Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Nov 1946

Vol. 103 No. 12

Modification of Tillage Order, 1946—Motion.

Mr. Hughes

I move the following motion which appears on the Order Paper in the names of Deputies MacEoin, Bennett, Fagan, Cosgrave, and myself:

That Dáil Eireann is of opinion, in view of the strain placed upon the land and on the farming community by six years of compulsory tillage under emergency conditions, that a modification of the Tillage Order, 1946, would result in a greater and more securely saved grain crop in the year 1947, and calls upon the Minister for Agriculture to amend the Tillage Order, 1946.

I want to say, at the outset, that this motion was not designed or put on the Order Paper merely for the purpose of providing an opportunity for attacking the compulsory tillage Order. It is not intended in that way. The intention is to provide an opportunity for the House to discuss the terms and the application of the Order for the coming sowing season, and to bring before the Minister and his Department the handicaps, the difficulties and the hardships, and in many cases the heavy financial losses that have accrued to many farmers during the emergency. We have a sense of our national responsibility in this matter. We appreciate the Minister's responsibility and the Government's responsibility in so far as they must ensure, as far as it is possible to do so, adequate supplies of essential feeding and bread grain. The Minister has this advantage over us that he has better information so far as supplies of imported wheat are concerned. A lack of information in that regard is a considerable handicap to us in discussing this matter.

It is all-important to appreciate what the position is regarding supplies. There appears to be some confusion on that matter so far as one can learn from the information which is appearing in the newspapers. I have some Press cuttings here which indicate that the United States is very much perturbed that there may be a crisis due to the accumulation of grain there. It is indicated that reports from Washington give confirmation of the nervousness of American officials on the imminence of a collapse of the world grain hold-up. American officials are reported to be anxious to get wheat moving overseas since they are perturbed about the possibility of being left with a surplus by the next harvest. Sir John Orr has referred to this matter. The Canadian position, so far as the harvest is concerned, is that it has issued a warning that if the surplus wheat that is on their hands in the New World is not moved to the consuming countries it may precipitate a serious crisis. It is reported that the Canadian wheat crop is much bigger than last year—419,000,000 bushels, against 306,000,000 bushels last year. In the case of the maize crop there is also a very substantial increase. It is pointed out that there were difficulties in getting the wheat down to the ports and to the silos and elevators at the ports—the Atlantic and Pacific ports. From recent reports it is stated there appears to be a flow of grain down to the ports for export purposes. The U.S. Government reported on the 18th November that the wheat crop is in "good to excellent" condition with the best moisture supply for several years. Autumn moisture, it is pointed out, is the main determinant of that vital crop. The report goes on to state:—

"With nearly two-thirds of the season still to go, the U.S. Government has already bought more than half the wheat required for its full season's export programme, which ends on June 30th, 1947."

So that for the season that ends on 30th June, 1947, the season for export purposes, the United States has already accumulated at the ports more than half of its supplies. We were informed recently by the Minister for Supplies that the supply position for this season is more precarious than it was in any season during the emergency.

Mr. Strachey, Minister of Food, replying to a question in the British House of Commons, made it clear that while the supply position was not so much the problem, the transport position was acute. The strikes in America seriously affected and retarded supplies. This, he stated, was partly the result of the decontrol of transport and partly the result of the series of maritime strikes in the United States. In the last few days, he said, the stoppage of the soft coal industry had added a further and most serious complication. He went on to say: "It is this transport position which will govern the flow of cereal supplies to this country over this winter rather than any question of the amount of the cereals potentially available in North America."

The ability of North America to supply the world's requirements has been very substantially improved because of the bumper harvests this year. It is pretty obvious the difficulty of getting the grain conveyed to the consuming countries is one of transport. I do not know whether we can complain very much in that regard. We evidently have ships that we can afford to send, even to Cuba and Chile and other countries, for the raw material for the alcohol factories, but I do not want to stress that.

So far as the operation of this Order is concerned, the Minister will agree there is scarcely any change from the terms of last year's Order. I was struck by this peculiar characteristic of this Order, that it is designed to make it simple of administration. It is a Civil Service Order pure and simple and it is administered by the Civil Service and the inspectors. We give absolute power under it to these people to enforce its terms and conditions. In that regard we differ very much from Great Britain, because in Great Britain, notwithstanding the very critical position there and the responsibility of carrying on in a life and death struggle and organising the tremendous forces that had to be organised to repel the threatened invasion, they were capable of providing machinery to allow farmers to appeal against the decisions of inspectors. In each county there was a committee set up, known as the County War Agricultural Committee, and any farmer who felt aggrieved by an inspector's decision had a right to bring his case before a committee of his own county men. These committees were composed of the right type, with a patriotic outlook, and fully aware of the responsibility placed on them to ensure an adequate supply of food. They judged each case and came to a decision, and that decision was final and binding.

That was not so here. We had bureaucratic control, young inspectors approaching farmers double their age and dictating to them what should be done and the fields which should be broken. That gave rise to great difficulties and to a certain amount of hardship, where men had to break fields that they felt were unsuited for tillage and more advantageous, because of their position in relation to the farmyard, for other purposes.

We recognised the need of the compulsory Order during the emergency, but when the emergency ended we believed that compulsion should not continue. We are vigorously opposed to the Minister's intention of continuing any compulsion here. We are opposed to giving power to the Minister to send an inspector into a farmer's yard to tell him how to operate his farm. We believe that by demonstration and by an efficient advisory service, the farmer should be encouraged to carry on mixed farming. We are vigorously opposed to the system that provides for compulsion and bureaucratic control. We feel that, in certain circumstances, in certain districts and under certain conditions a reduction in the amount that must be tilled under the Order would not necessarily mean a reduction in the amount of grain and other food produce. We believe that asking a man to do tillage he is incapable of doing even reasonably well is not good policy.

On the other hand, we believe that there are large numbers of farmers not properly equipped to carry out the tillage programme envisaged in this Order. The result is that the job will not be properly done. Ploughing is done in a haphazard fashion, cultivation is not properly carried out, the seed bed is not properly prepared and the crop from the word "go" cannot be successful. In tillage particularly a good system of husbandry is necessary. If that is absent, not merely does the individual suffer but the nation as a whole suffers. That is the basis of our case.

If there is an opportunity for a reduction, there ought to be one, even if the supply position from overseas is not so encouraging. On many farms in those districts where you have not a tillage tradition you might get as good results from some reduction in the application of the Order. In the tillage districts you have a tradition and that is handed down from father to son. You have the necessary equipment there and, generally speaking, there is no difficulty.

As regards the type of land where you have a tillage tradition, God so designed that land that it is free from weeds and it is easier to carry out tillage. In our circumstances and with our wet climate, in the districts known as the non-tillage districts the handicaps are not usually appreciated and there are great difficulties that have to be surmounted so far as this Order is concerned.

In those non-tillage districts there was, during the emergency, a shortage of equipment, lack of technical knowledge, and the unsuitability of land for tillage purposes. The Minister may say that that is all humbug, but I think the emergency has proved that what I say is true. The late Minister for Agriculture on more than one occasion stressed this aspect of our agricultural economy, that there was a good reason why we had tillage in certain districts, like the district I come from, in County Wexford, South Kildare and portions of Cork. There was good reason why there was dairying in Limerick, Tipperary and other districts where dairying has been handed down by tradition. There was good reason why people adopted a live-stock grazing system in Meath and Westmeath, first, through the creation of things and, afterwards, through the natural evolution of things. Men who went through the hard school of experience, down through generations, eliminated those methods of husbandry that were unprofitable and adopted those systems that suited the particular circumstances, the soil conditions, and the economy in operation in our relations with Great Britain so far as our surpluses were concerned.

I suggest that the compulsory tillage Order during the war has proved the wisdom of those words. Fancy men on land in high altitudes, above the 500 or 600 contour line, with a thin poor soil, bleached completely of calcium, highly acid, being compulsorily obliged to grow wheat there. It is absurd. It is not only absurd, but unjust and unfair, because anyone who knows anything about tillage knows that it is utterly impossible to get results there. Even before he puts his hand to the plough, such a man knows from experience that he cannot hope for success. Because the compulsory tillage Order is there and the powerful bureaucratic machine, if an inspector goes down and tells him that he must toe the line and conform with the conditions and terms of that Order, he has no redress. There is no court of appeal.

As I pointed out, people in another country, even in the stress and strain of war, were able to provide the right for an individual to state his difficulties and how utterly impossible it would be to carry out his responsibilities under the tillage Order. We also know that there is any amount of land in this country liable to flooding. This particular year proves the amount of damage that can be done to crops on these lands. Yet the individuals on these lands have no redress, no court of appeal. We had the powerful bureaucratic machine steam-rolling them again. Then we had a shortage of fertilisers and a lack of any system of proper husbandry, which made for deterioration of the soil and of the fertility of the soil. Then, again, in districts where they had not the tradition of tillage, they continued to sow a cereal crop year after year on the same land with disastrous results. As I said, many people were asked to produce beyond their capacity and the work was done in a very poor haphazard way. A decent seed bed was not produced, and this resulted in financial loss.

I have here a letter that Deputy Fagan handed to me from a man in County Westmeath, which states:

"I see that a motion is to be brought in the Dáil against compulsory tillage. Here are some figures which may be of interest to you and you are at liberty to use them in the motion. In 1945 I sowed 14 barrels of wheat at £4 4s. 0d. per barrel. From this I got a return of 45 barrels, for which I got 55/- per barrel. In 1946, I sowed 14 barrels of wheat at the same price and got a return of 46 barrels, for which I was paid 52/- per barrel. In 1944 the yield was even lower still."

I have a number of letters in somewhat similar terms. I was in Tipperary recently and met a man who is a very keen farmer. He complained that he had something like 32 acres of land under tillage and that, through no fault of his own, he did not get the price of the seed out of that land.

We know that any amount of land was badly treated. As I said, cereal crop after cereal crop was sown for three, four and five years and the land was then put down in a very haphazard way to grass. That is bad, foul work which will have its reactions on the future capacity of this country to produce food. The Minister must have received some letters about the difficulties that some people experienced in trying to manure land. The compulsory tillage Order does not provide for the possibility of folding sheep on the crop. The Order says that the crop must be separated from the land. There again the Minister might consider allowing people to sow crops like rape, or at least of allowing sheep to eat the crop on the land.

So far as my constituency is concerned, we had a strike in North Kildare this year. I put it to the Minister that, if he is going to apply the compulsory powers which he has announced for this year, the farmers are entitled to some guarantee so far as the provision of labour to save the crops is concerned. The Minister cannot, by a compulsory Order, compel people to do a certain job and then feel himself relieved of further responsibility. The Minister must appreciate the difficulties that a number of farmers had to face in North Kildare. By a piece of luck, the strike eventually collapsed owing to the abnormal weather conditions. Surely it is not unreasonable to suggest to the Minister that at this stage, a couple of years after the war, if the supply position is bad and if we must have compulsion to the extent provided for in the Order, the farmers are entitled to have some undertaking from him so far as the provision of labour is concerned. The labour problem has been acute, not merely in Kildare, but in other counties as well. So far from giving any stimulus to production, the Minister has stopped the manure vouchers this year. The farmer's position has been worsened financially.

Recently I asked the Minister a question as to what extent the increase in the agricultural grant has met the statutory increase in wages made by the Agricultural Wages Board early last summer. The Minister told me that the increase in the agricultural grant was approximately £600,000 and that the difference between the two was the difference between £600,000 and £1,000,000; so that on the Minister's own showing the agricultural community is placed at a disadvantage amounting to £400,000. Even at that, I am rather critical of the Minister's figures. I think the gap is much wider than that.

Under the compulsory tillage Order, the Minister is looking for the same amount of tillage as last year or the year before, namely, three-eighths of the arable land. We feel that there ought to be some effort made to reduce that for the coming year to 25 per cent., or one-quarter. We also believe that there are certain areas which ought to be exempt from wheat. I put it to the Minister that our aim ought to be to produce the maximum amount of food from the land; that we are interested in live stock and live-stock products, and that we are short of essential food for that purpose. The Minister is particularly anxious to increase our production of eggs for export purposes by 100,000 cases this year. The Minister knows that if we bridge that gap it means an increase of 4½d. per dozen.

