Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture. – Dáil Éireann (13th Dáil) – Thursday, 12 May 1949

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £5,893,130 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, 1950, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.

In introducing this Estimate I must be forgiven for troubling the House with certain statistical information relating to the year that has just passed. First, in explanation of the amount comprised in this Vote I specifically direct the attention of the House to the fact that certain subsidies hitherto provided for under Vote 55 have now been transferred to the Department of Agriculture. As these relate mainly to the subsidies payable on bread and flour the exceptional size of the agricultural Estimate is accounted for by the fact that these subsidies are now charged in the agricultural Vote rather than the Industry and Commerce Vote where heretofore they have been provided for. In this year the amount provided in the Vote for Agriculture in respect of these services is £6,871,000.

I am glad to be able to inform the House that during the past year the dangerous tendency for live stock to decrease in numbers has been arrested and the trend is now the other way. Comparing the figures for January, 1948, with January, 1949, there is an increase of 74,000 head in the total head of cattle. The most encouraging feature of that is under the heading of heifers in calf, where we have an increase from 120,000 to 152,000. For other cattle under one year of age we have an increase from 659,000 to 703,000. In sheep the over-all increase is only 33,000. The increase in ewes for breeding is 37,000. In pigs the figures are somewhat more satisfactory because, whereas in 1948 we had 369,000, we now have 510,000. Whereas in 1948 we had only 39,700 breeding sows, we now have 59,000. The figures for poultry are satisfactory and we now have, it is estimated, 11,879,000 hens as compared with 10,455,000 last year.

The House will wish to know the value of our agricultural exports during the 12 months ending 31st March, 1949, as compared with the same for the year ending 31st March, 1948. In each case I propose to omit hundreds and tens and units. In 1948 we exported 509,000 cattle, for which we received £17,000,000. In 1949 we exported only 384,000 cattle, for which we received £16,000,000. We exported 26,000-odd horses in 1948, for which we received £5,397,000.

Mr. Lemass

This is 1949. I think the Minister is making a mistake in the year.

Mr. Dillon

It is for the period ending 31st March, 1949. I thought I had made that clear. We exported 38,702 horses in 1949, for which we received £6,120,000. In the period ending 31st March, 1948, we exported 121,000 odd cwts. of dead poultry, for which we received £1,957,000. In the same period ending 31st March, 1949, we exported 220,000 cwts. for which we received £3,430,000. We exported in the period ending 31st March, 1948, 125,000 odd cwts. of condensed milk, for which we received £523,000. In the same period ending 31st March, 1949, we exported 203,000 cwts. for which we received £972,000. For the period ending March 31st, 1948, we exported 1,667,000 great hundreds of eggs, for which we received £2,288,000. In the same period ending March 31st, 1949, we exported 2,712,000 great hundreds, for which we received £4,366,000. In wool we exported 100,000 centrals in the period ending March 31st, 1948, for which we received £1,000,000 odd. In the same period ending March 31st, 1949, we exported 103,946 centals, for which we received £1,209,000.

In the harvest of 1947-48 we had 579,000 acres of wheat which yielded 313,000 tons. In the 1948 harvest, we had 518,000 acres which yielded 409,000 tons. The last time I brought that figure to the attention of the House there was an intelligent interjection by a Deputy that it was not yield but acreage that mattered. I trust that the Deputy who made that intelligent observation has since had time to reflect on the remarkable quality of his contribution to our debates.

In oats we had 826,000 acres in 1947 and 880,000 acres in 1948. We produced some 652,000 tons in 1947 and 792,000 tons in 1948. In barley we had 145,983 acres in 1947 and 119,793 acres in 1948. From the 145,983 acres farmers produced 88,300 tons; from the 119,793 acres in 1948 farmers produced 100,600 tons.

I now ask the House to hear some statistics on our production in the first four months of this year. Some are of peculiar significance and are of a character which will demand the closest attention of us all. The four months referred to are from the 1st of January to the 30th of April. In regard to creamery butter production, in the period 1947 production was 35,827 cwts; in the period of 1948 production was 45,738 cwts.; in the period 1949 butter production was 70,220 cwts. Production in the second half of April, 1949, at 23,365 cwts. was the highest butter production we have had in the country since 1938. The numbers of pigs delivered at bacon factories for the 17 weeks ended in the first week of May were:—1947, 84,658; 1948, 64,666; 1949, 114,785. Egg exports for the same period:—1947, 614,699 great hundreds, which were worth £725,498; in the same period of 1948, 1,144,052 great hundreds, for which we received £1,969,663.

Mr. Smith

These figures do not seem to tally with the figures which have been given to the county committees of agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

For 1949 we exported 1,846,447 great hundreds for which we received £2,878,585, the last two figures being estimates.

Mr. Smith

Up to what date?

Mr. Dillon

30th April. Cattle exports over the same period: 1947, 107,282; 1948, 118,483; 1949, 144,677 approximately. During the period ended about June in 1948 there were made available to the farming community 234,300 tons of fertilisers of all descriptions. This year there have been made available 322,900 tons. If, at a later stage, any Deputy is particularly interested in any particular variety of manure—these figures have been broken down—I can give him details if he asks for them.

The first matter to which I wish to address the attention of the House is, in my opinion, one of very great consequence. I do not deny that I take a somewhat more optimistic view than do the conservative professionals who are, of course, in duty bound to be extremely cautious in their anticipation of the benefits to be conferred by recent scientific developments. I remember that, during the years when I was in the Opposition Benches, I frequently directed the attention of Ministers for Agriculture to the immense and uncalculated losses that farmers in this country sustain annually through the incidence of infertility in their cattle, and particularly on the small farms of Ireland. Farmers brought their cows to the bull, sometimes several times, before they got them in calf, and very frequently they had to carry a cow for 12 months when she had no calf at all. This was put down, in the past, mainly to contagious abortion, but most of us who are familiar with the conditions of small farmers in any case, knew that over and above the infertility in cattle, due to contagious abortion, there was some other cause which did not seem to have been clearly delineated, but which was none the less effective in preventing cattle from breeding regularly.

That matter has been under close examination by the veterinary division of my Department for the past 12 months, and I am glad to inform the House that their researches have not proved ineffective. We recently had the pleasure of a visit here from a very distinguished authority on this particular problem of infertility, and, by his courtesy, hope to send some of the veterinary officers of the Department to his laboratory in England to study with him the special information that they have there just as we are glad, at all times, to extend a similar hospitality to him, or his colleagues, should it be of interest to him to accept it. But it does now seem pretty clear that the published work of Professor Sheehy in the journal of the Department of Agriculture and in other schools on aphosphorosis links up very definitely with the general work that is being done in veterinary research on infertility. It is only comparatively recently that the significance of aphosphorosis in this country has been discerned. During the last two years more and more inquiries kept reaching the veterinary section of the Department of Agriculture in regard to a condition in cattle which mystified the general practitioners in the field of veterinary surgery.

As the specialist resources of the Department were brought to bear upon these problems, as they were submitted to us, it slowly emerged that a condition existed, I am afraid to say almost all over the country, in which the grass available to cattle, while to the eye it looked quite normal and nutritious, was in fact growing in soil devoid of phosphate, and cattle feeding upon it began to manifest all the symptoms of phosphorus deficiency. One of the earliest symptoms of that condition is infertility —they will not breed. So long as the condition did not reach a more acute stage than that the infertility has not been associated with any dietetic insufficiency. It was only as phosphate deficiency became absolute in certain areas that cattle passed through the initial stages of infertility and bad thriving to the point of having what is commonly known in the country as rheumatics, to the point where their bones made an audible crack when they walked, and ultimately to the point where the cattle knelt down and could not be persuaded to get up at all.

I have seen cases of that in the country and I have heard people persuade themselves that it was due to rheumatics. It has now been demonstrated that cattle in that condition, fed upon bone meal to restore the phosphorus element in their diet, quickly recover and the application of adequate quantities of phosphate in the soil on which they graze will cure them and, what is better, will prevent the incidence of the complaint.

As we are now intensively driving towards the restoration of the mineral content of all the land, I think we may reasonably hope that that source of infertility in cattle will soon be ended in this country. Side by side with that there existed, undoubtedly, contagious abortion. Within the last year an effective method of inoculating cattle against contagious abortion has been proved and we are about to initiate a scheme whereunder all the cattle in the country will have made available to them, should their owners desire to avail of it, inoculation against contagious abortion, so that over the next ten years we may reasonably hope finally to eradicate that cause of sterility in our live stock.

With the eradication of these two causes I believe that the bulk of the sterility of our cattle will be done away with. I am bound to inform the House, however, that professional and other learned opinion takes a somewhat more conservative view and feels that while this undoubtedly does account for a considerable element of the infertility that has occurred amongst our cattle, its elimination will by no means break the back of the problem and other therapeutic measures will remain necessary. It is certain, however, that whether the benefit be as great as I anticipate, or only as great as they foresee, it is essential that whatever benefit there is to be had should be taken forthwith. Time alone will tell whether my estimate of the benefit is unduly optimistic or theirs unduly conservative.

In any case, as quickly as possible the phosphate content of our grasslands will be restored and supplies of Strain 19 for the inoculation of cattle will be made available to all farmers, large and small, on terms which should be within the range of all, and steps will be taken to organise the inoculation of cattle in groups at the convenience of farmers so that the maximum economy may be effected and the burden of expense per beast made as low as it is possible to make it. I do not want to bind myself to any precise figure, but I am not without hope that we may be able to provide the inoculation necessary at rates varying between 2/6 to 3/6 per beast, according to the number of cattle that can be assembled at one point.

Mr. Smith

Cattle of what age?

Mr. Dillon

I think the proper age at which they should be inoculated is before they are eligible for service and I therefore imagine it would be yearlings to two years. That is, however, a matter upon which veterinary surgeons will have to advise us, and their advice should prevail. It is proposed that the services of the practising veterinary surgeons in the country will be availed of and I am glad to inform the House that discussions between the veterinary officers of my Department and representatives of the profession have reached terms which are mutually satisfactory and which, in our judgment, give a fair service to the farmer who avails of them while at the same time affording a modest living to the veterinary surgeons who will carry out the necessary steps to complete the inoculation.

Some Deputies will be familiar with the havoc that has been wrought from time to time by stomach worms and other parasitic diseases, such as fluke, in young cattle and sheep. We have now at our disposal a specific drug for parasitic stomach worms and fluke infestation. It is proposed to intensify publicity and multiply facilities for farmers all over this country so that they may avail of these two specifics with a view to eradicating these devastating diseases in so far as it is humanly possible to do so.

Mr. Smith

What are the names of the two specifics?

Mr. Dillon

They have two very long names, a note of which I have not got before me. They are two technical names which I will be glad to send to the Deputy when I have time. He may depend on it that the publicity will be of the kind which will make it easy for the small farmer to go to a chemist's shop and ask for them in accordance with the printed names, without having to get his tongue around words which I find some difficulty in pronouncing myself.

In addition to the measures I have outlined, a research project is afoot with regard to fluke. We have gone so far in research and discovery on the lines of suitable therapeutics for fluke infestation as to have a specific remedy for it. I have, therefore, directed the veterinary research division of my Department to turn its mind to preventive measures. Fluke, for its existence, must pass in its period of development through the body of a water snail. Unless that water snail is present on the land where cattle graze fluke cannot affect either cattle or sheep. It is possible to destroy that water snail by bringing it into contact with very weak dilutions of sulphate of copper. The common duck can make a substantial contribution if she is allowed to parade the farm. There is not the slightest doubt that where there is heavy infestation of fluke the keeping of ducks does make some contribution to the eradication of its source. But research is now proceeding with a view to discovering whether we cannot institute some procedure that will eliminate the water snail altogether. It is not a hopeless field of research. We enter in that research into friendly rivalry with similar projects that are proceeding in Great Britain and Washington. I have no doubt that in this sphere of discovery, as in certain others, this friendly rivalry may be just as easily resolved in our favour as it may in the favour of other research stations engaged upon it. In any case, I think it eminently worthwhile that the resources of our research station should be turned upon the problem. They now are.

Similarly, during the last 12 months, Deputies will remember, we had an outbreak of disease amongst pigs, which, for want of a better name, is known as the oedema disease of pigs. We believe that disease originated in Eastern Europe. Some people hold that the manifestations here are a derivative of what is called Teschen disease. Those Deputies interested in foreign politics will remember that Teschen is that part of CzechoSlovakia that the Poles entered at the beginning of the war. It is in that area this disease first broke out. It spread through a great part of Europe. It appeared in England and it finally appeared here. If we are right in believing that oedema disease is related to Teschen disease, so far no cure has been found for it. Definitely, at first it appeared to be of a rather malignant character. It wrought great havoc. Happily, its virulence has very materially declined and now, though it does occur, it is nothing like as great a menace as we thought at first it might be. I believe I am right in saying, though we claim no credit for it, that in our research station the fact that it was communicable from one pig to another was first established. To make that discovery is a substantial step towards finding both the cause of the disease and its cure. But to pretend that we have advanced far along the road towards its discovery would be an exaggeration. We are, however, advancing as fast as prudence and care will permit research to advance.

We are also concerned for the cure of mastitis in cattle. Heretofore, we had been using penicillin for that condition. A new drug has recently been made available. I understand that this drug comes under the general heading of an anti-biotic, the trade name of which is "Nicene." It has the virtue of dealing not only with streptococcal but staphylococcal mastitis as well. It has not yet passed that stage of test which would suggest its universal user; but if its promise matures, I think we shall have within our grasp a specific for mastitis, a specific for fluke, a specific for parastic worms and preventive measures for a very large part of the problem of infertility, all of which we propose to bring to bear with all the resources at our disposal on the live stock of this country.

