would probably be no farm there when he went back. I do not see how you can get a full-time body of that kind unless from the Civil Service. That is why the civil servants were chosen.

Does the Minister consider that was the intention of the signatories to the majority report?

They advocated a small full-time body. I do not know what the intention was. If you take a man who is in a position already it would be very difficult to expect him to give three years' full-time service on this board. If you take a man who has not got a position already, I do not think that he would be a very good type of person for the work envisaged here.

Did they say "full-time" or permanent?

They said: "a small full-time body".

I think they said a permanent body.

No, "a small full-time body".

The Minister will find it at page 90.

I have it here. It is paragraph 314 on page 91; the Deputy was not so far out. In the middle of the paragraph they say:—

"We consider that a small full-time body would be more suitable and we accordingly recommend the setting up of a body, to be known as the agricultural advisory council."

And the Minister interprets that as a departmental committee.

That is what you have done.

I agreed that these matters were urgent, such as credit, marketing, the organisation of the co-operative movement, farm buildings, and many other things. They are all urgent. I said: "Unless we get a full time body it will be very hard to get it finished." I agreed with it to that extent. I said: "Where are you going to get a full-time body?" They have to be civil servants and if I appoint three members of my own staff, they are a departmental committee. It is very hard to depart from that. I was asked about flax.

Will the Minister excuse me? I think the chief objection to it is that the Minister is treating it purely and simply as a departmental committee and treating the report and memoranda as a secret document to himself. That is what we object to. If the committee is to function as the majority report suggested, I submit that their memoranda and report should be a public document.

Yes. The Deputy probably has a point of view there but still I think that on the whole it is better——

I do not think the Minister can claim to be implementing the recommendation.

I am not saying we are. We read the report and we do what we think right. It is very seldom that a Department will accept a report fully. They very often will not agree with some of the recommendations made. I was asked about flax. I do not know what the future of flax is. We know that after the last war the flax market slumped. We are all right for a few years to come and will get a fairly decent price but eventually we will have to fall back on the 1936 Act. I say this much, however, there is not much future for flax in this country as a self-sufficiency crop—I put it that way —because the equipment that would be necessary to process that flax into linen goods would cost, I am told, millions and that it would never pay us because the market is so small, and that we need about four thousand acres for our own requirements. So that, unless we get an export market of either the raw flax or some product, there is not much future for it, and we will do our best to get an export market as far as we can.

Then there is the question of agricultural wages. I am very strongly of opinion that the machinery set up under the Agricultural Wages Act should be continued, that is, the committees, and the board, and so on. They have just gone through the whole round again. The chairman goes down to all the committees. On these committees there are representatives of the farmers and labourers from each county. They give the chairman their views as to whether there should be an increase or not, and how much the increase should be, and all the other things that might arise from that. He comes back to the board. The board met yesterday. He reports all that to the board and then the board makes an award. I think that is a very good system. After all, if the board have been reasonable—as they have been, in my opinion—in interpreting the wishes of the committees in their awards, I think nothing could be fairer than that. We should try to preserve that machinery as far as we can and not criticise it unduly, as some Deputies are inclined to do.

I am sorry that the members of the Labour Party have found it necessary to be absent. I think they should have regard to other aspects of this business. Everybody agrees, I think, that we should try to get bigger output from the land and, in order to get that bigger output, we would expect, if you like, more effort from the farmers, their sons and their labourers. In spite of what Deputy O'Donnell says, that the farmer works 16 hours a day, everybody thinks that they could do a little more and work shorter hours—an eight-hour day is enough for anyone to work—and get a bigger output. But, as I pointed out recently in another place, if the farmer will have to compete on a foreign market and will have to accept the price on the foreign market, he must try to cut his costs, if it is necessary to cut his costs, in order to meet that competition. He is not allowed to reduce his rent or his rates. I do not think he should be asked to reduce his wages because the agricultural wages are low enough. The only place, therefore, that he could get any reduction is in the supplies he is getting from manufacturers, and so on. I am sorry that the Labour Party are not here because I want to say to them that if they would direct their efforts to getting the manufacturers to turn out cheaper goods—they, again, cannot reduce their rent or rates; we do not want them to reduce their wages—but let them work harder and turn out their goods a bit cheaper and give them to the farmer a bit cheaper, then the farmer would be able to compete, have a bigger output, capture the foreign market and treat his labourers well. That is the way it must work and I think the Labour Party would be much better advised to get after their friends who are working in the factories and tell them that that is the way to do it and not waste their time here talking about the miserable wage the agricultural worker is paid.