We have any amount of land, particularly on high altitudes, which is absolutely unsuitable for wheat-grow- ing, but where, under the Order, a man is bound to put in a certain quantity of wheat. It is not possible to get an economic return for that wheat. It would be possible to get a decent crop of oats or potatoes. It is possible to grow crops on acid land, crops that are tolerant to acid conditions. The Minister knows that it is not possible to grow crops like wheat, barley and beet, which are not tolerant to acidity, on acid soils. The Minister has made much capital out of guaranteed prices and secured markets. It is true that we have a guaranteed price for wheat and a secured market but that is of very little use to the man whose land is unsuitable for the production of wheat or whose land is acid. The Minister a few years ago had little appreciation of the degree of acid in the soil of this country and even some of his experts had no appreciation of the extent of the acid soil problem but since the establishment of the new section in his Department the Minister must have a fuller realisation of the extent of that problem. It is enormous. A great deal of the land which we hoped would yield good results in wheat-growing and where, it was suggested by the Minister, there was built-up fertility that could be drawn upon during the emergency, was found to be unproductive because of the soil condition. In certain areas, land that had been in grass for years, when put under tillage, produced straw but not wheat, owing to the condition of the soil.

All these difficulties have imposed grave hardships and burdens on the agricultural community. I live in a tillage district and I want to emphasise that, relatively speaking, we had very little difficulty and were able, without any trouble, to comply with the terms of the Order but I appreciate the enormous difficulties that faced these people who had not the tradition of tillage. They had not the equipment. They had not soil suitable for tillage or suitable for the production of the particular crops that were designated in the Order.

We are asking for a full examination of the whole circumstances. The operation of the Order in the coming year ought not to be merely automatic as far as the Department is concerned. It is too late now to adopt the British system of county committees to which an individual farmer might appeal and have his case examined. So far as individuals are concerned who are ill-equipped to carry out this Order, it is possible that, if the Minister is prepared to meet us on this matter, more discretion would have to be given to inspectors. Much as I dislike that, I suggest it is better to give that discretion than to ask people to continue to endure the hardships they have had to bear in recent years. Taking all the circumstances into account, on the information that is available from reputable sources, from men like Sir John Boyd Orr, from the United States and Canada, we feel that the supplies are there and that the difficulty is shipping. It is not for this season we are planning, but for next year's crop. There is then scarcely justification for continuing the full implementation of the Order that has been in operation and that was necessary during the emergency. Surely there must be an opportunity next year for a relaxation of the Order and, if that is so, we are pressing for an undertaking from the Minister that the matter will be very fully and carefully examined. I am not pleading for the old tillage districts. These districts are quite competent to carry on and to produce what they have been producing in recent years but I do certainly plead very strongly for those people who are not able to produce. It is beyond the capacity of their land to produce and, for that reason, they are doing the job damn badly. That means that they are not merely suffering themselves but the nation is also at a loss because the land so employed could be better utilised in producing other classes of food or live stock.

A question was asked here to-day about the reduction in dairy produce and the substantial fall in the amount of butter that is in cold store at the present time. The Minister must know that the problem of compulsory tillage is reacting on our dairy industry and that inevitably it must have the effects suggested by Deputy Halliden to-day.

That is our case, and we are putting it to the Minister as strongly as we can. We wish to stress the point that we are in the difficulty that we do not know what the supply position is but we feel, through the information that is available to us through the public Press—that is the only source available—that an opportunity exists for the Minister, in certain districts where hardship is obvious, to modify the terms of the Order.

General MacEoin

I second the motion proposed by Deputy Hughes and I support the views that he has expressed. This is in every respect a very serious question for the country. In view of his reply to Deputy Halliden, yesterday, that he did not propose to make any modification whatever in the tillage Order I feel the Minister has already decided the case against us. When that question was put to him yesterday, the Minister should have postponed his reply until this motion had been disposed of but he can tell us this evening that the decision is already made and that there is no use in our talking to him on the subject. Notwithstanding that he has hoisted his flag and that he is not going to move from the tillage Order, he should take notice of the case that will be made to him this evening. Deputy Hughes has covered the ground of the supply position and the difficulties of the agricultural community and I do not propose to add to that because the case has been well put.

The food supply in any country is a very important consideration. How important it is in this country has been shown by the anxiety that was felt during the harvest season this year.

While I am on my feet, I should like to thank the people of the towns and cities who came out voluntarily to help the agricultural community in the saving of their crops. They did so from no ulterior motive but merely because they wished to assist in conserving the nation's food supply. In carrying out that work a great number of them, perhaps for the first time, were able to form some idea of the difficulties under which the agricultural community had to work. In gratitude for their help in the saving of the harvest, I admit that the agricultural community have a responsibility to see to it that food supplies will always be available from the agricultural community for the towns and cities and the people as a whole. Foodstuffs, however, have a varying degree of quality, and when the Minister told Deputy Halliden yesterday, in reply to a question, that he did not intend to make any modification of the tillage Order, I think he was going too far, because the Minister and his Department must be satisfied that there is a situation to-day of very grave import for the whole community and for agriculturists in particular. The Minister knows well that seed wheat this year is of very great value and that it should not be used on land that is going to produce a poor crop. Wheat should be sown only on land that is capable of yielding the highest possible production.

Last year in certain areas throughout the country the Minister's officials, tillage inspectors and others, acting, of course, as they should act—I have no complaint to make of their conduct because they were acting in accordance with the tillage regulations—insisted that farmers must sow a certain proportion of wheat, even on land that was not capable of producing a satisfactory crop. Once a farmer had so many acres of arable land, the Order provided that he must sow so much of that land in wheat. To my own knowledge, in many parts of the country that was sheer waste of (1) good seed wheat, (2) good land, and (3) of opportunities for food production. If oats or barley had been sown on that land, which was much more suitable for a crop of that kind, we would have got a much better return. Take parts of North Longford, for instance. Farmers there with holdings of five or ten acres had to sow a half-acre or an acre of wheat, as the case might be. They were compelled to put in that seed wheat. I admit that it was not a good season upon which to form a judgment but they find now that the yield was only about two barrels to the acre. They had, it is true, a powerful crop of weeds, but if they had been allowed to utilise that land, as they had been prior to this year, they would have a fairly good crop of oats and the food value of the crop would be proportionally greater.

When the Minister says there can be no modification whatever of the tillage Order, he is speaking with his tongue in his cheek because no person, not even the young inspector who is sent out to supervise tillage, could stand over that as a result of last year's experience. Therefore we shall have a situation arising where the law says one thing and it is then left to the discretion of some tillage inspector to see whether the farm is capable of complying with the regulations or not. That creates the feeling that there is favouritism in some areas and the result will be that jealousies of one kind or another will arise. I therefore put it to the Minister that this year, when seed wheat is of great value, it should be sown only on land on which it will give the greatest yield. The Minister may tell me that that is a very difficult matter and Deputy Hughes has said that he is not going to ask the Minister to adopt the system tried in Britain under which local committees, having a special knowledge, decided the type of crop that should be sown on certain lands. The Minister, however, could make an Order that there should be exemptions in certain areas and that it might be left to the discretion of the farmer, who knows best what his land is capable of producing, what type of crop should be sown on it. It is well known that some farms produced much more food this year than ever before because of the volunteer labour that was available. I think it is admitted that in 1945, owing to lack of workers, a great many farmers lost a considerable part of their crops. This year, notwithstanding the bad season, I think we shall find that owing to the utilisation of volunteer labour we shall have a larger return. However, we cannot get volunteer workers every year. I do not suppose that we could ask volunteers to come to our assistance next year even if it were a bad year. My point is that the Minister by using a discretionary power in regard to the areas where certain crops should be sown, could get better results and a greater quantity of produce than he is getting at the moment.

I want the tillage Order to be modified in a very positive way. It is an impossible task for a young inspector to go down and tell a farmer what he should or should not grow. The result is that sometimes you have unseemly disputes between the farmer and the young fellow which generally end in court. That does not help the production of food.

I feel, therefore, that when the Minister is sending out these young men, he should give them some instructions in conformity with the views which he expressed himself at certain meetings throughout the country, that if the full tillage area was cultivated by the farmer with the intention of producing the greatest amount of food from it, he should not be too rigid in regard to the sowing of any particular crop on that farm. That, of course, was off the record, if you like. That was not the law but I feel that instructions of that kind could be legalised by the Minister making the necessary modifications of the Order.

On the question of the amount of tillage, I think it is an admitted fact —Deputy Hughes has made the case and made it well—that with a lesser amount of tillage better done, you would get better results. One acre well-tilled and with the seed-bed well prepared would produce a greater result than a greater amount of land badly tilled. I suggest to the Minister that that matter be examined in great detail. To have the tillage Order automatic without any examination, is, in my view, bad business and the Minister should see that the whole question is examined. He should take the opinion of his agricultural instructors and committees of agriculture as to what crops can best be produced in their counties.

Two or three other things will militate against the farmers this year. The Minister has been very positive in declaring that the tillage Order will take effect for 1947 as for 1946 but he withdraws the vouchers for manures for each barrel of wheat. That is equivalent to a reduction of 2/6 per barrel in the price of wheat. The vouchers are not cashed yet and we do not know what we are to get but, although in theory we have a guaranteed price for wheat, the Minister, by his action, automatically reduces the value of a barrel of wheat by 2/6. When one thing was automatic, the other should have been automatic as well. The Minister has not said why he took that step. He simply fires the compulsory tillage Order for 1946 back at us.

I should like to learn from the Minister what stocks of grain were carried over since last year. What stocks of oats were carried over by merchants since last year? Is the Minister satisfied that the best use is being made of last year's crops? What stocks of potatoes went bad last year? Did we require all the potatoes and oats we grew last year? What stocks of last year's wheat crop have seed growers and seed distributors and what use is being made of them? These are questions about which the Minister should inform the House before he forces this Order on the country again. In parts of the country, a great effort is made to produce potatoes and oats. It is said that, in food value, potatoes are next to wheat. But when the farmers have produced the potatoes, there is not a halfpenny obtainable for them in May, June or July. The result is that, in a great number of cases in which farmers have not silos, there is a huge waste. In supporting this motion, I suggest that the Minister should give us all this information before enforcing this tillage Order in the ruthless way which he proposes. I ask the House to pass the motion and to impress on the Minister the necessity for a very positive modification of the tillage Order before proceeding further.

Mr. Corry

The first duty of the holders of land is to provide food for the people of the country. The Government are responsible—and only the Government will be held responsible— for seeing that that food is produced. Anybody reading the newspapers during the past three weeks or a month could see complaints day after day as to the quality of the bread and the anxiety to reduce the extraction to 80 per cent. That does not look as if there were hopes for plenty of wheat during the coming year. I am sure the Minister for Agriculture is anxious to attend to the wishes of my colleagues opposite that they should have offals for their pigs, cattle and poultry. Those offals cannot be provided while the present percentage of wheat extraction remains. I am sure the Minister desires to reduce that extraction as quickly as possible. Deputy Hughes told us about the farmer who had not a tillage tradition and who put in grain crop after grain crop in his land. Did Deputy Hughes mean that there should be one law, so far as food production is concerned, for one type of farmer— the big fellow—and another law for the other type of farmer—the small fellow? Is that Deputy Hughes' idea?

I have before me the Official Report of the Dáil proceedings of the 22nd November, 1946. That was only last week and, on that date, Deputy Hughes moved a motion dealing with, amongst other things, "the extent to which allottees have failed to make good and the reason for their failure". In dealing with that motion, he said: "It must be appreciated that the disposition and utilisation of the land of the country is of fundamental importance in the whole economic structure of the State". He went on to say: "The attitude of economists the world over, the experience of the world during the war years and the condition of the world so far as the provision of food for the people is concerned, bring more clearly to our minds the necessity and the vital importance of ensuring that the land of the country is utilised to the best advantage in the national interest, that it is disposed, tenanted and held by the technicians". That was Deputy Hughes last week. What kind of technician was the joker who put in three or four grain crops one after the other? That is the man Deputy Hughes stands up for to-night. He is to be kept because he is a rancher, because he is a big fellow, because he has a lot of land, but the 25 acres of the small fellow are to be disposed, tenanted and held by the technician. That is the attitude Deputy Hughes is adopting.

I admit that there are large areas of the country in which the tillage tradition, as it is called, does not exist. I have seen them myself. On our way up here last year, I brought the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to the window of the train to show him the way the farmers in Deputy Bennett's constituency, if one can call them farmers, sowed wheat. They had a pair of horses under a corn drill and the two boyos were seated happily up on the box and driving away, but nobody knew whether there was anything in the box or not. We passed along the same way about four months afterwards and I brought the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to have a look at the crop the boys were growing. There was not one-third of the seed in that field. There were big gaps where there was no seed at all, and the wheat they threw into the machine at the headland did not take them half way.

I admit that that kind of thing took place, but if a man does not know how to farm himself he can very easily get somebody who will farm for him. Let him get that person, whether by contract or otherwise. The function of the land of this country is to grow food for the people, and I say that the Minister and his Government are the people who will be held responsible by the community, if there is any shortage of food in the next 12 months, and rightly so. As to the ways and means adopted by the Minister's advisers, I might have a lot to say, but I am absolutely adamant on the point that the responsibility is on the Government to see that sufficient food is provided and that sufficient land is ploughed to provide that food. That is the compulsory tillage Order.

