Vol. 111 No. 19
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £1,589,870 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1949, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, and of certain Services administered by that Office, including sundry grants-in-aid."
The Minister realises, no doubt, that we can debate Votes 29 and 30 together but that only one can be moved.
I suppose we can debate Votes 29 and 30 together.
And when the Vote is being taken on 29 it will be taken on 30 without debate, except that the Minister will have to move it.
I understand that it is the wish of the House that Votes 29 and 30 be taken together and that Vote 31 (Fisheries) be taken separately. In connection with the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture I do not propose to go in detail through the sub-heads of the Estimate prepared by my predecessor though, of course, I shall be happy to answer in detail questions Deputies may care to address to me in the course of the debate when I am concluding. I propose to put some general considerations before the House for consideration and in that connection I think I am correct in saying that it is the view of the Chair that the merits of the recent Trade Pact initialled by the Taoiseach and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer do not fall to be considered this morning.
I understand that time has been given for that on another occasion.
It is my impatience, Sir, to deal with them and to disclose their advantages which brings them to my mind. Let us be clear about it and, if we are to discuss their merits, I shall open the matter now. If, on the other hand, it is decided to postpone discussion on that matter I must with reluctance await the pleasure of doing so on another occasion.
The Chair would like to know how far they cut across agricultural policy.
They create quite unprecedented advantages to the agricultural industry of this country.
Would it not be very hard, then, to abstain from referring to them?
I think so, Sir.
In so far as they affect policy, the Minister had better deal with them.
I welcome the opportunity. The difficulty is that while the agreement, in so far as it affects agriculture, is completed, it has been initialled only and not formally concluded between the two Governments. However, in so far as the Taoiseach's initialling on this side binds this Government to sign the agreement incorporating the contents, I suppose it is permissible for us in this House to discuss that to which the Taoiseach's initials have been subscribed.
How much of the agreement is in the possession of the Minister?
Its substance has been published under the heads which have been published in the public Press.
That is the difficulty.
I am in the hands of the House.
Well, briefly then, on what is common knowledge.
The first consideration to which I have to direct the attention of the House is that at the beginning of this year we find ourselves in the remarkable position that the live-stock population of this country has fallen to the lowest levels that have ever been known in our recorded history. The number of milch cows on the last recorded date we have, which is the 1st June, 1947, is 1,156,327, the number of heifers in calf is 83,000 odd; the number of bulls is 25,000; the number of other cattle is 309,000 over three years old; two years old and under 3,678,000 odd; one year old and under two, 846,000 odd; and under one year 850,734. I direct the House in particular to the last two figures to which I have referred—one year old and under two, 846,803, and under one year 850,734. The figure for under one year, so far as I know, is lower than it has ever been in our history.
It was largely to correct the forces which had precipitated this disastrous development that I went to London last March and again in June. I am happy to say that I think the situation now obtains in which it will never be possible for influences outside this State again to bring to bear upon our live-stock policy influences which produce the kind of consequence to which I have drawn the attention of the House to-day. The figures I have just read out relate to cattle. They are bad enough. But when one turns to the relevant figure for poultry, pigs, sheep and every other branch of live stock and finds that in each case they represent a much more catastrophic decline than the cattle figures I have mentioned, one begins to get some idea of the magnitude of the problems that await solution. If, however, I were in a position where I could claim the land of the country was in a state of high fertility, we might look forward with less anxiety to the future. But when I tell the House that the fertility of the land in this country has reached a degree of degradation lower than has been known for 100 years past and that we have endemic in many parts of the country a condition known as aphosphorosis in which live stock consume the herbage of the soil and yet die of starvation because the soil contains no phosphates, and the grass growing thereon provides no phosphorus in the diet of the animals consuming it and the animals consequently die of deficiency disease, I think the House will realise that our problems grow in gravity and magnitude. When I remind the House that in some parts of the country we have reached the stage that we reap less wheat than we sow and that, for every barrel of wheat sown, we recover in the resultant crop less than the original barrel and that on almost every holding in Ireland the capacity of the land to return a volume of grain is still steadily declining, one might think reasonably that the prospect was sufficiently grave to daunt any Parliament responsible for the welfare of this country; more especially when one remembers that every citizen of this State, every Department of State, every person or body of persons earning an income, draw in the last analysis that income from the agricultural industry either directly or indirectly. However, I am prepared to offer words of encouragement to those who live not only upon the land and have their living directly from the land but to every other section of the community which depends on the farmers for its existence—to the doctors, to the lawyers, to the business men, to the trade unionists and the distributive workers and to everybody else whose means of livelihood would disappear overnight if the income of the farmers dried up.
I venture to say that, despite the grim spectacle with which we are confronted on the agricultural horizon, I still believe that we are standing now on the threshold of the greatest period of expansion in the agricultural industry of this country that we have ever known. I believe that in the course of the next five years we can confidently look forward to an expansion in the volume of output which will represent at least 25 per cent. of our existing volume and a consequential increase of close on 100 per cent. in the volume of our exports. I have deliberately chosen a conservative figure. Were I to reveal my true hopes I would perhaps set myself a target which our best joint efforts would fail to reach. I, therefore, elect deliberately for a target and if we fail to reach it then the fault will be largely mine, for I have no doubt that the farmers of this country will do their part, as they have always done, if given the materials, the implements and the opportunity. My job, as Minister for Agriculture, is to make available to them the materials and the instruments and to get them the opportunity to dispose of the fruits of their labour. That last I have already done. The others I am in process of doing. By my success or failure in that respect the agricultural record of this Government will ultimately fall to be judged.
In that connection I think it right to say that, in the course of the last few days, we have heard a good deal of talk in this House about Marshall Aid under the Marshall Plan. The House has learned, as proposed by the Government of the United States of America and by the administrator of the Marshall Plan, that the assistance available to this country should be by way of loan only. I must confess that that seems odd to me. We are one of the only countries in Europe who are in a position to say, if Marshall Aid be made available to our country by way of grant and a consequent fund created for expenditure in this country, that with the expenditure of that fund on the development of our agricultural industry, the rehabilitation of our land, the reconstruction of our farm buildings and the re-equipment of our farmers with modern implements and modern methods, almost 100 per cent. of the consequent increased production of necessary foodstuffs would flow directly into the vacuum which exists in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe at the present time—a vacuum for food which, if it is not in part filled by us, will ultimately have to be filled by the United States of America. And yet we, being the only nation in Europe in a position to say, "If given Marshall aid in the form of grants, all our extra production will tend to lighten the burden of the princely generosity of the American people," are one of the very few nations in Europe to whom the administrator thinks it right to say: "In your case no grants will be made."
I think it unnecessary to say that, whether this country receives grants or not, we recognise and sincerely applaud the princely generosity of the American people in their approach to the difficulties of Europe at the present time. Fortunately, despite the very heavy material losses that the world war involved this country in, because our land was rendered comparatively infertile as a result of its exhaustion during the seven years of war and crisis which cut us off from supplies of fertilisers, we can carry on. Our people will not starve with or without Marshall Aid. But, for my part, I would have felt it a privilege to be a partner of the United States of America, albeit a very small one, in the task of relieving the difficulties and the hunger and misery that afflict the Continent of Europe.
Desirous as we may be to lend a hand in that task, we cannot do it if we have not the means wherewith to do it. Given the assistance of Marshall Aid grants, we can do a very great deal in the production of the highly nutritious foods for which Europe, and Great Britain especially, hunger. Without such grants we cannot produce this material. I am not without hope that before this plan is ended, that opportunity will be given to us to share it with the world and, if it is, I have no doubt that Irish agriculture will rise to the occasion and astonish those who look to it, both at home and abroad, by its exertions in producing for the hungry what the hungry need.
I propose to lay before the House, shortly, my hopes for an increase in the output volume of agricultural goods. I want to say this, that as that output rises it is of no interest to me if it does not mean profit for the farmer who produces it—though not excessive profit. I think we have demonstrated effectively very recently that where the opportunity offers excessive profit at the expense of an old consumer we do not want it and we would not take it. But, if we require to have a fair profit —and we would not take less—essential as that may be—and it is essential —there is something of equal importance. If the profits of those who own the land and have their living on the land are to rise, as I hope they will rise, there then devolves on those who own the land and live upon the land a corresponding obligation in justice to see that their workers, the agricultural workers of this country, share pari passu with every increase in the profit level of those who employ them.
I would like my five years in the Department of Agriculture to be judged a failure or a success by whether the agricultural workers have been raised to the level at least of the industrial workers. If, when I leave office, the agricultural workers, who are the most highly skilled, the hardest working and the most indispensable servants of our community, are still at the bottom of the scale, as they now are, then I am not fit to be Minister for Agriculture, and I would have failed in the most essential duty that devolves upon any person who holds the position I now hold. Let the House then realise that amongst my prime objectives is to put the farmers in a position to pay to their agricultural workers a wage commensurate with the work they do and comparable with the wage of any other artisan in this country, bearing in mind that of all the artisans, in my judgement in any case none is more highly skilled and none more indispensable than the agricultural workers.
What then is before us? I have never disguised in this House my opinion of wheat as a crop. In war time, when the seven seas are closed and ships no longer serve to bring supplies, it is the duty of any community to produce its requirements from its own resources, whatever those requirements may be; but only a fool imposes upon his people in times of peace the policies of war, just as only a fool attempts to face the world in time of war with the policies of peace. I hold precisely the same views now as I have always held about growing wheat on Irish land in times of peace when supplies are available from other sources. In my judgment it is a "cod" and a waste of land. This is a free country. The time has gone, I hope, in Ireland when, because for the moment I happen to be Minister for Agriculture, I shall have the right to go into every neighbour's land in Ireland and tell him what to sow here and what to sow there, when to get up in the morning and when to go to bed.
I was brought up in the old tradition of the three F's. One of these was fixity of tenure. Fixity of tenure meant two things in this country. The first was that no landlord could throw you out of your holding and the second was that you could throw any landlord or his bailiff out of your holding. I am happy to think that we have restored that rule in Ireland now. From the Minister for Agriculture down to the most junior inspector in my Department, he will enter on his neighbour's land in future by invitation or not at all.
I know there are a great many people in this country who have been persuaded, or who have persuaded themselves, that there is some high virtue to be associated with the growing of wheat. They feel that with all the strength and all the conviction that I feel the opposite. They have a right to live in their own country and they have a right to demand of their servant, whom they pay, that their legitimate feelings will be respected. They have a right to remind the Government that sits here, with a large Opposition Party, sitting in this Parliament, also to represent voters who voted for them, that the wishes of that minority are entitled to respect and that if they feel strongly that they should grow wheat, as I feel they should not, they should not be walked upon. I accept that view and, accepting it, very early I went to the Government and, the better to reassure the minority that their fundamental rights would be respected and that there was no desire to push them around or to trample on their susceptibilities, I asked the Government not only to guarantee a price this year, but to guarantee them a price for the next five years at a higher level than was ever fixed for wheat in this country.