That done, we must look forward to two developments. One is a rapid increase in our live stock and the other is a rapid increase in our milk production. When I read out the figures for the first four months of butter production in this country I said that I would invite Deputies to give these figures their very special attention. It is legitimate, I suppose, to subsidise butter for consumption by our own people. I think few Deputies in this House would wish to see butter heavily subsidised for consumption by foreign buyers. I think it is manifest that unless some unforeseen catastrophe overtakes us our butter production this year will exceed the capacity of our people to consume butter. This House will have to consider very carefully what we should do in the event of our having on our hands a large quantity of butter carrying a subsidy of up to 50/- a cwt. in some seasons and more in other seasons, if there is nobody in Ireland who wants to eat butter at 2/8 per lb.

Ad interim I have urged on creameries throughout the country to examine alternative methods of profitable user of milk: cheese, dried milk, condensed milk and other milk products for which there is a profitable export market. Deputies will observe that our exports of condensed milk have increased very considerably. We hope to secure largely increased markets for dried milk and for any other milk preparation, such as chocolate crumb, for which a foreign purchaser is prepared to pay an economic price. But, despite the diversion of milk into these channels of production, I foresee that with the gratifyingly great and continually growing increase in our total milk supply we shall be confronted with the problem of disposing of butter for which the producer is receiving 3/5 and for which the consumer is paying 2/8.

I want to make a very special appeal to Deputies and to the people as a whole to realise the immense potentialities of the market which we have available to us for meat in every form and to remind all that a healthy mixed agriculture depends upon live stock. The natural fertility of our soil depends very largely on farmyard manure. Farmyard manure of the best quality is to be derived from cattle fed on the farmer's own farm. The manure derived therefrom can be used to prepare seedbeds for new crops of cereals and roots to be fed again to live stock, to produce more manure and to produce more cereals and root crops. That unending, unbroken circle of profitable production is what will enrich the people who live on the land and it will do more. It is that unbroken circle of profitable production which guarantees a decent living for the farmer and ensures that each year he will have left his land a little better than he found it. It is that method of agriculture which could and must guarantee that in no future generation shall we discover that an appreciable part of our acreage is so barren of phosphatic content that live stock can no longer live upon it.

I want to direct the attention of the people of the country generally to the special advantage of the new types of barley which were evolved in the Scandinavian countries and imported into this country last year. These varieties of it are Kenia, Ymer, Freja. These barleys while unsuited for the type of brewing done in this country and unacceptable to Irish brewers for brewing purposes, make first-class feeding, equal in feeding value and quality to imported maize. A mixture of equal parts of imported maize and nitrogenous barley of this kind could not be improved upon as a cereal element in the daily ration of cattle or pigs. The yield of this type of barley can be enhanced by the application of nitrogen. The tendency of other varieties to lodge under heavy dressings of nitrogen is entirely absent from these new varieties, all of which have strong short straw. It is a variety which would stand better than most of the varieties of oats and wheat known to our farmers and will yield, it is safe to say, on the average 20 per cent. more grain than ordinary varieties of barley. It is a matter of appreciable consequence that there should be grown in this country where the feeding of cattle, pigs and live stock constitutes a big part of our economy, an increased acreage of this cereal as feeding stuff for live stock.

Oats should be grown on an everincreasing acreage by those farmers who understand what farming means and who realise that the bulk of the oats grown upon our lands must be consumed on the holding if they are to yield a profit in all circumstances. The farmer who grows them exclusively as a cash crop will confer a blessing on the community at large if he puts himself as an apprentice to a tailor or a cobbler and gives up farming altogether.

Mr. Allen

A cheap insult.

Mr. Dillon

The value of the potato crop cannot be exaggerated, subject precisely to the same reservation, that those who grow potatoes will grow them in the knowledge that if they are to be a standby to Irish agriculture everywhere, they must be grown by a farmer who is prepared to sell them as a cash crop when the market justifies that course, and who is also prepared, if necessary, to convert the surplus into feeding stuffs for live stock, whether it be pigs, cattle or fowl. In some years it may be good economics and good farming to sell potatoes for cash; in others to feed them to live stock and walk them off the land. Only a farmer competent to do one or the other confers any benefit upon himself or the society to which he belongs by remaining a farmer. Those who start for the workhouse the very moment they cannot find someone standing at their back doors with money in their fists to buy every crop they grow, are putting themselves and their families in considerable peril by remaining in the farming profession. I urge, therefore, on farmers generally to grow more of these cereal crops for conversion on their own holdings into live stock and live-stock products.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will be heard later if he desires to take part in the debate.

Mr. Dillon

I am an unreconstructed liberal in trade and the philosophy of politics, but I believe in facing facts and I would like to see the trade of this country done by private enterprise. The plain fact, however, is that if you have to deal with central purchasing the only good method whereby the interests of the producers in this country can be effectively protected is by central selling. I hope that feature of our life will pass soon, but ad interim I conceive it to be my duty where the produce of our farmers is sold abroad to central purchasing authorities to furnish our farmers with the negotiating strength of a central sales organisation. Therefore, for the time being, I am working out a central marketing service for potatoes similar to that which is functioning in respect to eggs and fowl. It may be necessary to apply that central marketing system to other produce which has to be sold abroad. I assure the House that that device will be employed by us only so long as we find ourselves confronted with central purchasing at the other end and only so long as it is necessary to put our producers in the position of strength which they must have if they are to get their due from purchasers who have consolidated themselves in order to get the best value for the money they lay out.

I now come to the question of agricultural education. I recently addressed a circular to every county committee of agriculture explaining to them that I thought it would be a good thing if we had a parish agent in every three parishes in Ireland and asking how far I could look to them for cooperation and help, and ending with this paragraph:—

"I cannot too strongly emphasise that this letter is addressed to the county committee of agriculture as a bona fide request for advice prior to determining policy and it is in no sense a direction, an order or a declaration.”

One would have thought that a letter addressed by the Minister for Agriculture in those terms to the county committees would have been recognised as being a co-operative gesture and a desire to bring county committees into consultation before forming agricultural policy. I regret to report to the House that in every case where the committee was controlled by a Fianna Fáil majority it elicited nothing but vulgar personal abuse. I am happy, however, to say that some of the committees gave me the benefit of their advice; some of them expressing dissent and saying why they thought another system was better, others saying why, on balance, they were prepared to adopt my view and, if I were going ahead with it, promising their consent to it. There was no need for a county committee whose members were largely of a different political outlook from me, to resort to vulgar abuse. They ought not to do it, because it makes co-operation with them extremely difficult. If you approach them and take every precaution to reassure them that you are approaching them in good faith and with a desire to discuss a purely technical question on its merits with them and if you were told to take a running jump at yourself, it is not very encouraging.

Mr. Smith

That is "all my eye and Betty Martin".

Mr. Dillon

Cavan has not yet replied. I thought this word in season might encourage them to make their rejoinder with the courtesy and grace which is characteristic of their chairman. However, in so far as certain committees have acted the rôle of "crumpaun", I think I will treat them as crumpauns. In so far as committees acted with courtesy, I am grateful to them for their opinion, whether it was in agreement with or different from the view which I hold. I wanted their honest opinion, whichever it was, and I much appreciate those committees who took time and trouble to examine the problem and give me their honest view and I shall bear their view in mind when determining the policy to be pursued.

What I do hope is that at least in some areas throughout the country it will be possible to provide that we shall have in every three parishes one competent, highly-trained graduate in agricultural science who will be at the disposal of every farmer in the parish and whose duty it will be to make himself personally known to every farmer in the parish and to bring home to each farmer a full realisation of the fact that he is their servant and is anxious to be called upon to afford any assistance that the farmers may from time to time think he can give them. That man would feel that at his back was the highly-specialised services of the Department of Agriculture, and if he found himself confronted with a problem in the particular area which was beyond his scientific skill to master, he would be free to summon from one of the specialised branches of the Department of Agriculture such skill and assistance as was necessary for the resolution of a particular local problem, with the assurance that if our domestic resources were not equal to the difficulty we would call on whatever resources might be available abroad and bring them to bear on whatever problem presented itself.

I have a feeling that at the present time, with the agricultural instructors in the service of the county committees, the rural science teachers and the very few inspectors of our Department who ordinarily move about the country, there is a great deal of overlapping and that many highly skilled men whose services would be of great value to farmers if they could get into intimate contact with them are wasted in so far as they have to rush around huge areas which they cannot cover properly, with the result that the vast majority of the farmers never come in contact with them at all.

I do not deny that I first conceived this idea of a parish agent from my experience in the United States, where in each county of a state there was a county agent and where long practice familiarised farmers with the existence of that officer. If they met with a problem on their holding which was beyond the capacity of their own resources to overcome, the first person the farmers instinctively sought was the county agent. If he was not able to bring to their aid the assistance requisite to deal with the problem he always knew that behind him were the State Department of Agriculture and the Federal Department of Agriculture and the resources of the community to which he belonged, which would be expended and employed so long as it was necessary to do so for the relief of his problem.

I should like to see a service analogous to that, according to the resources at our disposal, available to every small farmer, and in so far as I can realise that with the approval of this House and with such committees of agriculture as will be with me, I propose to do so. It may be a chastening fact to some of the crumpauns if they see neighbours enjoying all these amenities and they may realise that if they had not acted like crumpauns they might have enjoyed them too.

There are some county committees who have examined this problem honestly and straightly, and if, owing to the special conditions obtaining in their area, they do not think it will be worth trying, I am grateful to them for their view. If we do get it working in other areas and, on their seeing it in operation, they desire to amend their view, in so far as the resources at my disposal permit, I will be glad, on intimation from them that they have changed their minds, to collaborate with them and to extend the service to these areas, because it is a good thing for Ministers to remember that, great as they are by virtue of their office, they are the servants of the people and not their masters.

I propose that the farm building schemes and the farm improvement schemes should in substance merge into one service. Most of the functions of the farm improvements scheme, admirable as that scheme has been, creditworthy to my predecessor and his predecessor who first evolved it, I anticipate will be discharged by the new land rehabilitation project which, inasmuch as it requires legislation, is not to be discussed here to-day but which the House will have an opportunity of discussing at an early date. There is a residue of work which heretofore was provided for under the farm improvements scheme, such as the building of gate posts, the cementing of a path round the house or from the house to the stable and so forth, which is of value. I foresee that the farm improvements scheme and the farm buildings scheme will merge.

Mr. Smith

Would it be fair to ask the Minister if it will be necessary for those who applied when the scheme was first advertised to renew their applications?

Mr. Dillon

No. The farm buildings scheme applications have all been filed and are now being dealt with in the order in which they have been filed.

That is my present impression but I would prefer to make this reservation: before the debate concludes I will check on that and confirm it.

From what I have said so far I want to invite the co-operation of Deputies in this House in promulgating the fact that nothing, at present, is more urgently desirable than the widespread employment of phosphates and lime upon the land. We can immensely increase the productive capacity of the land now by putting out lime and phosphates almost everywhere. There are, of course, exceptional areas where the condition of the land is alkaline, and in these areas that general precept does not apply. However, as a general rule, anyone who uses phosphates and lime will be most abundantly rewarded for his outlay. I cannot too strongly urge upon the farmers to put out as much as they possibly can.

The soil-testing facilities which many farmers desire to take advantage of and which all farmers should take advantage of have, since I came into office, been trebled and are about to be doubled again, when we shall have three complete units operating at Johnstown, one at Ballyhaise, one at Clonakilty, and one at Athenry. We will then be able to deal with 75,000 soil samples per annum and we will expand that further as the demand increases. I am obliged to admit to the House that the effort to keep ahead of the demand for this service has not been successful. My reputation for optimism is such that sometimes prudent restraint is laid upon me lest my anticipation should be too rosy. I had no doubt that rapid expansion of this service was urgent and essential. My optimistic forecast was not so emphatically held by all others in this troubled world in which we live. I am happy to say that most forecasts have been amply vindicated, and if we momentarily fell behind owing to undue caution I guarantee that we shall keep about two jumps ahead hereafter, in an optimistic approach which I think the soil-testing project amply justifies.

Deputies will remember that when I took over responsibility for this Department it was known that the provision of ground limestone was very important if the work required to be done was to be done. Accordingly, I determined that private enterprise should be encouraged to make available supplies of crushed limestone to the farmers. I am glad to be able to report to the House now that there are in operation at the present one plant at Buttevant, one at Carrick-macross and one at Cloghrennane, County Carlow. The one at Cloghrennane has been in operation for many years and the other two are new. The Buttevant plant is producing 30,000 tons per annum and will shortly be increased to produce 60,000 tons. There are in construction, and will shortly come into operation, a plant at Ennis, County Clare, producing 20,000 tons; a plant at Kilmacow, County Waterford, producing 20,000 tons; a plant in County Kildare producing 20,000 tons; a plant at Carrigaline, County Cork, producing 30,000; a plant at Feltrim, County Dublin, producing 30,000 tons. A plant at Swinford, County Mayo, will principally handle marl, and its output I am not in a position to forecast. A plant at Lanesboro', County Longford, and a plant in East Donegal are expected to produce 20,000 tons. Many others will be established if annual requirements regarding limestone are to be fully provided and steps are being taken to that end.