The duty of the farmers is to provide food, or the raw material for the food, and I should like to know, and I hope I shall hear from the Minister when he speaks in this debate, what he has to say to the other branch of the industry, the branch which converts that raw material, which the farmers have produced by their sweat and their toil and which is at present rotting along the fences, into food and what action he proposes to take to compel these gentlemen to provide a vital food for the people. I say that as the representative of over 75,000 farmers who grew beet this year. The responsibility is on the Minister and his Government to see that that raw material is turned into food, and I hope the Minister will lose no time in the matter because every day counts and every day that passes sees less sugar available.

I am also rather surprised by part of the Minister's Order. It has been alluded to by Deputy MacEoin. There was an increase of 5/- per barrel for barley and a decrease of 2/6 per barrel in the raw material of the staple food of the nation—wheat. If wheat is essential—and the Minister knows the losses which this harvest entailed for the agricultural community as is plainly evidenced by the 100 per cent. extraction—why the cut in price? Does the Minister think the farmers have got too much? I insist on bringing the costs of production of wheat before the prices tribunal as soon as the Minister gets the Bill through and sets up the tribunal, but there is no justification whatever for this cut in the price of wheat.

The Minister is paying too much heed to his advisers and I say that as one who paid his share as a result of their advice last year. The nation lost 144 barrels of wheat as a result. I had made provision for seed for 48 acres of wheat last year. The seed was lying on the quayside in Sweden, an export licence having been got for it, when the Minister's advisers stepped in. What was the result? I put in 20 acres of pedigree Atle seed wheat which gave me 10 barrels per acre. I put in eight acres of what the Minister's advisers said was good seed, which gave me 4½ barrels to the acre. I claim to be as good a judge of seed as the hoaryheaded sinners who are the Minister's advisers in this matter and when I found the kind of seed I had, I put 10 acres of oats in. The harvesting of the 10 acres of oats cost me £70 in labour alone and, after harvesting, it was practically unsaleable. That is what I paid for the advice given by the Minister's advisers in preventing the import of the 250 barrels of Atle wheat from Sweden last year. They said there was plenty here. It cost me over £400 and that is more than the carcase of any Minister's adviser is worth.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should deal with the Minister. He is responsible to the House.

Mr. Corry

I would advise him to change his advisers.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is travelling away from the motion.

Mr. Corry

It is only by giving instances of what they have cost that we can hope for their removal.

An Ceann Comhairle

Under what clause of this motion would the Deputy remove any civil servant?

Mr. Corry

I am dealing with the compulsory tillage Order which compels a farmer to till a certain acreage of his land and which compels a farmer to put a certain proportion of that land under wheat. I am dealing with the facts as I find them and giving the benefit of my bitter experience to this House. I cannot support this motion on any account. I hold that the Minister and the Government cannot be relieved of the responsibility to see that the nation is provided with food. Neither can the farmer be relieved of his responsibility in the production of that food, nor can any one of the essential industries, engaged in the conversion of the raw material produced by the farmer into that food, be relieved of their responsibility. It is from that standpoint that I approach this whole question.

Deputy MacEoin thanked those who helped to save the farmers' harvest. We are thankful, too, but there would have been no necessity for that if our skilled workers were paid a decent wage and if our farmers were paid for their produce sufficient to enable them to pay that decent wage. You find a fellow sweeping the yard in the beet factory, the smallest paid man in it, receiving £4 9s. 0d. per week, and the farm labourer who has to work in the rain, the slush, the frost and the cold, getting £2 7s. 6d. Instead of pulling the beet, the farm labourer is going to try to better his conditions and get into the shelter of the sugar factory at £4 9s. 0d. in the yard or at £8 1s. 0d. as a buckshee cook in the factory itself.

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the acreage under beet come under the tillage Order?

Mr. Corry

Certainly, Sir. If the gentleman who grew the four crops of grain in succession, mentioned by Deputy Hughes, put in a crop of beet in between, he would not have half the loss. He would have the land clean, anyhow.

Mr. Cosgrave

It costs 18/6 to deliver it.

Mr. Corry

It is the Government's responsibility to see that the farmer gets his share and that the raw material is converted by the factory——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy said that before. He may not introduce into this discussion a debate on the stoppage of work at the beet factory. It does not arise.

Mr. Corry

I thought the Ceann Comhairle was reared in the country, and surely anyone reared in the country can see the direct connection between compulsory tillage and the root crop that is an essential cleaning crop in tillage rotation. That is why beet comes into it. Deputy Hughes also suggested a local committee. I have seen many of those committees in action. They used to give out licences to send out the cattle, and we know how they operated.

Mr. Cosgrave

That is the Roscrea factory?

Mr. Corry

No, across the water, and Deputy Cosgrave should be aware of it. The grant of a licence depended upon the colour of your coat, or maybe of your shirt. I do not say the Party opposite were altogether guilty. Whoever had a majority did the same damn thing, there is no doubt of it. It was a bad plan and I do not want to see it repeated.

Mr. Bennett

You originated it.

Mr. Corry

I leave it to you any time.

An Ceann Comhairle

Would the Deputy address the Chair?

Mr. Corry

It was a bad plan and I do not think the local committee plan will work now with any success. I can well understand a body of men going in there with the mentality of Deputy Hughes, who would say that the big fellow with 200 acres, because he did not know how to till, should be let off, but the small fellow with 25 acres should be made till. Committees with such a mentality will not work and that is proved by the statements made by Deputy Hughes last Friday and to-day. On the one hand, he puts down a motion to drive out any small farmer who is not tilling his land and who is not a technician, but to-night he says that the big fellow, because he does not know how to till and is fool enough to put in four crops of grain one after another, should be let off. Fancy a committee of five or six men like Deputy Hughes, travelling about and saying how much each man should till in a county, who should be let off and who should be made till. That would not stand water for five minutes. I might have a different mentality from most Deputies here as regards land, what land is for and the duties of a farmer. On behalf of the agricultural community, I claim that everything we can produce here must be protected, that we must get the cost of production plus a profit, particularly when compelled by law to produce a certain crop, as in the case of wheat.

I do not consider that the Minister's action in making a tillage Order this year and reducing the price of wheat by 2/6 a barrel is a fair move to make, considering the bad harvest the farmers have had. I cannot understand, either, his move in increasing the price of barley by 5/- a barrel, unless he has taken cognisance of the proposal that I made the other day when I had a question down asking that the "pubs" in the country should be allowed to open for four hours on a Sunday. If that proposal of mine were accepted, it would mean that we would want more barley. My opinion is that those who can well afford it should be made pay towards helping out the farmer in the difficulties that I speak of. I refer to the breweries in the country. I saw barley at 52/- a barrel and it went to nearly 60/- a barrel. I am not interested in Guinness's shares or in the profit tax that Guinness has to pay.

An Ceann Comhairle

What has that to do with amending the tillage Order?

Mr. Corry

The price of barley has a lot to do with it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The price of Guinness shares has not.

Mr. Corry

The price of barley, and the getting of an economic price for what you are compelled to grow under a tillage Order, has a lot to do with it. In my opinion, the price for the quantity of barley that is required for brewing in this country should be fixed at 75/- or 76/- a barrel. If a decent price is given the farmers will grow plenty of it. There will be plenty of supplies then—for those poor devils that I am so keen about—in the "pubs" on Sundays, and there will be a good income from exports. We hear a lot here from time to time about our exports. I suggest that it is the duty of the Government to see that the price paid for an article produced under a compulsory tillage Order is at least an economic one—a price showing the cost of production, plus a profit. The price for wheat fixed by the Minister this year does not show that. I know, of course, it will be said that any increase in the price of bread will mean a rise in the cost of living. That is the first thing we always hear when the farmer looks for anything, but when any other class of the community looks for an increase good care is taken to fix it up. The Minister, I suggest, ought to revise his prices under the compulsory tillage Order. I was hoping that the prices tribunal that he promised a fortnight ago would be introduced and be in operation before Christmas. When it is brought forward we will be able to see to what extent the farmer has been robbed during the past six years, as well as what is an economic price, based on the cost of production—plus a profit—for the commodities produced.

I think that this motion is not only a foolish one but that it is extremely wrong. Any proposal that would remove responsibility from the Government for seeing that the country is provided with food is a wrong one. It is the responsibility of the Government to see to that. When I make a comparison between the speech that Deputy Hughes made last week and the speech that he made to-night on this motion I feel bound to say that he has gone down at least 100 per cent. in my estimation. On the one hand, he is looking for relief for the 200 acre farmer who he says knows nothing about farming—the man who has not a tillage tradition—while last week he was insisting that the smallholder with 25 acres should be put out of his land by the Land Commission unless he tilled his land and produced food, unless, as he said, he was a technician in food production. These speeches show that the Deputy has a peculiar mentality. I should not like to have a dozen men of the mentality of Deputy Hughes on a committee in my county to be the judges as to who was to till and who was not to till. While, as I say, I think the motion is a foolish one, I, at the same time, would ask the Minister to see, firstly, that an economic price is paid for what is produced under compulsion, and, secondly, that when essential food commodities are produced by the farmers that no interference will be allowed in having those raw materials converted into food for the nation. That is the responsibility that rests on the Government.

Mr. Cogan

Just before the harvest of this year a member of the British House of Parliament advocated there that the farmers of that country should be provided with straw hats to protect them during the harvest. The error of judgment which that man committed should be a warning to all public representatives to be very circumspect and careful when planning future policy in regard to agriculture. I am afraid that Deputy Corry will never profit by that sad experience. This motion, in my opinion, has been prudently worded. The speeches made in proposing and seconding it were also phrased in prudent language. There was no extravagant language used and no extravagant demands made. A reasoned appeal has been made to the Minister, based on his experience over a period of six years, as well as on the changed circumstances which have arisen owing to the termination of the war, to consider if it is not now possible to modify in some way the tillage Order.

I entirely agree with Deputy Corry that it is the first duty of the land to provide food for the people. There is a great variety of foods which the land can produce and there is very little land in this country which is properly farmed, whether it is good pasture or good arable land, which is not producing good food of some kind. Merely to dogmatise and repeat slogans of this kind does not solve any problem.

I think it will be found possible to increase the total food supply of the nation by giving attention to the request made in this motion. It will certainly be agreed by the Minister and every official of his Department that an acre of wheat that fails is of less value to the nation than an acre of potatoes or oats that grows successfully and, in-so far as it may be possible by administrative action to prevent the growing of wheat on land where it is almost certain to fail, I think it would be contributing materially to increasing the total output of food for the nation.

The case for a modification of the wheat quota can be supported by a variety of arguments. We can take, first of all, the prospect of an improvement in the world's wheat supplies. It is reasonable to hope that the wheat supplies of the world will substantially increase during the next year and that there will be a possibility of getting those supplies transported to this country. That is a matter upon which Deputies may not have as much information as the Minister but, apart from that, it should be possible to secure as good a home-grown wheat supply by certain modifications of the Order as we are getting by the present rough and ready wheat quotas.

When the Wages Board was set up and wages were fixed for the entire State, there was more or less a flat rate. Then, gradually, as the Wages Board acquired some experience, they began to modify the Order and they struck a different rate of wages for different areas. It seems to me that there is no reason why the Department of Agriculture, in the light of the experience they have gained over a period of five or six years, should not be able to modify the wheat quota Order so as to give relief to areas where wheat has proved unsuccessful during past years. In the first year of the wheat quota, there had to be a rough and ready scheme but, as the Departmental officials have now gained experience, it should be possible to exclude from the operation of the Order many areas which, by the nature of the soil and the contour of the land, are not suitable for wheat-growing.

In my constituency of Wicklow we are graded as one of the first-class wheat-growing districts and we are compelled to produce the maximum quota of 10 per cent. Anyone who knows County Wicklow is aware that there are very large areas there which are, perhaps, poorer than are to be found in any other county in Ireland. Surely it should be possible to segregate certain areas, to exclude them from the operation of the Order. If that is not possible, it should be easy now to give to the inspectors, as a last resort, a considerable amount of discretion. They have gained experience and I am sure the Department has confidence in their ability and it would not be unreasonable to give them a discretionary power to exempt certain areas or modify the Order in so far as it relates to farmers whose land is of an inferior nature.

Those modifications would save a considerable amount of good seed wheat. There is a danger that there may not be sufficient seed wheat available for the needs of the nation during the coming year and it would be a grave disaster if a large quantity of the limited wheat available is taken by farmers and sown in land where it will not grow successfully. That would be sheer waste. The Minister may say: "If you want to modify the Order and reduce the quota in certain areas, are you prepared to counterbalance that by providing for an increase in other areas?" An increase in the production of wheat may be secured by inducement in areas where wheat has been grown successfully. Last year was a very unsatisfactory year for cereal crops, yet there were areas where wheat did quite well—where it did as well, at least, as oats and was more easily harvested. Given a fair inducement, I think the farmers in such areas would be prepared to grow considerably more than their quota and thus counterbalance any loss that might arise from a reduction in other areas.