Whatever the economies of that arrangement may be, I have not the slightest doubt in my mind it was the right course and I am prepared to defend it here or anywhere else. Its economics may be bad but it should be some signal to our neighbours in this country that, so far as this Government is concerned in any case, there will be no pushing our neighbours about and that in so far as is humanly consistent with reasonably good administration, the susceptibilities and the wishes of the minority will be given the respect and forbearance to which they are entitled, so long as such respect and for bearance are consistent with the mini mum efficiency necessary to carry on the agricultural policy of the State. I cannot undertake to set aside the policy of this Government and abandon it in cases where minorities feel strongly against it, but I do most gladly say that in so far as it is possible to fit in with the general policy of the country the particular desires of the minority on their own holdings, no pains will be spared to leave each individual farmer, be he of one belief or another, the fullest freedom in his own holding to do with it whatever he conceives it to be his duty to God to do. We have, therefore, for the next quinquennium in any case, guaranteed a price for wheat.
I want the farmers to produce next year 700,000 barrels of malting barley at least, for which I guarantee them a price higher than they received in any year for the last ten years. It will not be less than 55/- and it might be more. In that connection I want solemnly to register a protest against what seems to have been the cruel iniquity of having fixed prices of malting barley in this country at a figure ranging from 35/- to 45/-, less cartage from the farm to the maltster, when the world price for that barley was 60/- and over and when the brewers of this country were ready and willing to pay 60/- and over and were prevented from doing so by our own Government, with the consequence that, in the last five years, the barley farmers of this country were fined by our own Government £2,000,000 sterling which passed into the coffers of Arthur Guinness Son and Company and were thence extracted by the British Treasury in excess profits tax collected in Britain. The barley farmers of this country were taxed in the sum of £2,000,000 sterling for the benefit of the British Exchequer over a period of five years—between £400,000 and £500,000 per annum for five years for the benefit of the British Treasury. That will never happen again.
I want the farmers of this country to sow as large an acreage as they can of feeding barley and the seed necessary for that, of Scandinavian origin which produces a short straw and a heavy yield of nitrogenous barley, will be made available to those who wish to grow it. It is a feeding stuff which, in my judgment, has three-fourths at least of the feeding qualities of maize meal. According to scientific analysis, it is equal to maize meal but, being somewhat of a pragmatist myself, the scientists notwithstanding. I fed Indian meal and barley meal to pigs and the pigs that were getting Indian meal got fatter more quickly than the pigs that were getting the barley meal. I do not know what the scientists' explanation of that is, but the fact remains that if I were choosing between yellow meal and barley meal, I would give them Indian meal but, if you cannot get Indian meal, barley meal comes a good second.
Oats I need not speak of because their value is too well known. "Grow," I say to the farmers, "all the oats your land will produce and you will sell them profitably either in bag or on hoof during the winter and the spring of next year."
There is a guaranteed market for 50,000 tons of ware potatoes in Great Britain at £10 13s. 6d. per ton delivered f.o.b. at a port in Ireland between November and February and £11 8s. 6d. per ton delivered at the same port between February and May. None of us will grow rich on that, and if the British want any increased supplies of potatoes from this country, they will want to straighten themselves and pay a bit more for them; but there is no obligation. We will send them 50,000 tons, I believe, at this price this year, if the potato crop turns out as it looks like turning out. In any case, it is a useful basement to have under potato prices that, if any temporary surpluses occur, there is a price of £10 13s. 6d. at the port here up to February and £11 8s. 6d. thereafter. I am in a position to say to the House, however, that, in future years, if we wish to produce a greater acreage of potatoes, the British Government are prepared to take from us whatever acreage we are prepared to offer. If they want a larger acreage than we are at present offering them, they will have to do better than £10 13s. 6d. and £11 8s. 6d., and I intend to tell them so. If they are not prepared to go a bit higher—no hard feelings and no potatoes; if they are prepared to go a bit higher—mutual satisfaction and more potatoes.
We cannot get increased production if we are not in a position to rehabilitate the soil. We are, therefore, arranging to build up supplies of lime, and, in my judgment, the quantities of lime required for the next 50 years in this country are virtually unlimited. We propose that that lime should be supplied in two forms—perhaps in some sense in three forms, if we regard basic slag as a source of lime. The two forms with which the House will be most familiar are burned lime and crushed limestone. First, I want to say to the lime burners—there has been a good deal of misunderstanding, a good deal of unnecessary anxiety, and a good deal of, I am afraid, mischievous and mendacious talk going on through the country—that every lime kiln at present burning in this country will have burned the bricks out of itself before supplies of lime from it will cease to be necessary. The youngest lime burner in Ireland will be dead and buried, and enjoying celestial joy in heaven before a situation can ever conceivably arise in which the output of every lime kiln in Ireland will not be urgently required. Is that clear enough?
Therefore, let us hear no more of lime burners draping their kilns in crepe and sitting down by the waters of Babylon to weep for their prospective elimination and destruction. But over and above the total capacity of all the lime kilns burning all the limestone they can possibly burn, and they cannot burn too much, we propose, by the encouragement and stimulation of private enterprise, to set up a number of limestone grinding plants throughout the country. We could have done that directly as a Government and could have run them as Government plants, or we could induce various people to set up enough limestone grinding plants, some of a small character, to supply their own neighbourhood or from large plants designed to crush a sufficiency of limestone to enable them to despatch it over a wider area. Both types I hope to see employed, and we are already well advanced towards the realisation of plans to have one such plant located in South Kilkenny, which will be close enough to South Wexford to provide a good deal of their requirements, another in South Monaghan, another in North Cork, another in County Clare and another in the Sligo-Leitrim area. I am not without hope that we may see one reasonably soon in the Meath-Westmeath area.
I do not deny that I am an optimist. I am. Some of my more cautious friends say: "Oh, do not say anything about that until the machinery is on the spot, because what would happen to you if your hopes were not realised?" What harm is there in hoping? We are none the worse for that. This I say, that once I start hoping that there will be a limestone grinding plant in Meath-Westmeath, if my present runner does not pass the post, I will start another. But before you make up your mind to do something, you have to hope that some day you will do it. If you make up your mind never to hope about anything until you see it in front of you, you will be sitting like a bump on a log for the rest of your life, doing nothing. Many of my hopes may not come off, but a sufficient percentage of them will, to make a mighty change in the agriculture of this country, with the help of God.
With regard to super, I am authorised by the Government to bring into this country all the super we can buy. So far as I am concerned, I should like to see super used on tillage crops and ground rock phosphate on grass and hay. We can produce ground rock phosphate for about half the price of super, and I believe ground rock phosphate to be every bit as good a manure for grass and meadow as super ever was. There is no reason on God's earth why our farmers should be paying "hansel" to the sulphuric acid manufacturers in order to distribute phosphate in the form of superphosphate of lime, if ground rock phosphate will do the job just as well and save the farmers 4/- or 5/- per cwt. on the manure they have to spread. But it is true that, while ground rock phosphate will do for grass and meadow, and probably for turnips, superphosphate of lime, in one form or another, is necessary for tillage crops, and we must continue to use it in combination with other manures for that purpose.
Heretofore, it has been the practice in this country to use what we call triple-X super, which, according to the old reckoning, is 35 per cent. super. That is a very uneconomic way of handling super, because it means that you are carting about the country half a bag of dirt and half a bag of manure. I should like to see used, and I hope to see soon, not 35 per cent., but 60 per cent. super, which means that instead of carrying around half a bag of dirt and half a bag of manure in every bag of artificial fertiliser we use, there will be two-thirds manure and one-third dirt, which ought to reduce the freight charges.
No matter how we raise the concentration, it simply is not practical politics to raise the concentration of superphosphate higher than about 60 per cent., according to the old reckoning, and there must be some mixer with it to enable its proper distribution over the land. There is no reason why we should carry the mixture all over the country in the process of distribution, so that we will have to seek the cooperation of all our friends in accustoming our people to use superphosphate in a very much more highly concentrated form than they have been using it heretofore, in order to save on the cost element of transport which has heretofore bulked so large in the finite cost of a commodity like superphosphate of lime. We have got the promise of 10,000 tons of potash from France, and we will get some from Spain and some from elsewhere. I just do not want to talk about that yet, for fear mischievous persons might double-cross me before I get it in the bag.
We will get sulphate of ammonia and we will get nitrate of soda, but I want to say this: Our sole concern here is to raise the agricultural output of this country. It is common knowledge that the bulk of that increased production is going to be sold abroad and yet the I.E.F.C. informs us that our requirements of nitrogen are to be strictly limited. Now, I am getting tired of the I.E.F.C. and the A.B.C.Q.R.S.T.V. W.X.Y.Z. as well I am sure the world is going to realise that if a lot of these energetic gentlemen would go and do an honest day's work and stop tangling themselves up in their neighbours' hair it would be a damn sight better for themselves and a damn sight better for everybody else. They are so busy planning everybody else's life that we are rapidly reaching a stage when those who want and are prepared to use for the benefit of humanity at large and their legitimate profit the resources of the world will not be let get at these resources until we reach the stage that the available resources that could be turned into food for hungry men are left to rot because A.B.C.D.E.F.G. cannot make up their minds who is to get it and, by the time they have made up their minds whether Billy or Jack is to use the material, the material is either melted or rotted and neither Billy nor Jack will be allowed to put his hands on it. However, it appears we will have to endure them for another 12 months in any case, but, I.E.F.C. notwithstanding, I believe we will be able to get sufficient nitrogenous manures to carry out the work we have to do. We could do more if they would get out of our way, but, for the time being, they do not appear to intend to do so.
There is no use getting all these materials and making them available to the farming community if the farming community are just going to spread them at random on the land. I want to suggest to every farmer in this country that, when he contemplates a comprehensive programme of rehabilitation of his land by the distribution of expensive artificial fertilisers, he should first get the county committee of agriculture to test his soil. We have established in Johnstown Castle now an adequate service. I know that for some time it took a long time to get any answer, that if you had your soil tested it might be three months or four months before you would get the test back. Any farmer in this country now who gets his land tested will have the result back in his hand within 14 days of the inspector being on his holding, telling what the soil of his field requires, what he ought to put out if he wants to make the soil maximum efficient, and, without that information, it is inevitable that he will waste a lot of good money putting out on his land the kind of thing the land does not really want, while in fact he may fail to put out the one thing without which the land cannot possibly adequately produce.