The last matter I want to deal with is the question of how best to serve the dairying industry with a view to increasing its profitability. Accordingly the best that I know is to arrange in each area for an effective system of cow-testing, for an effective system of veterinary services designed to eradicate mastitis, for an effective system of service of proven bulls and, as a remote objective, an effective assault upon tuberculosis in cattle. The model scheme, or what I perhaps had better term the pilot scheme, will be launched in the milk supply area of the City of Dublin and will probably take this shape. If the suppliers consent, and I think they will, to a levy of a ¼d. per gallon for all milk supplies the Department will match that farthing with another one. Out of the resulting fund it will be possible firstly, to pay a sufficient number of cow-testing supervisors to weigh the milk, record the milk and have it tested centrally once a month so as to detect any uneconomic cows which may be in the herd. Secondly, to provide free veterinary services to every subscriber to the scheme for the control of contagious abortion, and streptococcal, and staphylococcal inastitis. Thirdly, to establish in the area an artificial insemination centre which will be equipped with proven bulls, that is to say, bulls of five years of age or over the performance of whose progeny has been recorded and the capacity of whom to pass on to their progeny milking qualities has been demonstrated. The only means whereby the limited number of such bulls available can be used to cover the number of cattle which require their service is by the implementation of an artificial insemination service. The aim is to make available to every subscriber the service of such a proven sire at a fee not in excess of that ordinarily charged for the service of a premium bull under existing schemes.

When I mention the hope of controlling tuberculosis as a remote objective, I do not want to mislead the House. The three services I have named are all that I can honestly declare as being realisable. All of us, I know, will desire to envisage a plan designed to eradicate tuberculosis from our dairy herds completely. The immensity of that task, while it does not daunt me or the resources of the Department, does impose the warning that it must be approached circumspectly, and tackled only when we are satisfied that we have at our disposal the resources adequate to tackle it effectively. Nothing could be more fatal than to create any false sense of security by pretending that we were dealing effectively with tuberculosis in cattle if, in fact, by reason of the limitation on our resources we were only making a botch of the job.

Deputies are aware that the director of our veterinary services is at present on a tour of all the centres of veterinary research and learning in Canada and the United States. On the completion of that course of postgraduate study and research, he will return to resume the direction of the veterinary services which are to be completely reconstituted in a scheme which I will lay before the House in due course. In the interim, the temporary director has been doing, and I have no doubt will continue to do, invaluable work which reflects great credit on the department of which he is a member.

Our object ought to be in the next five years to enable our people to exploit one of the greatest opportunities that has ever come their way. In international trade there is no sentiment. If one wants to succeed, and if one wants to prosper, one must equip oneself to compete effectively. I would be long sorry to be sent out on a mission to sell Irish produce on any grounds other than those that they were of the best quality and at the lowest prices that efficiency, skill and education can produce anywhere in the world. It is well within the capacity of our people to offer agricultural produce in foreign markets on that basis and to seek trade on that basis alone. We have a situation developing in Great Britain over the next ten years where there will be a shortage of 400,000 tons of meat per annum. In so far as there is a profit in the filling of that vacuum of meat for our people, we ought to fill it, and it is well within our capacity to do so. There is a large market for eggs, a large market for fowl, a large market for sheep and a large and growing market for pigs and bacon. All these, in so far as they yield a profit to our people, should be exploited to the full. To exploit them, our people require to have within their reach adequate supplies of fertilisers at a fair price, adequate veterinary services, adequate educational services and, above all, freedom to call their souls their own; freedom on their own holdings to run their own farms in their own way.

I have no doubt that, given those things, the people who live and get their living on the land of Ireland can do a better job on our land than any other people in the world. If, however, the body of this House subscribes to the doctrine, so recently rejected but so long maintained by the Fianna Fáil Party, that all the farmers on the land of Ireland are lazy rascals, that unless you flog them to work their land properly they will all lie down and sleep stertorously until Fianna Fáil inspectors come round and disturb their slumbers: if you believe that every acre of land in Ireland can be better farmed from Upper Merrion Street than from the houses of the people who own those acres, then by all means chase me out of the Department of Agriculture. Everything I have done, and everything I intend to do, every activity in which the Department will engage while I am responsible for it, will be founded on the belief that there is nobody more competent to run the farms of Ireland than the farmers who own them. Unless that postulate is true we may give up hope of this country surviving. I believe it is because that postulate is true, and has always been true, that this country has successfully come through so much in the past. If it should ever cease to be true, I do not believe this nation would survive one generation.

The policy of this Government is prosperous farming, founded on freedom for the farmers and effective services from the servants they employ. The policy of the Opposition, as I understand it, is direction for the omadhauns who live on the land and coercion where direction appears to the wisdom of Fianna Fáil to be inadequate, abuse, if the operation of Fianna Fáil policy results in the stripping of a great part of our land of the essential mineral elements which bad management may take from agricultural land, and a firm conviction that Fianna Fáil omniscience if retained in Upper Merrion Street can do more for the land of West Cork than all the farmers in that area, in their joint wisdom, could ever do. Between these two policies this House and the country will choose, and I respectfully submit that, on the records as disclosed by the statistics which I submitted to the House this evening, the policy for which I stand appears to pay the higher dividend, and for that reason retains the support of the Government to which I belong.

I would be interested to hear the members of the Fianna Fáil Party make a case, on results, designed to demonstrate that the opposite is true. The strongest argument that one can produce is facts; the best possible justification of policy is results. I invite the Opposition to apply that test to their policy and to mine and to bind themselves, in advance, to submit to the verdict of reason on our respective records.

Mr. Smith

I move:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

When we were notified this morning of the change of programme for to-day through the Government Whips, and that this Estimate would come on immediately after Questions, I looked around to see some few statements that I was anxious to refresh my mind upon in the knowledge that I would have to move this reference back motion. I read two speeches. One was by the present Minister for Agriculture, when speaking from the Opposition Benches on the Vote for the Department of Agriculture in 1947, and the other was one which he made here last year when moving his Estimate as Minister for Agriculture. In the light of some of the figures which he has quoted for us in the hope of proving his case, I would like to draw his attention to a paragraph or two from his introductory speech last year—Volume 111, column 2589:—

"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...."

The Deputy has no permission to interrupt, and he ought to realise that.

Mr. Smith

The peculiar thing is that this House is designed for the purpose of criticism and I am using this House for the purpose for which it was designed, but Deputy Collins can be far more effective in his criticism of the Minister outside this House and I cannot understand why he is so resentful of my criticism here. I charge that in the last 15 months, as a result of the Minister's actions and statements and his attitude towards a policy of tillage and employment on the land there has been a noticeable falling off in the area under the plough and that, as statistics show, there has been a noticeable falling off in the employment available on the land. I say to the Minister—and I am not saying it in defence of the course we took when the responsibility was ours—that it would have been far wiser for him to exclude political considerations and put aside the desire to reverse what those who had gone before him had been doing. At one time the Minister showed sense when he said that it was not good for a country that, on a change of Ministry, there should be, especially in regard to agriculture, a sudden reversal of policy. I would be prepared to concede that the Minister is perfectly within his right or the Government are perfectly within their right in disputing the wisdom of the policy of compulsory tillage, especially in a time of peace.

I have held the view, and I hold it still, that it would have been a far better policy for this country if, in spite of the Minister's own feeling on this question of tillage, he had said: "There are farmers all over the country who, because of the compulsory tillage policy, have bought threshing sets; there are farmers who have bought tractors and other equipment; there are farmers who, before the war broke out, knew little or nothing about tillage and had not carried on tillage for many years, who, in fact, had no men capable of effectively pursuing a tillage policy and who by degrees and by very strenuous efforts, not only on their part but on the part of all concerned—the Government included— had brought themselves to a condition in which they could handle this problem reasonably well. I might be tee-totally opposed to any policy of compulsory tillage but, having regard to the factors I have mentioned, the money invested, the fact that some people borrowed money and put it into plant and machinery, I think the wisest policy for the country to follow would be gradually to taper off over a period of three or four years this compulsory tillage policy."

How good that line of policy would be was brought home to me a few weeks ago by the case of a young man living convenient to this city, but who came originally from the County Roscommon. He had invested some £1,500 or £1,700 in agricultural machinery in 1945 and 1946 and this year he was not able even to earn a bob on tillage work. That young man was looking for work for his tractor drawing sand and gravel for the roads from different county councils and was competing with many others who had done likewise and who were equipped with similar plant and machinery. The Minister may have desired to place Fianna Fáil Ministers in the position of desiring to interfere with the farmer's way of life, his right to work his holding as he liked and his ownership of his land and so on. I know that, having regard to his whole history in this House, there was a tremendous temptation to come in here and with a wave of the hand say to farmers: "You are all free." I may be wrong, however, but I think there is a growing feeling in the country amongst all sections that, if this problem had been handled in the way I have described, much better results would accrue from it.

32/-, plus the subsidy. I feel that it is an extraordinary thing that the man who is now the occupant of the post of Minister for Agriculture and who claims to be everything knowledgeable—an experienced businessman—should speak slightingly of his colleagues in the Six Counties with whom he was called upon to do the country's work, and who showed on that occasion, and displayed in his words in this House, such bad temper and bad manners as to result in the farmers concerned losing a very valuable market. I charge him with this, that, having failed so hopelessly, he went down to his own constituency and tried to influence the farmers there not to grow the flax, not as I have said, for the purpose of safeguarding or shielding them against the northern spinners but fearing that at the end of the season and while still in the post of Minister someone down there could come to him and say: "You failed to make an agreement with the Six-Country spinners; the farmers made an agreement much more unfavourable than the one offered you, and so much flax has been grown." He was anxious to ensure that that would not happen and he made a statement warning the farmers that they were not to put all their eggs in the one basket, although a few months before he made an agreement in regard to our cattle trade whereby he imposed a limitation on the second customer we had.

Did the British pay over to us on that occasion £1,350,000? If they did, what portion of that money was used in 1948 at the rate of 5/- per great hundred? What was left in that fund to cover 1949? How much of that fund was used in 1949 to pay that subsidy up to the date on which the Minister made his agreement covering 1949-50? In what condition was the fund controlled by Eggsports? How much was in the fund in 1948 and what were the payments out of it in that year? Was there anything in that fund in 1949? If there was, what was the amount? Had the fund disappeared by the time the agreement was made or was there anything left in it or either of them?

He is a most irresponsible individual and could only be kept there, and is only retained there, because, as he put it himself to the Fine Gael Party when they threatened to do something about it: "If you shift me, I will shift the Government."

Mr. Cogan

I am rather disappointed with Deputy Smith's speech. However, I want to state very candidly what my views are on the Government's agricultural policy. I regret that the Minister is not present now, but it would be unfair to compel any Minister to remain here throughout a very lengthy debate on his Estimate. There is a motion before the House to refer this Estimate back for reconsideration and I have not made up my mind yet how to deal with it. On the face of it, it seems as if it would be a good thing from time to time to have a Departmental Estimate so referred back for reconsideration. The Minister is a servant of the people and the people exercise their authority through this House. It very rarely occurs that an Estimate is referred back, but I think it would be no harm if a precedent were established and if the Minister were asked to take this Estimate back, review his agricultural policy and reconsider it and then bring his Estimate into the House.

I make that statement because I am very disappointed with the agricultural policy pursued over the last 15 or 16 months. The Minister said in introducing the Estimate that there is a tremendous and a violent difference between the policy of the present Government and that of its predecessors. Deputy Smith, as a good Opposition Deputy, has emphasised that statement. I, as an independent farmer, speaking solely as a farmer and not as a politician, fail to see any wide difference between the policy of the present Government and the policy pursued by their predecessors. I think there is a very marked similarity between the two policies. There may be a very great difference in the manner of expression of that policy by the respective Ministers, but this seems to be a continuation of the policy which has been pursued over the past 25 years, to the detriment of agriculture and of the nation generally.

I was shocked to hear the Minister for Finance, in the course of his Budget statement, say that the output of agriculture for the past year was 7 per cent. below that of 1938. The general impression in the country was that the output had suddenly doubled itself in every respect. Facts have to be faced and facts are stubborn things. The stubborn fact is that in 25 years we have made so little headway towards expansion of our agricultural industry, towards an increase in our agricultural output which is absolutely essential if the standard of living of our people generally is to be raised. If I were making a case for the referring back of this Estimate, I would base it, first, on the fact that this Estimate shows a reduction of £3,250,000 as compared with the Estimate of last year, that is, on the revised method of segregating the items in the Estimates. My case against the Minister would be that he has allowed other Ministers to "swipe" that amount of money from his Department.

It may be said that the reduction of £3,250,000 represents a saving of the subsidy in respect of wheat imports. That may be true, but my point is that it is a saving which has come about by reason of the reduction in the prices of imported foodstuffs, and if anybody should benefit by that saving, it is the home producer. The Minister has told us that owing to the price paid by the importing nation, it has been necessary to reduce the price of eggs from 3/- to 2/6 per dozen. I suggest that, instead of reducing the price to 2/6 per dozen., some portion of the saving recorded in this Estimate should have been used to maintain the price at the existing level for at least another year. I make that case mainly on the fact that a very definite assurance and a very definite guarantee was given to the poultry producers generally that, if they intensified production, they would not suffer any reduction in price, but could expect an increase.

In the course of a reply to a question by me, the Minister sought to controvert my statement that he had given a definite guarantee with regard to the price of eggs, but unfortunately there are people who have a sort of obsession about retaining scraps of paper. Personally, I never keep cuttings of any kind and my memory is not very retentive either, so that I often miss opportunities of this kind of compelling Ministers of one Party or another to stand over guarantees which they have given. A farmer's wife, however, insisted on sending me the first page of a publication known as "P.E.P.", issued by the poultry and egg exporters. There is on this page an unmistakable photograph of the Minister together with a letter above the Minister's unmistakable signature. In his message to the poultry producers, he says:—

"It used to be the rule that when egg supplies increased, the price went down. That is no longer true——"

meaning, of course, that, with intensified production, there would not be a reduction in price. The message goes on:—

"We have made an agreement with the British Minister of Food that the more eggs we send to the British market, the more they will pay for our eggs. It is as a result of this agreement that shippers can afford to pay 3/- per dozen for eggs to the producers."