If the prices tribunal which the Minister proposes to set up at our request and at the request of Deputy Corry comes into operation in the course of the next few months, on costs of production alone it will be bound to recommend an increase in the price of wheat. That increase will give some encouragement to farmers, who have land suitable for wheat, to increase their acreage.

The proposer of the motion suggests that we could modify the general tillage quota and bring about a reduction of 25 per cent. In this connection we ought to have regard to what the crops produced are needed for. After providing the wheat quota, the other crops produced are required in a great measure as animal feeding and if the farmer, in his wisdom, thinks he can produce from good pasture a better foodstuff than he would get from tillage land, he ought to be allowed to do so. Really good pasture fed to cows will probably produce more milk or butter than would be obtained from an inferior tillage crop. That is a consideration which must be carefully borne in mind. You are not increasing the much-lauded food supplies by forcing the farmer to till his land, growing a crop and feeding it to stock when, as a matter of fact, he could, without tilling that same land, grow a better crop for his stock.

Unlike the public representative who advocated straw hats for farmers during the harvest, Deputy Halliden and myself, on the eve of the autumn Recess, drew the Minister's attention to agricultural conditions. We drew the Minister's attention, in particular, to the danger of a shortage of agricultural labour for the harvest. Our forecast of the position, I think, was not imprudent. As events proved, there was a very serious shortage of labour for the harvest, which was overcome in many districts by the voluntary help of people in the towns, but which, in many districts, also resulted in considerable loss and difficulty to the farmer.

When we are asked to comply with the tillage Order, we ought to have an assurance from the Minister that he will not allow a situation to develop during the coming year in which there will be a serious shortage of labour in agriculture and in which there may be, through organised action, an interference with the supply of labour available. Measures ought to be carefully planned in advance to ensure that during the critical periods for agriculture, the sowing season and the harvest season, there will be no withdrawal of labour and no serious shortage. That is a matter which requires careful planning, and the farmer has the right to expect and demand that it will get the attention which it deserves, having regard to the fact that the farmer will be treated as a criminal if he fails to comply with the tillage Order.

After labour, or perhaps it should come before labour, we need to have an assurance from the Minister that nothing will be left undone to secure adequate and suitable seed supplies. If the home supply of seed for our cereal crops is not sufficient, steps should be taken to investigate the possibility of importing supplies.

That reminds me of a matter which I might have referred to when dealing with the question of the wheat quota. One of the arguments which might be put by the Minister against a reduction of the wheat quota might be that other nations might object to any reduction of the wheat quota here, or they might use it as an argument for refusing to give us a sufficient allocation out of the world's wheat supply. But if it is true, as I believe it is, that seed wheat may be very scarce, the Minister will have an adequate answer to that argument. He can say that he cannot compel farmers to grow larger areas of wheat than there is seed available for. In that way, it may be possible to overcome the objection to a reduction in the wheat quota.

I do not think that anyone will seriously suggest—I am sure Deputy Corry's suggestions are not taken seriously—that there is behind this motion any desire to discriminate between the large farmer and the small farmer. There is no desire, I am sure, to give a greater measure of relief in the matter of the relaxation of the tillage Order to the very big farmer as against the small one. I believe that any relief which is given should be based on the condition of the soil in each area and on the results which the farmer obtained after endeavouring to the best of his ability to grow the crop within the past few years.

Deputy Corry cannot have it both ways. He came into the House to-day to attack the ranchers. Only a few weeks ago, he was attacking the henroosters. He seems to be under the impression that attack is always the best form of defence; that unless he is attacking somebody, he is in a futile and weak position. I think it is the duty of the State, of the Minister and of the Government to be fair to everybody, to be fair in the administration of these drastic regulations which the emergency demands.

I do not agree with Deputy Corry that local committees cannot serve a useful purpose. If we are to accept Deputy Corry's view that local committees are always corrupt, immoral, influenced by political considerations, and have no sense of responsibility, then we must definitely decide that there is a very poor future before this country, because it is local committees of the ordinary people who are and who must be truly representative of the people. If the people are so immoral and so corrupt as Deputy Corry suggests, then, of course, we must depend upon dictators from the Minister's Department. But I have still some confidence in the ordinary, decent people of this country, and if committees of responsible farmers were selected in various counties or in districts of counties, I think they could give very useful assistance to the Department and its officials in carrying out this and similar Orders.

Mr. Heskin

I support this motion in the full knowledge that the responsibility rests on the Government and on the shoulders of the farmers. I am certain that the movers of the motion are sincere in their efforts to ensure production of the food supply for the nation no matter what may happen. I am satisfied that, as Deputy Hughes pointed out, a reduction of the tillage quota, to the extent of, say, one-eighth, may be accompanied by increased production. It will be admitted by farmers familiar with tillage operations that owing to the increased area of tillage that has to be cultivated by individuals a lot of the tillage is done in a slipshod manner or, as we say in the country, half done. With better cultivation, higher concentration on the work, the cultivation of a proper seed bed, and a fairly liberal application of artificial manures—and we are assured by the Minister of a certain quantity for the coming season —I am fully convinced that, even with a reduction of one-eighth of the tillage quota, we would still have more wheat and more cereals than we are getting under existing conditions.

I suggest that the Minister would be meeting the wishes of the farming community if he would use all the means at his disposal to ensure a quota of wheat for seed for the coming season. It is a well-known fact that the seed is worn out. With imported seed or with improved seed we should get an increase of from one and a half to three barrels per acre of a cereal crop. That is a very important consideration and I was surprised to hear Deputy Corry state this evening that he was denied the right to import a certain amount of seed wheat. Recently, the Minister said, in reply to a question of mine, that he did not see much hope of importing seed wheat for the coming year. Many farmers, carrying on an old practice, are anxious to import samples of wheat to improve their own stock. Those who do that also help to improve the stocks of their neighbours who may not be in a position themselves to import. I would suggest that the Minister should do all he possibly can to ensure that a quantity of seed would be imported for the coming year. If there is a reduced quota of tillage, the machinery available would be better able to cope with the work. Consequently there will be better seed beds, better ploughing, better cultivation, which will tend to produce a better yield.

Then there is the question of labour. Having had experience of the last harvest and the conditions that prevailed, many people fear that the labour question will be a very serious one for the future. As Deputy Corry pointed out, it is very hard to blame the rural worker when he sees his colleagues in industrial concerns getting a much higher wage. He pointed out that one of the lowest paid men of those who are now on strike was getting £4 9s. 0d. a week while the agricultural worker, who is a skilled operative, is the lowest paid worker in the State. For that reason, the Minister should yield to the demand that has been put forward in this House to set up a commission of inquiry into costs of production plus profit plus a decent wage to the agricultural worker.

In regard to the proposed reduction of one-eighth of the quota, I have made a rough estimate of comparative acreages. The target that was aimed at over a number of years was 700,000 acres. Taking the yield of seven barrels to the acre, that would mean 4,900,000 barrels of wheat. If the tillage quota were reduced by one-eighth, the acreage would be reduced from 700,000 acres to 612,000. With better husbandry, with a fair application of artificial manure and with an increased yield of one barrel per acre, the reduced acreage would produce 4,900,000 barrels, which would be equivalent to the yield of seven barrels per acre on 700,000 acres. I am sure the Minister would agree that the improvement in cultivation and the application of artificial manures would give at least an increase of one and a half barrels to the acre, which would represent, on 612,500 acres, 5,206,250 barrels of wheat. I am convinced that with the remedies I have suggested we could and would produce 5,206,250 barrels of wheat for the nation.

Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the scarcity of labour, weather conditions and so on, the farmer would face the target with greater confidence and courage, if the tillage quota were reduced, and would try to improve the yield that we have got for a number of years. Many Deputies will agree that the actual yield over a number of years was far below the seven barrels to the acre that was the average. I give my experience as a threshing-machine owner and I know as a fact that in some cases the yield was as low as two barrels per acre. On fair land, even with conacre, the yield was as low as four barrels to the acre. I think, as I said before, that even by reducing the quota and by the application of a sufficient quantity of manures to the area under tillage, the yield target would be exceeded even by more than the figures I quoted a moment ago. Machinery, as we know, is limited to a very great extent, particularly in the areas which engaged in tillage prior to the emergency. Certainly I would say that, even with this reduction, by the people realising their responsibilities to the nation and the Government, we should be able to secure an adequate supply of food.

In dealing with the other aspect of the tillage situation, the labour position, I think that for the coming year every effort should be made to ensure that adequate help will be available for farmers at harvest time. Every farmer and every grain-grower will, I am sure, thank the volunteers who from the cities and towns gave of their best during a very difficult period last harvest to ease the situation for the farmers.

Mr. O'Leary

What about the farmer from Mayo who wrote to the Sunday Independent?

Mr. Heskin

About what?

Mr. O'Leary

He said the city workers did not take off their coats.

Mr. Heskin

Everybody who volunteered for work during the harvest must be thanked and complimented. Even if the volunteers did not take off their coats, they went out with a good intention. You must admire people, no matter who they were, whether they were workers, paupers or millionaires, who went out with the good intention of helping to save the food of the nation. I hope that for the coming season, the Government will instruct local bodies to release men, if there is danger of a labour shortage confronting farmers during the harvest. In conclusion, taking the figures I have given for the yield target, whilst realising my responsibility to the people, I am convinced that, with the reduced quota, if adequate facilities are placed at our disposal in the way of machinery and if we are guaranteed adequate supplies of artificial manures, there will be an ample supply of grain produced for the needs of the people.

Mr. Bennett

Nobody denies that during the emergency it was necessary for the Minister and the Department to operate a compulsory tillage Order to ensure the production of necessary food for the people. Happily the emergency, so far as the war is concerned, is over. If there is still some trouble in the transit of food from one country to another, it does not seem at all improbable that in the coming year conditions will be much better in regard to the supply of foodstuffs than anything we have experienced in the last six or seven years.

Deputy Hughes and Deputy Corry have referred to counties which had not a tradition of tillage but I believe that in most of the counties of this State, even though there was not a great deal of tillage done, there was still some tradition of tillage left amongst the people and when the necessity arose they were able to go into tillage and did go into it. I think the Minister will admit that even in counties like Tipperary and Limerick, in which there was a small acreage under tillage prior to the emergency, the people met the Minister very fairly and that representatives of the various Parties fell into line in asking the people to produce the necessary food. We expected that, when the emergency was over, things would revert to their normal state. Normal conditions in this country were somewhat different from normal conditions in other countries inasmuch as we had greater varieties of agriculture in this country than in any other country in the world of similar size. Nature made it so and the experience of farmers for generations proved it to be necessary. We had extensive tillage counties and dairying counties, like my own county and Tipperary, while again in the west of Ireland we had counties producing sheep and wool, but all counties, taken together, were producing the various items of food necessary for the people. The land was worked to produce the maximum of food that could be produced in the various areas. We want if possible to revert to that system.

Nobody suggests, if the Minister assures the House that the wheat situation is still serious, that wheat should not be grown. We have not suggested that wheat should not be grown still if it is necessary. I do not think that, even in areas where wheat is not a very suitable crop, the farmers will refuse to grow it if they realise that it is necessary for the life of the nation. We do believe, however, that there can be some diminution in the area under tillage without causing any diminution in the vital food supplies of the country. In fact, as the motion states and as Deputy Hughes has argued, it seems probable that from a lesser acreage with more intensive cultivation we would reap a greater harvest.

There are other items of food that, if not as necessary to the people as bread, are almost as necessary. There are, for instance, milk and butter supplies. In the part of the country I represent, the people normally do little tillage but they produce milk, butter, cheese and other things to a great extent and they engage in pig-rearing which is a corollary to dairying. During the war years, the production of butter has fallen extensively and it is still falling. It is possible that in a few years' time, with the gradual drop in the number of cows, the butter position will be as serious as the bread position was during the emergency. I do not want to be a false prophet but I am very perturbed about that condition of affairs. People are getting out of dairy cows in my county. I believe they are getting out also in Tipperary and other counties. The Minister assures us that the number of cows has not fallen. If that be so, the farmers in counties other than the dairying counties must be producing cows. They must be producing cows in the midland and eastern counties. Almost every farmer I know in Limerick and Tipperary has reduced the number of his dairy cows to some extent. Nearly every creamery I know has reduced its production of butter. It would be extraordinary if it were otherwise because the number of dairy cows is down and the creameries cannot get the same quantity of milk as they got heretofore. Virtually every farmer within 20 miles of my home, in the richest dairying county in Ireland, has reduced the number of his cows. There may be a few who have not done so but they would be better off if they had, because they have tried to stick on to the same number of cows on diminished pasturage, with the result that the cows are only half-fed. It was inevitable that the number of dairy cows should be reduced in Limerick because the best of the pasturage was tilled. The inspector who came down did not tell the farmer to till the worst of his farm. The farmer himself would not devote the worst portion of his farm to the production of food. He generally selected the driest and best part of his land and that had been his best pasturage.

