Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Nov 1950

Vol. 123 No. 7

Private Deputies' Business. - Agricultural Workers (Weekly HalfHolidays) Bill, 1950—Second Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on following amendment:—

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:—"Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill pending a substantial increase in the net agricultural income and in the volume of agricultural output."—(Deputy Cogan.)

Mr. Connolly

The main point I made in my opening remarks was to the effect that the best presentation of the case for the half-holiday for agricultural workers should be made on the basis of ethics and morals rather than on the basis of economics. I do not mean by that that it was unnecessary or inadvisable to give an answer in economic terms or from an economic viewpoint to the various objections to the provisions of the Bill raised by Deputy Cogan. I propose to deal with some of these points raised by him in the best manner possible. The Bill being one on which a free vote will be taken, one whose passage we hope to secure by appealing to the individual consciences of the progressive members of this House, it does behove those who are supporting the Bill to give the answer, if answer there be, to every question and every objection raised by those who start off in opposition to the Bill. I trust that we can appeal even to Deputy Cogan, rather I would say advisedly to Deputy Cogan, Deputy O'Reilly and Deputy P.D. Lehane at least to moderate their objections. Perhaps in the end, as is often the case, those who start out in opposition to an idea may become its most brilliant advocates.

It would perhaps be difficult to perceive such a change as that in Deputy Cogan, but we need not necessarily give up hope. There are certain reasonable arguments put forward by the Deputy, and, if we can answer them in a manner that might appeal to his intelligence, as I am sure they do appeal to his sense of social justice, he may permit his opposition to lapse; he may join with us for the sake at least of the sentiments he expressed as a small farmer when he recorded that he had the deepest sympathy with the agricultural workers. He might permit the Bill to advance to a further stage, to pass its Second Reading with his help, and we might then get to work on the Committee Stage to remove what fears he may entertain and the fears that are entertained by Deputy O'Reilly as to the extra burden imposed on the small farmers, on the difficulties that the small farmers who employ labour have in being crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stone, as Deputy O'Reilly stated. We might remove these objections, we might mitigate the effects and make it possible, with the goodwill and the co-operation which these Deputies ask for and advocate as between the farm labourer and the farmer, to have a better understanding which would lead to an increase in agricultural productivity.

Let us examine the terms of the amendment. The terms of the amendment are of a conditional nature. I fail, however, to find concretely expressed the nature of the condition which Deputy Cogan incorporates in his amendment. He states that this Bill should not pass pending a substantial increase in the net agricultural income and in the volume of agricultural output. That is an extremely vague amendment and perhaps there might be an opportunity to clarify some of the points in it. The actual words there, "substantial increase", would require to be made much more definite and precise, because were Deputy Cogan the Minister for Agriculture, and were his views to obtain endorsement by this House and the House suspended the operations of this Bill until there was a substantial increase, we might be at variance with Deputy Cogan in his position as Minister as to the exact meaning of "substantial". A 5 per cent. increase might appear very substantial to us, but a 10 per cent. increase might mean very little to him.

The figures are rather difficult to obtain, but we will go into them later. From them it would appear that there is an upward trend in the volume of agricultural output compared with the basic period of 1939 that the Deputy quoted. What is to be the determining factor in deciding when he will permit a half-holiday on the basis of that increase is not clear at all. In other words, Deputy Cogan fails to indicate the standard or the criterion on which he would base the withdrawal of his opposition. As reported in column 844, Volume 123, of the Official Report, he objects to this Bill on the general principle that it extends still further the principles of compulsion to the agricultural community. That is the purpose of every Bill in regard to some section or other of the community. The State is an executive organ. It exercises compulsion. The most harmless law passed in this House has the effect of compulsion. We all use in this period of civilisation all these forms of compulsion, whether they relate to the regulation of traffic or to our respect for our neighbour's life and property.

We saturated the citizens of the State with all types of compulsion and, therefore, on that general principle I think that Deputy Cogan is not on very good ground. He himself is a legislator and the purpose of legislation, and his purpose in enacting it here is to extend compulsion.