The Minister, when I raised that matter here, denied that there was any guarantee in the statement of an increased price for eggs, if the supply increased, and he suggested that if I persisted in contending that 2/6 was less than 3/-, both he and I should go back to school. I am quite willing to go back to the infant class with the Minister, but I will be amused to see the expression on the face of the teacher if the Minister persists in his assertion that 2/6 represents a higher price than 3/-.

I have not raised this matter lightly. I do not think it right that simple citizens should be misrepresented or should be cheated. The people who go in for producing eggs are, in the main, farmers' wives and daughters and agricultural labourers' wives and daughters. There are, of course, other people who take it up as a full-time occupation, poultry farmers. All these people are decent citizens. They are not people who will deliberately cheat or wrong anybody and they do not expect anybody deliberately to cheat or to wrong them, and when they were told, in effect, that if they put their capital and labour into the expansion of the poultry industry, they could expect an increased price according as production increased, they believed that they got a definite pledge which no Minister would break. That pledge has been broken and there is not one farmer's wife or daughter who could not sue the Minister for a breach of promise on producing that message with his signature.

In this matter, there is a striking similarity between the present Government and their predecessors. There is a stubborn refusal to accept the fact that the farming community are a decent, law-abiding section who are essential to the life of the nation and who ought to be treated fairly as decent law-abiding citizens. I mentioned, in the course of the debate on the Budget, that there appears to be a deep-seated class prejudice in this country against the farming community. Everything that the Minister has done since he came into office has been to inflame, exaggerate and increase that class prejudice. He has told the people in the urban areas that the farmers were never so prosperous, that everything is booming in the farming industry. It is only natural to expect that the poor struggling workers in the cities and towns, the struggling white collar workers, the workers in the factories, should feel rather embittered against the farmer for getting off so easily.

It is about time that the Minister turned over a new leaf. It is about time that he revised his whole approach to agricultural policy. The farmers and the farm workers are not rolling in wealth, as it has been sought to convey to the country. An estimate of the income of agriculture has shown that the average income of persons engaged in agriculture, the farm worker, the members of the farmers' families and the farmers, is a little more than £3 a week. That is the average. We must remember that there is quite a number of farmers who have very good land who have a much higher income. Therefore, according to the law of averages, there must be a very large section of the farming community whose income averages much less than £3 a week. These are the people about whom we are concerned and about whom the Minister for Agriculture should be concerned—the people on the poor lands, the people on the uneconomic holdings, the men who are struggling to eke out an existence without adequate equipment or capital to work their lands on the most efficient modern lines.

Mr. Little

Perhaps the Deputy would excuse me. He is making such an excellent speech that there should be somebody in the House, especially the Independent Farmers' Party, to hear him.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted and 20 Deputies being present.

Mr. Cogan

Last year, when I was speaking on this Estimate, I suggested that the guiding principles of policy for the Minister for Agriculture should be: first, to give effective leadership to the industry over which he has control for the time being; secondly, to provide adequate educational facilities for those engaged in the industry; thirdly, to provide that those engaged in the industry shall receive fair and reasonable prices for their produce; fourthly, to ensure that the agricultural industry is adequately financed and is afforded ample credit facilities; fifthly, perhaps equally important, to ensure that the farmer shall always have freedom from interference or, in other words, that security of tenure on his holding which was so long advocated by our forefathers.

On the question of leadership, it is the duty of Minister to guide the industry in the direction which is beneficial for the industry and those engaged in it and which is also beneficial to the nation. That is one of the first functions of a Minister for Agriculture. He must see that the industry which is entrusted to his care is turning out the produce that is most essential for the welfare of the nation and turning it out maximum capacity and is generally fulfilling its proper function in the community. I have found great difficulty in deciding what particular direction the Minister for Agriculture desires agriculture to follow. His statements have been definite enough taken individually but, taken together, one has contradicted the other. For example, the Minister assured us that his policy is to promote increased tillage. At the same time, he is not prepared to give any kind of guarantee or security to those engaged in tillage. The farmer who grows cereals as a feeding stuff has no guarantee that when he turns the cereals into animal produce it will command a reasonable price. This is particularly true in regard to pigs. Pig production is one of the most urgent and important branches of agriculture and one that calls for immediate expansion. I have asked the Minister for Agriculture in this House would he give a guarantee to pig producers that for at least two years the price of bacon pigs would not fall. The Minister has declined to give that guarantee. I think it is a reasonable guarantee. The only people who can very extensively expand pig production are the smaller farmers. They can engage in pig production very intensively if they are given an assurance that prices of bacon pigs will remain at a sufficiently high level for at least two years to enable them to recoup the capital expenditure.

The Minister in this House, I think, on one occasion boasted that he himself was providing for the keeping of an additional eight sows. That is quite an easy matter for the Minister, perhaps, but for the average farmer the keeping of one or two additional breeding sows constitutes a problem. Housing accommodation has to be provided for them. They have to be purchased and kept for a considerable time before they bring in any return. Therefore I think it is only reasonable, on behalf of the pig-producing industry and on behalf of the small farming community generally, to ask the Minister to give a guarantee that prices of bacon pigs, whatever about increasing, will not decrease during the next two years. The most the Minister could assure us was that if, and when, we have a surplus to export the price we will receive in the export market will be the same as that paid to other nations exporting to that market. I asked the Minister for an assurance that the producer in this country would get at least the same price for his bacon pigs as the producers in Northern Ireland and Great Britain get and the Minister said that he could give no such guarantee. I do not think that that is fair having regard to the fact that the Minister has allowed another Minister to swipe £3,250,000 from his Estimate this year. I think he should have reserved some of that money to stabilise pig prices for at least a year.

I do not intend to dwell at any length on milk prices. I have a motion to be put before the House dealing with that question. I suppose it will come before the House in due course. A number of public bodies in the country have been passing resolutions calling for time to be allocated for consideration of those agricultural motions. I trust that time will be afforded. Meantime, I should like to submit this for consideration by the Minister. He has said that he will not increase the price of milk either as supplied to the creameries or as supplied for direct human consumption. As an alternative to increasing the price of milk, he has suggested that he will take measures to reduce the costs of production to the dairy farmers. He has suggested a number of ways in which that reduction in costs of production will be brought about—(1) by the elimination of disease; (2) by the provision of better bulls; (3) by a new national scheme of cow testing; (4) by the provision of free veterinary service and (5) by a nation-wide campaign against tuberculosis in cattle. All these schemes appear to me to be very desirable. They appear to me also to be likely to achieve some of the results which the Minister had in mind and to reduce the farmers' costs of production by enabling them to produce more milk from the same number of cows. I think, however, that the Minister will admit that the implementation of these new schemes will require a considerable amount of time. They cannot be carried into effect in one day, in one week, in one month or even in one year and, pending their implementation, something should be done directly to help the milk producers.

I said earlier in my speech that I did not consider that there was any very substantial difference between the policy of the present Government and that of their predecessors. In one material respect the similarity between the two policies is very obvious. I refer to the manner in which the present Government are meeting the farmers' demand for an impartial investigation into agricultural costings. If the Government are sincere in their desire to ensure that those engaged in the farming industry will receive a fair reward for their work and a fair return for the capital they have put into the industry they should have no hesitation in carrying out an impartial, comprehensive and complete investigation into the costs of production in the various branches of the farming industry. But, so far, every demand for that costings investigation has been evaded or turned down. A few years ago, when Fianna Fáil was in office, I put down a motion calling for the setting up of experimental farms in this country to inquire, by an actual test, into farmers' costings. I wanted the Department to run farms similar to the ordinary farms in this country and thus find out what it costs to run those farms. At that time every Party that was opposed to the Fianna Fáil Government supported that motion. The Fianna Fáil Party, who were then in power, opposed it. However, during the present year, a motion, worded in almost exactly the same words and proposed by me, came before the House. It was opposed not only by the majority of the Fianna Fáil Party but by every Party that is supporting the present Government and that voted for a similar motion four years ago. I do not think that that is playing fair with the ordinary electors of this country. If people take a certain course when they are in opposition they should stick to that course when they come into power. I do not think any Deputy has the right to deceive the electorate, and particularly the farming community, by posing as their friend while he is in opposition and then acting against their interests when in power. This question of the investigation of farmers' costings is vital. It should be one of the most important aspects of the general policy of the Department of Agriculture. They should know what it costs to produce milk, bacon pigs, eggs and every item produced on a farm. They should know what it costs to run an ordinary farm and, when they have found out what that costs, they should take such measures as may be necessary to ensure that the farmer who works his land efficiently will be able to recover his costs of production plus a small margin of profit. That is all the farmer asks for. But the Government have deliberately, and after careful consideration turned down this demand for an investigation into costings. When an impartial and independent expert investigated farmers' costings in an area in Roscommon and proved that the net income of agricultural land did not exceed £6 an acre in that area and that, I think, the income of each adult worker in that area did not exceed 56/-, the Minister for Agriculture told us in this House that the wily farmers of Roscommon had put their fingers in the eyes of that impartial investigator.

We have seen so much in the Press and heard so much in this House and from every part of the country about the prosperity of agriculture that it is essential that an impartial investigation should be held to find out what the farmers' profits are. Until that investigation is carried out, nobody has a right to come to this House or to write to the public Press and claim that farmers are making exceptionally high profits. That is blackguarding a most important section of the community deliberately in order to put farmers in the wrong, to ensure that an additional burden will be imposed upon them and that the just demands that they may make will be turned down.

I suggested also that the Minister for Agriculture should take such measures as may be necessary to provide adequate credit facilities for the agricultural industry. We are in a period when it is vital to the very existence and survival of this nation that the output of agriculture should be in creased. You cannot bring about an increase in the output of any industry, whether the agricultural industry, the manufacturing industry or any other industry, unless you are prepared to put additional capital into it. Take the ordinary 30-acre farm, which is the average farm in the country. If the owner of that farm wants to increase his output of bacon pigs, for example, he must provide perhaps an additional out-house and purchase one or two sow pigs. That is capital outlay which he cannot recover for one or two years. If a farmer finds that as a result of the emergency and the shortage of fertilisers his land is deficient in phosphates or lime and he wants to make good that deficiency in order to increase the output of his soil, he must find the necessary capital to put in six, seven, eight, nine or ten cwts. of artificial fertilisers per acre. Take a farm of ten or 15 acres which, as a result of intensive tillage without adequate manures, has become depleted in its manurial constituents. The owner of that farm must spend £3, £4 or £5 per acre; in other words, he must find £50 or perhaps £100 capital to invest in his land.

There is no source at present from which any farmer can obtain additional capital to improve his land. I have pointed out that the commercial banks are not in a position to supply adequate credit facilities for agriculture. They are prepared to lend money to cattle traders, to middlemen, to people who can pay a higher rate of interest and who have a more profit-making means of living. The Agricultural Credit Corporation was set up 20 years ago to fill the deficiency which existed in the credit facilities available for agriculture. That corporation, however, have never been able successfully to deal with the problem entrusted to them, because the amount of capital allocated to them was too small and the rate of interest at which they had to borrow was too high.

In the course of some discussion on agriculture last year, the Minister gave a definite promise that he would introduce a scheme to enable farmers to purchase tractors and other agricultural machinery on the hire-purchase system at a reasonable rate of interest. I wonder what has become of that scheme, because it would certainly be of some value to the farmer who wants to carry on intensive farming. Anyone who visited the Spring Show must have been impressed by the number and variety of up-to-date agricultural implements available to the farming community. But the average farmer can only look at these things, admire them, perhaps criticise them; he cannot purchase them because he has not got the capital.

In the same way, we have heard a good deal about the scheme to improve and reclaim waterlogged lands—a very desirable scheme. But, is it not even more desirable that something should be done to enable a farmer to improve potentially good land, ordinary arable land which has become deficient over, perhaps, 50 or 100 years, which has become deprived of its fertility, of its phosphates and other constituents of the soil necessary for the production of successful crops? There is, however, no scheme in existence by which such a farmer can fertilise his land. That is an extraordinary position. If a man has 20 acres of arable land which is unproductive because it has not adequate lime and phosphates, he can get no help to improve that land. If he has 20 acres of waterlogged bog and makes an application, he will get some assistance at any rate to reclaim that bog. It is much more urgent that the better land should be improved.

The Minister mentioned that he hoped to import this year 220,000 tons of artificial manures. That may seem a very considerable quantity. There are, however, two important considerations. To bring the average agricultural land back into fertility it would require about five or six cwts. per acre of fertiliser. That is the minimum required. That would amount to about £3,000,000. When you consider that aspect of the question, you will have to admit that 220,000 tons is a very small contribution to the solution of the problem. In addition to that, we have the position that the farmers who need these fertilisers most urgently, the farmers whose land has become absolutely unproductive because of its deficiency in phosphates, cannot secure them because of the inadequate credit facilities available. Those manures will go, in the main, to the more prosperous farmers. They will go, in the main, to the better land that perhaps does not require it as urgently as the surface that has become absolutely deficient. I think the Minister should consider that it is a matter of urgent importance to get adequate supplies of artificial manures into this country at the earliest possible opportunity. The time that may be given to this nation to recover from the effects of the recent emergency may be short and it is absolutely essential that every hour should be availed of to put the land back into the highest possible state of fertility so that it will be able to support our nation.