I am perturbed about the statistics mentioned by the Minister. I should say that they are not reliable. If the statistics show that the number of dairy cows is not going down and that production is still stable, all I can say is that the statistics lie. I believe that the manner in which the statistics are collected is not reliable. I am sure that Deputy Halliden, Deputy Ryan, Deputy Fogarty and the other Deputies who come from the dairying counties are aware that the number of dairy cows has been reduced. It is a question whether it is worth while producing butter or not, whether the present ration of butter for the winter is sufficient for the working people of the cities and towns. I do not see where more is to come from this year and I do not see any chance of that quantity being available next winter if conditions remain as they are. The Minister should consider whether the general area of tillage should be so reduced as to permit the dairy farmers to strengthen their herds, so that there will be a better supply of butter. In speaking as I do, on behalf of a dairying county, I am not suggesting that the maximum amount of food should not be obtained from every acre of land. I am not suggesting that, if the necessity arises, we should not still grow our percentage of wheat or that it should not be produced outside the tillage areas, if necessary. But there is a necessity for reducing the required 37½ per cent. of arable land to a reasonable amount. In that way, dairy farmers would be permitted to get as near normal conditions as possible in the circumstances.

There are other arguments, apart from the question of milk, in relation to the tillage Order as it affects counties like mine. Unfortunately, ours is a wet county. Dairying is, of course, a wet operation. Our land is wet. In at least three or four areas, the rivers are in a state of flood at times. On one occasion, I saw several men harvesting in rubber top-boots because the water was up to their ankles. Only spots in the field were sufficiently dry for stooks. I saw other tracts of land in my county with three or four feet of water. The crops on that land were never cut. I scarcely know a farmer with a holding of any size who had not to leave some portion of his corn uncut. These are all things which have to be considered when deciding whether it is wise or not to insist upon a 37½ per cent. ratio of tillage. Is it wise to drive the dairy farmer out of business? He is going out of it gradually.

Each year he has to till the required percentage of his land and he has to pass on to new parts of his farm if he is not to do as Deputy Corry mentioned and grow grain crops year after year on the same land. In choosing the new land for cultivation, he has to cut in on his pasturage. One can talk about ley farming and the results that will accrue from working the land and putting cattle into fresh pasturage but that cannot be done in Limerick. If you break up a field in Limerick and somebody suggests that you put in grass seed and turn your cattle out in six weeks, I know what is going to happen to the field. You could not put dairy cattle out on the land in my county within two years after letting it out. You would have a sea of mud if you did so before a fair sod had been established. The farmers have had a double quantity of their best pasturage used up in tillage. The position is that most of them have about 60 per cent. of their original cows. They will have about 50 per cent. next year. Once they get out and realise the trouble they have been spared, it will be difficult to get them to go back. The dairying farmer has been decried as a lazy man. I know no farmer who has to work as hard as the dairy farmer. No man has to work under the same conditions. He has to work on Sunday, Monday and holiday. Some of them had, willy nilly, to reduce their herds owing to the tillage Order and they will not put themselves back into the same position again. If one looks at the Limerick Leader, which supports the Government in my county, he will find two pages devoted every Saturday to advertisements of auctions of herds. The people are going out of dairying and still the Minister tells me, Deputy Dillon and Deputy Corry that there is no diminution in the number of cows, that the statistics show that the number is stable. Again I say that the statistics lie. Everybody knows that farmers are reducing their number of cows. Farmers who had 100 cows in my county have reduced them to about 50. I do not know of any herd at present of more than 50. There were numerous herds of 40. The average herd is now in the region of 15 or 16 cows.

However, that is all beside the point, except for the purpose of emphasising the fact that, with a lower percentage of compulsory tillage, we will get a greater amount of food. It would be possible to give greater attention to a smaller acreage of cereals and, if the Minister wishes, let that cereal be wheat.

We are prepared, as dairy farmers, to grow our percentage of wheat, if the Minister still thinks it necessary, although ordinarily I should not say that it is an economic proposition because we have never been able to keep up with the average production of wheat in other counties with lighter land than we have. I should say that the average production of wheat in my county this year would not be more than four or five barrels per acre, which would not pay for the seeding. However, it will be done again, if the Minister wants it done. It is not an economic proposition but if the necessity arises, it will be done. I believe, however, that a good case can be made for a reduction in the general tillage Order to permit people like the farmers in my county to till a smaller area and to get back into pasture as fast as they can for their dairy cows. I may be met with the argument that that is getting away from the work and getting back to the dog and the cow, but it must be remembered that for every eight cows you put on the land in Limerick, a man is put at work, and for every eight or ten acres of grain you put down in Limerick, in lieu of cattle, you take a man out of work. That is beyond yea or nay. There is more labour attached to a herd of dairy cows than to a countryside of tillage as those of us who have engaged in both types of farming know. I possibly have more experience of both types than most Deputies. I have had more experience of wheat-growing in this and in other countries than most Deputies, because, at one part of my life, I did engage in wheat-growing—not in small plots of ten, 15 or even 30 acres, but in a country where wheat was the staple crop and where one saw nothing but wheat for miles and miles, so I believe I know something about the growing of wheat.

Deputy Hughes referred to the areas which had no tradition of tillage. There was very little tillage in my county, but there was a tradition, and, when the emergency came, there were very few farmers who did not know how to grow wheat. They did grow it, when the necessity arose. Another peculiar thing about wheat-growing in my county is that there are areas in which wheat cannot be produced economically, while in other areas, on the Kerry side of the county, the farmers can grow wheat and are anxious to grow it. Nature probably had something to do with that, because, looking back 100 years, I find that the same conditions prevailed. There was practically no wheat-growing in the dairying districts of Limerick 100 years ago, but it was grown extensively in the other districts of the county, so extensively that at one time, in order to get greater crops of wheat after growing it for years, they burned the topsoil, and I recently came across old leases in which it was a condition of a letting that the land would not be burned. We produced wheat under these conditions 100 years ago, year after year, and when it would no longer grow, we burned the land to get a bumper crop for a year or two.

Nature prohibited the farmer from experimenting with too much grain-growing in the richer areas. He did not grow it in the Golden Vale, in Limerick or Tipperary, because, even 100 years ago, the land was better suited to other crops. That has continued down through the centuries and when some of our great-grandchildren talk in this House in years to come, they will be speaking of the same conditions. There will be parts of the Twenty-Six Counties which will go in for one farming operation and other parts which will go in for another, and as little interference as possible with that system is all for the good of the country.

I believe we can get back a little from the Order now and we should do so. We do not in this motion ask the Minister for anything impossible. We do not even ask him for a reduction in the area under wheat. If the Minister still thinks it necessary, even in areas where wheat cannot be grown economically, that the farmers should grow it, well and good, but we do say that there can be a great reduction in the general amount of tillage without at all impairing our position in relation to the production of a vital food. We say further, that a reduced acreage of tillage, properly carried out, will produce a greater amount of food per acre and we say finally that, in those areas in which tillage was not carried on extensively, in which dairying and other forms of farming were carried on, there will be a greater production of food of other kinds than there is now and that, on balance, the people will probably be better provided for than they are under the existing conditions of compulsion.

Mr. Flanagan

I rise to support this motion and my reason for doing so is that I believe it is high time the Minister gave very serious consideration to the circumstances under which the people endeavoured to comply with the tillage regulations. As Deputy Bennett pointed out—and I may say that I do not agree entirely with his theories— there are parts of the country in which the farmers go in for dairy farming and other parts in which they go in for tillage. Could the Minister not arrange, in the areas in which dairy farming is carried on, to give certain facilities to the farmers, because, without the dairy farmer, the tillage farmer is no use as it is the dairy farmer who produces the milk, butter and cheese, who rears the pigs, and so on?

There are very special considerations in these areas and I hold that the percentage which farmers in dairying districts are compelled to till should not be as high as in, say, my constituency, where the farmers always tilled without any compulsion. I represent a constituency that is as good a tillage area as there is in Ireland, an area in which the farmers do not require to be compelled to comply with any tillage regulations. They grew wheat, oats, barely and beet before any emergency arose and they are growing them to-day. If there were never any compulsion, the farmers of that area would still produce as much food as they are producing.

There is, however, a very special consideration as a result of the five or six years of the emergency. Farmers say that the continuous growing of wheat over four, five and six years results in the land becoming run out. These men had to dispose of their live stock to comply with the tillage regulation, with a consequent shortage of manure, and, unless the land is properly manured, they will not get a very successful grain crop.

For example, last year the farmers got a guaranteed price of 55/- a barrel for wheat and they believed that, as long as they grew wheat and the ground produced it, they would get that 55/-, yet we had Deputy O'Leary producing a certificate here from a miller, which he received from a constituent in Wexford, showing only 45/- having been paid. My interpretation of the guarantee is that he would get the 55/- as long as he grew wheat. No encouragement is given to the farmers to continue in the very good tillage drive they have carried on in the past four or five years. I can speak for the small farmers of whom I have intimate knowledge and can safely say that in Laoighis—where they do the best they possibly can to comply with the regulations—the crop this year has been lost completely. They have no feeding-stuffs for live stock and if they take them to the market or fair they will not be asked how much they want for them. There is no market, no feeding-stuffs, no hay. It is time that very special consideration was given to the deplorable circumstances under which some farmers labour at present.

I do not profess to have a great deal of sympathy for the type of farmer for whom Deputy Bennett speaks, but I have a great deal of sympathy for the small farmer who is put to the pin of his collar to exist at present and comply with all sorts of regulations. From conversations with farmers during the past four or five years, one would learn that it is not agricultural labourers the farmer should employ but a staff of clerks in an office to keep all the inspectors supplied with statistics. The farmers have reached the stage when they are completely fed up, tired and sick of compulsion and orders. They are not accepting any more guaranteed prices, in view of what has happened. I know farmers in my own area who got only 46/- and 47/-, instead of 55/-. That is no encouragement to them and it is less encouragement for their sons to remain on the farms. If I were a farmer's son, I would very quickly make myself scarce from the land, as there is no encouragement to any young fellow to remain on a farm. That is a disgraceful state of affairs.

Everyone knows that the old bog land and mountainous districts are not fit to grow wheat, but if a civil servant comes down he will tell the farmer he must put wheat in there. Who knows what crops should be grown better than the farmer himself? There is too much compulsion, red tape and regulations where tillage is concerned.

I was reading not long ago about a Government—I think it was the British Government, but I had not time to check up before I came in—which gave a bounty to the farmers during the emergency, for every extra acre put under tillage. If the Minister wants to encourage tillage and encourage the carrying out of the existing regulations, it is a wonder he did not introduce legislation whereby he could compare their tillage prior to the emergency with their present tillage and give them so much per acre in bounty, to assist them in the tillage drive and to comply with the regulations laid down by the Department. If the British Government gave such a bounty to the British farmers, what was to stop the Irish Government giving as good a bounty?

This question has been handled badly by the Department. It is absolutely impossible to apply the same restrictions to every farmer and the Minister would be wise to give special consideration to the request made in this motion. He should see what can be done to relax the restrictions in some way. He may say that cannot be done, that what is done in one part of the country must apply all over. Would he not be wise to consult the county committees of agriculture and get their views as to the percentage it would be wise to enforce in those areas? I was present with the Minister on two or three occasions, when he came to my constituency during the tillage drive, and I joined with him in appealing to the farmers to do everything possible to produce food for man and beast in those critical days. However, if he came down now, I would be very slow in making an appeal with him for any further increase in tillage, as I am convinced that the farming community has been treated too badly in the past.

For example, not far from my own home, the tillage regulations were enforced in every small farm in the district. The land of the late Mr. Davy Frame at Lamberton Park and Brockley Park I could swear a tillage inspector never saw; there was no such thing as having the tillage regulations carried out as far as that man was concerned. Yet the officials did not forget to call on every 40- or 50-acre farmer—or, as Deputy Corry would call them, the "hen-roosters". It is the hen-roosters who built up the country we have to-day and but for them half the nation would be hungry. The Minister knows that the hen-roosters never required compulsion to produce food.

I honestly believe that something can be done for the areas where there is not good quality tillage land but bog land and mountainous land. You cannot expect farmers to produce wheat there to any great extent and there should be no regulations in regard to that land. The Minister may say that exceptions cannot be granted. I say exceptions will have to be granted. I have seen crops in my constituency where it was a waste to put the seed into the ground. As Deputy Bennett pointed out, it would be far better to have less acreage and greater yield and have the soil put into a proper arable condition. That would give far better results than making the farmer waste time, energy, seed and labour in trying to till bog land. The Minister will have to give some consideration in those cases.