Compulsion to the agricultural community is no new thing. The most benign and beneficent Minister for Agriculture, be he Deputy Smith, Deputy Dillon or Deputy Hogan, would have in the ordinary routine, apart from any emergency, to impose certain restrictions and to see that certain laws and regulations were carried out by the agricultural community. Every employer in the State, in particular every employer in the industrial and commercial sphere, is subject to this principle of compulsion and Deputy Cogan has failed to establish a case why the agricultural community should be immune from it. He laments that under the Bill inspectors charged with carrying out its provisions will dictate to the farmer, having crossed his fence, which appears to be an unforgivable sin to the farming mind——

Mr. Cogan

And to the Minister.

Mr. Connolly

And to the Minister. It appears to be an unforgivable sin that he should dictate to the farmer the number of hours of work he is to operate. In actual fact, of course, if we obtain the goodwill, co-operation and common understanding between the workers and the farmers which Deputy Cogan just as ardently desires as I do myself, there should be, and there would be, very little of the inspection nuisance, no more than there is in the industrial field.

Industrial workers have not only a half-holiday laid down by the law but in many industries they work only a five-day week. This latitude has been achieved either by legislation or by trade union negotiation and I think that there are very few cases on record where inspectors were necessary to compel employers, once they had agreed on such general principles as these, to carry out the law or the agreement as the case may be. I think, therefore, that there is very little substance in the first point made against the Bill.

The second point that Deputy Cogan makes is that it will impose an extra charge on each farmer of 5/- per week or £13 a year. Deputy Cogan, as reported in column 842, stated that the Bill if enacted will provide that each farmer—I presume each farmer employing labour—will have to make a minimum sacrifice of at least £13 a year or 5/- a week. Then he goes into a calculation, spread over the whole industry, of what this would cost the agricultural industry per annum. I am at a loss to follow his figures or his reasoning there. I think myself his misconception has been caused by the very bad drafting of one sub-section of the Bill, a sub-section that I myself imagined, after I read it, would have the same result as Deputy Cogan thought. That is sub-section (2) in which it is stated that an agricultural employer, who is required under the previous sub-section to allow a weekly half-holiday to an agricultural worker, shall be required "to pay to the worker in respect of such half-holiday a sum not less than the equivalent of four hours' pay at the ordinary wage rate."

I understand from an explanation given to me by Deputy Dunne, that while he objected to the form of that sub-section, the drafting office considered that that was the way the section must be framed in order to safeguard, in a legal way, this right to a half-holiday. It would convey, to our ordinary minds, that this is an extra imposition, as Deputy Cogan would say, of 5/- a week on the farmer, but it is not. It does not mean that farmers will increase their expenses on wages by 5/- per man per week or £13 per year. What it means, if I understand the Bill aright, is that it prevents farmers who grant farm labourers a four-hour half-holiday, from paying those labourers for 50 hours for the working week. It compels them, in other words, to pay a full week's wages as at present existing before the implementation of this Bill. There will be no increase whatsoever in the wages account of the farmer as a result of this Bill. It means, however, that farm labourers who benefit by this Bill shall have to perform in 50 hours what they now do in 54 hours. That degree of intensification of labour is by no means impossible or difficult. This connotes an increase, an intensification, of labour of the order of 8 per cent. It means that when the agricultural labourers enjoy the provisions of this Bill, they will have to work only one-twelfth harder or more intensely than they do at present and still maintain the agricultural output, about which Deputy Cogan is worried, at the same level as it stands to-day. In other words, if they work harder for five minutes in every hour there will be no diminution in the agricultural output, and if they work harder for six minutes there will be a substantial increase.

That is the way any industrial capitalist would view the matter. Labour is forced to work harder, to be more intensified, to be better organised, to have its time used in a better manner than heretofore. If that is possible of accomplishment in all other industries, it is also possible of accomplishment in the agricultural industry.

Mr. Maguire

It is not. You are greatly mistaken.

Mr. Connolly

Little as I know about it and much as Deputy Maguire may know about it, I am perfectly certain, from my knowledge of economics, that it is possible and over a period of years has been possible. It has actually occurred that there has been an intensification of labour in the agricultural field.

Mr. Maguire

What about weather conditions? There is a great difference between working indoor and working in the open. Harvesting depends on weather conditions. There is a vast difference.

Mr. Connolly

There is quite certain to be a difference——

Mr. Maguire

A vast difference.

Mr. Connolly

—— a vast difference — on account of the weather. The granting of a half-holiday to agricultural labourers will not bring adverse weather conditions on the country.

