——or whether it is a question of bidding between recalcitrant members of this House and of the Government who want the agricultural labourer to get first and prior consideration and that the Minister is in the position that he is perforce driven to acknowledge that view, it is certainly a view, as one of the Deputies of his own Back Bench reminded him, that, at least, would be considered injudicious by, I think, the great majority of dairy farmers. I think they resent the implication that they are not prepared to treat their workers well and that, in order that their conditions should be improved and that they should get fair remuneration for their own labour, they must increase agricultural wages still further, in spite of the fact that during recent times they have had costs under practically every heading increased upon them. I think it would indicate a certain lack of understanding of the difficulties with which they have to contend if the Minister were to pursue this particular line.
He said on another occasion, when he was addressing Young Farmers' Clubs in Clonmel as reported in the Irish Press of 3rd August:—
"It irritates me sometimes when I hear lamentations about people leaving the land. I felt and thought that if the best that Irish agriculture had to offer me was 55/- a week, I would leave the land like a scalded cat. I would not stay on it. Could you imagine any industrial worker in this country or any member of a trade union gratefully accepting 55/- a week and pledging himself to remain his whole life long in that job? He would insist on getting £4 or £5 a week."
Nobody is insisting on people remaining. They are entirely free agents. Not alone can they leave the dairying industry, they can leave agriculture and leave the country for that matter and better themselves elsewhere. If the Minister really believes that agricultural workers can be placed on a level comparable with industrial workers in respect of conditions and remuneration, I think, in the first place, that that aim can only be achieved gradually. It cannot be reached overnight.
Secondly, if it is going to be achieved at any time that we can foresee in the near future it can only be done by having regard to the fact that agriculture is not in the same position as industry. It cannot pay the same wages. It has not the same turnover nor the same profits. An industrial proprietor can close his factory and go about his business and give his workers a holiday with pay, perhaps, during the interval until he reopens. A farmer has to contend with the vicissitudes of climate, disease and other difficulties. His general circumstances cannot, I think, in respect of the type of farming we have in this country, worked to a large degree by family labour and under 50 acres in extent in the vast majority of cases, be compared with factory conditions at all. If the Minister and the Government are sincere in this viewpoint they must be prepared to take steps in regard to the very big overheads farmers have, having regard to the size of their holdings and the extent of their output.
They must take steps to reduce these overheads by every means in their power and, at the same time, they must endeavour to see that over a period of years farmers in respect of dairy products, and the same is true of other agricultural products, will be guaranteed a price that will ensure to them that their costs will be covered and that they will have a reasonable margin—having allowed for the members of their own family the same conditions, wages and improvements as the Minister expects they shall provide for their employees. The fact is that we have fewer employed workers on the land now than we had when the Government came into office. According to official figures of agricultural employment, last June there were 10,000 fewer persons employed either in family labour or employed by the farmer in permanent employment on the land and I am quite sure that that process has gone a pace since last year.
Whether the increase in unemployment or, if you will put it, the reduction in employment on the land is due to dissatisfaction with conditions or the introduction of mechanisation or the fact that farmers will not, as is alleged here, take the steps necessary to improve conditions when they can do so and satisfy their workers, the fact is that employment on the land is being greatly reduced. Farmers remember the time when they had the condition of affairs that the labourer and his family were regarded as having a special nexus with them, not solely on a cash basis. The moment things had to be dealt with on a cash nexus strictly and on a trade union basis the farmer began to feel, in the first, that if he were going to provide additional financial reward he would have to withdraw some of the requisites which he was accustomed to give.
I have heard of a case in my constituency of a very substantial employer of labour—he might be described as a landed proprietor—who, when he had to give the recognised wage which was agreed on by the Wages Board, made reductions in respect of requisites which were supplied so that it was freely stated in the area—I had no opportunity of checking the statement but I have no reason to doubt it—that the workers were no better off after the increase and that, in fact, they were probably worse off. Added to that, when I see farmers mounting these large machines at the Dublin Spring Show for beet harvesting or cultivation or ploughing I think that they must surely, in a good many cases, have at the back of their mind the thought that by installing machinery they are going to avoid the difficulties and troubles they would be faced with if they had to face strong organisations that want to impose upon them certain responsibilities which they feel their circumstances do not enable them to support. Undoubtedly, the farmer with family labour, the farmer who has young men at home to mount the tractor and the other machines, will feel that he is going to be more independent in the future and more self-contained—even if he has to provide large sums for capital equipment—than when he had to deal entirely with matters by means of the machinery that we were accustomed to.