I understand that the voucher system attached to wheat will not be in operation after this year. That means that the farmer will get 2/6 less than at present. There is not much encouragement in that. I strongly recommend the House to accept this motion; I have read it and studied it and cannot see anything objectionable in it. If the Minister cannot see his way to meet it, I ask him to be good enough to meet the request made by the mover, or even to meet that request halfway and relax the regulations in some way. We have reached the stage when the farmers are so fed up trying to comply with regulations, under such awful and horrid conditions, that it would not be surprising if they sat down and tilled none.

Mr. Cosgrave

I want to make it clear at the outset that this motion is specifically designed to assist and promote the greatest possible yield of wheat and essential cereals. While we realise the gravity of the wheat situation, and in particular the responsibility which devolves on farmers for producing a sufficiency of wheat, we equally realise that unless the farmers are in a position to get the maximum yield from their land the compulsory tillage Order will negative its purpose. While realising it is essential that we should have in this country, if not sufficient to meet our own requirements, at any rate as large a supply of wheat as we can possibly provide, we are at the same time aware that during the six years of the emergency the effect on vast areas of land has been to reduce considerably the output and the yield. In addition, as has been clearly and fully stated, many of our farmers, particularly those in areas other than areas which could normally be regarded as tillage areas, have not had a tradition of wheat-growing or, indeed, a tillage tradition at all. Now, some Deputies imagine—and I think people other than Deputies are under the impression—that whether they have a tillage tradition or not, it is our duty to compel farmers in the national emergency to grow our essential requirements in food. It is certainly true and desirable that farmers should grow the maximum quantity of food, but it is equally true that, in those areas in which a tillage tradition does not exist, it is not merely the tradition but the fact that through that tradition and through not growing wheat or cereals, they have not the machinery or the resources which are essential for wheat-growing.

Farmers were placed in a serious difficulty at the beginning of the emergency. Many of them, anxious to comply in the most efficient manner possible with the Government's request and with the compulsory tillage Order, endeavoured to make inadequate machinery and improper forms of husbandry work during the emergency period. It has now lasted for a considerable time, and so far as the wheat supply position is concerned it is quite apparent that the situation after the coming year and possibly the year after, may be even worse than it was during the years which have passed. If that be so, and if the situation, so far as wheat supplies are concerned, is likely to be worse in the coming year and, possibly, in 1948, then I would suggest to the Minister that, even at this late stage, an effort should be made to provide a better system under which the tillage Order, and the cultivation of land for tillage, is to be operated.

We can look for a moment at the agricultural war committees which operated in England. It is true to say that they operated under the stress of serious danger and that, consequently, the maximum effort was made to achieve the fullest possible co-operation with maximum results. We in this country, not being menaced at the earlier stages of the emergency with the possibility of a shortage of essential supplies for bread and for live stock did not make the same effort. We did not adopt the same all-out ideas which permeated the policies operated in other countries. We had the position that the Department relied on the compulsory tillage Order and on whatever voluntary effort could be organised through appeals by Ministers and by public representatives. Now, while all that had a very gratifying result, it did not achieve in my opinion the results that could have been achieved had the Minister organised, under the county committees of agriculture, in conjunction with the inspectors, a system whereby allowances would be made in particular areas, according to the requirements of individual farmers, or according to the actual state of the fertility of the land. The Minister adopted in the initial Order—he continued it in the various amending Orders—a system whereby he took certain areas in the country which he regarded as being suitable for producing the maximum quantity of wheat. Accordingly, he decided that these areas should cultivate one-tenth of the arable land in wheat, and then there was a grading down as regards those areas which it was considered were less well able to produce wheat until the area was reached when only a small quantity of it was produced. Taking that in a general way, it may seem to be a suitable and fairly efficient system, but we have had evidence this evening that a county like Wicklow, which has quite a considerable area of land over the 500 contour line, is quite unsuited to have one-tenth of its area under wheat. I suggest to the Minister that there should be a relaxation as regards all land above the 500 contour line and that under the tillage Order it should be reduced to one-sixteenth in agreement with the areas which are at present regarded as being in the second categories.

In addition, I would suggest to the Minister that, in view of the shortage of time at his disposal, with no adequate machinery available for altering the compulsory tillage Order, a discretion should be given to the tillage inspectors. I realise—in fact any farmer who has been in contact with the inspectors realises—that most of them had not the training or experience in the early years, and possibly not even yet, to decide what type of land, or what particular farms, were best suited to produce wheat or other cereal crops. As a result of the experience that has been gained, I would suggest to the Minister that, in conjunction with the county agricultural instructors, a discretion should be given to inspectors in certain counties, particularly in the case of land above the 500 contour line.

It has been suggested here that this motion is designed primarily to facilitate large farmers. I think that anyone who examines for a moment the fact that most of the farmers above the 500 contour line, or who might be regarded as being in the third area for wheat growing are the smaller farmers. They are practically all people with 50 acres or under. Therefore, it is clear that this motion is designed in the most equitable way possible to assist the small farmer who is handicapped by the lack of capital and the opportunity to get machinery and the other necessary facilities—the man who has been cropping continuously for six years, if not in the same field, at any rate cropping twice on the same land with wheat. I suggest that if the modification which we are proposing is adopted and properly operated it will achieve a greater output than we have had during the current year in wheat production. The latest figures available from the September issue of the Irish Trade Journal and Statistical Bulletin show that the acreage under wheat this year is 641,300 acres as against 662,500 acres last year, a drop of 3.2 per cent. That drop is practically negligible and would not interfere with the wheat supply here had it not been for the bad harvest. I should like to know if the Minister is yet in a position, since the recent harvest, to estimate the reduction in the wheat production at home. If we had even a fairly good estimate of the position as regards wheat, we would be better able to decide what modifications might be possible or desirable next year.

It is generally recognised that the wheat crop this year in America and Canada has been the best, certainly since 1940, and possibly for many years before that but, unfortunately, because of the maritime strikes and transport decontrol in America, much of the wheat is still on the farms and the prospect of importing supplies is considerably reduced. I suppose it is hardly necessary to urge on the Government the need of importing the largest possible quantity of wheat during the coming year.

The Minister should endeavour to import, if shipping is available, some portion of the maize crop which, according to an article written by Sydney Campbell, Reuter's financial editor, is abundant. He says the present maize crop in America is the biggest in its history. Assuming that that article is correct, it is likely a considerable quantity of maize will be available for export. The Minister, I am sure, realises that the reduction here in the stall-feeding of cattle during the emergency—and it is a reduction which shows a progressive decline —has seriously hindered farmers in the cultivation of their land. There is a shortage of artificial manures and only in the coming year can farmers expect anything like an adequate supply of artificial manures. There is a reduction in the number of stall-fed cattle on every farm. In order to facilitate the farmers in the coming spring to feed cattle, and thereby produce farmyard manure, the Minister should endeavour to import some of that maize. Nothing has operated more against stall-feeding than the lack of maize for cattle fodder.

As a result of the emergency utilisation of oats and oaten meal, there has been a reduction in the quantity of oats available for stall-feeding. There was also a reduction in the offals from millable wheat because of the maximum extraction in operation throughout the emergency. All these things combined to reduce the amount of stall-feeding which would normally take place here. If it were in operation to the same extent as in pre-war days, we would have had an adequate supply, and possibly a very considerable increase, of farmyard manure. The position is that many farmers, through continuous cropping during the emergency, have reduced the fertility of their land. There has not been much artificial manure available and there has been a reduction in the quantity of farmyard manure.

With that situation in existence, and with the trouble which they have experienced because of a shortage of machinery—and that situation has not materially improved in the last year— the farming community are faced with great difficulties. Added to all these difficulties we had this year a very bad harvest. Then again, there were reductions in the price of cattle in the past 12 months. I submit that all these things have made the burden on the farmers heavier than they might normally expect, and for that reason I appeal to the Minister to reconsider his decision with regard to this tillage Order. I do not suggest that we should reduce the acreage under wheat. I would still continue wheat growing in all areas which have a good soil fertility; in all areas, other than land above the 500 contour, compulsion in relation to wheat should be maintained.

I am against compulsory tillage, but, in the present critical times, when supplies of wheat from abroad may be affected by transport difficulties, I realise that we must continue to grow at home as much wheat as possible. We should endeavour to produce sufficient to meet our requirements. In that connection I believe that better results would be achieved by modifying this compulsory tillage Order in areas where the soil fertility is not so high. In that way I believe we would get increased supplies of other crops. That would lead to increased foodstuffs for cattle and an increase in the quantity of farmyard manure. The farmers would then be in a position where they could make their land more productive, make their seed beds more productive, make farming generally better and have the land cultivated in a more scientific fashion.

I think everyone appreciates the work which the volunteer harvesters from the cities and towns accomplished in the recent harvest. Many of them undertook the work at no small inconvenience to themselves. If the position that exists in regard to labour in this country continues, a grave situation will arise. Every effort should be made to ensure that in the coming spring and summer there will be an adequate supply of labour for agricultural work. Every effort should be made to induce agricultural labourers, who, in their own way, are expert workers, to remain in this country. The country cannot do without them and every inducement should be offered to them to stay on the land. Every effort should be made to enable the farmers to pay an adequate wage to their workers in order that food may be produced for the nation.

The Minister should face the situation in a more realistic manner than in the past. He should realise the position of the farmers after six years of hard cropping of their land under the most difficult circumstances. He should realise that we must produce the maximum amount of wheat—that the land should give its maximum output. I believe it is possible to get a better production with a modification of the tillage Order. The Minister should consider favourably the suggestions we have made and modify the Order, in certain areas at any rate. He should review the decision to put the Order into force in areas where tillage was not formerly undertaken on the same widespread scale as at the present time.

Mr. Fagan

I want to impress on the Minister that we on this side of the House are not against tillage. We quite realise that the Government want to produce all the food possible during the emergency. But the carrying out of the tillage Order as it stands at present is impossible. In my opinion, it means a waste of time and of seed which could be used for food. It is a waste to have farmers putting seed into land when they know it will not produce a crop equal to the amount of seed put in. The difficulty is that a little bit too much is being asked from the farmers. The Counties Meath and Westmeath are non-tillage counties and people do not realise the difficulties under which numbers of farmers labour in these counties. The returns from a number of farms show that only two or three barrels of wheat per acre were produced this year. The letter which I gave to Deputy Hughes and which he read showed that the return from that man's wheat crop was very bad. I know of even worse cases, cases where there were only two or three barrels per acre produced. The Minister cannot say that the people in Meath and Westmeath did not tackle the tillage scheme in a whole-hearted way. Officials can tell you that 98 per cent. of the farmers in these counties did the tillage required of them because they realised there was an emergency. But we have gone through six years of that now.

The present Order is a bigger hardship on the small farmer than it is on the bigger farmer. I was very glad to hear Deputy Flanagan saying that. He represents a tillage area and the majority of the farmers in his constituency are small tillage farmers. They have come to the point after six years' continuous tillage that their land is worn out. I know of a case in my county of a man having 28 acres of land, of which 25 acres are arable. His tillage quota amounts to nine or ten acres and he has complied with the tillage requirements during the last five or six years. He has gone round his farm as best he could. Last year he got into such a position that he had to reduce the number of his cows owing to the amount of tillage he had to do. He has also two working horses to keep. Last year he took six acres of meadow on conacre, but he did not draw home a load of hay. The result was that he had to sell his cows. Of course, that was due to the weather conditions, but it shows that the small farmer is harder hit than the big one

I maintain that the carrying out of the present tillage Order is impossible. Take the case of a man who has to grow 40 acres of grain. In the spring time he starts to sow and gets in 30 acres of it. To do it properly, he should do more to that 30 acres before sowing the other ten. But he has to go on with the other ten acres. Then probably the weather breaks. The result is that the first part of the sowing is not properly done, because he has to rush the sowing. We are not asking that tillage should be done away with. All we ask is that there should be a slight reduction made, say one-eighth, which would relieve the farmers very much. When the man with 40 acres to whom I have referred has to cut his crop in the harvest time, after cutting 30 acres he should proceed to stack it. Instead of that he has to carry on with the other ten acres. That is due to the fact that he has to do a little too much. I think any Fianna Fáil farmer-Deputy can bear me out when I say that the tillage Order asks for a bit too much. As I say, we do not want the tillage Order done away with until the emergency is over. Farmers, of course, do not want to be dictated to by inspectors. I agree, however, with mixed farming. I have carried out mixed farming all my life. I would say that any farmer in my county who does not do mixed farming is not farming properly. But, as I say, farmers under the Order are being asked to do a bit too much. I can show any inspector that there is not a farm in Westmeath, big or small, on which there has not been four acres, two acres, one acre, a half an acre left uncut.