Mr. Maguire

I will say no more. Your approach is quite wrong. You are not to determine when the weather conditions are such as to justify a half-holiday.

Mr. Corry

Give the half-holiday on a wet day.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Halliden)

Deputy Connolly, proceed please.

Mr. Connolly

My point is that, over a period of years, there has been an intensification of labour. The results show it. The volume of agricultural production shows it. There is more production per man-hour on the farm to-day than there was 50 years ago.

Mr. Maguire

Do you want to reduce that by including the half-holiday?

Mr. Connolly

Nonsense. I have told you distinctly, if you follow my argument, that it is only necessary for the farm labourers to work one-twelfth, or 8 per cent., harder.

Mr. Maguire

Then they should have much more than a half-holiday in the week.

Mr. Connolly

It is quite possible that their labour should be so organised that they could do more in the 50 hours that would then be available, whether the weather was wet or dry, than they do in the 54 hours that are now available to them. If they are denied the benefits of this Bill, is not it commonsense that, with the frustration and disappointment they will feel, the farm labourers will not be inclined to work 54 hours in the 54 hours? There is a very old Scotch habit of "ca' canny." If you want goodwill, if you want co-operation between the farmers and farm labourers, farmer Deputies would be well advised to accede to the terms of this Bill so that, despite the pessimism of Deputy Corry and Deputy Maguire, they may try the possibility of getting the farm labourers to work, within the scope of the present employment, dry weather or wet, multifarious as their duties may be, in order to increase agricultural productivity.

The Legislature that has the courage to carry this Bill and to enact a half-holiday for farm labourers will be pleasantly surprised at the increased production, as every understanding Minister for Agriculture could verify.

Deputy Cogan, in further support of that objection of his, thinks that the net result of this would burden the agricultural community with an extra £1,500,000. As I have shown, there will be no increase in the outlay for wages. There will be no increase, whether the farmers or the labourers intensify their productivity or not. It is difficult to see where Deputy Cogan obtains his figures. I tried to obtain from the Taoiseach, by way of Parliamentary Question, figures relevant to this case. In reply, the Taoiseach gave the information that the total number of farmers who employ labour was 47,000, roughly, according to the census of population, 1946.

I was anxious to find out the number of small farmers whose case was very ably presented by Deputy O'Reilly, who employ one labourer, in order to contrast that number with the number of farmers who employ six labourers or more. It appears that there is a defect in our present census statistics, as there is no such information available. As there is to be a census taken in a short time, I suggest that it might include, in its assessment of the agricultural community, some information as to the number of employers in the agricultural community and the extent of the employment. It is a matter on which there have been merely wild guesses. Those who have some knowledge of agriculture estimate this number variously but it would be as well to have actual figures. Without these figures, we are led by Deputy O'Reilly into the complaint, if you like, that the major part of agricultural output is produced by unpaid family labour.

The Deputy declared that the bulk of agricultural production is the result of unpaid family labour. If that is so, and I assume it is correct, from what figures I can take out, it is not a complaint at all; it is the result of the natural fact that there are so many more farmers, farmers' sons and daughters and relatives employed on the land than there are farm labourers. According to the census figures, the total number of farmers' sons and daughters so employed is 191,300 and the total number of other relatives is 52,700, so that the total number of farmers and family workers is 397,000 males and 106,000 females—in other words, a total labour force of about 500,000.

As against that, the total number of farm labourers at the time of the taking of the census was about 140,000. How could anyone imagine that 140,000 farm labourers, most of them until recently underpaid and many of them without the amenities and advantages of other workers, could produce anything like the same volume of production as the 500,000 farmers and their relatives? It is impossible even to imagine. If the bulk of agricultural production is the result of the work of this labour force of 500,000 unpaid family labour, then it follows that the effect of this Bill in the matter of production will be very little. According to the opponents of the scheme, the volume of agricultural production depends on the farmers' sons and daughters and their other relatives.

Mr. Maguire

In arranging things for that line of argument, one must take into consideration the need of a farm of reasonable size on which the farmer and his family can make a decent living; one must also consider uneconomic holdings and the difference in various pieces of land. When you set out to make provision for these things, you will find the scheme is impossible and absurd and very unjust to the greater number of people who are in poor circumstances. Obviously the Deputy has not considered the scheme fully at all. He should take these factors into consideration.

