I am in possession. I am not sure how many minutes are left for the discussion of this motion.
Private Deputies' Business. - Agricultural Costings—Motion (resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that, in order to ascertain costs of production in agriculture with a view to ensuring that the efficient farmer will get his cost of production and a reasonable profit, one or more medium-sized farms should be acquired by the Department of Agriculture in each county, and under the direction of the county agricultural officer should be run entirely by hired labour employed at the minimum rate of wages fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board.—(Patrick Cogan, Patrick O'Reilly.)
Twenty.
How many will Deputy Cogan require to conclude?
Fifteen.
In that event, I must deal as quickly as I can with some observations which Deputy Cogan made when opening the discussion. He envisaged the establishment of a demonstration farm which would be operated in the spirit of the Department's schemes by saying "Here is the Department of Agriculture setting out to teach us how to farm." That is a function that I completely disclaim. I do not believe that the Department of Agriculture is competent to go into any man's land to teach him how to run his own farm. I have emphasised that in public repeatedly. Our job, it seems to me, in that sphere is to experiment on the grounds that it is not reasonable to ask a farmer in the ordinary course of his business to lay out considerable sums on experimentation. It would not be reasonable to ask farmers to try out experiments which, of their nature, must be expected not to yield them perhaps a 30 per cent. success, but when we have established, by experimentation, that certain processes, operated in suitable conditions, are successful, then it becomes our duty to report on them. Certain farmers may find that under the conditions in which they operate these processes suit their husbandry while others may not. It is not my job, or the job of the Department of Agriculture, to go in on the farm of any farmer and tell him, whatever his knowledge of his own holding may be, that we know how to run it better than he does.
Furthermore, it is not the costings that are carried out on a sort of idealised farm that matter, but rather the costings that are carried out on the sort of farms that we have. I may take the view, among others, that we ought to mechanise the whole operation and that we ought sacrifice everything to efficiency where we are running a farm, but an equally intelligent citizen of this State may not share my view and may legitimately take the view that farming is not exclusively a money-making business. It is a way of life. He may perfectly legitimately say to me "I know that if I run this farm like a machine shop, I may be able to screw 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. more out of it, but I do not want that. I want to lead a reasonably happy, contented life and earn an honest living. I am not like an industrial worker, who goes to his factory and when the bell rings goes home. My home is my factory. I want to have my home run in the way that suits me and in the way my wife wants it, not the way the chief inspector of the Department of Agriculture wants it. I am not one bit grateful to the chief inspector if he wants to walk into my kitchen and tell me how I ought to run my house. I am grateful, of course, to him if he shows me that this is a procedure which has succeeded elsewhere and he thinks it worth my while to try it out. While I am grateful to him for telling me all that, if he goes beyond that I would regard it as an intrusion.
If Deputy Cogan will remember, it was stipulated that when the manager for this farm was to be picked he was to be the most efficient man that could be found. I do not agree altogether with Deputy Cogan. I do not think we should be inclined to base our conclusions as to what is an economic price for the product of an Irish farm by determining what it costs to produce that product on the most highly mechanised, most perfectly equipped, most radically efficient farming unit that it is conceivably possible for unlimited capital to initiate.
I will repeat that there is no difficulty about providing credit. There is abundant credit available for agriculture and I will put it again perfectly seriously to Deputy Cogan, Deputy O'Reilly and other Deputies: will they sit down with me in my room and work out any effective system for segregating the man to whom credit will do good and who intends to pay his debts, from the man who, if he burdens himself with a mass of debt, will wreck his whole economy? If there is any machinery conceivable to the mind of any Deputy that will effectively do that, I know what I am saying when I tell the House that there is abundant credit for any farmer or number of farmers who can be so served.
Deputy Cogan spoke of demonstration farms. I want demonstration farms, but I do not want them run on methods which are neither accessible nor desirable for any farmer in this country. The way I want a demonstration farm worked is to go to a farmer like Deputy O'Reilly or Deputy Halliden or any farmer Deputy on the Fianna Fáil benches who wants to run land well and who says: "If the Department will come down and lay out a programme for my holding and say to me that, with their knowledge, this is the programme that will give the maximum yield from my holding, taking into consideration the type of man I am, I will try it out." We would be permitted then to go and make a suggestion and say to him: "If you will adhere rigorously to this programme, working it the way you work your farm, yours will be a model farm."