I have heard the observation made that one of the reasons why the system of farming is undergoing such a great change in England and that mechanisation has made such headway there and is bound, eventually, to become the rule and that we are to have a new system of farming comparable to the change that was brought about towards the end of the 18th century when the four-course rotation was introduced—farming having gone on for hundreds of years in the way it had gone until that time—is that, in an endeavour to keep up the fertility of the land this mechanisation has been rendered necessary by virtue of the fact that it was found that with the labour which the farmer could procure at an economic price and at a price that suited him (having regard to the price that farmers received for their produce, particularly those farmers who followed arable farming) they could no longer restore fertility to the land by following the old system and they were driven completely on to mechanisation. I think that in this country we are very limited because our farms are so small and because we have regard to other conditions. We have regard to the fact that the family unit is recognised as the basis of our society in this country in a very particular way. We want to keep as many of these family units as possible on the land.
It is laid down in our Constitution that we should try to increase the number of family units on the land as well as increasing their standard of living and enabling them to keep on the land in spite of difficulties. The position now is that agriculture is faced with reasonably bright prospects; the trend of world trade seems to have turned and is likely to continue for some time to go in favour of the food producer, and the farmer in this country is not threatened, like other owners of property, with nationalisation. He can call his farm his own and know that it is going to continue to be his own. He is in the happy position that his annuity is going to be paid off, and if he could only pay the annuity to the Electricity Supply Board and show more interest in regard to rural electrification than he seems to be doing I, for one, would be very pleased because I believe that, in respect of improvement on the farm, you have to depend a great deal on the farmer's wife and on the farmer's daughter. If you can give the farmer's wife and the farmer's daughter the things they require in the way of lighting and heating and water and transport and make them feel that they have amenities comparable to those in the towns and cities and that their standard of living in respect of these conveniences— which they all, I think, will now recognise, certainly all the younger generation, to be necessary to a satisfactory standard of living, and to the maintenance even of proper hygienic conditions —is as high as that available in the towns and cities you will be doing a great deal to encourage people to stay on the land.
One of the great needs of the time is that farmers should be provided with a water supply. During the period of dry weather that we have had I know that many of them have had the greatest difficulty in looking after their cattle and that there is a constant complaint that it is impossible to get water even for household purposes without going long distances. If, as well as a soil survey, we were to have a survey of the farmhouses where modern equipment in the items I have mentioned and modern buildings are necessary, I think it would certainly be an advantage. If we could bring it home to the farmer that the expenditure entailed at present, if it does not bring a return in actual £.s.d. is going to bring in a measurable return in respect of better living conditions, more comfortable homes, a strengthening of the family unit in rural Ireland and a strengthening of the rural community generally, it will more than repay itself not alone from the national but from the agricultural point of view.
The Minister has increased the subhead for veterinary services and, when he is concluding, I should like if he could give some more information as to this scheme which he states he intends to bring in. Although the increase is welcome, we hear so much about the improvements that have been made in respect of the treatment of animal diseases that it seems a continuing loss every day if we are not taking the greatest possible and the most urgent steps to bring the necessary information to the farmer.
The question of agricultural instructors is a very interesting one. If the Minister is prepared to pay the salaries of the instructors, as I think he has promised, committees are not likely to express such opposition to this gesture as they might if they were faced with paying them themselves. It is a well-known fact that there is not a sufficient number of agricultural instructors. I think their success in rural areas was largely due to the fact that we had enthusiastic young agricultural graduates teaching rural science who were farmers' sons themselves in most cases, though I do not think it should be compulsory upon an agricultural graduate to prove that his father was a farmer. Nevertheless, it was proved, and Deputies brought it to my notice when I was Minister for Education that some of these young graduates, not alone in the vocational schools but in the service of the Department of Agriculture, in the farm improvements scheme or even in the compulsory tillage scheme, were able to approach farmers because they showed they had first-hand acquaintance with farming conditions and problems and the farmers had the advantage of having a trained man who had done a scientific course in agriculture there on the spot to give advice and they valued that advice.
What is wrong generally, I think, is that farmers are shy about attending classes, asking questions or writing or doing any of these things which we did not object to when we were at school but which, when we become adults, we are not so much interested in. We prefer education by discussion and debate and by demonstration, and the young farmers' clubs are interested in having the demonstration type of education extended.
For that reason instructors should be provided who have the scientific training that is connoted by a degree in agricultural science, and, in addition to that, they should have a mechanical training that would enable them to give farmers advice about machinery, because one of the complaints made about farmers, not alone here but in Great Britain, is that they keep their machinery outside. They say they have not accommodation for it. If they are going to provide accommodation for live stock, they have not accommodation for all their equipment and the machinery very often suffers by being left in the open. I think that to the extent that mechanisation has been introduced in this country, it is of the greatest importance that farmers should have explained to them how their machines should be maintained in good order and condition and not simply put away at the end of the harvesting or spring period not to be looked at again until they are required in the following season.
The Minister referred to bulk purchases in connection with requirements for agriculture and I think also to the business of bulk sales. If the system of bulk buying by Ministries of Food continues, and if, as I hope will not occur, there is a reduction in agricultural prices, it is obvious that this question of bulk purchases is going to be very serious for the farmers of this country. In connection with the creamery industry, we were not very long in office when we were told that a new national co-operative marketing organisation was to be set up which would market all the farmers' butter.