Deputy Bennett, I think it was, said that before the war we had plenty of butter and bacon and that now we have not enough. Of course, that is true, but the strange thing is that our people are consuming a whole lot more meat and butter. According to the publication called National Income and Expenditure, 1938-1944, taking meats as beef, mutton, pork and bacon, together, because I suppose it may be assumed that if a person cannot get bacon and if he has the money to spare, he will buy beef or mutton instead, in this country we consumed almost 2,000,000 cwts. of meat in 1938— 1,990,000 cwts.—but in 1944, the last year given, it was 2,334,000 cwts, so that we were consuming 344,000 cwts. more in 1944 than in 1938, and still we have not enough. As for butter, our consumption of butter, that is farmers' butter and creamery butter, in 1938 was 846,000 cwts. and in 1944 it was 1,040,000 cwts—which was an increase of about 200,000 cwts. Of course, against that, there were 65,000 cwts. of margarine in 1938 and none in 1944. But even putting margarine and butter together we were still up with consumption in 1944. I remember saying that to a friend of mine recently. He began to smile to himself. I know very well what he said to himself—"This fellow is trying to excuse himself and telling me a lot of lies." I said: "What are you laughing at?" and he said: "That could not be true. I am not getting as much butter as I got in 1938." That is true. There are certain people who are not getting as much butter but every person in this country is now consuming butter and I am told by retailers whom I know in the City of Dublin that practically every person, even those living on very low incomes, take their full ration of butter. Therefore, we have a level consumption of butter all over. The less well-off people are consuming a whole lot more butter than they did in 1938 but the very well-off people are getting less. We cannot help that.

Could the Minister quote the figures for the years previous to 1938?

Unfortunately, this publication goes back only to 1938. I am sorry it did not go back further. It shows our feeling for previous Governments. We were asked also a great deal about costings in regard to wheat-growing, and so on. I think it was Deputy Beirne who said that we had not done anything about it. Well, no, not actually the costing, if you like, but there are indicators which would go to show that we are paying a fair price for wheat. One is the price that farmers are prepared to pay for conacre for the growing of wheat in many parts of the country. They pay a very good price, in some places as high as £10 per acre, and in most places up to £4 per acre. They are satisfied to take land on this system. It must be more expensive to grow wheat on land like that than it is to grow it at home. It may be said that they are not so particular about exhausting the land.

Is that a fair argument?

Surely if it did not pay Deputy Hughes to grow wheat he would not give a present to a farmer of £4 or £5 an acre for the purpose of growing it.

Take a man with a family and equipment.

These people who take conacre must be satisfied that there is something in it or they would not carry on.

They will do with a narrow margin of profit.

A man who has 50 or 60 acres to let is not doing too badly if he gets £9 or £10 per acre for doing nothing. As well as that, the price paid by the British Government for wheat is lower than ours, and, although in England other crops are more attractive, still they get a good acreage of wheat grown. I was asked about the 1938 agreement by Deputy Cosgrave. Of course that agreement is not operative for many reasons. It is not operating at all at the moment. We are carrying on, as it were, from year to year. The big idea in regard to an agreement of that kind was that one country was trying to get another country to take its goods. At present one country is trying to get goods from the other country. That is the direction in which we are working now. We had some conversations about the 1938 agreement, whether it should be revived as soon as conditions permitted, or amended or scrapped and a new agreement drawn up. We have only reached that far yet—exploratory conversations. The British Government, of course, holds that the subsidy on fat cattle is a matter for themselves, that they are entitled to regulate their internal economy as they think best, and that we have no right to object or interfere in that. That may be so in some directions.

Is it not part of the 1938 agreement?