The Minister referred to the new scheme for extending agricultural advice and education. An official is to be appointed for every three parishes. That scheme has been submitted for consideration to all the county committees of agriculture. In this connection I should like to remind the Minister of a peculiarity in regard to the circulation of that scheme. Usually, when the Department in true Departmental fashion are sending out a circular, they send it to half a dozen different people. They usually like to issue every statement in triplicate at least. In sending out this particular circular to the committees of agriculture, however, each letter was only sent to the chairman with the result that a number of committee members did not see it in time for their meeting last month. However, that is only a small matter. It may be one of those innovations which the Minister is wont to boast about but which are in fact very small in themselves. As far as the scheme is concerned I have no objection to it. I think it must inevitably do a considerable amount of good if the officers appointed are able and competent men and if their services are fully availed of. Nothing has contributed more to the advance of agricultural education than the establishment of young farmers' clubs in various parts of the country. Through those clubs young farmers are getting together and inviting the instructors of the Department to come and give them additional information instead of the instructor trying to round up individual farmers to hear his lectures as he had to heretofore. I am sure the Minister for Agriculture, when down in Limerick recently, was really impressed by the strength of this new movement and that he will do everything possible to encourage it. I have one objection to this particular scheme. It is that it makes for more centralisation in the matter of departmental administration. In an agricultural country with a big rural population it should be the main concern of the Minister responsible for agriculture to promote decentralisation and, instead, to promote the acceptance of responsibility by local bodies. Here we have a position in which the whole business of agricultural instruction is being taken out of the hands of the county committees and placed directly in the hands of the Department of Agriculture. If we are to have three-parish areas established in each county for the purpose of agricultural instruction we could have a local committee in these areas supervising the local agricultural instructor. That is the democratic way of doing business and the nearer we keep to democracy in our system of Government the better for us because there is always a tendency for streamlining and centralising all branches of Governmental activities. I think some machinery will have to be set up to establish local committees to take control of each of those small areas.

In the course of his speech Deputy Smith made one important and interesting point in connection with the Government policy of promoting increased tillage for the production of food for live stock. It is all right to say to the farmer: "Produce oats and feed it to live stock. Walk it off the farm." However, if a farmer finds that having produced oats the price is so low that he could purchase that amount of feeding stuff at less than it has cost to produce it, surely he would not be a businessman if he went on producing oats. He will say: "Is it not better for me to leave my land down to grass and purchase whatever oats I require as feeding stuffs?" That is a problem the Minister will have to face up to. I am old enough and long enough a farmer to remember the depression of 1929, 1930, 1931 and continuing to the middle of 1933. At that time the then Minister for Agriculture said: "Keep one more cow, keep one more sow and put one more acre under the plough." The point I want to make is that the farmer who kept one more cow found that the price of milk feel so low that it did not pay and he could not make a living out of that line of production. The farmer who kept one more sow found that the price of pigs declined so low that there was no living for him in that line. The farmer who tilled one extra acre found that there was no return out of that additional acre of land. If he tried to sell it no one would buy it. If he fed it to live stock the live stock brought no return because there was no market. If he used it to produce milk there was no price. That is where the Minister will have to sit down and do some serious thinking. If he does not and if imported feeding stuffs are readily available we may very quickly develop a system of agriculture which is utterly and completely dependent upon imported foodstuffs and which can be disorganised at any moment by any obstruction in external markets.

In addition to that, we may find ourselves forced into a policy which will not make for securing maximum production on the land. I believe, and I have always held the view, that the only way to get maximum production from the land is by a system of mixed farming, a system of rotational cropping. Permanent pasture, in the case of the average farm, does not make for maximum production. Tillage carried on exclusively without live stock, does not make for it. A mixed system of farming is the best and the only real solution of the problem of inducing and encouraging farmers to till their land and of using the crops they produce to feed their live stock. A system which I put before this House some years ago—it was adopted in Great Britain during the emergency—was that of paying a small acreage subsidy.

Of course, we have been told over and over again that a subsidy simply means feeding the dog on his own tail, which, of course, is ridiculous. It does not mean anything of the kind. If, as a result of paying a subsidy you get increased production, then that subsidy is paid for out of the increased output. Anybody who gives any thought to economics will see that that is true. If you pay a subsidy in any line of agricultural production the cost of it is paid for out of the increased output you get. Therefore, I think there is reason to reconsider this whole question and find a solution for it. Otherwise, we shall drift into a system of agriculture which will not provide maximum output or maximum employment, a system which could very easily be disrupted in the event of any external unrest or in a period of emergency.

I was very much interested in the Minister's statement that he will not in future, tolerate the subletting of their land by farmers. Deputy Smith referred to that, and the Minister asked him, by way of interruption, if he was in favour of the conacre system. Personally, I am not. I do not think it is a good system on the whole, but it would be a very grave injustice to suppress it completely. Some time ago, when I approached the Minister for Agriculture in regard to providing better credit facilities for the farmer, he told me that the farmer had a way of solving that problem for himself by subletting some portion of his land and using the profits thereby secured to finance the work on the remainder of his holding. Having made that statement, the Minister comes along now and says that he is going to put the man who sublets portion of his land to prison or somewhere else. Of course, the Minister will probably tell us that he did not outline any particular penalty for that farmer, but we may take it that when a Minister speaks on a matter of this kind he intends his words to be taken seriously. I know there is many a man prosperous on his farm to-day who would be out of the country or in the workhouse or perhaps working for his week's wages and not the owner of his farm if, when he set out farming at first, he had not sublet portion of his land and in that way got together the necessary amount of money to enable him to work it properly. The farmer is usually described as "the old farmer". We know that quite a number of farmers die at a comparatively early age and leave behind them widows and children. Are they to be turned out of their holdings simply because they have not the means, the experience or the knowledge to enable them to carry on the ordinary farming operations and, consequently, are obliged to sublet portion of their land? A widow, for example, may not have the necessary knowledge or experience, or even sufficient physical strength, to carry on the work of a farm. Is she, with her children, to be turned out of her farm simply because, in the first few years after her husband's death, she is unable to work it, and has to sublet portion of it until the children grow up and are able to take over the work on it? I think the Minister will have to reconsider all these aspects of the very dogmatic decree that he has issued. Farming is not a branch of life, it is not an industry or a way of life that is suitable for the issuing of dogmatic statements of that sort.

There are exceptions to every rule which may be laid down. I think it is utterably undesirable that wealthy people should purchase large estates or large farms as a speculation and be allowed to sublet them for profit. While I think that is undesirable, I think that at the same time the average farmer's freedom of action should not be interfered with. After all, such interference does not fit in with the Minister's very definite and very clear statement that he will keep his officials outside the farmer's fences until they are invited in. Is any farmer who is subletting his land going to invite any inspector in to see how much of his land is sublet? It may be suggested that the Minister can easily find out what amount of land is being sublet from outside observation and without sending any inspectors in on a farm. I suggest that the moment such a decree is issued we shall drive the subletting of land into the black market. We shall have secret subletting, and the Minister will then have to appoint a number of inspectors to find out who owns every cow or beast that is on each farm. These are all very important matters which cannot be lightly dealt with.

The Minister, in the course of his statement, referred, and rightly so, to the losses which farmers sustain through diseases in their stocks and herds, as well as to disease in the various plants and cereals that grow on their land. He referred to the very estimable work which is being done by the Department to fight against those diseases. He referred to the infertility in cows. I should like to remind him, in that connection, that infertility also exists in regard to breeding sows, and of the fact that, in many ways, disease and infertility amongst our pigs have been responsible for the low pig production we have in the country, and for the low output of bacon which we have to offer to our consumers. The amount of disease that has existed among pigs for the past four or five years has never been properly appreciated, because the farming community have been a little bit shy about advertising that there was disease in any district. If it became known that there was disease among pigs in a certain district, the pig market there would be very seriously affected. But the disease has been widespread throughout the country and I was interested to hear the Minister saying it originated in Eastern Europe, where a lot of other diseases originate. I hope the Minister will be able to deal with it effectively.

There is one aspect of pig rearing with which I should like to deal. Under the Departmental system of improving the breed of pigs I am inclined to think that the breeding of board has been restricted to comparatively few people and the pig population has become, perhaps, very closely related and, perhaps, too finely bred. Every old farmer will tell you that 30 or 40 years ago the pigs were not of the same high quality as they are to-day. You went to the local fair and you had to search before you found suitable young animals for fattening. Some were too hairy, some badly shaped. Now in any fair you will see that practically all the pigs are of uniform quality. That is the result of the present pig-breeding policy of the Department.

It has an important bearing on the pig-raising industry, but a good many farmers think that it has this disadvantage, that pigs are no longer as strong or healthy as they were years ago when they were, if you like, coarsely bred. That may or may not be true, but it is the opinion of many farmers. I am not suggesting there should be any departure from the Departmental scheme of keeping the breed for as good quality a pig as possible, but the other aspect should be considered and it might help. Means might be found to secure all the advantages which we had in the old coarse breeding of pigs in years gone by, together with the advantages we now possess in having the more highly-bred animals.

I shall wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say in regard to some of the more important matters I have raised: firstly, the question of credit for agriculture; secondly, the question of a fair system of investigation into farmers' costings and, thirdly, a guarantee of fair prices based on these costings. If the Minister's answer to these questions are satisfactory, I do not think the House should refer his Estimate back for reconsideration.

Mr. Childers

In connection with this Estimate, I think that we should never lose an opportunity of replying to the noxious criticism of the former Government in connection with agricultural policy and, in particular, to the vilification by the present Minister of those who were charged with the responsibility of looking after the farmers' interests. In that connection we have to take into account the agricultural conditions which we left to the present Minister to deal with. I recall the present Minister having suggested that the previous Government had ruined the life of the farming community and had placed them almost in a condition of destitution. He criticised very severely a number of important aspects of Fianna Fáil farming policy.

Members of the then Opposition always failed to take account of the fact that during the whole period of office of the last Government we had, roughly speaking, only one normal year. For five years we conducted, quite deliberately and intentionally, an economic war with Great Britain. Our agricultural policy was distorted during that period, prices were depressed, special measures had to be adopted and, although we gave full protection to the farmers in respect of the home market and cash prices for certain crops, we were not able entirely to prevent the effect of the low prices and the penal taxes levied by the British Government at that period. Nevertheless, we did initiate a number of good schemes to enable agricultural production to be increased.

No sooner was that war terminated than the world war began and with it came restrictions on the importation of fertilisers and foodstuffs and the necessity of producing abnormal quantities of food for the population of this country. Our policy was based partly on the idea of restoring agriculture and improving fertility, but it was also based on a sound realistic principle, that in the middle of either an economic war, where there was a political conflict here, or a world war, it was impossible to embark on the kind of rehabilitation schemes that became possible when these two wars had passed away.

As everybody knows, there has been stagnation in production, not for 16 but for 30 years. For 30 years the livestock population and the production of crops, whether for home use or export, have remained stagnant, and they have remained stagnant for reasons that have nothing to do with the policy of the previous Government. That is largely due to the fact that farmers have constantly faced, for the 30 years, either war in this country, war outside the country, or constantly declining prices. There is also the fact that the facility of emigration does not conduce to intensive production here. Our farms, frankly, are not intensively run. They never have been. The whole sociological system of farm inheritance does not tend to intensive production. That is one of the many reasons why production has not increased.

Since this new Government came into office they have had to report to the E.C.A. with regard to the economic problem here and they have had to reveal to the public certain figures showing the extraordinarily good part played by the farmers during the period of the economic war and during the world war. They have had to reveal that, in spite of those two events, the amazing thing is that the actual volume of output of agriculture has remained so stable. I think, now that we are in opposition, we have a perfect right to point these figures out and I think they should be in the records of the House as well as being available to Deputies who chose to purchase "European Recovery Programme—Ireland, Country Study".

I should like to give some figures to show what our farmers could do under difficult circumstances, with the aid of the measures undertaken by the Fianna Fáil Government to help them. Taking the total volume of production for 1938-39 as 100, the war then begins and the figure slowly falls and the lowest point to which it fell was in 1943-44, when it reached the figure of 89.8. It then started to rise again and it reached 99.9 per cent., or practically 100, in 1945. In 1946 it fell to 97.4, and in 1947, no doubt as a result of the appalling weather conditions, it fell to 91.9. I do not want to detract from any of the efforts made by the Minister for Agriculture, whether good or bad, to help agriculture in this country, but I think the public should be made aware of the fact that it is not easy to increase production; and that, according to a statement made by the Minister for Finance, agricultural output at the present time is still 7 per cent. below the 1938-39 level. Taking his figure, I reckon that the actual output volume went up to 93 from 91.9 as between 1947 and 1948, indicating that, although there are some hopeful signs due to more normal conditions of a revival in agricultural production or a greater increase in agricultural output, the actual production increase was very, very small indeed in 1948. Whatever Minister is in power, he is up against very great difficulties, and the increase in production, taking it by and large over the whole field of agrigramme—Ireland culture, is not going to be swift. As I have said, the figure in 1947 was 91.9.

According to the Minister for Finance it went to 93 in 1948. The Minister for Finance also adverted to the fact that the output of cattle and calves in 1948 was still 22 per cent. of that in 1938 and 1939 and that pig output was still 57.6 under what he described as the rather low pre-war standard. It is going to be a rather long business then to increase production. But I wanted to give these figures because they do reveal the fact that, despite the difficulties with which the farmers are faced, the production rate has remained astonishingly high.

I might add also that the last Government certainly contributed to the increase in agricultural prices. Taking the pre-war figure as 100, agricultural prices were reckoned as 245 in 1947 and 251 in 1948—a not very great increase but it at least shows that the previous Government did all in its power to secure guaranteed prices for the farmers; and, of course, there was already the natural increase in prices due to world conditions and scarcity conditions. In this connection I think I might also mention that, although we all admit that the country desperately needs limestone and phosphate and although we all admit that special urgent measures are required to provide limestone and phosphate for the farmer, the yields of the crops in 1948 show that the farmer either did an extraordinarily good job or that the land of this country has a fantastic natural fertility in spite of the deficiencies arising owing to the war and the difficult economic conditions before the war, or both. I think it is just as well to give these figures to the House because they indicate, as I have said, that the results in 1948 were astonishingly good. The yield per acre in wheat went up 50 per cent.; the yield per area of oats went up from 15.8 cwt. to 18 cwt. per acre; the yield of barley went up by over 33? per cent.; the yield of potatoes went up by about 33? per cent.; and the yield in sugar beet went up from 7.8 tons to the statute acre to 9.2 tons to the statute acre. Granted that there has been a scarcity of limestone and phosphates, at least no one can say that the fertility of the land was decayed and rotting as a result of Fianna Fáil policy in face of these figures. They indicate the astonishing capacity of the land to produce good crops if weather conditions happen to be unusally favourable.