Mr. Connolly

I would like the House to consider those figures as an answer to the contention of Deputy Maguire. There are 503,000 farmers, farmers' wives, sons, daughters and other relatives, and that makes up the bulk of the labour force in agriculture. The number of agricultural labourers is around 100,000, I am told; it has diminished since the census figures; it has diminished owing to the flight from the land and the worsened conditions the farm labourers are enduring, and also to the fact that they have not a half-holiday. One way of looking at the matter is that the farmers and their relatives have a labour force five times as great as farm labourers. I suggest, therefore, that the half-holiday will not materially affect the bulk of the 500,000 and it cannot adversely affect, as Deputy Cogan appears to think, productivity in the agricultural field.

I am trying to build up a logical case in reply to Deputy Cogan. It appears to me that, so far as some of the Opposition Deputies are concerned, logic was not taught in their schools. They base their opposition to this Bill on their knowledge of agriculture and they assume that no one has any knowledge of those matters unless he be a farmer. Everyone in Ireland is not very far removed from some agricultural past. Whether you are a farmer or a farm labourer, it is quite possible to understand the points of a case presented in a logical manner and to follow them as logically as they are put. The point Deputy Cogan made about the extra impost on the farming community is without foundation. If anything, it is based on a misrepresentation, a misunderstanding or, if you like, a misinterpretation of the sub-section. The farmers who employ labour number 47,000; that is the total number affected, not the 503,000 farmers with their sons, daughters and relatives.

If the reply of the Taoiseach is correct, this Bill will affect 50,000 farmers, not many more, and it would not cost them one red penny, to use Deputy Cogan's term, by way of increase in their outlay upon wages. Also, it may not put one red halfpenny in the pockets of the agricultural workers. That is one of the objections Deputy Cogan had to this Bill. He says he would prefer that the agricultural workers' income, which is admittedly low, should be increased or that means should be found for increasing it rather than that we should take up time on the question of extending his leisure hours. That, too, appears to me to be an objection that is purely frivolous. It is merely a device for side-stepping the issue.

The intention of this Bill is not directly to benefit the farm labourers or to mulct the farmers by one red halfpenny, and it will not do that. The intention of the Bill is to improve the amenities of the farm labourers and to give them more leisure. The intention of the Bill is to give them time, if they so desire, in which they can do those things that Deputy Cogan advised the farmers to help them to do. That is a matter I shall deal with later. Deputy Cogan puts forward quite a number of excellent ways in which the farmers can help the farm labourers in the latter's present rather straitened circumstances. It is quite obvious that if the farmers are to implement the wishes of Deputy Cogan and adopt that form of co-operation that he desires by helping the farm labourers to till their plots and do for them the work that they should do for themselves and their families, this could be done to far better advantage by an extension of the free time of the farm labourers.

If the farm labourers do not wish to use that extra four hours in recuperating their strength and if they do not wish to use it for pleasure, sport or culture—and many farm labourers are just as cultured as any member of this House—if they do not wish to use it for these reasons, since it is purely a matter of their own individual choice and volition, they can utilise it for work to their own advantage, the work that Deputy Cogan advised the farmers to help them to do. They will thereby indirectly increase the agricultural productivity of the country and the farmers will indirectly contribute to that increase by allowing the farm labourers a little more time to work on their own plots. In other words, these four hours will be transferred by the farm labourers from working for the farmers to working for themselves, and the farmers can help them in doing that.

There is another argument that I think it would be difficult to answer: that this Bill will not automatically result in a decline in agricultural productivity but may indirectly produce a greater productivity. Deputy Cogan's third argument is in the nature of a reductio ad absurdum. He says there is very little point in this Bill, and there is very little point in the argument that the farm labourer should be put on an equal footing with the industrial worker. At column 842 of Official Report of 15th November, 1950, he says:—

"If you apply the argument that the farm worker is as much entitled to a reduced working week as the industrial worker, why not go a step further and say that both farm workers and industrial workers should be given Civil Service hours, a still further reduction? If the 54-hour week is too long for the agricultural worker, is not the 50-hour or the 48-hour week too long for the industrial worker? Why not give them the 40-hour week, the same as many of our office workers?"

According to both Deputy Maguire and Deputy Corry that would be impossible. It would be impossible to reduce the hours. Evidently the farm labourer must work from dawn to dusk.