I am doubtful about that. There was a clause in that agreement against subsidies, but so far as I know it related to subsidies on exports. I was asked about the National Stud. The position now is that the board has been formed and that they are in a position to do business, although they have not formally got possession of the farm yet owing to some legal difficulties, but that will be fixed up in a month or so.

Bring it down to the Golden Vale or the County Meath. Do not mind about the buildings.

We could not bring the farm down.

Are you prepared to provide facilities for washing sheep there?

I do not think so. It would be a bit of a nuisance to us.

I think you should look into it.

I got a memorial from some farmers and I got a map and, so far as I can see, there is no farmer suffering any hardship by the refusal, because I think other washing facilities are just as near to them.

There were 6,000 or 7,000 annually going there. The Minister should look into it.

We shall leave it to the board. Deputy Dillon gave us a lecture on beet growing. He said that cane sugar was landed in Dublin pre-war at 1½d. per lb. and that we were now paying 5d. per 1b. for sugar from our own factories. He went on to say that the difference between these two figures would provide an additional 5/- children's allowance for every child in Ireland. He may be right. But can you understand a Deputy who purports, at any rate, to talk seriously, comparing an article landed pre-war on the quays in Dublin with an article that is now made from beet costing twice as much as it cost then and which is put into the hands of the consumer at 5d. per lb.? In other words, he ignores the six war years, the fact that materials are twice as dear as they were then, he ignores the wholesalers' and the retailers' margins, goes on to make an hysterical appeal on behalf of the children and talks about what we can do with the difference of 3d. per lb. At that time, beet was 40/- and it is now 80/-. If you make the comparison on this basis, we could turn out sugar from the factories here and sell it at almost 2d. per lb less. It is sold at 5d. to the consumer. If the cane sugar the Deputy referred to which was landed on the quays in Dublin had to go through the wholesaler and the retailer and be sold to the consumer, it would, I suppose, be up by 2d. per lb., and if the price of sugar, with the price then paid for beet, were down by 2d., the margin would be a very small one. The Deputy was able to make his point, however, and I suppose that is all that matters.

Both Deputy Dillon and Deputy Corry seemed to have the same idea about inspectors from the Department visiting farmers. They talked about the white-collared inspectors from Merrion Street and seemed to have the same idea about appealing to the ignorant in this country and to the very few malcontents amongst the community who are dissatisfied with inspectors. Why they have this mentality of appealing to these people I do not know. I suppose they hope for some gain or other, whatever it may be. This criticism of inspectors is the cheapest form of criticism. Deputy Dillon and Deputy Corry are descending very low when that is the only thing they can think of. I think everybody will admit that the inspectors are doing their best and it is hardly fair that Deputies should indulge in that sort of cheap talk about them. If they want to criticise anybody let them criticise me or somebody in this House. If they want to attack inspectors, let them do that outside.

Deputy Dillon made a violent attack on the Government because it appears that some member of it, maybe more than one, said at one time that we could be beaten in the foreign market in any commodity by some country or other; that one country could beat us in butter, another in eggs, another in meat, and so on. He said that was the sort of mentality that was ruining this country. He told us that he came back from Bavaria after seeing the lovely clean farmhouses there to see the dirty houses in our own countryside. Surely, saying that about our own people is worse than what any member of the Government may have said about being beaten in a foreign market. As to lea farming, I am afraid Deputy Hughes, when he read some of these reports, confused Deputies by giving them the impression that lea farming was the same as reseeding.

It was young lea.

It is not the same thing at all.

Not quite the same.

Not the same thing. Lea farming is envisaged in the White Paper and explained in the majority report as tilling land for two or three or four years in rotation, laying down the grass-seed, grazing the land for a few years and tilling again, a type of farming, as was pointed out in this House, that has been practised for many centuries. But reseeding, which is a thing that has not been advocated by the Department as generally applicable and advisable, was what was tried on the Department's farms and quoted by Deputy Hughes as not being successful —that is, reseeding old pasture.

The Minister does not mean to misrepresent me, I know. I said clearly that I knew it was not lea, but it was the nearest thing I could get at, so far as any experiments were concerned. The Minister must remember that.