Having mentioned these figures, I think it is a good thing to point out that at the end of the war the previous Government was on the way to starting the rehabilitation of agricultural production by a series of schemes, a number of which have been adopted by the present Government. I think I must accuse the Minister on occasion of being very fair and giving credit to the previous Government for these schemes and on other occasions of taking the mantle of glory on himself for the inauguration of these schemes. In any event I think it should be mentioned that the previous Government had planned to continue the guaranteed price for wheat, had inaugurated the first trade agreement with the British Government and had planned to make a second agreement, and had inaugurated a farm buildings scheme which was delayed by the present Government for a year. In that connection I should like to ask the Minister by what date he is going to issue the first farm building grants certificates so that the farmers can make their plans. I ask the Minister to tell us when the first certificates will be produced. As I said in the course of the Budget every farmer has to combine his agriculture with the improvement of his buildings and he has either to get handymen to do the work, provided he can get the materials, or find a contractor to do it for him. He has to make these plans in advance. Nothing is more annoying than for a farmer who wants to do building work in the early autumn or winter not to know what his plans will be and not to know whether or not he will get a certificate from the Government or what the grant will be. It is vital for a farmer to have the important dates given to him as to when he is likely to get certificates for this already postponed scheme—postponed for a full year.

So far as I understand, the major part of the egg and poultry scheme was devised by the previous Government. I trust that the Minister will say something more to us about the recent reduction in the price of eggs. I did not follow the figure he gave the other day in which he related the price of imported feeding stuffs to the price of eggs. I could not see that it related to the overall production of eggs under the varying circumstances of farmers using different types of feeding stuffs, from house offals to oats and to all the other varied combinations of feeding stuffs. I want to hear the Minister relate the average type of feeding stuffs, or a number of types of feeding stuffs, to the price of eggs at 3/- and at 2/6 and to any other price he envisages in the future. If he tells the people that they will know where they are. Let him be honest and not only relate egg prices to imported maize prices, because every farmer in my constituency at least knows that that is not a fair statement. It is not a sufficient statement. The previous Government scoured the world for maize and fertilisers but they were not available until the end of the Government's administration. I understand the previous Minister for Agriculture was engaged in a number of alternative ground limestone schemes. I am quite sure that the present Minister for Agriculture will be willing to recognise that there were available when he came into office a number of alternative methods of distributing ground limestone cheaply. He has chosen his own particular method, but I hope he will admit that there were a number of alternative schemes from which he could have chosen.

With reference to soil surveys and analysis, I understand the first organisation of that commenced during the régime of the previous Government. It had not been altogether completed, but soil analysis, so far as I can recall from what the farmers of Longford have told me, was already available on a more extended scale before February, 1948. It is true that the present Minister has done a great deal to improve that service and has plans for its still further improvement. I also understand that there was in view an expansion of the veterinary service and that a number of research schemes that have been begun were being started before the present Minister took office.

Having said all that, I recognise with the Minister that it is essential to increase production. I also recognise the fact that now, there being no economic war and no world war, it is quite possible to have complementary to each other, production for home consumption and production for export and that there need not, under ideal circumstances, be any conflict between a live-stock policy and the encouragement of a cereal and a root production policy. The two ought to be complementary. I recognise too that the growing of good crops and the production of good grass are complementary and that there should be no dispute on that matter between any Parties in this House. The trouble is that a great many farmers require a great deal of encouragement to continue that policy even on a reasonable level once abnormal conditions pass away.

Next I want to refer to some of the Minister's previous statements and, as Ministers of the previous Government on a number of occasions admitted that they were wrong in what they had said, admitted that certain views they had were in error, I think it is only reasonable to ask for the sake of the farmers whether the present Minister for Agriculture continues to hold certain views which he held as late as 1947. I do not think that is unreasonable. First of all the Minister on the 18th June, 1947, as reported at col. 2037 said:—

"I solemnly warn this House on these interest-free loans that 50 per cent. of the recipients will live to curse the day they got them... Land is no security for credit in this country—God grant it never may be."

I want to hear the Minister say that he has definitely abandoned, for good and for all, the solemn promises made by the Leader of Clann na Poblachta and the Leader of Clann na Talmhan, not only in roadside speeches but in official Party statements that they would inaugurate a system of interest free loans for farmers. We want him to say that this policy is permanently in abeyance so long as he is Minister and I think that is a reasonable thing to ask.

As reported at col. 2040 the Minister, also on the 18th June, 1947, said:—

"I want to say again with emphasis that once wheat from abroad is available to this country again, I would not be seen dead in a field of wheat on my land in this country because I know that this whole rotten fraud in fact was invoked to permit the Rank interests and the other milling interests in this country to charge our people 30/- a cwt. for flour when they were selling it in Liverpool for 19/-."

We had the former Taoiseach recanting a statement he made in regard to policy and we have had the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the former Government making somewhat similar retractions. Let the Minister for Agriculture now be honest enough to admit that that statement was sheer clotted nonsense. Had a policy of wheat growing not been carried out, this country would have starved during the war. It was the policy of Fianna Fáil, to encourage at least the reasonable growing of wheat, that saved us during the war.

As reported at col. 2042, the Minister also said on the 18th June, 1947:—

"Some day I am convinced that beet will go up the spout after peat and wheat. God speed that day."

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted and 20 Deputies being present.

Mr. Childers

As I was saying, when we had to call for a quorum, the Minister for Agriculture speaking less than two years ago said:—

"Some day I am convinced that beet will go up the spout after peat and wheat. God speed that day. Then the land of this country can be used for the purpose for which it was intended—the profit of those who own it and live upon it and the benefit of those who consume its products and who, without that production, might find themselves short."

We know that the Minister has guaranteed the price of beet for a number of years, no doubt influenced by some members of the Government. In the year 1948, 66,371 tons of beet were produced. Does the Minister still hold that view, or has he made up his mind that having regard to world conditions and the value of the beet crop as an ancillary method of assisting the fertility of the land, and having regard to general circumstances, beet production is a good thing and that we should continue it? I want to ask the Minister if he is prepared to make an honest recantation of the statement which I have quoted.

So far as peat is concerned—and agricultural policy has to be related to the policy of turf production in this country—do we have a Minister in the Government who prays every day for the abandonment of the peat policy or has he changed his mind also in regard to that policy? I could repeat many other statements made by the Minister but these are sufficient. He had the policy that some day or other subsidies would have to go. He deprecated, in the course of the same debate, the payment of a subsidy on butter. He said as reported at col. 2048:—

"We are subsidising butter production to the tune of £2,000,000 per annum. How long will that go on? Do we expect a time in the early future when the price of milk will become so adjusted that it will be possible to suspend this subsidy or do we intend to continue producing milk for conversion into butter in creameries at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 per annum?"

He goes on to make other remarks to the same effect and he sounds as though he were not very keen on the butter subsidy.

Having passed away from the Minister's previous statements, I think the Minister should be reminded, in all fairness, of some of his promises made during the last six months. He said on one occasion that he would drain, dry and fertilise this country in ten years, that he would bring about conditions whereby 1,500,000 cattle would be exported in ten years, the present total cattle population being less than 4,000,000. He said that he would drown the British in eggs. I want to remind the Minister of these statements because I am not sure that exaggerated statements of that kind are in the long run the best way of inducing farmers to increase production. I am not convinced that psychologically that is the best approach, but Longford and Westmeath farmers may be different from others. I do not think in any case that that kind of statement is particularly helpful.

To get down to the present agricultural policy, we note that the Minister has abandoned the Labour and the Clann na Poblachta points of view with regard to interest-free loans with the exception that in connection with the new rehabilitation scheme farmers' contributions towards reclamation can be funded with their annuities. That is the one exception to the Minister's statement that there will be no further change in the methods of giving agricultural credit. I have always held very strongly that agricultural credit of the type which involves the lending of money to farmers for unspecified purposes on liberal terms is not a good thing for this country or a good thing for our type of farmer. It is not a good thing particularly because, as everybody knows, land is not a security for credit in the ordinary way. It is not possible for a bank or credit institution in the ordinary way to sell out a farm. We all know that credit in the ordinary way is not available in the way in which it is available in countries such as Denmark, but I take the view that if we are going to spend millions of our own people's money or money which is banked to pay back the loan to the Americans which is our own people's money, we should consider giving credit to farmers in terms of subsidised machinery. The Minister is a strong believer in the benefit of agricultural machinery and although I do not believe that our farmers could adopt the use of machinery as much as he believes it, I would go so far as to say that I believe that the use of agricultural machinery will improve the status of agricultural labourers in many parts of the country. If the Minister wants to increase agricultural production, why does he not take the usual course of borrowing the people's money in order to subsidise certain types of farm machinery which the small farmer has difficulty in getting? If he is going in for a gigantic rehabilitation scheme in order to help production to increase, then I think he should consider that.

I think he should also consider subsidising grass seed of good quality. One of the most difficult problems we have to face at the moment is the fact that in very large areas in my constituency when farmers put their land back to grass they take hay-barn seed although in many cases if their rates are under a certain figure they could borrow under the seeds and fertilisers scheme to buy good seed. That is a scheme of which many people do not take advantage. There is a good case for a scheme to give seed of a good quality to a farmer who is coming to the end of a rotation which will induce him—many farmers are still very conservative—to use seed of the very best quality instead of taking seed from his hay-barn. I cannot see why a scheme which is estimated to cost over £50,000,000 in ten years for reclamation should not also include something, whatever few hundred thousand pounds it would cost, to act as an inducement to farmers to purchase the very best seed. I would ask the Minister why he cannot include that particular reclamation scheme in a total scheme which, as I have said, is going to cost over £50,000,000 in ten years.

Certain export markets have been found, like Portugal, Spain, Palestine to a limited degree and, of course, England, but is there no possibility of developing other markets? At one time there was an Irish-Brazilian trade pact being considered. It was never implemented. I never discovered why. It was based on exchange of seed potatoes and young bulls for maize. The pact never was implemented, whether because the terms were not satisfactory or because of exchange difficulties, I do not know.

Mr. Dillon

Or the presence of castor oil seed in Brazilian maize.

Mr. Childers

Or perhaps for the reason stated by the Minister. I would like to ask whether any official has gone abroad looking for seed potato markets or whether we do not need ambassadors abroad for our seed potatoes, particularly in the dollar area, which is so valuable to us.

Captain Giles

The day of the debate on this Estimate is generally a field day for farmer Deputies. I expect that this debate will last over the next three days. It is all the better for the Minister to hear every side of the story and I am satisfied that there are many stories to be told. We are at the the transition stage. We are at the period of change from compulsion to the voluntary idea of farming. That augurs well for the country. For the last seven or eight years there was so much compulsion that farmers were sick and tired of it. Now they have become free men once more and I hope agriculture will be stepped up as years go on. I know that if the farmers are treated satisfactorily they will respond. When one is at a racecourse one studies form to see what horse he will back. Anybody studying the form of the Minister and the ex-Minister to-day on the performance put up by them would know the horse to back. What Deputy Smith gave out for a couple of hours was a tirade of abuse and there was nothing constructive in it. It was a case of making little of the present Minister by every and any means. If he brings that long-winded speech to the meeting of the county council, as he did last year, it certainly will not do him much good.

In this transition stage many farmers are looking around to see what line they will adopt. In the days of voluntary farming the county that I represent was a county where a grazing policy was pursued and it paid the farmers well. The present Minister, and I am satisfied he is right, is going to embark on a mixed farming policy. That is the soundest thing we could have and should bring great results. There is great scope for mixed farming in this country. In the county that I come from most of the farmers there always carried on a good percentage of tillage and used the produce of that tillage for the production of live stock and, as the Minister said, tried to walk their produce off the farm. That is the sound and sane policy and one that I would ask every farmer to adopt.

The new scheme of the Minister's to combine three parish areas and to put an instructor in charge of the area is very sound. I do not know how that scheme will develop. There may be five or six parishes combined. Some people maintain that a combination of three parishes is too small and will entail too many instructors. Others maintain that it is quite satisfactory. Whether it is three or five, I am satisfied that the scheme is badly needed because there are far too few trained instructors. Not a fraction of the people who need instructors ever see them. That is not the fault of anyone. There are not enough instructors and the few there are cannot get to the people in remote areas. By a combination of parishes and proper advertisement and by making it clear to the people that there is a new idea and outlook, a new spirit will be developed.

One of the greatest achievements of such a scheme would be the introduction of a co-operative system. We know that agriculture has advanced. We know that agriculture needs mechanisation but the vast majority of small farmers are not in a position, because of lack of capital, to mechanise. If two or three parishes are combined and if there is an instructor at the top, there could be co-operative purchase of machinery for doing the major work of the farm. Much good can come of the co-operative system. The co-operative system never took on in this country. That is because we have not got down to the basis of the parish unit. It is no use to talk of a county or provincial basis. It must be done on a basis on which you can work. An instructor at the head of two or three parishes would evolve a proper scheme for advanced agriculture and we certainly need that. In every county there is a vast amount of waste. In the ordinary times there is a vast amount of potatoes, mangolds, turnips going to waste and rotting for want of co-operative marketing while in another part of the county there are men crying out for the potatoes to feed live stock. Co-operative marketing and co-operative purchase of machinery on a parish basis would do an immense amount of good and I would ask the Minister to concentrate on that.