I am not going to go on any man's land and test it for him, whether he likes it or not, but there is no farmer, no matter how small or how big, who cannot have his land tested by sending a postcard to the local county committee of agriculture, and if there is any farmer, from the ten-acre man up to the man who has a thousand acres, who, on sending that postcard, does not get prompt and immediate attention, if he will do me the kindness of communicating with me, I undertake that he will get it within 48 hours of receiving his letter.
But, there is nobody going to get his soil tested until he asks for it. I would be glad if Deputies beyond, particularly, would be as busy moving about amongst their neighbours telling them of the availibility of that service as they have been busy instructing their neighbours in certain other items of what, for the time being, we shall call knowledge, if not veracity.
During this time, when phosphates must still be somewhat scarce, I commend to the larger farmers and those who have equipment to consider the desirability of sowing phosphates with the seed. As far as we can find out, if phosphates are sown with corn through a corn drill, you can reduce the requirements of phosphate of your crop as much as 50 per cent. One of the most revolutionary discoveries that has been made during the war was made quite by chance and that was that if you sowed the phosphate manure with the corn through a corn drill, two astonishing results would follow—(1) the corn grew with all the vigour of a heavily manured crop and (2) the weeds were all stunted because the artificial manure did not reach the weeds and they grew in such numbers that they choked one another but the corn, amply supplied with the phosphate, grew away from the weeds and you had this extraordinary consequence of a crop of redoubled vigour and a hitherto unknown process of quasi-cleansing of your land.
All of those who want to grow potatoes, I beg of them to get out of my neighbours' good old practice of saying that if you have farmyard manure there is no need to put out artificials. There is no one can grow potatoes for sale in this or any other country without artificial fertiliser. Again I apply to my friends on the other side of the House to be as busy spreading that news through rural Ireland as they have been spreading other items of information.
We have been doing that before you came up.
Now, I want to say a word on dairying to some people in this country who take the view that I have been Minister since last March, that I have done nothing for the dairy industry, that I do not care anything about the dairy industry and that perhaps the reason is that I do not know anything about the dairy industry. They are wrong. I know a great deal about the dairy industry and there is not a day since I have entered office that its interests have not been my intimate concern—not my exclusive concern, and they never will be. But there are more farmers in this country than dairy farmers.
May I remind the Minister that he is supposed to address the Chair? I have had a good back view of the Minister.
I shall bear that in mind, Sir. May I remind the House that there are more farmers in this country than dairy farmers? I think it is right to say that there has been much canvassing of the obligation that devolves on individuals to keep particular breeds of cattle, some agitating for Friesians, some agitating for Jerseys, some agitating for Guernseys. There have been those who represent that it was the duty of a Minister for Agriculture to divide the country up into enclaves and to forbid the farmers in certain areas to have any kind of cattle but the kind the Minister for Agriculture for the time being thought they ought to have. There are other people who think we should have inspectors sitting on every one's backdoor to tell the farmer how to milk his cow, when to milk his cow, how often to milk his cow, and what to do with what he milked out of the cow. I do not subscribe to those views. There are other sections of the community who think you ought to pay a farmer to keep a cow and that if he keeps a cow you ought to pension the farmer for keeping the cow. I do not subscribe to that view either. When the time comes that we have to pay the farmers of this country to do their own work, we may throw our hats at it. I am in favour—and it is well I should state it categorically and irrevocably— of letting my neighbour run his farm in his own way; but if he wants my opinion on the best dairy cow he can keep in this country I will tell him— the dual purpose Shorthorn cow. I know there are a lot of old maids and cranks in this country who keep Jerseys and Guernseys and Friesians and the rest of them, and they are out in the morning brushing them down and washing them with soap and water and feeding them with milk and stuffing them with little handfuls of grass and treating them as if they were Pekinese dogs. The poor old Shorthorn cow comes in and is milked and gets a slap behind and is sent out on the hill for the rest of the evening. Her lactation is then compared with the lactation of the Pekinese, who is fed nearly with rashers every morning. Then you are told: "Look at the Shorthorn and look at the Friesians, the beautiful Friesians." Then the Friesian is produced at the Royal Dublin Society Show and her milk is flooding the whole place, and they are running for buckets to collect it and take it off. Then you find that the butter fat content is 1.4 and you begin to wonder if this is the water to wash the dairy with, or milk from the cow. The poor old Shorthorn comes in from the side of the hill and she is milked, and out she goes again; she comes in again in the evening and she is milked, and there is no respect for her at all.
If the Shorthorn cows of this country got one-third of the feeding and the fancy treatment that the Friesians and the Guernseys and the Jerseys and the rest of the Pekinese get, the Shorthorns would match any breed that you can produce; but if the fancy breeds had to bear with one tithe of the ordinary treatment that the ordinary Shorthorn cow gets throughout rural Ireland, the hills of Ireland would be dotted with black, white and dunduckety mud coloured cattle, dying of starvation. They would die of plain starvation on the diet and under the treatment given to the hardier Shorthorn cow who comes in and gives her 300 gallons every year. The same old lady giving her 300 gallons, if she got half the feeding that the Pekinese brand and breed get would give 500 and 600 gallons. If the cows of this country were giving an average of 550 gallons, one cow with another, we would never have to worry about the Friesians and the others at all. If people would feed their cattle, whatever breed they were, as the propagandists for the fancy breeds feed their show herds, the real worth of the Shorthorn breed would be fully understood, and we would have not only a prosperous and progressive dairy industry but also a steadily growing foundation stock for the valuable live-stock export industry of Ireland, without which the standard of living of all our people, from the President of Ireland down to the humblest citizen in the State, could be very seriously depressed.
I foresee, with the improvement of grassland, with the improvement in the quality of the feeding that we will have for our cows in the course of the next two or three years, a great future for the butter industry, the cheese industry, the cream industry, the chocolate crumb, condensed milk, dried milk and baby food industries, all of which derive from the cows of Ireland and all of which I hope to see derived some day from the Shorthorn cows of Ireland. However, let those who yearn for the Pekinese breed be assured that nothing this Government will ever do, so long as I am where I am, will interfere with their liberty to keep goats if they want them. I trust they will not regard it as treason on my part if such encouragement as is legitimate for a Department of State to give is hereafter given to the Shorthorn breed, without in any sense desiring to restrict the freedom of any individual farmer to keep any blooming breed he likes.
I do not think it is necessary to dwell at length on the necessity for expanding our fowl industry. My predecessor in office negotiated in London an agreement relating to the price for eggs and the development of the fowl and egg industry. There was some misunderstanding about the terms of that agreement, which I think should be made more clear, particularly as I myself was, perhaps, responsible for a part of that misunderstanding. It was stated at the time that the British Government were giving us a grant to use in this country for the development of the Irish fowl industry and the production of fowl and eggs. I cannot deny that, during the election campaign, I myself demurred to that and said: "This is a very peculiar procedure; why should the British Government give us a grant to develop our own fowl industry; what business have they in coming in here to bestow benefices on this country any more than any other country in the world?" I would make it clear that it was necessary for the Government of the time to announce the price agreed with the British Government in that form, for certain reasons associated with other trade agreements that Government was at that time negotiating with other Parties. Substantially what happened was that 5/- more on the published price was in fact secured from the purchaser for our egg production. In so far as the Minister succeeded in doing that, he is deserving of our congratulations and those of the egg producers of this country, for the bargain he struck. We are doing our best to develop and, possibly in the later stages of the bargain, to improve the terms which, in the circumstances, I feel sure it was impossible for him to grapple with, in respect of the more remote years of the agreement's currency.
The agreement itself is one on foot of which I think we ought to be able to expand very largely indeed our egg industry. I want to say this, Sir, in public. I had occasion to use a form of words during the recent London negotiations that made some pressmen say that it was our intention under the existing agreement to "drown the English in eggs." One of the remarkable consequences of that was that everyone keeping a hen in England was thrown into hysteria and represented to the British Minister of Agriculture that they were going to be swept away when the flood of eggs came. I have no objection to helping the British to improve the present meagre ration of eggs they are suffered to enjoy, but I say here that I believe it to be my objective, as it was the objective of my predecessor, and, I believe, the hope of my opposite number in Britain, that our increased production would make a manifest improvement in the winter months, when the shortage of eggs is most acute.
There is no undertaking, implied or otherwise, in the agreement negotiated by my predecessor that we are to confine our supplies of eggs to any particular part of the year, but there is the desire that our people should get the best possible price for their eggs, and the best price for eggs is to be got for eggs produced in the winter. Let there be no suspicion that my predecessor or myself agreed to any sort of quota restrictions, or restrictions of any kind or description, on the export of eggs to Great Britain at any period of the year. The common desire of our two parties to the agreement on both sides was that, in so far as possible, our main effort to increase supplies will be directed to increasing them when they pay the best profit to our people, and that is during the winter. Lavish as we hope the supplies will be and extensive as we hope the trade will grow, I think it is carrying precaution to fantastic extremes for the egg producers and fowl farmers in England to apprehend their early destruction at our hands as a result of any bargain made by the British Minister of Agriculture.
Now I come to the end of what I have to say. I want to say, so far as the people of this country are concerned, that they are entitled to expect from the Department of Agriculture and from the Government all the help that it is in the power of this Government to give. I give them this assurance for the first time in history. I ask Deputies to note those words that, for the first time in history, I am in a position to say to the farmers of this country that there is an unlimited market at remunerative prices for cattle, sheep, pigs, butter, cream, cheese, bacon, potatoes, barley and oats, and that the more of them they produce the better we hope prices to be. There is no reservation and no qualification about that. I do not think any Minister for Agriculture in this country has ever been in a position to say that before, or to say to the farmers of this country that it will be irrevocably true for at least four years, and we hope it may be for a much longer term to come. Therefore, I say to them to increase the number of their fowl and to concern themselves to sell their eggs especially in the winter.
I also say to them not to fail to rear every calf that is born. Any person that kills a dropped calf does a very grave injury not only to himself but to the agricultural community as a whole. Feed calves for the first 12 months of their lives because if they are not then adequately fed nothing that farmers can do subsequently will repair the damage that has been done to them during these critical months.