Are there some farmers who will give us that measure of co-operation? We shall be delighted, if there is such a farmer, to collaborate with him, to review his circumstances and, if there is something he is short of, to put him on to the Department's scheme to remedy the shortage from which he suffers and help him in any way we can. We believe if any farmer seeks our counsel and if he has an economic holding in any part of the county, we have the knowledge and capacity to be able to tell him there is a programme of a four or three-year rotation, with live stock injected into it, and if he follows that we will be glad to help him in any way we can and we guarantee that if he follows it he will have a decent, comfortable livelihood out of his land and he will have a farm he need never be ashamed to invite his neighbours to come and see. In so far as we may be advised by competent advisers, we are going to try out costings, but it may be by stages.
I am sorely disappointed that the Deputies who spoke in this debate did not more enthusiastically support this request made by Deputy O'Reilly and myself. This motion asking for demonstration farms is a replica of a motion that was before the House in February, 1945. It was in my name and it was seconded by Deputy Blowick, now Minister for Lands. It was then sought to have a farm of this type established in each county. The motion was supported by every Party in the House that is now supporting the Government and Deputy O'Reilly and myself felt that this present motion would be enthusiastically supported by all these Parties now. I cannot see what happened in the past four years to change the views of some Deputies who supported the motion at that time. Deputy Giles, for example, spoke strongly against this proposal, but if we look at the Official Reports we will find amongst the Deputies who supported the motion four years ago, Deputy Giles. Why should Deputies who change from one side of the House to the other change their views and their entire policies while doing so? I am one who believes that Deputies should adhere to certain guiding principles and I do not believe in Deputies running from left to right, from one direction to another.
In putting forward this motion I am adhering strictly to the proposal we put before the House four years ago, a proposal which was supported by every Party that now supports the Government. There is nothing wrong with the Department of Agriculture acquiring farms through its committees in the various counties and working them as demonstration farms. I do not see how any Minister could object to that. The agricultural committees at the moment take demonstration plots and hold them up as an example to the farmers. Why not take a small farm?
Do they operate the plots themselves? Is it not the farmer on whose land the plot is who operates the plot?
That is so, but the plot is operated according to the ideas of the Department of Agriculture.
And that we are very glad to do.
That raises another point. Why not, as the Minister said, get a farmer to co-operate with the Department in carrying out a demonstration? In that connection one is up against the difficulty that the Department cannot dictate to any farmer how he is to run his farm and, therefore, cannot take full responsibility for the demonstration that is carried out. That is a very important point. But the county committee of agriculture could run a farm exactly according to its own idea and could take full responsibility for the results.
Would you prefer the county committee of agriculture to own the farm rather than a farmer?
As usual Deputy Collins is talking nonsense. The man who will work his farm for the Department of Agriculture will be a deserving man. He might be the son of a farmer who will steward the farm. He will work such a farm in return for a decent living. I can see nothing wrong with that. There is everything in favour of the Department making such a demonstration for the benefit of the farming community and for their own experience in relation to costings.
You have not told me yet where the nonsense is.
I have only ten minutes at my disposal and I do not find it easy to deal with these interruptions.
I asked you a fair question. You suggest it is nonsense.
Does not Deputy Collins know full well that there are 380,000 holdings in this country. We propose to take only 20 or 30 small holdings in the whole of Ireland and operate them as demonstration farms. That will not interefere in any way with the private ownership of land. Deputy Moylan referred to this matter also. He said that in some ways I was an extreme conservative and in other ways I was an extreme socialist. The same charge has been levelled against the Catholic Church for 1,900 years; some say that it is socialistic and others say that it is reactionary. The fact of the matter is, my proposal here is one of pure common-sense. The Minister for Defence made two suggestions in relation to this matter in opposition to this proposal. One suggestion was that the Department of Agriculture could not run a farm efficiently and that the Department of Agriculture is so corrupt that it would crowd such a farm with scores of job hunters.
The Minister for Defence never said that.
The Minister's words are on record and they can be quoted.
I have them here, and I can quote them.
The Minister can get them for himself.
On a point of order, surely it is going beyond the limits of propriety, without quoting the exact words or referring the House to the particular paragraph, to allege that the Minister for Defence stated that the Department of Agriculture would fill such a State demonstration farm with corrupt job hunters?
The Minister for Agriculture is a new authority on propriety in this House.
The Deputy has not transgressed the Rules of Order at the moment so far as I am aware.
I have not the actual words before me, but I can get them. The Minister stated that political pressure would be such that they would be compelled to employ scores on this farm whereas on a similar farm in private ownership only two or three would be employed. That was a most damning indictment of Government administration and the Department of Agriculture. In addition to that the Minister stated that a demonstration farm of this kind might show that the farmers were making excessive profits out of their land. As a farmer I state unequivocally now that we are not afraid of any investigation into costings. I think the suggestion made by the Minister for Defence that we are making excessive profits, or that a costings inquiry might show that we are making excessive profits, and that we are afraid to face such an inquiry is an insult to the farming community. The farmers are producing food. Food is the essential to life. We do not want to profiteer on the production of food. All we ask for is the bare cost of production plus a reasonable margin of profit. That is all any farmer expects and to that he is entitled.