Deputy Corry said that if we did not grow enough grain we would not have feeding for our hens. In my opinion, hens never laid better than they did this year. The farmers had nothing to do except turn them out in the fields. The fact is that every farmer, big or small, drew in nine or ten, or four or five loads, or a half load of grain and threw it in his haggard. It was impossible to save it. Deputy Hilliard, who comes from Meath, can verify what I say, that it is just the little bit too much that is asked for which is doing the harm. I maintain that if the tillage quota was reduced slightly there would be a better return. If a man had 20 acres sown last year, with an average return of eight barrels to the acre, he produced 160 barrels for the mills. I maintain that if that acreage was reduced by one-eighth, by doing a little more to the land in the spring time and a little extra in the harvest time and having more artificial manure, he could increase the return by two barrels per acre and be able to send 175 barrels to the mills out of the 17½ acres tilled. As well as that, I maintain that under the present tillage Order there is too much of a headland left. If the acreage required was reduced, there would be less headland. At present some farmers make a headland in the middle of a field. I myself sow the grain into the very ditch. Some farmers have not the wherewithal to do that. The farmers are doing their best, but too much is being required of them.

One of the biggest arguments, in my opinion, in favour of reducing the tillage quota this year is the abnormal wet season we have had. Take my own case. I am trying to get my mangolds and my beet out now, but the carts are going down to the axles in the land so that I am only able to carry quarter loads. It will take me until January to get my mangolds and beet out. Then I have to tackle the turnips, and it will take me until February to get them out. That is a point that a lot of people do not appreciate—the state of the land after the abnormally wet year. Many people do not understand the conditions in Meath and Westmeath. Numbers of farmers could not get in their binders because they sunk in the land. Many farmers in my county have not finished their work on last year's crops. We have no ploughing done in that county. I do not believe there is an acre of winter wheat sown in that county.

I will not be in a position to start ploughing until the month of February but one farmer I know had to start ploughing and he would have been better off if he had spent the time digging potatoes. He has not got them dug yet. Then there is straw lying there and the farmers have not time to head the ricks. There is one wet day after the other. No one knows the position the farmer is in at present as a result of the awful year we had last year. That is one of the greatest arguments for the motion. The farmers understand the position and will try to carry out the Order if they get some little relief. I am not advocating that they should not do that—that should not be advocated during the emergency —but the Minister should meet them. Westmeath is not a tillage county. The Minister and his officials should know what are the results on any farm that they had to take over. The Minister for Agriculture should ask Deputy Ruttledge what is the result of the tillage operations on the Mountmurray estate. That estate was owned by an old lady. It was one of the best farms in Westmeath. When the tillage Order was enforced one of the best fields in that farm was tilled. It was put up for auction. The small farmers crowded in to give £6 and £7 an acre. As a result of the tillage, there was nothing but heaps of dirt. The crops did not grow there. The following year they thought it might be better in the second sod and they went in again but with the same result. The old lady died and the property passed to some person who is a ward of court. Deputy Ruttledge is acting in the case. Deputy Ruttledge said the tillage must be done and he sent out all the machinery necessary to till it and did everything possible with it. The wheat there is worth nothing and the oats will not pay for the threshing. That shows the conditions that exist. On some land in the county where you would expect a great crop, the crop is a failure. Then we are cursed with a bad climate. We heard about all the help that went out from Dublin during the harvest but it was raining all the time in my constituency.

In County Meath and Westmeath we are not against wheat. We love to grow wheat, if we can, because that is the only crop we can manage. It will stand up and, no matter how low a percentage we get out of it, it pays us better than oats. Whatever has been wrong with oats for the last two or three years, it stands until it is just about to ripen and then it falls down. If I have to do the full quota of tillage I would prefer to sow wheat and I think every farmer would grow wheat, even if there is only a small return. I would not ask for a reduction in the wheat quota because it is easily harvested but we cannot harvest oats.

This year the Department of Agriculture, from Radio Eireann, advised the farmers to put their wheat and oats in hand stacks and not to draw it in. The result is that the hand stacks are there still and cannot be brought in because we have not sufficient threshers. The threshers will thresh the big farmers' oats, and the poor small farmer who took the Government's advice—which might have been good advice because the oats were damp—cannot bring it in. In many cases, these hand stacks are rotten to the ground. That is all due to the lack of threshing mills. There are numbers of people with no hope of getting a threshing mill until next March. Owing to the bad weather, the threshers are held up from day to day.

Deputy Corry in his speech here tonight made a great case for reducing the tillage quota. He mentioned some seed he got himself which produced oats and wheat which were no good. Deputy Corry does not realise now, but he will realise next year, that it is not the seed that is at fault but that it is the land that is impoverished after six years of cultivation. It is the wee bit too much.

Mr. Hughes

May I interrupt to say that perhaps the House is not aware that we must finish by 10 o'clock, and the Minister has not yet intervened.

Mr. Fagan

It has been argued that wheat and oats should not be grown successively year after year in the one field, that there should be a system of rotational farming. The farmers of Westmeath and Meath are not encouraged to go in for rotational farming. We are not encouraged to grow beet. Deputy Allen is all right; he can get his beet delivered free and he can get a subsidy. Deputy Corry is beside the factory. It will cost me 17/- to 18/- a ton to deliver beet and it costs numbers of farmers in my constituency 24/- to 25/- a ton to deliver it and we get back 2/- subsidy. What encouragement is that? We are made to do everything. There was an increase in the price of barley but what good is that to us when we cannot grow barley? We cannot rick it.

Then there is the matter of the flooding. I think the Government treated the people who suffered from flooding scandalously. They sent relief to Europe and everywhere but the farmers were flooded out and have lost everything and the Government were very inhuman towards them. They did not come to their aid. They left them in the lurch. People in France and everywhere else could get sugar but the farmers got nothing in respect of the flooding.

I want to ask the Minister why the cow parks are being tilled. There are seven or eight cow parks in County Westmeath and no one is allowed to put a cow on them except the poor cottier who has no land. The Minister for Agriculture says they must be tilled and the poor man has no place to put his cow. In my opinion, land adjoining towns should be exempt from the tillage Order. The town of Mullingar will be without milk this year, because the farmers have to till their land.

I know the Minister feels he must have this compulsory tillage Order and I know the position he is in but he should give some small reduction. A little reduction is all we want. Give us that reduction and we will try to comply with the Order. When the farmer has tilled the 30 acres, he is not able to do the other ten acres. I defy any farmer on the Fianna Fáil benches to deny that. As Deputy Flanagan has pointed out, the small farmer is more heavily hit than the large farmer by this Order. I know the feelings of the people amongst whom I live and I would therefore appeal to the Minister to accede to the request which has been made in the motion.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

While I am fully aware of the difficulties of farmers in carrying out the tillage regulations, I should like at the same time to point out to Deputies the other side of the picture with regard to our great need of foodstuffs at the present time, especially of cereals, because we are dependent to a great extent on home production. I do not want to trouble Deputies with too many figures but before the war we imported, roughly, 700,000 tons of cereals every year, about half of which was wheat. We had at this time about 200,000 acres of wheat but from 1941 onwards we were driven to exist practically entirely on our own resources. Our import went down to something like 25 per cent. of what it was pre-war. We were driven therefore to depend practically entirely on ourselves. We did actually grow two-thirds of our wheat requirements and we imported very little other cereals except wheat during the war years. We all looked forward when the war was over to getting out of these difficulties with regard to imported grain.

Mr. Hughes

Could the Minister say what the figure of production for this year in relation to our requirements is likely to be?

Dr. Ryan

I do not know. It is very difficult to estimate it this year.

Mr. Hughes

You have not even a rough estimate?

Dr. Ryan

As far as I can see, wheat is coming in about four weeks later than last year. It may be 85 or 90 per cent of last year's figure. I could not give a better guess than that. While conditions might have been expected to be better, the war being over, we find really that the possibility of maintaining our cereals supply is more precarious than ever it was during the war. That is very significant, a very important fact we must keep in mind— that really we were never in such a precarious position before, when we take home produced wheat and imported wheat and put them together and consider our prospects with regard to the home produced wheat that is likely to come in between this and the end of the threshing season, and the imported wheat that is likely to come in between now and next harvest.

Deputies did say to me that we should try to import what wheat we can. Deputies need not have the slightest fear that we are not doing everything possible in that regard but they must realise again that we are not by any means highest on the priority list of those in authority in Washington who are regulating the cereal supplies of other countries. After all there are, as we know, countries on the Continent where starvation is actual and other countries where it is at least potential. The combined food board in Washington have laid it down as a principle that the greatest need must be relieved first. We can make up our minds, therefore, that we are not high on the priority list for imported wheat. Indeed, if it were not for the great effort of our farmers with their own help and the help of their agricultural labourers and the volunteer help that came from the towns and villages to save this harvest so successfully in the end, we might have felt the pinch of hunger or the want of bread even by now. The necessity, therefore, remains for producing the maximum quantity of wheat during the coming year. None of us knows what the conditions are likely to be after the 1947 harvest. Deputies have said that we can take it for granted that things will be better. If it was a matter, say, of having a bet, I might be prepared to bet that it would be better but we cannot take a chance in a case like this where the food of the people is concerned and, even though we have a very strong belief that things will be better after the 1947 harvest, we cannot allow matters to proceed on the assumption that they are sure to be better. I am afraid we must go on the assumption that they may not be better after the 1947 harvest.

There is, of course the necessity at the same time of producing other foodstuffs that are necessary, like barley and potatoes, which are used for human food as well as for animal feeding-stuffs, oats and other tillage crops and, of course, beet. This year for the first time since early after the war we did succeed in getting in some maize. I think we got something like 88,000 tons altogether and we may get more; at least we have some more ordered and paid for. We shall probably get it but again we do not know how we shall stand, as soon as this present order is put through. We shall only at the best get in about one-third of the amount of maize we used pre-war. As I said, we do not know how we may stand for next year. Our barley area was down 27,000 acres and I am afraid the yield is not as good as it was in 1945. Then to add to our difficulties— and many Deputies have referred to the point—there was a great loss of oats during the harvest time. Oats proved to be the most difficult of all the crops to harvest and a bigger proportion of oats than any other crop was lost owing to the bad weather.

Our chances of importing grain, especially wheat, are not by any means bright. In fact it looks at the moment as if they were worse than at any time during the war. As well as that, we have been taking part in international conferences where the common urge was to give all the relief that could be given to the peoples who were starving and those of us who are not in want had to give an undertaking that we would do everything possible to produce for ourselves what is necessary and to draw the minimum amount from the common pool. We gave that undertaking at a meeting in London in April, at the Emergency Economic Conference on Cereals which was representative of most European countries and the cereal producing countries outside Europe. The same undertaking was given, though perhaps not exactly in those words, at the meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference in Copenhagen in September so that we are bound in honour to do everything that we can to produce the greatest possible quantity of our own food ourselves. We are bound, in honour, not to draw on the world pool of human food more than is absolutely necessary.

As a matter of fact, we are bound even to produce human food at the expense of animal feeding stuffs wherever that can be done economically and as a matter of good husbandry. Any relaxation, therefore, of our efforts would militate against our constant endeavours to import our deficit of wheat from the world pool. In other words, we must not in any way relax in doing the best for ourselves. If we do, our omission may be used as an argument against us.

Deputies have argued that a reduction in the tillage area might not necessarily mean less food production. Some Deputies sought to prove that a slight reduction in the tillage quota might give us even more food. I cannot agree with that. Deputy Cogan argued that good pasture would be better than bad tillage. I admit that, but I think that that is not a fair argument to use. You will find that the type of farmer who has good pasture will also have good tillage, and the type of farmer who has good tillage will also have good pasture. If any Deputy cares to look at the figures, he will find that, during the past three years, when we were on a higher level of tillage than previously, we got more wheat into the mills than before and that, at the same time, we increased our egg and bacon production. We had actually more feeding stuff for pigs and poultry on account of the increased tillage, as well as getting in more wheat, and the number of cattle did not go down. That is a very convincing fact—that, with the increased tillage, we got more human food and animal feeding stuffs, because our imports of feeding stuffs did not increase. We had no imports of feeding stuffs until this year, and our imports of wheat up to this year were designed to meet whatever deficiency there was. There was less deficiency to be met during those years than previously.

I am afraid that any relaxation of the tillage quota would mean less wheat. Wheat is really the important matter because human food comes first. We cannot relax in the case of wheat because we pledged ourselves to procure all the human food possible. If we did not fulfil that pledge, it would be used against us and we might be left with much less wheat than we need. Another suggestion made would also, I fear, lead to less wheat. Even people who have high contour land grow a little bit of wheat. If we let them off, there will be less wheat. The small farmer on a bog farm grows a little wheat. If we let him off, there will be less.