Mr. Maguire

Will the Deputy state at this stage is the Church wrong in giving a dispensation to farmers to work on Sundays during bad weather conditions?

Mr. Connolly

I do not think that is in any way related to this Bill. Under what section does it come?

Mr. Maguire

According to the Bill you are now advocating it will be illegal for a farmer to employ his workers on a half-holiday.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Connolly should be allowed to make his speech. Deputy Maguire can make his own speech.

Mr. Maguire

The Church gives a dispensation at certain seasons to allow workers——

(Interruptions).

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Maguire must restrain himself. Deputy Connolly is entitled to speak.

Mr. Maguire

I am asking him now because he introduced a point I thought it necessary to clear up.

Mr. Connolly

We welcome every objection to the Bill provided it is presented in a reasonable form. It is the intention of those of us who support the Bill to answer all these objections.

Mr. Maguire

I am giving you an opportunity now of answering that objection while you are speaking.

Mr. Connolly

The purpose of a legislative assembly is to discuss legislation amicably. Each Deputy must choose his own method and not permit himself to be dictated to by any other Deputy as to what argument he should answer at any given moment. I am pursuing the argument advanced by Deputy Cogan. In due course I shall deal with Deputy Maguire, put him on the anvil, and do a good job upon him and his objections to this Bill.

Mr. Maguire

Hear, hear.

Mr. Connolly

We hope to convert him to a proper appreciation of the Bill. I was endeavouring to follow Deputy Cogan in his argument that no half-holiday should be given to the farm workers because, if a 54-hour week is too long for them then a 50-hour or a 48-hour week is too long for the industrial worker: why not give them a 40-hour week? The question is: why not? It depends upon the extent to which the industrial machine has been geared up to the work that has been done in the past by the workers themselves in their trade unions in obtaining shorter hours. If Deputy Cogan thinks that by reducing this to absurdity, by pushing the argument along this line, he is in any way shaking our understanding or our support of this Bill, I assure him that he has a long way to travel in his knowledge of the struggle of the working class for reduced hours. While the industrial workers enjoyed—some of them—48, 45 and 40-hour weeks, as far back as I remember distinctly myself, the big labour strikes of 1920 in Britain, on the Clyde and elsewhere, the workers were then advocating a 30-hour week. It was only by struggling for that that they achieved a 40-hour and a five-day week. There is no argument in that method of approach.

When the agricultural labourers are sufficiently organised and when the agricultural industry has achieved a higher level of production—as the Opposition and all of us wish it to do— and when it has achieved the state of stability and progress that would enable the work to be done in a lesser number of hours, and when the workers are organised sufficiently well to obtain from the farmers their just demands, then the hours of the farm labourers will be reduced. They are working now far less than they worked 30 or 40 years ago—that seems to be forgotten by the Deputies who oppose this Bill—and no calamity has come upon the agricultural industry on that account; and no calamity will come upon it either because of the granting of this concession of a four hours' half-holiday.

The next point is a very sore one, on which Deputy Cogan takes us to task very often. It is in regard to the possibility of stepping up the productivity in industry, whereas there is a difficulty in stepping it up in agriculture. He states that agricultural output is too low, that the output per man hour is too low, but he does not give us a comparison or tell us by how much per cent. it is too low. By what standard does he measure its lowness? He says that we have been introducing improved machinery into agriculture. What is the effect of that improvement? Surely, it is not leading to a decline in agricultural productivity? If what he tells us is correct—and we all know it is—with the introduction of improved agricultural machinery, improved technique, improved knowledge of seeds, crops, growing methods, harvesting methods, and so on, the whole science of agriculture has been improving steadily. Surely the result of this will tend towards increased productivity? The figures are not so dismal as Deputy Cogan might make out and it would be well to examine them for a moment. As far as I have gleaned them, there have been substantial increases in the agricultural price index number, particularly in 1950. The figure runs around 260 and it was as high as 267 in April, 1950, while in July it was 262, compared with 100 for the base, the period September, 1938 to August, 1939. That was the basic year to which Deputy Cogan referred. Therefore, the farmers generally, as anyone can see whether he knows anything about agriculture or not, have been getting two and a half times for their produce in 1950 what they got in 1939.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

What good would that be? What would it be for the 1914 period?