And the Minister for Defence said it was a slander on the farmers to suggest they wanted anything more.
You can quote his words now.
"I agree with Deputy Cogan that it is more or less a slander to refer to farmers as people who are making gross profits."
That is not the particular quotation I have in mind.
You said they were afraid to reveal their profits.
All I am afraid of is that the Minister is trying to waste my limited time. The Minister did say definitely that an investigation into costings might react against the farmers inasmuch as it might show that they were making excessive profits.
I think the Deputy is hedging.
I think the Deputy ought to be allowed the three or four minutes left at his disposal without interruptions.
I would like to deal now with the statement made by the Minister last night. I am glad that he has at last decided to set up an inquiry into costings. I appreciate that the Minister went into the matter of fair prices very fully and dealt with it in a reasonable way. I would like to follow the arguments he advanced in detail but I presume there will be further opportunities later. I would like to convince him that his arguments, while put forward in a convincing way, are utterly unsound. The Minister claimed that you cannot assist agriculture except at the expense of the farmer because this is a purely agricultural country. He claimed that in Britain it is possible to guarantee prices to the farmer because those guaranteed prices come out of the resources of industry and other branches of national economy. The fact of the matter is that guaranteed prices in Britain do not fall on any particular section of the community but come out of the increased agricultural production which that policy has brought about. If the Minister's contention were correct there would be no case for land reclamation and drainage. The whole justification for the State spending money on such projects is that they will in time bring about an increased output in agricultural production; and the cost that the State will incur in carrying out that policy of land reclamation and drainage will eventually come out of the increased production in the agricultural industry.
That is quite true. It is not a subsidy.
The same principle applies to guaranteed prices. Guaranteed prices are not a subsidy either.
The Deputy knows the English farmers are getting £400,000,000.
We are often told that the Irish farmers are getting £10,000,000, £15,000,000 or £20,000,000 but when we examine the position we find that this represents a subsidy to the consumer and not to the farmer. Does the Minister not realise that farmers are compelled to pay their workers a minimum fixed wage? Does not that establish a case for the farmer getting a fair price for his produce to enable him to pay that wage? The Minister is quite wrong when he says it is impossible to guarantee a fair price to the farmer. In respect of such commodities as wheat, barley, sugar beet, dairy produce, pigs and bacon, for which there is a big home market, a fair price can be guaranteed to the farmer. You could base that price on the cost of production. It is impossible to deal with this matter fully now. I am sure the Minister will appreciate that I am rushed and have not sufficient time to deal with the various points that have arisen in the debate. Let me put this consideration. Suppose we increase the production of bacon to 105 per cent. of the requirements of the home market, that is to say, that production exceeds our requirements by 5 per cent.——
Say we exceed them by 100 per cent.
Let us start with 5 per cent. and see how it works. Would it be right or proper if we had to accept a lower price for that 5 per cent. on the export market, that that price should be allowed to disrupt the home price for bacon and pigs in order to bring the price down to the export price?
It is not a matter of ethics; it is a matter of economics.
Take the case in regard to butter. The Minister does not seem to realise that ever before there was any State interference with agriculture, we were engaged in producing butter and we had to sell it at an utterly uneconomic price. Does the Minister want that state of affairs to arise again?
No, siree; never as long as I am here.
Should it not be the Minister's policy to guard against that?
I am taking effective measures to guard against it.
We do not know what the future holds. Some people may say: "You will never face an agricultural slump again such as you had in 1932 or 1933," but anything which happened in the world before may happen again and it is our duty to guard against the recurrence of such a slump. If it is suggested that the Government cannot guard against it I would point out that they can provide protection for the farmer in the same way as they have provided protection for the industrialists. They can provide against the impact of a world depression on prices here.
The Deputy has now exceeded the time allowed to him.
I am very sorry that I have not time to deal with the various issues that have been raised in the course of the debate. I should like to have gone into detail but I shall conclude by asking the Minister to accept the motion. I would ask the Minister that any county committee of agriculture which wants to set up a demonstration farm should be allowed to do so.
If any farmer wants to do it, he will have my closest collaboration.
Motion put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 15; Níl, 70.
Tá
- Blaney, Neal T.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, James J.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Lynch, John.
- McCann, John.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Níl
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Brady, Seán.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Cogan and P.O'Reilly; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Keyes.
Motion declared defeated.