Coming down to such pedestrian matters as weeds, I want to say that weeds are the hall mark of the lazy farmer. The farmer on whose land weeds grow is not a farmer. He may be a land-owner, but he is not a farmer. Cut thistles and nettles, and abolish praiseach and similar weeds in corn crops by the use of selective weed killers. I want to tell the House that next year I am going to publish an advertisement in the spring on that. Praiseach is the hall mark of the lazy land-owner. The man on whose land it grows is not a farmer and ought to make room for somebody who is prepared to be one. I was going to publish the advertisement this year, but then I discovered that there were not sufficient supplies of selective weed killers to go around, and I thought it would not be fair when there were no effective means of getting rid of praiseach without, perhaps, doing some injury to the crops. When supplies become available I shall publish the advertisement.
To all those who are interested in agriculture in this country, I want to say with special emphasis that they should avail of the farm improvements scheme. Let them make no mistake about that. I think it was my immediate predecessor, Deputy Smith, who was responsible for the farm improvements scheme.
No.
Was it Deputy Dr. Ryan?
Yes.
Let us say at once that, whatever we may have to say about Deputy Dr. Ryan as Minister for Agriculture, the farm improvements scheme must be forever a monument of which he should be duly proud. It is 15 years since the late Deputy Hugo Flinn presented a Vote for the Board of Works in this House and for the special employment schemes. I remember that, at that time, some of us pressed on him the desirability of spending some of the money in employing farmers to improve the quality of their land, provided the farmers would make a contribution themselves. I remember Deputy Flinn saying: "Well, that may be good in principle, but the Treasury prohibits the expenditure of public money on the private property of any individual citizen." It was not until my predecessor, Deputy Dr. Ryan, succeeded in carrying the farm improvements scheme in this House that we overcame that objection. It is a scheme of incalculable value to the farmers of this country. It is a scheme inspired by the spirit of the old congested districts board, the finest instrument of government that ever was evolved in this country. It is a scheme over the operations of which it is a source of intense satisfaction and pride for me to preside. I must say that when I go out and walk a piece of land that has been drained or improved under that system, I feel walking beside me the spirit of such men as Sir Henry Doran and of those who worked with him who did that kind of work on the small farms in the congested areas when I was a small boy, and whose work seemed to have been forgotten and abandoned until at last the farm improvements scheme has enabled our Department of Agriculture to take up where, by circumstances, they were constrained to lay down. To every farmer in Ireland, large and small, I want to say with emphasis, let him examine the terms and conditions of the farm improvements scheme, and where his land requires rehabilitation and where he is prepared to make his contribution to the task, let him put up his plans to the Department of Agriculture and, to the limit of our resources, we will do all we can at the earliest possible moment to provide for him the full benefits available under the scheme.
I cannot say that we are prepared to speak of the farm buildings scheme with the same urgency and immediacy, because the plain fact is that, when my colleague cannot provide the cement for such a task as the plastering of the end of the House of God you cannot very well start on work of this kind in the same parish—when cement has to be withheld from other tasks such as the urgent requirements of domestic housing. They are claiming all the available supplies and, therefore, we cannot make any claim for a supply until the back of the domestic housing problem has been broken. I do hope, however, early in the next financial year to set constructional work in progress with regard to the farm buildings scheme, and as the housing problem gets further and further under control so we can with greater confidence set out along the road which should lead us to the reconstruction of virtually every farm building in Ireland, for 90 per cent. of them urgently need that reconstruction. Given, as I hope we may be, the benefit of Marshall Aid, we will do that job in five or six years; denied it, it may take us five and 20 years to do it, but be it short or long, we will do it in the end.
I want to say a word to the young farmers. There is a movement in this country called the Young Farmers' Club. They are independent; they are self-reliant; they are designed so as to enable the members to serve society at the same time as they are serving their own interests. Because they are independent, because they are autonomous, because they are not under my control or anybody else's control, so long as they remain that way, they are, in my opinion, the most valuable asset that the agricultural industry has in this country at the present time. I want to tell the Young Farmers' Clubs that as long as they keep me and my like at arm's length, as long as they assert their absolute independence of the Government, their independence of political organisations, their independence of any external source of power that seeks to control them, everything this Government can do to help them will be done. But on the day they become subservient to us in this Government, or to any other ulterior power, on the day they wish to exclude anyone who is a farmer whatever his politics are from their ranks, on that day they cease to be useful, and will, in my judgment, become a menace to the community. Knowing them as I know them, however, I do not think that danger is calculated to come upon them. For as long as they gather into their ranks the young farmers of this country, be they Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Clann na Poblachta, Labour, National Labour, Clann na Talmhan, or of no politics at all, to devote themselves to agricultural matters, there is nothing we can do to help them that we will not do if they will ask us.
I want to say to Muintir na Tíre, under exactly the same conditions and with exactly the same reservations, that I think they can do an immense service to this State. I think one of their prime services would be the organisation of the parish and to make our people see and understand that the natural unit for co-operative work in rural Ireland for men and women and for children too, is the parish. If Muintir na Tíre would accept that assignment they could do agriculture and every other form of life in this country an incalculable service.
I want to reiterate that my Department holds itself gladly at the service of any citizen of this State that seeks help. I and every official of my Department have the old-fashioned view that there is no higher dignity that a citizen of Ireland could covet than to be known as the servant of the Irish people. We do not aspire to be known as masters; we do not wish to act as masters; we do not ever wish to think of ourselves as being masters. We wish to deal with the people always as their servants, and we would like them to remember that if they have servants they are entitled to expect dutiful servants who will carry out the laws their Parliament makes without respect to persons or groups. That will be done. Whether it be the pork butchers or the beef butchers who try to strike at the agricultural community of this country, they will find that there are resources at the disposal of this Government which, if necessary, will be used to smash any conspiracy whencesoever inspired which seeks to destroy the farmers of this country or their livelihood.
If there is any group of persons who imagine that by conspiracy they can enter the Dublin market and strike at the farmers for their own rotten motives I want to remind them of that. I know the butchers and victuallers of this country for a long time and 90 per cent. of them are decent, honest men, amongst whom I am proud to have many friends, but if any minority among them imagines that by tough tactics in the Dublin market this Government can be intimidated or blackmailed, they had better think again. There is nothing more revolting than a Government which is eternally looking for occasions to be tough. This Government does not want occasions to be tough. It is not its desire to address any section of the community in terms of command or threat, but because we abjure and detest that function, let no self-seeking profiteering minority imagine for one moment that by bluff, slander or propaganda they will force this Government into inaction, when, for the purpose of lining their own pockets, they seek to strike at the live-stock industry and the farmers of this country, upon whom all sections of the community depend. We may not like the task of challenging the racketeers, but those who choose the road of racketeering do so at their own peril and when they learn the consequences and feel them, let them blame no one but themselves.
To the farmers I say, do not worry. Perhaps Dublin market was disrupted on Wednesday, it may be disrupted again, but take it from me, it will not be long disrupted. That is all I want to say. I will do my best if my neighbours will do their best. Between us we have the greatest country in the world, not the richest, but a country where you can have a better, happier life than in any other country I know, and I know a great many. We are standing on the threshold of the greatest period of development that the agricultural industry of this country has ever known. We are standing on that threshold, resolved not only that those who own land will share in the blessings of that expansion, but also those who work the land. We are starting out, in my judgment, on a journey where the least among our company may be confident that they will share in the blessings of our goal. I am asking the people who live on the land and get their living from the land, whatever their political beliefs are, to join us in a common purpose in the certain knowledge that there is no desire to insult them, no desire to upbraid them, no desire to disown them, because their predilections and convictions are entitled to the same respect as is accorded to the majority. In that spirit, working together, we have a high destiny. I invite every farmer in this country to share our rendezvous with that destiny. If that invitation be accepted, I look forward with confidence and eager anticipation to the years that lie ahead.
I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. Having listened to discussions in this House over a long period, I think it is usual to hear from the mover of a motion such as stands in my name that the opening speech or statement of the Minister was disappointing. I do not like to make a stereotyped kind of opening on this occasion. I want to try to be natural, to deal with this statement as I see it, to deal with the Minister as I see him, and to deal with this Government so far as I am capable of understanding their policy so far. At the same time, I can legitimately say that I am disappointed and I will tell the House why. After all, this House is at times a drab enough kind of place, a tiresome kind of place.
I confess that I do not often listen to the debates here, but I think I am entitled to describe it as a drab institution. That being so, on coming here this morning to hear a new Minister for Agriculture, a brilliant Minister for Agriculture, a spectacular Minister for Agriculture, a Minister for Agriculture who has words at will, a Minister for Agriculture who for the last four months has been treating us to a lot of spectacular speeches, I thought that we would at least have the drabness of this Assembly relieved by a performance which would be in keeping with some of the Minister's performances to which I shall refer later. How are the people and the farmers to arrive at an assessment of the value, of the understanding, and of the responsibility of the individual who occupies the most important Ministry in this Government, except from two things: (1) his public pronouncements; (2) the decisions that he makes in relation to matters affecting the interests of the section of the community for which he and his Department are catering; the thought which he gives to these matters before he arrives at a decision and, when he has given that thought to these matters and made a decision, whether or not he will stand over it. I say that these are the two tests which should be applied to any man occupying this responsible post, and I am going to apply these two tests to the Minister by quoting statements of his.
You will have a job.
There was, I admit, a spasm here and there of that after-dinner brilliance of the Minister in the speech which he made. But let us have a look at some of the Minister's statements at some of the functions at which he has spoken since he assumed this responsibility. Speaking on March 4th at a dinner given by the Grassland Association, here is what the Minister, amongst other things, had to say when referring to agricultural research:—
"Those who are present to-night represent some of the younger scientific farmers in this country with whose co-operation I hope to establish demonstration farms, run, not by inspectors who go around in gaiters, but by farmers themselves."
Will any man claim that that is a sensible statement? You may do so as a result of political prejudice and a desire to cover up the activities of the man behind whom you sit. Is there, however, any sensible man—farmer or public representative—who will, on reading that statement, declare that it is the statement of a responsible individual? I say that it is not.
What was wrong with it?
Do not embarrass him.
There is no embarrassment here. I will develop my speech in my own way.
The Minister was not interrupted. Deputy Smith is entitled to speak.
Tá an ceart agat.