I do not want to misquote the Deputy and I accept the Deputy's explanation. Deputy Fagan, in condemning lea farming, quoted Deputy Hughes as bearing him out. He was wrong in that. Deputy Bennett said that many Hereford and Aberdeen Angus animals are sold at sales organised by the Irish Dairy Shorthorn Breeders' Society. I do not know whether Deputy Halliden would agree with that. There was an allegation made by Deputy Corry that he and his friends tried to get some seed wheat from Sweden from a merchant in Cork and they were prevented by the Department of Agriculture.

I do not think the Department of Agriculture has any malice against Deputy Corry, or anything like that. The Department of Agriculture knew that a certain amount of this wheat could be got in Sweden and they asked the pedigree seed growers to get it, because they thought they were in the best position to grow this for a year, say, and get a second year's supply from it, a larger supply. They, in turn, may have passed some of this seed wheat on to the co-operative societies for sowing in their districts. That is why some of this seed wheat may have reached the farmers in Tipperary, and apparently they were able to tell Deputy Corry that they got the wheat, where Deputy Corry had failed.

Deputy Fagan told us about a man who had 100 tons of potatoes and the Department could do nothing for him. Have we to regiment the farmers to sell their potatoes as well as everything else? Something I am astonished at what I am asked to do by the members of Clann na Talmhan and Fine Gael. We could not be expected to send an inspector to every farmer.

Why is the Minister astonished?

I am astonished at the type of regimentation they ask us to undertake. Anyway, I am in a position to know all about this matter. I will not give the name, but the individual concerned complained through the papers that he had 100 tons of potatoes to spare.

That was in a letter in the Evening Mail.

I am not sure what paper it was in; perhaps it was the Evening Mail. A factor in Dublin wrote to him and asked: “What do you want for the 100 tons?” He said: “I will quote you for 60.” The factor wrote: “Quote me for 60” and the reply came back: “I will sell you 20”. “All right,” said the factor, but he did not get the 20. If this man had the 100 tons—maybe he had and he got rid of them; I do not know—there were plenty of opportunities for selling them in this country during the last few months.

And there are yet.

There are. I will say that a farmer cannot sell them now as well as he could six weeks ago. But if a farmer takes a chance and says: "I will hold on and perhaps I will get a better price later" and if he is caught out, is he entitled to write to the Evening Mail and say that the Department could not do anything for him? That is all there is in that point.

I cannot understand one of the points made by Deputy Morrissey that a farmer who misses the market with his barley loses 15/- a barrel. I cannot exactly get at the point there. Deputy Hughes said we had not carried out any experiments with regard to burnt lime and ground limestone.

By way of comparison.

Actually, we have. I am using the incorporeal "we." The Minister for Agriculture and his predecessors have had a series of experiments carried out in this connection, going as far back as 1924, 1925 and 1926, and the results were published in leaflets.

On what type of land?

On different types of land. The experiments were aimed at ascertaining the value of burnt lime and ground limestone. I did not read the leaflets through, but the general result was that burnt lime is worth twice as much as the other. The Deputy also said that in the distribution of the lime subsidy, counties that did not need it, such as Dublin, got more than the others. That is not true.

The Minister will admit that the distribution scheme needs revision.

County Dublin got £620; Cork £10,000; Kerry £6,800; Mayo £6,000; Leitrim £2,700. You will see there is not very much foundation for saying that Dublin got more than its share. Take Kerry and Mayo. They are very good examples. They got ten times the quantity given in Dublin.

Take the acid counties —the Minister's constituency, which is pretty bad.

They got all they wanted.

I am disappointed the Minister had to go so far back in connection with the comparison of ground limestone and caustic lime. I suggest he ought to have some experiments carried out in relation to beet production.

Perhaps we will.

Will the Minister make arrangements to carry out a series of experiments so far as live-weight and food unit increases on young lea are concerned? I think it would be essential.

You mean on young grasses?

We have been doing something in that line and we will do more.

You will have to do a lot more.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Vote put and agreed to.

If the House permits me to move Vote 30—Agricultural Produce Subsidies—we could then adjourn. It is not worth while taking the Fisheries Vote.

Agreed.

Top
Share