I recommend the co-operative system because I know what was achieved by it, in a small way, in my own area during the emergency years. By investing a reasonable amount of money— £70 at the start—six farmers who combined were able to purchase a reaper and binder and to lend them on the hire system when their work was done. That brought in enough money to buy a seed machine, a horse sprayer, a turnip seed sower, and at present these machines are working and giving immense satisfaction in the whole parish. That was a backward place where the practice used to be to use the scythe and to get a loan of a horse. By the use of this machinery we can have an early tillage, an early harvest and a safe harvest. That is the result of five or six people co-operating. We had to do it on account of compulsory tillage. If that were done in a big way in every parish it would bring prosperity to the farmers and the position of the labouring man also would be improved as the years go on. The Minister is on the right lines.

There has been a great deal of talk about what the Minister said in Meath when he talked to the county committee of agriculture about the 11-months' system. I was listening to the Minister and I am satisfied that if the statement he made were fully reported in the Press there would be very little adverse comment on it because what he said was sound and sensible. He was hitting at a certain type of people. He said that there were widows and poor people who were unable to stock their land and that it was only fair that they could let it until they were in a position to do so. He said he was not concerned with these people. There are other people that the Minister spoke of and he was quite right in speaking of them.

It is very often the case that a man who spends all his time in Dublin has a couple of hundred acres of grazing land in County Meath. That land is set on the 11-months' system and he may be getting £11 or £12 an acre for it. He draws that money from the land but he does not spend a penny of it in County Meath. He has nobody there on the land but a herd and a dog. Why should the Minister not speak of that? Is it not a deplorable position that a big financier in Dublin, often a publican, has land set in County Meath and is getting big money for it and is having a royal time? I hope the Minister will speak often, as he has often spoken, and that he will tackle that problem. I know that the Minister is human and that he knows that there are many men whom the hand of God strikes. Often a man has losses through the death of a cow or a horse and, what is even worse, it sometimes happens that his wife dies and leaves a large family behind. The Minister is quite satisfied to give those people time to get on their feet. There is nothing wrong in that. Anybody hearing him would clap him, as he was clapped by the committee. He was speaking the truth and he could stand over what he said. We had experience of Fianna Fáil policy for a long number of years. Whether there were good points or bad points in it the result was a fiasco. I believe that if Fianna Fáil were still in power they would by now have thrown away that policy. It was a policy of compulsion and the farmers were sick and tired of it. For years and years all the farmers heard about was inspectors, quotas and Orders. They had inspector after inspector—the wheat inspector, the warble fly inspector, the beet inspector and so on—all down the years. There was compulsion at every end of agriculture. I am glad we have got away from that position and that we are now working on a voluntary basis. The farmer will now be king of his own castle and no inspector will come in unless he is asked to do so. What did Parnell, Davitt and the other patriots fight for? They fought so that the farmer would be let alone. The farmer should be allowed to run his farm in his own way. I am glad the Minister is doing that and I feel sure that the farmer will respond.

The Minister is up against many problems. A vast number of astute politicians are going around the country whispering that the Minister for Agriculture is daft, that Fine Gael do not want him and that nobody wants him. That is all bombast and tommy rot. Knowing the Minister, I feel sure he will ride through it and come out on top as he has always done. He is sound and balanced and he is not afraid to stand on his own two feet. I may say that not alone the Fianna Fáil people but many people on this side of the House are listening to that whispering. There is a great deal of jealousy in this country because we have a Minister for Agriculture who has made a success of his job inside 12 months. He read a list in the House to-day in regard to production during the last 12 months. There has been an increase in cattle, sheep, poultry, eggs and butter. In fact all farming was stepped up in the last 12 months. If things continue like that, what will the position be at the end of five years or at the end of ten years if we have stability and if we have no European war? The Minister will prove himself a godsend to the farmers. I know that the Minister makes many statements They are made by him in his own way and certain farmers cannot swallow those statements. They say that the Minister is talking big. Is it not better to have him talking big than to have him talking small?

Every man is born with his own way of expressing himself and with his own way of delivering a speech. The Minister is quite entitled to express his feelings in his own way. The balanced farmers in this country are quite satisfied that he is on the right lines. They are getting down to proper farming. There are many people in this country who have never farmed because there was not any necessity for them to do so. They are side-line farmers to whom farming is only a hobby. They have many other ways of living. These people may say that the Minister is going to make them do this and do that. I hope he does because many of these people have had a good time. However, the ordinary farmer who works his farm and lives on it is quite satisfied that the Minister is on the right lines. Many men in my area have worked hard. They carried out the traditional type of farming—mixed tillage, live stock, poultry, pigs and so forth—and they were able to have 80 per cent. of their own produce on their tables. They had not to go to the shops for everything. They had their bag of wheat, their milk, their butter, their chickens, their eggs and so on. They were quite happy that, as long as they were left alone, they would eke out their own existence.

I hope that, under the Minister's policy, there will be a return to the policy of stall feeding. We had that system in years gone by. That was one of the foundations on which the balance of the employment of men the whole year round was operated. The farmer who was able to have even 50 stall cows in his stables gave good employment. He got a vast amount of manure from that system. If he got nothing else but the manure he got from the cattle he would have been richly rewarded. If we have that policy we will have a sound balanced system of farming in this country. The artificial manure is good but it is nothing compared with the manure from stall feeding. Things are looking rosy for the farmer. A change of policy is all for the good.

I am not going to go into the milk question because it does not concern my county. There are many members in this House from the South of Ireland, which is the part of the country mainly affected by that problem, and they will take up the matter. I come from a county where we can have a vast amount of mixed tillage. Let me repeat that if the Minister is able to read as satisfactory a list next year as he was able to read this year he is the farmers' friend.

Mr. P.D. Lehane

In my few remarks on this Estimate there are a number of things which I should like to congratulate the Minister for Agriculture for having done and there are a number of praiseworthy things to be said about the policy of the Department of Agriculture. I may offer some few criticisms and if the Opposition like to make any use they can of them they are quite entitled to do so. I realise that the Minister for Agriculture is in a very difficult position. He has to put up with very many malicious attacks by his opponents. He has to detect the fickle fawnings of the cunning, calculating preference seekers; he has the honest praise of people like myself, and he has very little constructive criticism.

If I say anything against the Minister or against the Department of Agriculture, I am making a present of it to the Opposition but it is something that I feel should be done because the Minister for Agriculture is in the position that he is too close to certain problems with which he has to deal. I am not in the same position as the Minister for Agriculture and I can look on these problems from a greater distance. I can see more people in the country than he can and I can get their views. Any criticism I may make is being offered in that spirit, and I hope it will be accepted in that spirit. I believe that the policy of the Minister is fundamentally 100 per cent. correct. We have to embark on a policy of increased agricultural production if we are to increase the remuneration of those engaged in agriculture and have a decent standard of living for the agricultural community. I know that we cannot, year after year, when prices and costs increase, be trying to add more on to the price of our commodities, particularly when we have to sell some of these commodities in the world market. I can appreciate that. I believe that we must expand and increase production, even though I am not as optimistic as the Minister that, when we increase our output to the optimum, we will have a remunerative market for all our produce. We must either restrict our production and feed the people of this country poorly, or feed them on a rationed basis and get what we regard as an economic price for our output, or expand and try to get a reasonable price for a doubled or trebled or a much higher output in agricultural commodities. I am not as optimistic as the Minister, as I say, in regard to the availability of foreign markets for our surplus products, but I believe that we have to decide whether we are going to expand and increase production, or linger and stultify production, which is a hopeless outlook for an agricultural country.

I want to congratulate the Minister on having dealt with some of the problems that I mentioned last year. I am not suggesting that it is because I mentioned them on this Estimate last year the Minister dealt with them. But I pointed out last year that the farmers were being forced to contribute a colossal amount of money to combines and cartels in the manure and fertiliser industry. With great courage, the Minister tackled that problem. We know that as a compliment we got ground rock phosphate last year at something over £9 per ton. The Minister asked those who supplied that phosphate if they would supply it at £7 or £8 per ton and they said it would be ruinous for them. Then, when the Minister attempted to get something done through other channels, the people who said it would be ruinous for them to sell this ground rock phosphate from South Africa in this country at £8 per ton, were offering it at £6 and £6 4s. per ton. I want to take this opportunity of congratulating the Minister on his courage in getting to grips with this cartel which had been subsidised by the Opposition and which was robbing the farmers. I also want to congratulate the Minister on having attacked another big combine—the Rank combine. We know that up to this year small millers could not get an ounce of Indian meal, as it was cornered by certain groups and manufactured Indian meal was sold at an outrageous price to the people. Again I thank the Minister for what he did in that direction.

I would ask the Minister now to go one step further and tackle another combine that has its fingers on the throats of Irish producers, and that is the bacon curing industry. We know that in the past the bacon curers put drapers' clerks into the factories with rulers measuring down to the sixteenth part of an inch to measure the fat on the back and the sides of every pig and cut down the price to the farmers to a ridiculously low level. That grading and quota system was more responsible for the reduction in the pig population and the bacon supply during the war than the shortage of maize. Up to that time the small farmers and the cottiers who had potatoes or grain or waste were feeding a certain number of pigs. But, when the quota and grading system was adopted and the drapers' assistants with their rulers measuring down to the sixteenth part of an inch were put into the factories, these people when they went to the factory to sell a pig were told: "You cannot sell that pig for another month; you must take it home for a month, but you must see that it does not increase in weight, that it does not put on another sixteenth part of an inch on any part of its anatomy." It was because of that that pig and bacon production was reduced to the level to which it was reduced at the outbreak of the war and not the shortage of feeding stuffs.

The bacon curers want to get back to that position again. When they were doing that in the past, they made excess profits, as was proved by the Prices Commission, of something over £300,000 in a very short time. Recently they had the cheek and the temerity to advertise in the newspapers, but without any authority, that they were going to pay a certain price for any pig weighing a certain weight. The pig which they would buy in this country, and which, incidentally, they would export the minute they got an opportunity, was worth in England £10 more than they would pay. I want the Minister to be as courageous in his attack on these vampires as he has been on the parasites.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy observed that the advertisement was withdrawn?

Mr. P.D. Lehane

I observed that. The Minister, I think, has made some injudicious speeches and it is a pity that he has done so. While I believe that the Minister has done a great thing, that he has the right idea as far as agriculture is concerned and that he is not pessimistic, he spoils it all by coming out and getting the farmers' backs up. No farmer in this country likes to be told he is lazy. The Minister, instead of telling them that there was a special spray available now for spraying their wheat, said: "The lazy farmer." There is no lazy farmer so far as I know and no man who goes to the trouble of sowing his grain is not going to avail of a simple method which the Minister has made available to prevent weeds from choking up the corn that he has sunk his money into. The Minister should simply have said: "Will the farmer please not be careless; will the farmer who does not know about this know it now?" Why must he come out and say: "The lazy farmer"? Why must the Minister complain that everybody—myself included because I have some Friesians—who does not keep dairy Shorthorns is a crank or an old maid? The Minister said that everybody who has a Jersey, a Friesian or an Ayrshire is a crank or an old maid.

Mr. Dillon

I should like the Deputy to refer me to that statement.

Mr. P.D. Lehane

I will refer the Minister if he wants the quotation but I have not got it now. If I had known yesterday this debate was coming on to-day I would have had it. The Minister has also said things about horses. There is a tradition amongst Irishmen that the countryman likes his horse and he does not like a statement from the Minister that he is ordering the horse to Belgium overnight. The Minister advocates getting machinery to mechanise farming. I would ask the Minister to look up the financial returns that were made in the south of England on a number of farms which were completely mechanised. What they call a small farm in England is something under 100 acres but a small farm in Ireland is something under seven acres. The Minister will find that on the smaller farms in the south of England they found there was a colossal loss by mechanising them.

In one part of my constituency we are rather interested in flax. I know the Minister had several difficulties in that connection and I have no doubt that he tried to do the best he possibly could in the circumstances. In certain areas in this country, however, flax is a useful industry because it gives a considerable amount of employment to a number of people, particularly in the more or less congested districts. If private enterprise will not do it the Minister should consider establishing a flax-spinning industry in this country. I think the best place he could place it would be in South Cork.

We had a number of difficulties this year about oats and potatoes. The Minister has suggested that he is forming a national marketing body for oats and potatoes. I have an idea that the Minister said that potatoes were being sold to England at somewhere in the region of £10 to £11 a ton. I do not know what kind of marketing system or board he had last year but I know the people brought their potatoes into the market, that they were put on a grading machine in the potato merchant's premises with an inspector of the Department there, also, and that they got nothing like £10 a ton. The Minister should see that any marketing board that he sets up does not get the fat of the deal but that the producer gets his fair profit for the work that he has done.

I do not want to delay the House much longer but I should like to mention these points. I quite understand the Minister saying certain things in his colourful way but I want to ask the Minister to remember that some of his colourful statements, when read in the provincial weekly press, are not taken in exactly the same way as the Deputies of this House take them. I think the Minister has done a very good job and that he deserves credit. He has the right outlook but I wish he would be more careful about what he says. I want to make just one other point with reference to milk. I think the Minister knows my views on the question of milk quite well. The Minister is fortunate in so much as this season has been an exceptionally favourable one, thanks be to God. Milk production has increased but there is nothing to say that something outside our control will happen next year and that the milk yield will not be as high as it was this year. It is not possible to produce any commodity while labour costs are so high. Take the price of milk. Labour costs have increased 15 per cent. since the price of milk was fixed in 1947; rates have increased astronomically and the price of farmers' raw materials, as can be checked in the trade journal, has gone up 23 per cent. If this increased production of milk did not occur it would be a very serious thing for the agricultural community in the country. I know the Minister will say calves have gone up. They have gone up to a certain extent but not sufficient to cover the increased costs by any manner or means. Fortunately the increased yield has gone up, however, and the effects of the higher wages, the higher rates and the higher cost of agricultural raw materials have not made themselves felt as otherwise they would have.