Leave the matter to me. A charge is made against our farmers —I do not know whether it is made legitimately or not, but it is made—that they are conservative. I would go as far as to say there is a good deal of reason for making it. Reference is frequently made to their conservatism; to their refusal to take advantage of scientific knowledge; to their failure to seek advice, instruction and help from those who have been trained and equipped at personal and in many cases at State expense to help them to find a solution of their difficulties. There are many members of this House who are also members of county councils and of county committees of agriculture. They know that for years it has been a difficult thing to induce our farmers to seek or to take the advice of those who are placed at their disposal to apply some better methods than those which they have been applying in the past. How do you think we are going to get over that prejudice? How do you think we are going to get over that conservatism if we have a Minister for Agriculture who will make those insulting remarks? Of course, you know that it can have nothing but a detrimental effect. In so far as that public pronouncement on the part of the Minister is concerned it marks him out as a man who will talk, as a man who cannot be prevented from talking, and as a man who wants to hit the headlines. He is a brilliant, lucid man who will say whatever spectacular thing comes to his mind, irrespective of the harm it does and who will then spend the next two, three, four, five or six months making a dozen more speeches trying to explain the matter away just as he attempted to in regard to this extract which I have quoted. Following this after dinner speech from which I have given you an extract a motion was discussed in the Seanad in regard to the cattle industry. In the course of that discussion one of the Senators who had read this statement drew the attention of the Minister to it and complained bitterly that it had been made. Do you think the Minister apologised for that statement? No. The Minister never apologises. Even when he knows he is wrong, he is just too great to apologise. He knew he could not stand over the statement— he was feeling more sober then, as he was more sober this morning—so, being the great, powerful, enormous, eloquent James, he could not apologise and he proceeded to sidestep it.
This touching familiarity is rather irregular, is it not?
I am sorry, indeed, but amongst friends I like to introduce this homely sort of touch. I am sure the House is aware that between the Minister and myself there is, not now but always, a wonderful bond of friendship.
This is becoming quite embarrassing.
Fight it out in the park.
Let the Deputy proceed.
The Minister when challenged in regard to this after-dinner statement was not manly enough to withdraw it and therefore he tried to sidestep in the matter. What did he say?
"Oh," he said, "a Chathaoirligh and members of the Seanad, I want to assure you that in making that reference to inspectors the people I had in mind were inspectors who are known to most members of the House, I am sure, but who have not been employed in this country for years."
He proceeded to say in the Seanad that his remark applied to the warblefly inspectors, who have not been employed for years, rather than withdraw his harmful, destructive, absolutely irresponsible and unpardonable statement in relation to men who are well qualified to do their work and who are trying to do it conscientiously. These men are giving great help to the farming community and their co-operation is often sought and should be sought to an even greater extent by the farmers. He had to pass it over on a set of men who have not been employed by county councils for some years past. Surely, to refer to those gentlemen as "gaitered inspectors" was an exaggeration, considering that when they were employed by the county councils their rates of wages were in the neighbourhood of 50/- a week. These were the men who, we were told, were going about in gaiters and who, we were afterwards——
The poor fellows did not go about at all—with gaiters or without them.
Will the Minister conduct himself properly?
The warble fly inspectors did not go about at all, the decent men. I never saw them.
Apart altogether from the question of whether they were a useful set of individuals or not, does the Minister not realise that, even without inspection, it was useful to encourage our farmers to treat their cattle for warble fly infestation? Did he believe that he was encouraging our farmers to treat their animals considering that many of our cattle even at this time have to be treated before export to England for the very same trouble?
Surely to goodness, the Deputy is not asking me to recreate the warble fly inspector?
Irrespective of whether value was obtained from the services given by these gentlemen years ago when they were employed by the local authorities, was it fair for the Minister —having made that slanderous and harmful statement—to seek a retreat in that mean and petty way in referring to men who had not been in the employment of the State or local authorities for many years and who, when they were in that employment, gave good service? They may not at all have been successful in securing the aims and objects for which they were then appointed. Irrespective of whether they should be reappointed or not, at least the Minister for Agriculture should not discourage the farmers in making the voluntary effort to deal with it. I cannot ask for a glass of whiskey here so, perhaps, someone would get me a glass of water.
Dear me, you are running dry very soon.
This is not an after-dinner speech and, therefore, they are not so good about providing the whiskey.
A rather grotesque effort at humour.
On a point of order, the Minister for Agriculture, despite the fact that he tacitly invited interruptions, was not interrupted during his speech by anyone on this side of the House. I think it is unfair that Deputy Smith should be interrupted.
The Chair is the judge as to whether any Deputy is inviting interruptions or not. The less interruptions there are the better the discussion will be. But the Chair is the judge as to whether or not any member is inviting interruption; and the Chair has no knowledge at the present time that any member is inviting interruption.
When making this famous speech at this Grassland Association dinner, in which the Minister made these scathing references to the gaitered inspectors of his own Department—the officials who serve under him —there was sitting at his side another expert. I do not know the man, but I did hope that he was not wearing gaiters. This expert was sitting beside the Minister when this extraordinary pronouncement was made. Did the Minister think that these remarks applied equally to the foreign expert he was recommending to the Irish farmers? Did he not appreciate that the farmers, if they were affected by his original statement in relation to our own inspectors, might say in reference to this foreigner who was being introduced to them with a great flourish of trumpets: "What right have you to recommend this technical expert to us merely because he is a foreigner?" Is it not obvious that the more eloquent a man is the more careful he should be before making statements such as the one I have quoted.
I am not going to quote all the statements made by the Minister in the short time that he has been in office. I merely pick out a few of them. I have dealt with one. I shall now give the House another. On this occasion the Minister had the "knee garters" on and the reins in his hand. He had his placard up, "Speed the plough." If what I have already quoted is not sufficient to convince the public—and many of them have been convinced long ago—that the Minister is irresponsible, this further extract will help those who are recalcitrant along the road. This is from the Irish Times of the 7th May, 1948:—
"They had before them a gigantic undertaking and let those who are prepared to equip themselves with the tools of efficiency come with him and make their land one in which all would be happy and proud to live. He did not want help from those who preferred to plough with a stick tied to a donkey's tail."
You have put this man in charge of the most important industry in the country. You have your political loyalties and your political prejudices. You are entitled to have them and I am not objecting to your having them. But is there any one of you who can soberly contend that the man who made that statement at the National Ploughing Association dinner is a responsible individual? I admit that I am prejudiced. I admit that my judgement on the matter could be said to be prejudiced; but I would be prepared to put that statement before an impartial tribunal of farmers and ask that tribunal if they regarded the statement as a responsible one and if they regarded the man who made it as a responsible man. I have not the slightest doubt as to what their verdict would be. He said more. I am getting old and I have to use my glasses.
Now, if we do not interrupt him, he will say that we are sour; if we do interrupt him, he will rebuke us.
I am rebuking the Minister now so that there will be no misunderstanding.
I should have liked to make a complimentary observation.
The Minister was proposing the toast of Irish agriculture at this function. He said that he had seen young farmers tramping up and down beside two half-broken, winded horses watching their neighbours flying past in motor cars and lorries. Is there any——
On a point of order, is it legitimate to take a speech—the context of which the Deputy holds in his hand—and extract from it detached sections which, divorced from their context, manifestly and to the Deputy's knowledge, lose their meaning? I submit that if the Deputy proposes to quote the report, he should quote it in full. That is only fair.
The Chair has no knowledge as to whether the Deputy quotes in full or not. The Chair has no text of any speech.
This is part of a speech made on the occasion to which I have referred. It deals with a net issue. It was made by the man who is Minister for Agriculture, the man who was born and reared in a congested or a semi-congested county; it was made by the man who happens to represent a county in Ulster, composed, in the main, of small, hilly farms of wet, heavy, difficult land. Here we have a statement to the effect that the farmer or the farmer's son who walks after two tired horses, should have some other means. Mind you, it is not a criticism of the farmer to say that he is walking on a spring day after two tired horses, but that there are some other means that could be applied, some better method that could be adopted. The Minister does not know what this problem means, although he comes from a congested area and represents a county in which the size of the farm is about the same.
Perhaps the Deputy will tell us what he knows about it?
We shall have to find Deputy Collins a job. He seems to be bidding fair for one. I will use my influence to see that he gets it, and that might silence him.
I must be a thorn in your side.
You are some thorn, all right. You behave here like a motherless foal. Look at the size of these holdings—ask yourself the number of holdings we have in this country. We have 300,000 odd farms. There are 60,000 odd farms out of the 300,000 under one acre; there are 27,000 under five acres; under ten acres you have 32,000; under 30 acres you have 89,000; under 50 acres you have 62,000; under 100 acres you have 50,000; under 200 acres you have 21,000 and over 200 acres you have 7,000. I am not speaking against mechanisation.
You sound as if you are.
I am not speaking against the use of modern methods. I agree wholeheartedly that everything that can legitimately and reasonably be done towards that end should be done.
By whom?
The man who will make a statement to the effect that horses will not play a part in our agriculture is completely and absolutely irresponsible. He either does not know what he is talking about, or when he starts to speak, he does not know what he is going to say, or does not care what he says.
I will now come to another extract, and it will be about the last that I will bother giving to you. This was a different kind of function. It was not an after-dinner affair and, of course, the Minister could not be expected to be at his best. He met, on May 20th, representatives of the Farmers' Federation. It is not so much what he said on this occasion that counts as its relation to his actions afterwards. Apparently they were pressing the Minister on a number of matters and he gave them an assurance. He said he hoped to revolutionise agriculture by providing modern housing and implements. How did he set about providing modern housing for the farmers? I propose to establish this man's irresponsibility; I propose to examine what he did to give effect to his assurance to the Farmers' Federation. I propose to show the steps he took and the decisions he made to retard his assurance and not only that, but the misleading information he conveyed to this House.
On June 1st we had the first of the proofs. Deputy Hilliard addressed a question to the Minister here. He asked the Minister if he would state the number of applications received in his Department up to the latest available date under the farm buildings improvements scheme and if he would say when applicants could proceed to carry out work under that scheme. I have no objection to the reply given by the Minister except in one respect. The information contained in his reply, I am sure, was accurate. I do naturally reserve the right to doubt the wisdom of the policy enshrined in that reply, but, mark you, that reply was given on the 1st June by a Minister who is here to give to this deliberative Assembly accurate information on matters about which he is informed. Here is the respecter of Parliamentary democracy and of Parliamentary institutions. Here is a man above all others, who, apart from the responsibility of his office, should be scrupulously careful to give to the House information that is correct. Following the reply to Deputy Hilliard's question on the 1st June, Deputy P.D. Lehane, for some reason or another, addressed a more or less similar question to the Minister on the 15th June. Let us have a look at it.
From what is the Deputy quoting?
I am quoting from the Official Report.
Give the reference.
Column 931.
The Deputy must give the wording of the quotation.
Deputy P.D. Lehane asked——
On a point of order, if the Deputy purports to quote from the Official Reports of this House I am entitled to ask that he give the reference for the quotation he has just made. He purports to quote a report of the question addressed to me and my reply. I ask him for the reference.
