I can understand the Minister's objection based on the idea that he seems to have that I am looking for more statistics because he must feel that it would operate very much against his own peace of mind and his own happiness if I were looking for more statistics. The Minister, in listening either to myself or to Deputy McGilligan must put a certain amount of distorting political wool in his ears because he seems to have got a twisted impression of some of the things that are said here and some of the suggestions that are made. I asked if we are looking frankly at our situation so that we might see the principles that should guide the policies that are going to be pursued, so that we may understand them and so that the people as a whole will know how they can fit in to the working out of these policies. The only piece of preparatory examination for the post-war period that we have been privileged to get is the report on the Committee of Inquiry into Post-Emergency Agricultural Policy. I am just wondering whether we could go back over a few of the points that were made in that report and ask ourselves do we agree with the opinions contained in the paragraphs set out in that report.
On page 39 we find in paragraph 112:—
"One prime object of public policy must be to promote as rapid and substantial an increase in the real income of the nation as is humanly possible and the development of our agricultural resources must play a major part in any such policy."
On page 105, paragraph 14, in the minority report, this occurs:—
"In our conditions, and until industries are much further developed, a comparatively large and prosperous rural population engaged directly or indirectly in agriculture and forming a good market for industrial goods is fundamental to national prosperity."
On page 42, paragraph 120, we have the following:
"A progressive increase in output per person occupied in our agriculture is a fundamental and inescapable condition of any considerable increase in our industrial development and consequent differentiation of our national economy."
Again on page 24, we have the following:
"Agricultural wages here have risen in recent years but are less than the current level of wages in the United Kingdom by at least 20/- per week. Labour and capital move freely from our country to Great Britain. Consequently, lower prices for our agricultural exports than are in fact commanded by producers of exactly similar exports in the United Kingdom tend to promote the export of agricultural labourers to Great Britain instead of agricultural products."
The Minister tells us that all we know of this country and all our experience of the past should make us resolve to decrease our dependence on other countries, that economic independence is essential to our national life, and that to the extent to which we are dependent for any necessaries of life on outside countries, those countries are going to demand some control over our political life.
If we can understand anything from the spirit in which he spoke here to-day, he turns his back completely on the only report that we have of a committee set up specially to examine the situation and to try to guide the Government, Parliament and the country in the post-war world conditions. Now and again the Government give the impression that they realise the importance of that report. They made an egg agreement with Great Britain that, if properly appreciated and properly worked, if our people were in a position to work it, could bring about the re-establishment of our poultry and egg industry. But, since that agreement was made, although from every part of the country help has been sought to enable the poultry scheme to be put into operation, nothing in the world has been done to help it. This country exported large quantities of eggs to Great Britain and at the same time had eggs here cheap. We read in the Irish Press, at any rate, that the British Board of Trade has made an agreement that from Eire, Denmark and Holland they will import gulls' eggs. Our industry is reduced to this, that they want gulls' eggs from us.
The Minister speaks of developing our own resources. We have 12,000,000 acres of arable land. Four would feed ourselves. What are we going to do with the other eight? Is it not made perfectly clear from the report here that the key to the development of Irish prosperity and wealth is the working to the fullest possible extent of the 8,000,000 additional arable acres for the production of foodstuffs over and above our own requirements? We have a market alongside us that is so hungry for agricultural products as to be looking for gulls' eggs to-day.
Will the Minister tell us whether or not he accepts the principles that are in that report? If he does, what is he doing or what is the Government doing to see that our people are inspired to bend their energies to the work which he says is there to be done, to encourage them to face the difficulties of to-day knowing that in that way they will put themselves into a strong position for the years ahead? He is anxious that our people should stay at home on the land. As Deputies have pointed out, the Department of Local Government pinned down the wages of the road workers because the wages of the agricultural labourers were pinned down. This report says that, unless the policies pursued for agriculture are such as to enable the wages of the agricultural labourers to be brought more into line with the wages of the workers in the towns, you will not get the prosperous and numerous rural population that is necessary.