I said that I had a number of things to congratulate the Minister on and I think I have done so. I also had a few of what I hope were constructive criticisms to make. Finally, I repeat that I believe the Minister's policy is sound and the only policy we can adopt with a hope of success. It is the only way in which we have a hope of getting prosperity.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

Mr. M. O'Reilly

In some other counties, principally Mayo, they get in a number of store cattle with crossed toes and no matter how much you cut or pare them the toes still continue to grow. It is not alone in County Meath we want it, but if it is a remedy we want it in a great number of other counties as well. So far as that part of the business is concerned, I congratulate the Minister, but I would be more satisfied if he and his Party were a lot more candid about the conditions that obtained during the war and the conditions that obtain now.

The Minister has a wonderful chance. The war is over and we hope it will remain over and that world conditions will be quiet. He has a chance we did not have. We had to feed the community. He talks about inspectors being pushed in on people's lands. He would have had to do the same. We could not do what we did if we had not the inspectors. The responsibility was on the Government to do it, and it is not playing the game to accuse us of being dictators, that we had inspectors walking in on a man's land. Other Ministers spoke about the inspectors that were sent around to the different shops. That was on the commercial side. He called them very peculiar names. That seems to have got in amongst the Party on the opposite side as being good propaganda. I think they had a fair lesson recently and also on other occasions about that type of propaganda, and the sooner honesty and straightforwardness are brought into these matters the better for everybody.

Mr. Dillon

He was telling us in a neighbourly way that we grow horns and tails.

Mr. O'Grady

Previous speakers have dealt with the position with regard to egg production and I do not want to go over the same ground again. The next point I wish to deal with in connection with the statement made by the Minister is in relation to fertilisers. As I understood the figures he gave, he stated that in 1948 we imported 234,000 tons and in 1949 we imported 322,900 tons. Later on, when some Deputies on these benches referred to the increased production which the Minister claimed in 1948 and stated that the greater part of that was due to better weather conditions, the Minister interjected that it was due to the large increase in imported fertilisers.

Perhaps not, but when the Minister referred to them I suppose we on this side have a similar right, where we think the Minister is wrong, to point out the error of his ways. That is all I am trying to do.

Mr. Rooney

You did not get as far as the fifth year yet.

Mr. O'Grady

The Deputy can work it out when he has more time. In his conclusion, the Minister could not avoid the temptation to have a cock-shot at Fianna Fáil and to condemn his predecessors for their policy. It was the policy of Fianna Fáil to have inspectors running around and standing on the ditches, watching to have a cockshot at the farmers! The Minister never mentioned at all that, during the last six or seven years of the Fianna Fáil administration, there was a world war and if some drastic methods were not adopted our people would run the risk of starvation. It was not for love of coercion or tyranny that these inspectors were appointed, but to see that certain large landholders, about whom the Minister was a little bit critical in a recent speech, did their duty. After 15 months in office, the Minister finds that he, too, has a crow to pluck with some of these gentlemen who did not farm their lands and who, he admits, were not farming their lands. If he had been a member of the Government during the war years, he would have had to do exactly what the Fianna Fáil Government did, he would have had to see that these men, who never worked their lands and who will not do so now, were compelled to make some contribution to the feeding of the people. Could any Government remain in power and see men with 200, 300, even 500 acres of excellent land growing nothing but grass—and sometimes a poor type of grass at that? Should they not be compelled to feed the people who had no land at all and no other hope of a food supply except what could be raised here at home in Ireland? That is what the previous Government did and the Minister might be wise, too, if he gave that a miss in the future.

Mr. Corry

I would like to look at that map.

Mr. O'Grady

The fear is that by ordinary grazing of milch cows and young stock you can also mine the land of its fertility. Do you not rob the land of its phosphates?

Mr. Rooney

What about older stock, not young stock?

Mr. O'Grady

Mr. Commons

Many Deputies have contributed to the debate and have placed before the Minister the views of different types of farmers. Deputies have made contributions who have no knowledge whatever of agriculture or farming other than what they have learned from books and Deputies who have a thorough knowledge of what they are talking about also contributed. It is only fair that a Deputy from the western seaboard should bring to the Minister's notice the peculiar position of farming in that area.

The Department of Agriculture under the present Minister has a particular policy in mind—a policy of mixed farming; and I can assure the Minister that I am a whole-hearted supporter of that policy, because the mixed farmer, the man who goes in for the production of more than one type of saleable article, is a man who need never have a surplus of anything and who can turn his hand to different types of agricultural produce and be at all times a benefit to the community. Those who go in for the growing of cash crops have their own uses and they are essential, but, at times, a glut of such cash crops on the market will bring down prices. There is the instance of the potato crop of last year which caused a slump on the market, as well as the oats crop which caused a similar slump; but the farmers who decide to feed these commodities to their own live stock, to have their own little economic unit, can never possibly have a surplus of any commodity to put on the market because they have the proper system of getting rid of it.

The farmer is always told that he is too well off. Undoubtedly, a wave of prosperity seems to have come to the farming community for the past five or six years. It is very welcome to these people who are in an avocation which seems to be downtrodden the world over, and it is a wave of prosperity which is not begrudged to them by any of the professional classes because it is a prosperity which they well deserve. This country never realised the value of its farmers more than during the recent war period when but for the hard work and industry of those who till the soil this country would have been on very short rations.

The law of supply and demand does as much to increase farmers' prices and to bring them prosperity as the policy of any Minister or Government, and, if we have to-day a wave of prosperity for our farmers and if they are getting more money for their live stock and their produce than for a number of years, we can perhaps attribute that prosperity to the fact that the world upheaval of the past ten years has been responsible for the securing of a number of the markets which are available to us now and which were not available to us in the past 20 or 25 years. Our aim should be to make the most of the prosperity that we have and to try to evolve a system which will guarantee security for agriculturists in the lean years so that they will never revert to the position in which they were for so many years. The flight from the land was noticeable for a long time. That was due to the fact that the income from the land was so small that it paid the farmer better to train his family for any other industry or profession.

The policy of mixed farming, in which the Minister is a great believer, cannot function properly all over the country. This country is divided into three types of farming. There is dairy farming in the South. Farmers in that area have for generations adhered to that type of farming. In the Midlands, tillage is not regarded favourably. The farmers there go in for grazing cattle and finishing live stock for export. In the smaller or middle-class holdings a policy of mixed farming must be pursued. That is the type of farming of which I have most knowledge because, in the constituency I represent, mixed farming has been carried on for hundreds of years. They have been educated to it for generations and it would be almost impossible to break them off that type of agricultural policy. Whether it will be possible to get the Midland and Eastern farmers to change over from their cattle-grazing policy to mixed farming, I cannot tell but they should be encouraged to do so as much as possible. The day of the herd and dog and bullock should be ended as soon as possible so that more employment can be provided for the rural community who leave agriculture only as a last resort.

For the past year the prices of live stock generally have been very satisfactory and very good. The upward trend will be welcomed by farmers. Even the suck calf is much more valuable than it was in times gone by to the small farmer who can rarely keep a beast longer than two or two and a half years. The larger farmer can buy smaller stores in the West and finish them off in the Midlands. Each and every one of them is experiencing a wave of good prices which is very welcome and very important to the farming community. The lean years that had passed did much to empty the pockets and break the hearts of every type of farmer. The fact that they are getting on their feet now is something that everybody is glad of. The Minister should try to see that that position is maintained for as long as possible. Guaranteed markets and secure prices should be the policy of any Minister for Agriculture, irrespective of the Party he belongs to. The only way to bring contentment and security to farmers is to guarantee prices for a certain number of years ahead. By that means the farmers will be encouraged to increase production. If the farmer knows this year the prices he will get for all the commodities he has to sell—pigs, cattle, eggs, butter, etc., and if he can be sure of those prices for two or three years ahead, he will know the amount of capital he can expend at the outset and the return he will get on it.

I can say, in fairness to the present Minister, that he has left nothing undone in his effort to get guaranteed prices for a few years ahead. That was not done before and there is no use in saying that it was. There is no use in saying that previous Governments gave their minds to an effort to get guaranteed prices for a few years ahead. Whether the Minister will be successful in getting satisfactory prices or not, only time can tell. I can rest assured that his efforts in this direction will be as good as could be expected from any Minister for Agriculture.

I am particularly pleased by the statement made recently by the Minister for Agriculture with regard to lands let in grazing or on the 11 months' system. There is a form of landlordism which has become rampant all over the country for the past 20 or 25 years, more particularly in the past ten or 11 years. People who had plenty of money, when land was fairly cheap, decided to invest it in land rather than pay it in income-tax. Now, although they may be living in Dublin or some other city, or in England or America, they have let the land on the 11 months' system, thus earning for themselves the name of absentee landlords. Even though they are Irishmen they cannot be called anything else any more than the absentee landlords of long ago. They are depriving those who are anxious to work the land of the opportunity to do so. It is very unfair. In times gone by, the Minister for Agriculture, when he was on the opposite side of the House, did not at all times agree with me when I used to talk of land acquisition and division but I at all times urged and encouraged the Land Commission to take first notice of land which was let on the 11 months' grazing system. In taking such land and making it available for agriculture they were not depriving anybody of his home or of a living. It is unfair that a man should be allowed to take 100, or even ten acres of land, to let it on the 11 months' system. It is wonderful to hear a forceful Minister like the present Minister saying that this must stop and that the "miners" who own such land will get as short shrift or as little consideration from him as he can give them in the years to come. If he carries on that system or tries to encourage it in the Government I can assure him that as far as we who come from the western seaboard are concerned he will have our wholehearted support. It is much more essential and much more important to establish on land the people of this country rather than to have it let in grazing to people who care about nothing but herds of cattle. Now that compulsory tillage has been abolished we know perfectly well what the position will be. We shall be back again to the heard and the dog and there will be very little thought of producing food of any description other than beef. While everybody knows the value of our cattle industry—even the smallest farmer must admit that it is one of the most useful sidelines he has—still, it is unfair that large tracts of land should be allowed to be let on the 11 months' system thereby depriving small farmers of the opportunity to work that land.

I am glad that the Minister for Agriculture, and his colleague the Minister for Local Government, have decided that drainage is going to be very much to the forefront in this Government's policy for the years to come. The amount of land which is sour, waterlogged and useless to the farmers of this country must be enormous if it were checked up in its entirety. The scheme to be introduced by the Minister for Agriculture for the drainage and reclamation of land so as to make it fertile is something which the farmers of this country, both big and small, look to with great hope. They feel that at last something will be done to give them a better chance of making money and of earning a livelihood. That is particularly the case amongst the small farmers. Any man with 100 or 150 or 200 acres of land has not to set as much value on every acre as the smaller type of farmer. The poor individual who has to live on less than 20 statute acres of land must knock the last ounce of production out of every single acre. Unfortunately, those are the very people whose land is most flooded. The western counties are nearly all of a wetter nature than the southern counties. If a person has to make a livelihood on a meagre holding of 20 acres he can do so only by having every acre at its peak of fertility and producing to its utmost.

I welcome and admire the statement the Minister for Agriculture made to the committee of agriculture in Mayo. He said that it is doubtful that even if all the land of Ireland were available for distribution and divided out amongst those who are so anxious to get it we would have enough to satisfy all. That is perfectly true. He said that the policy should be to make the ten-acre or 20-acre small holding produce what 30 acres or 40 acres produce. If he goes ahead with that policy the first and most important step is drainage. It will repay a hundredfold any amount of money or Government expenditure which is put into it. There is very little use in any farmer draining his land if the outfall from his fields cannot make its escape into some river or stream that will take it away.

We rural Deputies know the immense number of smaller streams, main drains and mearing drains which have not been cleaned for 50 or 60 years. Our repeated representations have not met with the success we would like them to meet with. Therefore, the Minister must work hand in hand with the other Departments which will take care of drainage—the Special Employments Schemes Office and the Department of Local Government. If that is done, I can assure the Minister that his policy of land reclamation and drainage will go far beyond the bounds of his own expectations and that the £40,000,000 or the £50,000,000 which will be spent on the scheme in the years to come will repay many times over in benefits the initial cost it has been to the country as a whole.

I have not exactly given the Minister an overload of praise but, at the same time, I have said what I think is fair. There is no use in saying that in certain cases the people of this country have not their disappointments. I can assure the Minister that the recent drop in the price of eggs has been the cause of chalking up a black mark against him in my constituency. I do not say that, as he himself said in this House, he could go over and tie up Mr. Thomas Williams on the floor of his Department and, with his knee on Mr. Williams' chest, demand such and such a price for eggs for the years to come. However, there is no doubt about it that the people of this country expected that the price of 3/- a dozen or 5/- a score was going to last for another year even though I will admit that the Minister's effort in getting a price which may not be so high but which will continue for a longer period may pay better dividends in the long run. Nevertheless, the people, having had this price of 3/- a dozen in their heads, will not or cannot be convinced that something has not gone wrong somewhere when that price is not still being made available to them and when they still cannot get it.

The enormous increase in the amount of eggs and the number of poultry that are being produced in this country at the present time shows how wholeheartedly our farmers went into this scheme in an effort to establish a very useful and a very important industry and, of course, in an effort to put money into their own pockets and to help themselves. Nobody is so patriotic that he will produce a commodity for the love of it. People generally go into an industry for the benefit they will get out of it. If the Minister has any failure so far as the county I represent is concerned it is his failure to hold the price of 3/- per dozen for the eggs—that price which the egg producers all over the country expected. I move to report progress.

Progress reported, Committee to sit again.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 12 May 1949

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 12 May 1949