The Minister is entitled to the reference.
And he is getting it.
Deputy Aiken need not address me in that manner. I know whether he is getting it or not.
The question addressed by Deputy Hilliard was put to the Minister on June 1, and the one to which I am now referring was put by Deputy P.D. Lehane on June 15. The quotation is as follows:—
"Mr. P.D. Lehane asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state whether he has seen a newspaper report stating that he had decided to abandon the farm buildings improvements scheme for the present year and that the reasons for this decision were (a) economy, and (b) because the scheme had been introduced by the previous Administration; and, if so, whether he will state if the report referred to is correct.
Mr. Dillon: I have seen the report referred to by the Deputy; it is, as he might expect, quite untrue.
Mr. Lemass: Will any work be done under the farm improvements scheme this year?
Mr. Dillon: Inasmuch as the Deputy is responsible for the publication of the report referred to, doubtless my reply that it is quite untrue answers the supplementary which he has addressed to me.
Mr. Lemass: Did the Minister not inform the Dáil last week that no work would be done under the scheme this year.
Mr. Dillon: I informed the Dáil of nothing of the kind and the Deputy knows that perfectly well.
Mr. Lemass: Did the Minister not state in the Dáil here on the 1st June that it is unlikely that construction work under the scheme can be started in this year?"
"Construction work."
"Construction work" is right. I continue the quotation:—
"Mr. Dillon: Under what scheme?
Mr. Lemass: The farm buildings improvements scheme.
Mr. Dillon: Now sit down and read that over again.
Mr. Lemass: I want to ask will any work be done this year under the farm buildings improvements scheme."
That is a different matter from construction work.
Good. The quotation goes on:—
"Mr. Dillon: The answer is that under the farm buildings improvements scheme it is unlikely that construction work will be done this year because my predecessor left me with a bequest of 22,000 unopened applications under that scheme."
That is what I want to emphasise:
"My predecessor left me with a bequest of 22,000 unopened applications under that scheme."
That is untrue. That statement was made by a Minister of State and it was deliberately false.
The Deputy may not say that a statement made by any Deputy in this House is deliberately false. Debate in this House is based upon the assumption that every Deputy states what he believes to be true, as he sees it, and a deliberate falsehood is a lie. No Deputy may charge another Deputy with stating a lie.
On a point of order, on this particular occasion surely the prime offender was the Minister, who accused the former Minister of a grave neglect of duty?
There may be no insinuation against a Deputy telling a deliberate falsehood. A deliberate falsehood implies that a Deputy makes a statement which he knows to be untrue. That characterisation describes the Deputy as a liar and that cannot be permitted.
I was in very bad mood last evening, and I do not feel like repeating the performance now. I have another job of work on hand. Since the rules of order require that I should withdraw, I must naturally withdraw the word "deliberate", but I say the statement is false. I sat here at this desk, and I knew that the statement was false at the time, but, on the other hand, I knew the Minister's form so well that I sat here and put up with it, knowing full well that my opportunity would come, because, mind you, I am long enough in public life to be a bit of a tactician.
You were not much of a tactician last night.
Maybe there were certain tactics in last night's performance also. I waited and put up with the publicity, because publicity is a very important weapon these days. It will almost do anything. I lay low until the Minister's Estimate was about to come on and I addressed a Parliamentary question to him dated 6th July. Remember on June 1st, in reply to Deputy Hilliard, he stated that there were 25,000 odd application forms received and that everything was in order. Then between June 1st and June 15th he found 22,000 unopened letters. He could not use a meaner way to convey the falsehood. He could not select meaner language. He could not follow a more unscrupulous course. No Deputy or no Minister could possibly stoop to the unscrupulous methods followed by this particular individual. He used the term "unopened letters". Even if that foul charge were true, was it a reflection on me only? Not only was it an injustice to me, but it was a reflection, just as in the case of the gaitered inspectors, upon those from whom the Minister now expects loyal service and co-operation. That man over there, with all his eloquence, invites the House and the farmers of the country to take him as a reasonable individual. Of course, you are not. You are, as you would say yourself, "bats".
The Deputy ought to address the Chair.
In making use of that expression, and perhaps other expressions in the course of this speech, I am making use of terms and words which have been popularised and with which the House has become familiar, not as a result of their use by me, but by the Minister when he was a member of the Opposition—phrases such as "it is all cod" and "you are bats"—and therefore, much as I dislike these terms, from constant usage here, when one rises to one's feet to speak and perhaps may be at a loss to find the word which one wants, one naturally uses the word, objectionable as it may be, which first comes to one's mind.
The Deputy is not an apt pupil.
Let us go over this again. On 1st June, 25,225 applications had been received in the Department under the farm buildings improvements scheme. On 15th June, two weeks later, the Minister had discovered 22,000 unopened letters which were the bequest of his predecessor. On July 6th, I addressed a Parliamentary question to him in these terms:—
"To ask the Minister for Agriculture if he will state (a) the number of applications received under the farm buildings scheme prior to 18th February..."
The Minister's reply to that set question was that the number of letters received from farmers applying for application forms was 25,670 and these were issued, and that 8,481 were returned before 18th February. These application forms could not be issued to the farmers unless their letters addressed to the Department had been opened. It is not that it hurts me—it does not hurt me in the least—that the Minister should use his position in this House to convey information to the public which, if true, could be hurtful to me. It still does not affect me, because I am not known to the public as a lazy sort of individual who would make himself responsible for or stand over it, if such a charge were correct, and therefore I do not mind that allegation. But does the Minister not think that, from the point of view of fair play to a political opponent, to his predecessor, whether he likes him or not, and from the point of view of fair play for his own staff who cannot repudiate the irresponsible statements which they know he makes, he should come in here a little chastened and prepared to regard the House as a place in which he should give all the legitimate information sought in a truthful manner, and should not, for the purpose of trying to beat a political opponent who was too able for him on the occasion and too able for him on many occasions, make use of information which is false and misleading? I say that in the light of these three demonstrations which the Minister has given, I invite that very small section of our people who are still in doubt to accept the complete and utter irresponsibility of the individual who now occupies the position of Minister for Agriculture.
He stopped the black market bacon, anyway.
We will come to that, too. Do not rush me—I will be there in time. If, after adducing the evidence I have adduced, there are people in the House, or outside it, who are still unprepared to believe the charge I have levelled, if there are people who think it is not a fair means of assessing a man's worth or reliability to look to the public statements he makes—and, mind you, they are very important and are read very carefully down the country; when they see a Minister with a cigarette in his mouth at an angle of 45 degrees and a hen stuck on the brim of his hat, they began to wonder and to ask: "What kind of a playboy is this we have now?" There are people down the country who will read these statements and who will try, if they have not seen the man, to decide what he is like and to picture in their minds what sort of individual he is, and therefore these statements play an important part in enabling our people to arrive at an assessment of what it is they have to deal with—I ask them to examine this man from the point of view of some of the decisions he has made——
Perhaps the Deputy——
I am not a man who can be disturbed, so why attempt it?
You were disturbed last night, and shifted.
Deputy Collins tried it and I silenced him, and I will silence some more of you if you are not careful.
I am dumbfounded by your stupidity.
I have said that I want to take the House over some of this man's decisions. I have them all here in a row. When our new Minister for Agriculture arrived in the Department, he found himself surrounded by glass. He saw himself in the glass and lost his——
Perspective.
Yes, and he said: "I will go over to Dáil Éireann. My predecessor initiated two glasshouse schemes, one in Connemara——"
No, you did not initiate any such thing.
"And the other in Donegal."
Deputy Aiken initiated them, against your will.
I am not like the Minister. I do not ever try to take credit for the work of another man. You may be sure that I will give, even to an opponent, recognition for what he has done. I am, therefore, not likely to adopt any other standard when dealing with a colleague. These two schemes were just taking shape and it fell to the Minister's lot to come into the House here, to do as all Ministers have to do, to look for money, and he announced on that occasion that it was not his intention to proceed further with those two schemes.
What was the Deputy's recommendation when he was Minister?
I will deal with that. I will still have to get the Deputy this job. I have the Minister for Justice here and if I make the right kind of appeal——
Let us get on with the Estimate. Deputy Collins should allow Deputy Smith to make his statement without interruption.
He will have to allow him, anyway.
The Minister announced his intention in regard to these two schemes. One of the most important qualifications for a man occupying the post of Minister for Agriculture is that he should have a bit of balance.
God save the mark.
He should have a bit of balance. He should examine every matter that comes before him carefully and not make up his mind until he has so examined it. I repeat—he should not make up his mind until he has so examined it and he should then make his decision and stand by it. Think of the display—think of the pitifulness of the display he gave on that occasion. I know what loyalty is and I could be as loyal as most other people to those with whom I would be working, but when I throw my mind back to the display of loyalty that was showered upon the Minister by all Parties supporting the Government when he made that statement, when I think of the challenges as to the amount of employment that would be created by those schemes and the ridicule that was poured on the scheme by those Deputies who tried to support the Minister over the slippery slope, trying to help him and to show that they were with him, that, I admit, is carrying loyalty very far indeed. These displays were given from every part of this House except the Fianna Fáil benches. While that matter was being discussed, I made a speech. I did honestly try to make a reasoned speech. The Minister is quite right in saying that the scheme was initiated by my colleague, then Minister for Finance. I admit that quite openly and I give him all the credit for the fact that it was he initiated it.
Do you agree with it?
I am dealing with it in my own way.
I asked the Deputy a question.
I do.
That is all I want to know.
Did you, then?
I did.
Did you put it in writing?
I agreed with it as a desirable and useful experiment.
Did you know anything about the Gaeltacht?
Let the Deputy proceed.
I sat here while the Minister was making a statement. There was not one interruption from this side of the House. There is a constant stream of interruptions from the other side now.