Mr. Connolly

The Minister for Agriculture in his compilation of statistics did not give that, but it is quite easy to compile it. Perhaps the Minister, with more leisure than I, will supply Deputy O'Reilly with those figures when he is replying.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Get back to the 1914 base for the cost of living and cost of production and compare that with 1950 and see which is the greater advantage.

Mr. Connolly

I am taking this as an indication that the farmers' wholesale prices have gone up. We know that the value of the £ has gone down, and Ministers well qualified to speak here say it has gone from 20/- down to 10/- in value. Over the same period, while the value of the £ has been cut in half, the farmers' prices, according to these figures, have gone up two and a half times; so there is a slight betterment in the position of the farmer, compared with that previous period. The average for the three months ending July, 1950, was 262, compared with 249 for the corresponding period last year. I think the Minister will bear me out—and he can give extensive figures, as he gave on one occasion I mentioned before—that despite the fluctuations, the figures show that agricultural productivity is on the increase.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

The Deputy is well aware that the base 1938 is deliberately operating against the agricultural industry, because the price levels in 1938 were very low.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy O'Reilly may not make a speech at every interruption.

Mr. Connolly

I am not so aware.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

If the Deputy looks up the figures, he will find that that is so.

Mr. Connolly

My argument is that, according to the figures available to us as non-agricultural people, the farmers are not doing so badly—and particularly, I would say, the 47,000 farmers, who are the only ones concerned directly in this Bill, who are employing farm labour. It would be impossible of course to segregate them from the rest with regard to assessing their fortunes or misfortunes. These index figures are quite general, but we could state fairly conscientiously and accurately that the 47,000 farmers of the class mentioned who employ labour come nearer to the industrial capitalist from the point of view of economics than do the farmers who depend upon their family and relatives for workers. In so far as they employ labour they exploit it. They do not employ labour for the benefit of the labourers, but in order to make a profit from it. So far as anything could be argued from this increase in prices—despite Deputy O'Reilly's argument about the low level of prices in 1938—the farmers who employ labour would benefit more because they are in that position. The defect we find in agricultural statistics is their paucity—and the Minister might turn his attention to that—and the fact that it is very difficult readily to obtain figures bearing on such points as were raised by Deputies O'Reilly and Cogan. A lot of these figures are free estimates, and we can use our common understanding or prejudices as the case may be to interpret them.

The point Deputy Cogan makes (column 843) on the question of machinery in agriculture and in industry is that we are dealing with living animals and growing plants in agriculture, and therefore he assumes that that sets agriculture on a plane where no comparison can be made between it and industry or any other form of human occupation. It is an argument that may appear very sound to him, but it cannot appeal to a logical mind. He states that no machine can lay an egg or give birth to a calf. Deputy Lehane, I think, told us of farmers getting up at six in the morning to produce the milk while non-agricultural Deputies thought that the cows did that. Farmers evidently think that because they are dealing with living animals and growing plants farming cannot be classified as an ordinary industry where humane conditions of labour should exist and where the workers' amenities and leisure increase in accordance with the general trend of labour conditions throughout the world. But we do not want to be as badly off as our fathers and grandfathers were. If we are farm labourers to-day we do not want our sons to be farm labourers, who will work the same long hours for the same low wages. We want to improve conditions. As human beings, as legislators, as members of this sovereign assembly, we would like to improve the conditions of all sections of the community and raise the standard of living. By that reasoning we should desire that social conscience which obtains in other fields of activity and other industries should spread to the agricultural community, the more so perhaps because they are dealing with living animals and growing plants. We human beings are of that nature. We are much removed from the inanimate things which according to Deputy Cogan are dealt with by industry. Because they are dealing with living animals and growing plants surely farmers should have more sympathy with the idea of ameliorating the conditions of their labourers. Surely that is a good argument why farmers should support any measure which would confer benefits upon the human beings they employ.

Mr. Maguire

Far fewer agricultural workers have been employed in recent years than hitherto. As the Deputy says, farmers who employ workers make a profit on them. Can he account, therefore, for the fact that they employ less than they employed before?

Mr. Dunne

They cannot get them.

Mr. Maguire

The reason is that the farmers cannot afford to pay them. If he could pay them he would have them, because as Deputy Connolly says, he would make a profit by them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Maguire has been warned before.

Mr. Davin

It is a fireside chat.