Mr. Hughes

Not very much.

Dr. Ryan

Very little, I admit.

Mr. Hughes

So far as the individual is concerned, it is a great hardship.

Dr. Ryan

I admit that but I am coming to the question of these very extreme cases. Any suggestion made which would apply to a fair number of people would have serious results. A bigger class was suggested by Deputy Fagan—those supplying milk to towns. They would constitute a fairly big class and, if we were to let them off, it might make a considerable difference to the pool of wheat in the country. Even if we were convinced that we would get more milk, I am afraid that we could not let them off wheat because we all know how serious the position would be if there were not a sufficiency of bread. We cannot let any class off wheat-growing because we cannot afford to do so. It was argued that we should try to reduce the tillage quota in general. Again, I am afraid we cannot do that.

Mr. Hughes

We did not ask that.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy did not but some Deputies urged that we should reduce the tillage quota, generally. The prospects of bringing in foodstuffs are poor. We want potatoes, at least, up to the present level. We want beet, if the factories are to work again. Barley and oats are necessary to keep up our animal production and in order that we may have production of bacon, eggs and other things in which we are interested. I know that farmers may suffer great hardship this year. Deputy Fagan painted a picture of the farmers' position. It was not over-painted in the case of many farmers but I know farmers who have their potatoes in and are fairly well off for the coming year. A great many farmers are, probably, late, as Deputy Fagan said, but this was an abnormal year. I suppose that none of us has ever seen so bad a year and I hope that we shall never see so bad a year again. We must go on the assumption that it was an abnormally bad year and that we are not likely to have so bad a harvest again.

Mr. Fagan

Why not consider them a wee bit?

Mr. O'Donnell

Normally, mangolds would be in on the 1st November but they will not be in this season until the 1st January.

Dr. Ryan

What I want to impress on the House is that the position as regards wheat supplies—home-grown and imported—was never worse than it is at the moment. We have to keep that in mind. A number of Deputies made the point that the Government did not appear to be serious about wheat when they withdrew the voucher for manure in the coming year. I must say that, since the voucher was introduced four years ago, I was not aware that Deputies thought so much about it. I defy any Deputy to turn up the Official Reports of the past four years and show where he mentioned that the voucher was of advantage to the farmer. I did that a few times myself but nobody agreed with me. It was not admitted that the 2/6 deferred payment was any advantage to the farmer.

Mr. Donnellan

They did not say it was any harm.

Mr. Hughes

It is 2/6.

Dr. Ryan

It was not thought much of until now. During the coming year, the 1943 voucher will be cashed. The cash will be more tangible to the farmer. In the coming year, he will get some cash for his wheat but he will also get cash towards his manures to the extent of the vouchers he received in 1943.

Mr. Corry

You are paying up the I.O.U.'s.

Dr. Ryan

Yes. Remember that, in the beginning, when this voucher was issued, it was stated that we recognised that farmers could not get artificial manures in the quantities in which they would like to get them and that there was something to be said for the argument the farmers were putting up that they were reducing the fertility of their soil by continued cropping without enough artificial manures and that we were putting something aside for them for the time when artificial manures would be more plentiful and when they could put back the fertility of the soil. These manures will come in in bigger quantities in 1947 and will help to restore fertility.

The big point is: What can we do in this matter? I am afraid the position is so serious that we cannot bring down the tillage quota and neither can we bring down the wheat quota. I am asked whether we could not do something by way of giving the farmer an appeal to somebody. That is not so easy, but I do not think the position is as bad as some Deputies think—that the small farmer on the bog or the small farmer high up on the mountain is made to grow a lot of wheat. The tillage inspector assesses a man's arability, having in mind—he cannot escape having it in mind—that that arability will carry with it a certain proportion of wheat. He must have in mind what wheat that man will be compelled to grow and is therefore not too hard on the man on the bog farm or the man on the mountain farm. As a matter of fact, we have never had any great difficulty in the Department —maybe we did not go after these bog or mountain farmers so much—with these men in getting them to grow wheat. I do not think any Deputy will be able to turn up any case in which we brought one of these people into court.

Mr. Hughes

There was a threat of the law.

Dr. Ryan

There was no necessity to do so because they did what they were asked to do. The people who were brought into court were the comparatively big farmers with the comparatively good land and I am afraid we cannot ease off with regard to these people. I want to say, in passing, that I do not think Deputy MacEoin is right in saying that there were unseemly scenes between inspectors and farmers. I think they got on fairly well together. I also want to point out to Deputy MacEoin that if I said to Deputy Halliden two days ago that the tillage Order must stand, we can always listen to argument and we are always ready to be convinced by arguments, if it is possible to make any change. Deputy Corry told Deputies a story which they should take to heart. Last year, out of pique with the Department, he grew oats instead of wheat and he lost a lot of money on it. Let that be a lesson to every ill-tempered farmer for the future.

Mr. Corry

What about the joker who took my seed?

Dr. Ryan

With regard to the price of wheat, some Deputies gave the impression that it was scarcely high enough. I believe it is the highest in the world. I do not think any country is paying as good a price. I do not say that that holds for other agricultural produce, but it certainly holds for wheat. With regard to Deputy Heskin's point, I do not want in any way to give the impression that I believe the sponsors of this motion are other than sincere. I am quite sure they are, and I quite accept the statement they made that they are anxious to get tillage done and to get food produced in a most intelligent way. I quite agree with that, but I am afraid we cannot make very much change in the present regulations. I agree also with Deputy Bennett that Deputies from all sides at these meetings we had through the country during the emergency helped very much to get the tillage programme put through and food produced. I should like to ask Deputy Flanagan where are all the inspectors who are annoying the farmers.

Mr. Flanagan

They are beyond counting.

Dr. Ryan

If we put all the inspectors in the Department together and made them work hard, they could afford to pay a visit to each farmer only every four years. We hear a lot of talk about inspectors annoying the farmers, but it is the usual claptrap we get from Deputy Flanagan and people like him. He went on to talk about the late Mr. David Frame and his land. Every piece of land he had was inspected and he carried out his obligations, but it suits Deputy Flanagan to attack Mr. David Frame and moryah to stand up for the small farmers because their votes are more important.

We did give advice to farmers, as Deputy Fagan said, to put their corn in hand-stacks, but we certainly did not tell them to leave it there. The reason we gave that advice was the scarcity of threshers and we did not want them to rush it in immediately and run the risk of its heating in the haggard. I cannot see how we can make any change because the position is far too serious. The only thing I can suggest is—although I do not think it is necessary—that the notice of inspectors might be drawn to the point that, when inspecting the bog farms and the mountain farms and assessing arability, they should keep in mind the fact that a certain wheat quota will be a natural consequence of that arability assessment.

Mr. O'Donnell rose.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Hughes to conclude.

Mr. O'Donnell

I made several attempts to put a few points and I should like to be allowed time in which to make them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must sit down while the Chair is speaking.

Mr. O'Donnell

I think that with the permission of the House, I might be given five minutes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must sit down when the Chair tells him to do so. I want to point out that if this motion is to be pressed to a division, the question must be put before 10 p.m.

Mr. O'Donnell

I think I might be given time in which to put my few points. Surely my county deserves it?

Mr. Hughes

The Deputy may have three minutes.

Mr. O'Donnell

Thank you. The Minister was down in County Tipperary at a food production meeting and he will remember that a deputation waited on him after the meeting to discuss butter production. It was pointed out to him then that the number of cows would go down and that butter production would be reduced as a result. That has happened. I suggest that the agricultural committee was called together very late this year. It was called only about 10 or 12 days ago, and I suggest it should have been called a little earlier. I want to thank the Minister, or whatever Minister was responsible for it, for introducing the migratory labour scheme, which did great work. I also thank the town and city workers. My county contributed as much as any other to the production of food. Deputy Bennett has described how much we have suffered and how the land was burnt in earlier days. The Minister was asked by Deputy Corry whether he was going to take any action regarding the raw materials produced under compulsion in many cases and now left on the roadside.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is outside the motion. Deputy Hughes to conclude. If the Deputy wants to press the motion to a division it must be taken at ten minutes to ten.

Mr. Hughes

Why not five minutes to ten or before 10 o'clock? I had no intention of pressing a division, as I expected the Minister to meet this in the spirit in which it was put down, in moderation. We asked for a modification only and left it as vague as we could, so that the Minister might meet us. We are not asking for very much and the Minister has accepted what has been said. There has been great hardship, particularly this season and especially in districts where the farmers had not the equipment or the technical knowledge.

We are dealing with a problem that may or may not arise after the 1947 harvest. I am not going into the question of our position of priority regarding the issue of wheat from the wheat pool and the control of that pool. In my arguments for the motion, I read a few extracts from statements that appeared in the Press, which were made by Sir John Orr on this matter. We are thinking in terms of 11 months ahead from to-day and the Minister seems to forget that, in Europe and in occupied Germany especially, we may anticipate a very substantial improvement in the attempt to meet their own requirements. In the British and American zones, equipment will be put in for the coming sowing season and there will be a substantial food output from those areas. That means that the very great draught on the world's supply of wheat for the bad areas in Europe will be to some extent relieved. I do not want to build a case on that and do not want the Government to act in a dishonourable way at all towards those people controlling the wheat pool and those conferences attended earlier in the spring and later in Copenhagen by the Minister himself. We entered into obligations to do the best we could and we are bound in honour to do so. We want to grow all the human food we can at all times, apart from this abnormal time, and we want to produce even animal food, as that means eventually producing human food of the most precious kind, the protective food essential to life, that is, proteins and vitamins. We cannot relax in our efforts to do the best we can. However, we suggest merely a modification and the Minister has accepted that there are definite hardships on the high mountainside, on acid soils, where the farmers cannot hope for a decent return.

It may be a small matter for the Minister and the country, but it is a very serious matter for the individuals concerned, who have to maintain large families on small holdings. These are the people we—and Deputies generally —are thinking of and worried about. I give the Minister credit for being anxious to meet the House on this and I would prefer to settle it without a division. I suggest he should set up an appeal board, by appointing a few senior officers with technical knowledge, to review cases where an appeal is made. The Minister must remember that there are ordinary junior men acting as tillage inspectors, some of them with no technical knowledge whatever for the job. Half a dozen senior officers might cover the whole country, with one officer for each four or five counties, and it may apply only to a limited number of counties.

No matter what the Minister thinks about the case made by Deputy Fagan, I have a good deal of sympathy for the people living in his constituency, as there is a predisposition there all the time for the soil to give grass and vegetation. Very often you find the undergrowth is as high as the crop itself, giving rise to a lot of difficulties. If the Minister is prepared to give way now, I submit that, even in the modification we envisage, he will not be doing anything dishonourable in regard to the obligations he has entered into.

Dr. Ryan

I admit that. That would not appeal to me.

Mr. Hughes

There are cases of real hardship and in the aggregate they would not affect the production of the country substantially. I think some provision should be made to cover cases of that sort.

Dr. Ryan

The difficulty I see is that, if a big number apply, it may take a long time to get round them all and there would be a hold up. I will think it over and see if it is possible. At present, there is, of course, an appeal to a higher officer.

Mr. Fagan

Give the appeal and we will return more. Give relief in this, as we want to help.

Mr. Hughes

Would the Minister give relief in the non-tillage counties?

Dr. Ryan

I could not.

Mr. Hughes

The Minister is differentiating between eastern counties and the west, in regard to wheat production. Could he not apply that principle to our suggestion? There is no differentiation at all with regard to altitude and that is a very serious matter. Any technician will tell him that that has a profound effect.

Dr. Ryan

I hold that there is no hardship there, as the arability is assessed very low.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá 23; Níl 58.

Tá

• Beirne, John
• Bennett, George C.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Cogan, Patrick
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, John A.
• Dillon, James M.
• Fagan, Charles.
• O'Donnell, William F.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Reilly, Patrick.
• O'Reilly, Thomas.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Halliden, Patrick J.
• Heskin, Denis.
• Hughes, James.
• Keating, John.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Reynolds, Mary.
• Rogers, Patrick J.
• Sheldon, William A.W.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Dan.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
• Butler, Bernard.
• Carter, Thomas.
• Childers, Erskine, H.
• Colbert, Michael.
• Colley, Harry.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Corry, Martin, J.
• Crowley, Honor Mary.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• De Valera, Vivion.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Gorey, Patrick J.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Healy, John B.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Kilroy, James.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Loughman, Frank.
• Lydon, Michael F.
• Lynch, James B.
• McCarthy, Seán.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Morrissey, Michael.
• Murphy, Timothy J.
• Norton, William.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Leary, John.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• Pattison, James P.
• Rice, Bridget M.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Mary B.
• Shanahan, Patrick.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
• Walsh, Richard.

Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Bennett and McMenamin; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.

Motion declared lost.