I implemented that scheme that was designed by the then Minister for Finance. Was not it a great thing to have such a Minister for Finance, and not an individual who was going about with his hand squeezed on every penny of money when it came to a matter of trying to create some development in areas where development was required? Is it anything against a colleague that he was sufficiently generous to adopt that attitude in relation to an area where the employment problem was bewildering? It was a pleasure to work with such colleagues. But they all got up in their places and supported the Minister in his decision. Shortly afterwards we were discussing the Budget. The Minister for Finance is a very good debater, as members of the House well know and, between the date of the discussion here on the abandonment of these glasshouse schemes and the debate on the Budget, there was a good deal of local feeling engendered in these areas. Some influential people got on the job. The local clergy got on it. Quite a number of other influential people were to hand. They held protest meetings. There happens to be behind the Minister—not at the moment —but in one of the Parties that support him, a very influential Deputy in so far as the Minister for Agriculture is concerned. It is not for me to tell the House what my suspicions are as to why he is so, but, anyhow, he threw his weight into the campaign to get the Minister for Agriculture to reverse his decision and the papers carried the news that the Minister had decided to receive a deputation. In due course they arrived at Government Buildings. They arrived when the Minister for Finance was standing in that seat—or about the time when the matter was being discussed between the deputation and the Minister for Agriculture—and when he was justifying, as he undoubtedly can, as far as the use of language is concerned and as far as debating ability is concerned, as perhaps no other man could, the action of his colleague in abandoning the scheme. He was proving its justification to the House, proving it to his colleagues, proving it to Deputy Cowan, who on that occasion made a speech here trying to elicit the amount of employment that would be given by such a scheme and trying to pour ridicule on it, as did other Deputies. Here was the Minister for Finance, on the occasion of the reception by the Minister for Agriculture of this deputation, going great guns defending his colleague—and there was the Minister for Agriculture, reversing his decision, while the other Minister was on his feet defending his former attitude. Is there any Deputy who will tell me that the individual who can be swayed so is to be taken by the farming community as a responsible individual?
That was not enough; that was not it all. Even after he had reversed his decision and gone on with the erection of those glasshouses, it appears as if some three or four of the 100 who had contracted to erect these glasshouses in Galway, or have them erected on their land, had withdrawn. A Parliamentary question was addressed to the Minister by Deputy Bartley, asking if he had selected new applicants to take their places. Instead of giving the information to the Deputy, as a responsible man would, he proceeded to use the occasion to further damn the scheme, although he was spending public money on it. He proceeded to use his position as Minister to do that. Could he not be silent about it? Could he not give it at least a chance? Surely he had reversed his previous decision and public money was going into it? No, he could not, because it was the Dillon that was in him, it was the "all cod" that was in him, it was the "bats" that was in him.
I never said or thought, I did not know, whether or not that scheme would be a success, but I do say that, having regard to the difficulties of the people who live in those areas, having regard to the difficulty of providing some means by which they would get a living there, and although I claim no responsibility for having got the thought that such a scheme should be initiated, it was a worth-while effort and a worth-while endeavour. I can see the point of view of the man who would say, having seen the effect of his decision: "This will not go on". He changed his mind as a result of public pressure led by a Deputy of one of the Parties supporting the Government. He did so after he committed the unfortunate Deputies to support the decision here and down the country, a decision that he afterwards reversed, leaving them in the position that they never knew what he was going to do or how he was going to do it or what he was going to say. They could not know the position or the official attitude following such display. When I was Minister the Deputies sitting behind me were aware they had a man who knew his own mind and would not do as the Minister did on the occasion of the further question directed by Deputy Bartley. He made that decision without knowing that contracts had been entered into. Although the evidence was that you are a businessman, posing here as a successful one, you make a decision in a matter of this kind with undue haste and without proper examination of the evidence. You posing as a businessman.
The Minister.
Forgive me, Sir.
The Deputy has experience enough to know.
But I have a style of my own, that some people do not like, and I hate to get off it.
There is not the slightest reason why the second person should be used instead of the third.
As you know, I do not use it in the sense of being disorderly. Just remind me and I will correct myself in future. I have you in the place I want you.
The Minister?
I have the Minister in the place I want him. There is no sticking out of the chin now, no time to knock fear into our hearts, no gabbling to the colleague to the right or the left of him, "No supplementary coming to-day," no childish display now when the guns are on.
The guns are off.
Order!
This House has not been reduced to the stage when Deputy O'Leary can be taken seriously. In order to make sure that it goes home, think of this successful businessman, educated God knows where, trained in business the world over, establishing himself in the West of Ireland, becoming a Deputy, and finally a Minister of the State, and here he comes——
On a point of order, is it usual to bring in the personal avocation of a Deputy or Minister into a debate in this House?
The Deputy need not have risen. That was a point I was going to put to the Deputy on his feet. Where a man was educated has nothing to do with the debate.
I only wanted to say it in the sense that, having regard to all that background, the Minister comes into this House and admits that he has made a vital decision without having examined the information and the evidence. Deputy Sweetman surely knows at least something about the law of evidence and, as I am reminded, the Minister himself was trained as a lawyer. Having the evidence to show what the commitment was, he made the decision without even looking at it! He then retreated and tried to blackguard the scheme when he could do nothing else.
He had no evidence that tomatoes would grow there.
When you grew in here, anything could happen.
You observe our forbearance.
We were treated here to —the time is flying—
Now, indeed it is not, it is moving very slowly.
We were treated here to a discourse on the advantages of the farm improvements scheme. That was a very nice retreat the Minister made, was it not? The Minister retreated because public pressure, again in this instance, made him retreat.
The Minister talked about the advantages that farmers have derived from the farm improvements scheme introduced by my predecessor. What was his reason for allowing all the inspectors to roam about the country during the last five months with nothing to do? I charge the Minister with leaving those men on the pay roll of the State with nothing to do simply because he could not go to the Minister for Finance and say that the scheme was being advertised at a time which would give the farmers an opportunity of getting the approval certificates to enable them to go on with the work. The Minister is now forced to advertise, and at last has taken those men off the streets and away from the street corners. But when will the completed application forms reach the inspectors and the certificates reach the farmers? The Minister has designed a very neat way of doing this, such a way that the scheme will cost about one quarter of what it would have cost if he had advertised it as he should have. There was no reason for his failure to advertise it.
In the case of the farm building scheme, the House and the country were led to believe that I had handed to the Minister a bequest of 22,000 unopened letters. I have proved that to be false. The farm buildings improvement scheme was designed by me, and the excuse given by the Minister is that he had not the staff and that there was no cement. He said it was not desirable to proceed with the scheme now because even those responsible for the maintenance of the House of God could not get the necessary materials to carry out repairs. I want to say in a most deliberate fashion that this scheme was designed and advertised by me, and that if I were Minister for Agriculture to-day thousands of farmers would have had in their hands for several months past the approval certificates entitling them to go on with work under that scheme. The Minister said that he could not get cement. Did he never hear of people in the West of Ireland building a wall with stone, sand and lime, or of farmers in different parts of the country using second-hand corrugated iron for the reconstruction of buildings? Does he think the farmers are such that they cannot see through his efforts to fool them into believing that his excuse is a legitimate one?
I have sitting on my right here a colleague who was responsible for holding a public purse. I must say that I never had any reason to complain of him. As in the case of every Minister for Finance, he had to be careful, and, at times, I suppose, found it hard to provide money for improvements of all kinds, but I can assure the House and the country that no Minister for Finance could stop me on that scheme. The argument advanced in connection with it is false. The only reason for not going on with it was to save money. There are thousands of farmers who have the materials on the spot ready to go on with the work if only the money were made available. The same applies to the farm improvement scheme. The Minister has now been forced by public opinion to advertise it. Of course, neither of these two schemes is his. They were designed by his predecessors. But, while the Minister was unable or unwilling to advertise either of them, he produced a wee scheme of his own in the space of time that it would take one to say "Jack Robinson". That was sent down to Mayo and Galway to solve unemployment. We are told that the scheme is in operation in 25 places, and that it is a substitute for the work which the people had lost on the turf production scheme. I say that the schemes which the farmers in Mayo and Galway wanted were not advertised. We had the qualified inspectors there ready to do the work of inspection and supervision. They have been roaming about the country. It was genuinely thought, and the opinion was circulated amongst them that the Minister intended to dismiss the single men. Public opinion, however, is a wonderful cure for a gentleman such as the Minister for Agriculture. It keeps him in his place and, if he does not keep in his place, it pushes him into it.
I will further demonstrate before I sit down that the Minister was hasty and irresponsible in his decisions and actions. This, I think, will quickly sink into the minds of the Deputies who sit behind him. There is a well-known practice in assemblies of this kind that where a Minister is going to change his mind on some vital matter, on such, say, as the farm improvement scheme, colleagues of his on the back benches will come to him and say: "Why are you not advertising this scheme; the farmers are in a shocking state about it; we are being pressed about it; it will ruin us; we cannot defend or stand over the Minister's actions", or they may go to other colleagues of the Minister and press them to get the Minister for Agriculture to do this thing. I know how you do it.
We know you know it.
Deputy McQuillan is terribly young. I can say as far as the farm improvements scheme is concerned that, finally, when the Minister for Agriculture decided that he was going to abandon the course that he had set out on, he called in Deputy Sweetman and said: "You put down a Parliamentary question on this matter and I will make a long statement in which I will allege all kinds of things; I will attribute all kinds of motives against the efforts that are being made on the part of my political opponents." In that kind of way the Minister gets the whole thing into a web, and, finally, as a result of public opinion—it is wonderful what public opinion can do—the Minister has to retreat, so that whatever little prestige the Minister had is further reduced by the fact that he has had to make it.
If you take rope enough you will hang yourself.
I attended a few dinners in my time. I can take a glass as well as anybody in the House, but I can say that I always kept the top storey on its hinges and that I did not allow the after-dinner atmosphere to induce me to make declarations such as those which have been made by the present occupant of the post of Minister for Agriculture.
I am coming now to almost the last point I will use in my successful effort to demonstrate the irresponsibility of the present occupant of the post of Minister for Agriculture. It is on cattle breeding. When the Minister came into his office, he made, not only here but in a number of places all over the country, the statement that it was bad for a Minister, that it was bad for agriculture in general, to have a sudden reversal of policy. I will use the words that were spoken by the Minister himself to put across the idea. He said that a Minister, and he in particular, was not going to behave like a bull in a china-shop.
During my time, and not only in my time but in 25 or 30 years—not 30 years because the Livestock Breeding Act was not in existence for 30 years—I have watched the progress made following the introduction of the Live-stock Breeding Act and its operation by the Department of Agriculture over which I presided for about 13 months. I, therefore, came into the Department of Agriculture, not with fixed ideas in this matter, but having gathered a good deal of information from personal observation as to the outcome and result of this Livestock Breeding Act. I came into that Department with the avowed intention of putting to the test, to the fullest test, those ideas, and, in some cases, those conclusions at which I had arrived following that 25 years' experience as an ordinary man with a knowledge of rural matters and with some knowledge—no technical knowledge—of agricultural matters. I put those ideas of mine to the test. I went to a meeting in Cork of the Dairy Shorthorn Breeders' Association and put my ideas to them. There was a possibility that some of my notions might be wrong and I wanted to test them. I took advantage of every occasion I could to give to those who had had the same experience as myself an opportunity to give their views on the matter. As a result of my desire, I called together a consultative council composed of representatives of the county committees of agriculture in Munster and representatives also of a number of organisations which were interested in the production of store and beef cattle. I sat with that consultative council for a whole day and heard their views. While there was not unanimity of opinion at it—naturally, I obtained from those who represented the dairy farmers of this country a unanimous expression of opinion that the lines I was about to pursue with regard to the cattle-breeding industry had their fullest approval.