Of course, if farmers had their own co-operative organisations, that would be the best way in which their produce could be conveyed to the market. About five-sixths of Danish bacon and, I suppose, about 90 per cent. or more of Danish butter is sold through co-operative organisations. It would be an improvement upon any system of agricultural instruction that I know of if we had co-operative organisations working on the basis that Mr. Holmes described as being the procedure in New Zealand. Mr. Holmes was employed by an agency company in New Zealand as a grass expert. As I understand it, these agency companies are joint stock companies which undertake all kinds of arrangements with farmers. They provide them with machinery and equipment, seeds and fertilisers. They arrange for the marketing of their produce. They tell them what lines they should pursue and the best way to go about the efficient production of whatever lines are recommended to them. These companies have experts in their employment like Mr. Holmes who spent eight or nine years in recommending grass seeds of various kinds to the New Zealand farmers. He therefore knows, I suppose, even more about grass seeds than the most expert rancher in this country.
The interest I found in his account was the existence of these companies which do everything for the farmer that he is not able to do for himself in the way of recommending what he should produce, how best to produce it, what machinery and equipment to get, and so on. It would be an advantage if the Irish co-operative organisations could have an organisation of that kind, if they could have a manager-agent type who would go to the farmer and say: "If you produce so much butter or bacon, or poultry or eggs or whatever it may be, I am going to see that it is taken from you. It will be collected in this way. The cost of collection will be so much and you will have nothing to do except to have your produce ready to be collected when we send for it." We do not seem to have reached that stage in our Irish co-operative organisations. It is a great pity, because it would be much better if the urge to improve marketing methods came from the farmers themselves. A suggestion was made in Great Britain by an important body which reported upon agriculture over there, that there should be producers' marketing boards. I think in regard to bacon that is the line that has been followed.
The Minister should bear in mind with regard to fertilisers that it is a well known fact that milk production has a more wearing and exhausting effect upon the land than almost anything else. If the Minister desires that the utmost possible use should be made of the facilities for the maintenance of fertility which are now at the disposal of the farmers through the Marshall Plan and otherwise he should endeavour to see that fertilisers are sold to them at the lowest possible price.
We were all delighted to see that the Minister recently made a remarkable conversion. The extraordinary thing about this conversion is that it seemed to be a very fundamental one. It went right down to the base of the Minister's whole conception of peasant proprietorships and farmers' rights. When he was in opposition the Minister prided himself on being the last private owner, and in particular the farmer, against the inroads of the State and the modern tendency to hand everything over to the state. Even after he came into office he treated the country to numerous speeches in which he suggested—if he did not say so explicitly, they were certainly implicit in his remarks— that the time had now come when farmers were to be freed from the tyrannical bondage and slavery in which the Fianna Fáil administration had kept them. They were to be liberated. It was not the case of St. George and the Dragon but St. James and the Dragon. He was to go out and destroy this Fianna Fáil monster that had been breathing fire and fury and had reduced Irish agriculture to a terrible pitch. In fulfilment of this great exploit which he had undertaken to rescue the fair damsels of Irish agriculture from the Fianna Fáil death-dealing dragon, the Minister announced that farmers in future would have no inspectors on their land. The farmer, if he did not have the inspector there by invitation, would have no inspector. He would stand at his gate and if the Minister did not say, "kick him out if he comes near you" he very nearly went as far as that.
The Minister's philosophy was apparently that the farmer had such complete control that the State had no right even to go as far as it went during the period of the emergency to enforce compulsory tillage upon the Irish farming community. If that was not what the Minister meant that certainly was the meaning that was conveyed and I have serious doubts as to whether it was not the meaning the Minister intended to convey. In an endeavour then to retrace his steps he said that compulsory tillage was dead as far as he was concerned but if another war should happen of course there would have to be compulsory tillage. In that case, however, land would only be utilised for the purpose for which it was best suited and in this event the Minister would have all the information in his files as to what farm could best produce wheat and what could produce barley and so on. The Minister would not spare the farmers in carrying out whatever measures of compulsion were necessary in such a crisis as that.
I think we have reason to complain that the policy which was carried on during the emergency and which we considered ought, in a much lesser degree, be maintained under normal conditions has been greatly, if not wilfully, distorted. I think we have serious grounds for complaint. When the Minister tells us now in regard to the 11 months' system that farming must have regard to the national interest, that he cannot allow the position that land in Meath—and presumably elsewhere, but particularly in Meath—will not be utilised to secure the maximum national production and when he goes further and threatens those who have the temerity to continue this bad old system, as he describes it, that they are now going to be dispossessed, one wonders is this another example of the Minister's irresponsibility.
It certainly does not seem to me to indicate that that growing sense of responsibility which we all hope will ultimately descend upon the Minister is coming upon him. How are we to reconcile these statements with the statements about the farmers being masters of their holdings, with the sacred rights of security of tenure? Who is going to determine whether they are farmers or not?