The Minister, of course, invites us to-day and on other occasions not to place the dairy farmer on a pedestal as the outstanding section of the agricultural community that warrants most our attention and help. I say they are the outstanding section of the community. I say it, because it is the most laborious kind of work, the most difficult kind of work, because it is the worst paying sort of work and because it is the work in which it is most difficult now to get our people to engage. I say, therefore, that the farmer who is engaged in the production of milk, whether to supply the creameries or the towns, is No. 1. That is where I would put him. We have now a Minister who talked about giving to individuals freedom, freedom to do this, freedom to do that, freedom to do all kinds of things, but yet he has the Livestock Breeding Act and shoves it down the necks of the farmers of Munster, in Kerry, Cork and Limerick, who know in their hearts, as a result of the operation for 25 years of that Act, that 10 per cent. of our cows are not decent milking cows as they were prior to its introduction. The Minister describes himself as a Shorthorn fan; he is a Shorthorn fool.
The Deputy will withdraw that.
I withdraw. I will go around the whole circle if you ask me.
That is personal abuse.
That word was used before.
Not to-day, I hope.
Try to associate or relate the claims which are being made by the present occupant of this office with the facts, as I am trying to relate them. One of his claims is that he does not want to go inside the farmer's fence. "The farmer is free to have Jerseys, Shorthorns, Polled Angus, Friesians and Herefords," but still he has the Act. I am not complaining that at the time the Act was framed, introduced and passed into law, it was not the hopes of those who so framed it to improve the strain of our cattle and their milking capacity, but surely after 25 years we are entitled to look back and to see whether it has succeeded in its intentions. Have any of these been realised? I have heard men invite me, for example, and I think we were all invited recently by the present Minister for Agriculture when he said: "I will take six Shorthorn cows out of Glasnevin farm and challenge any six of any other breed to compare or compete with these six Shorthorns." How are these six Shorthorns selected? I will tell you how they are selected. In the main the stock there at present is picked up in the Dublin market by men who are a good judge of a cow, by men who went into the market and walked through the place and knew, not by any test of this kind or of that kind, but just knew that that was a solid good cow.
That is a proof of the Livestock Act.
You could do the same with Blacks or Herefords or all the rest. I say when they want a cow the Glasnevin farm is a State organisation with unlimited resources, unlimited money and can buy them at the highest price.
From common cows in the Dublin market.
We are invited to compare that picked picked stock with the average, say, for the Friesians or the Jerseys. The test which we should apply to these Shorthorn animals is the test which our practical farmers are applying to them and to the results which are being secured from the operation of the Livestock Breeding Act—go into a fair and buy 20 or 25 Shorthorn heifers and mate them to see what percentage of them will make good cows that will give a reasonable quantity of milk which will justify their retention. It is becoming more difficult day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year in any fair in any part of Ireland to buy dry heifers that will give a decent percentage of good milk-producing cows. That is the practical test.
That is over-simplifying farming.
We must apply ourselves to the fact that we are dealing with men who have their own methods of approach and their own standards of judgment. It is entirely unfair and unjust to compel dairy farmers and milk producers to breed such a type of cattle and to keep them and to have such a type of cattle subsidised. If it were not for the subsidies paid by the county committees of agriculture of £30 or £25, or whatever the amount is, for double dairy, single dairy and beef Shorthorns, it would be impossible to get any farmer to go to the sales at Ballsbridge, because the farmers know that it is in Ballsbridge this thing will continue to develop of reducing the milking capacity of the cows still more. If it were not for the financial inducement offered to farmers by these county committees these animals would not be retained. Do you think that the small farmer who does not keep a bull will look around for a "Department" bull? That is the very animal he will try to avoid.
I am saying this as a man who has exercised for 25 years as much patience as anyone else with this experiment. I am not attributing improper motives to those who designed it. They did it with the intention of improving matters, but after 25 years it has not improved matters. It is not fair for the Minister, who says that he is going to give the farmer freedom to do what he likes, to ask the taxpayers to subsidise what is admitted by everybody to be the greatest codology—the double dairy cow, the single dairy cow and the beef Shorthorn bull, crossing one with the other and expecting to retain milk here and beef there. That does not make sense. It has not been accepted and it is most unjust and unfair. I do not resent the fact that another Minister found fault with my decision and reversed it. I am not complaining on that head at all. I do not care two straws whether my successor agrees with me on certain matters or not. There is much more at stake than that.
The present Minister pretends to have a great respect for the wishes and opinions of the people. I established a consultative council of men actually engaged in this business. It took me almost 12 months, with their assistance, to make up my mind on the matter. When the present Minister came into office did he call that consultative council together? Since this Government came in we have heard a lot about the establishment of consultative councils for tuberculosis and for this and for that. When there was a consultative council at the Minister's disposal he never consulted them. This gentleman who has asked us to believe that he was not behaving like a bull in a china shop came into that Department as a Shorthorn fan and, with a stroke of his pen, wiped out the decisions of his predecessor.
I do not contend that the effort I intended to make was going to be a success. I am not putting it forward in that way. The word "racket" has been used freely in this House. To me, at least, it is a very objectionable word. But, if ever there was a real racket, it is the racket conducted under the Livestock Breeding Act. It is a racket that is leaving the farmers of Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Tipperary with cows that will never be heard to give a bawl in June, July or August because of wanting to be milked. They used to bawl in the old days in order to get relief because they had something to give. Now they have nothing to give and, therefore, there are no bawls for help.
But there are calves worth £10 that used to be worth 10/-.
I shall deal with that also. That is the mentality of the man who tries to sail along nicely and say to the dairy farmers: "You are important, but be careful that you do not get a bit too big for your shoes." We can see now the line along which the Minister's mind is running. In this matter of cattle breeding, I was not altogether convinced that my scheme was going to be a success. It might, perhaps, be the case that in 20 or 25 years we would have to do something to which I and the present Minister object strenuously although it has been recommended by certain parties in this House, and that is to introduce zoning. I never did regard that as possible, although such a policy has been recommended by some of the more irresponsible sections of this House. It may be that my course, after ten or 15 years, might not have proved to be the gift to the milk producing farmers that I thought they were entitled to receive because of the hardship of their life, because of the importance of their industry and because of the fact that almost our whole agricultural economy is based upon milk.
I was determined that play-acting such as crossing a registered cow with a beef Shorthorn and producing a single dairy cow and crossing backwards and forwards of that kind would, while I was Minister, stop. I am not speaking from a political point of view when I say I am convinced that, after 25 years' experience of the other system, whether the lines I was pursuing were right or wrong, we were entitled to a trial. We were as entitled to take our fingers out of that pie as the Minister claims he is entitled to do in other respects. If we want store cattle—and we do want store cattle—let us breed the Shorthorn intelligently for milk and cut out all this nonsense about conformation, Shorthorn, beef, double dairy and single dairy, which is confusing our farmers who could never understand it and with which they were never in sympathy. I made exhaustive inquiries before I decided that our foundation stock should be the Shorthorn, but that the Shorthorn should be developed for milk in a reasonable way and if we wanted store cattle to use the Hereford and the Polled Angus as a cross. I do not make half as many after-dinner speeches as my successor the Minister. Yet I received letters of approval from cattle feeders in England, not all of whom were interested in milk as I admit I was substantially on that occasion. These men were interested in store trade and they told me that I was going along on the right lines.
That must have been very gratifying.
Of course it is very gratifying to have the opinion you do not seek of men who have experience because they have to live by the business. It is all very well for this professional man's Government—which is composed of lawyers, doctors and two who are remotely associated with rural Ireland—to say that it was of no importance to get a letter of approval from a man in the business who bought 200 to 300 store cattle here every year as did his father before him.
I was trying to prevent them running our own live-stock industry, and I have succeeded.
I cannot see my way to let the Minister and his colleagues go on their holidays as soon as they would like to go.
What about taking a holiday yourself?
I know you are young men and that you are not crippled and tottering like myself. Well, I am going to brave it out as best I can. When men are young and boyish that is the time we must be nice to them and give them their holidays, and a trimming now and then. There is a saying in the country that we must horsewhip them now and then when they require it, and there is a good deal of it required in the case I am dealing with now.
Tell us about the calves.
I have about four or five hours more to go.
Good luck to you.
I have not heard anything more amusing for a long time.
That is an interesting remark about four or five hours more to go. I hope the Chair will note it. It is what is called "obstruction".
The Minister, of course, never obstructed.
You will have to hear it at any rate so you might as well stay quiet.
The minority will be given their full rights.
I will leave the subject of bad breeding and good breeding of which, by the way, there is a good deal here, and turn to the subject of milk prices. Cattle breeding is bound up with milk and milk with cattle. Milk prices, are, therefore, very important to those who produce it and who live by it. When I was Minister a colleague of mine from County Cavan, who is in the House to-day, was secretary of the Cavan Farmers' Association. When I came into office—with all the sympathy and understanding that I undoubtedly have for that and other sections of the farming community—I set about trying to see what I could do for them. I felt they were not being treated as they ought to be treated in the matter of prices.
As I have tried to explain to the House, I do not make up my mind hastily on matters of that kind. On this occasion I did not make up my mind hastily. I went to the South of Ireland and visited the creameries there and I quietly took my soundings. The price was then 10½d. a gallon for one period of the year and 1/- a gallon for the other period of the year. Having convinced myself of the legitimacy of the claims of the farmers, I came to Dublin and I went over to the Executive Council meeting with my demands. Who would refuse the demands made by me when I would have made up my mind that they were legitimate? They were not refused. However, after I had got them, the farmers of Cavan and the other counties were not satisfied. They said I did not get them half enough. Maybe they were right. They visited me some time prior to the election and they argued their case with me for hours. They wanted 1/6 per gallon instead of 1/2 and 1/4, and they said that the town milk suppliers should get something else. The time had come when I had to resist and, mind you, resist I could. I am equally competent in resisting and making a plea.
My God, you are a wonderful man.
I am a wonderful man. There is no doubt about it, and there is not a member of this Party of mine who does not believe it. That is the important thing about it. The Deputy whom I mentioned who represented and who, I suppose, still does represent the farmers or some of them at any rate, expressed dissatisfaction on behalf of the association with the price I had fixed.