Mr. Connolly

I have already answered the next points which Deputy Cogan makes as to how the farmer is to carry the additional burden. He must increase his costs, he says, or reduce his output.

Mr. Maguire

Or reduce the numbers of his labourers.

Mr. Connolly

There need not be an increase in the cost of living by farmers passing on the burden to consumers in the form of increased prices, even if the Minister for Agriculture were to permit them to do so, nor need they reduce their output if there is goodwill between the farmer and his labourer. The farm worker is a most intelligent person who is most anxious to facilitate the farmer who is dealing with these living animals and growing things and with a little encouragement, a little of the human spirit which may permeate farmers on the implementation of this Bill, they will do that little extra to intensify their labour and do their work better. Everyone in the House, particularly the Labour Deputies, would urge farm labourers to do that in return for this concession of increased leisure. Everyone can improve his labour. Deputy Corry thinks that the question of labour is limited to the number of hours but he and all of us and farmers in particular should know that being at a job is not working at it. You may be 60 minutes on the job but you may only give 40 minutes actual work.

Mr. Corry

I know that after the last hour.

Mr. Connolly

He has plenty of experience of that. The Deputy may get up at 6 o'clock in the morning because he cannot sleep—his conscience may be at him because of the way he deals with the farm labourers—but that does not say that he is on the job from 6 o'clock to 7 o'clock. What we desire is that co-operation about which Deputy Cogan has spoken. If that co-operation is secured, there could be that intensification of labour which would result in increased productivity and, by increasing the volume of foodstuffs, permit of a substantial decrease rather than the substantial increase about which he talks.

Mr. Maguire

Am I to take it that the Deputy implies that the present output of agricultural workers is much less, or less in some degree, than they are capable of giving?

Mr. Connolly

That is a hypothetical question. I have made a statement and every economist, every person interested in industry and in the working of the human being, whether he be a solicitor, a Deputy or a farm labourer, will agree with me. I say that, once labour can be organised in such a fashion, more will be produced in a given hour than is being produced at present. If that were not so, there would be no such thing as progress in the world. Everyone who can so organise his time, or, if he is employed, whose time can be so organised for him, can produce more units of whatever he is producing in that hour than he produced hitherto.

Mr. Maguire

Am I to take it that this Bill——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This debate cannot proceed by way of question and answer. Deputy Maguire will resume his seat, and if he does not cease interrupting, I will have to ask him to leave the House.

Mr. Connolly

My whole argument— and it is not based upon supposition, and not upon any question of a motive or high desire, but is scattered through the pages of economic history—is that increased production in industry has resulted from a shortening of hours, and no argument has been advanced as to why that principle should not be applied to agriculture. Merely a pious hope has been expressed that it should not apply to agriculture.

There would be very little point in giving examples of this from American agriculture, the agriculture of Australia and New Zealand, and the agriculture of South America in particular, where they have rationalised agriculture and where, by the introduction of this labour-saving machinery, this scientific machinery to which Deputy Cogan has adverted, they have substantially raised the productivity of labour in these spheres. We, however, have a different type of agriculture. We have not got the mass of machinery they have in these other areas, but that does not mean that, because we are differently organised, because we have only a limited number of tractors per acre and because we are subject to the vagaries of the weather, we cannot organise the manpower at our command in order to get better results.

If you say you cannot do it, you are confessing failure, confessing that you are a worse failure than any of your predecessors in the farmer's sphere. Farmers are doing better now than their grandfathers did, despite the vagaries of the weather. They are doing very much better because, totalling it all up, they have been able to organise their time and to use each hour better than their grandfathers used an hour before them, by reason of the increase in scientific knowledge of agriculture and the introduction of better methods. You talk about that on the Agricultural Estimate and you expand yourself, whether you speak for three hours or three minutes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should speak in the third person.

Mr. Connolly

Whether a Deputy speaks for three hours or three minutes, he expands himself upon all the improvements which have taken place in agriculture and presses the Minister to give more encouragement along these lines. He asks the Minister to assist the farmers in a better utilisation of the 60 minutes in every hour and to promote an intensification of labour and thereby increase the productivity of labour in that field.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Smith spoke for five hours and 50 minutes.

Mr. Corry

He spoke sense—not tripe.

Mr. Connolly

I listened for only three hours. Deputy Cogan also said that there is no escaping the fact that the farmer and his adult sons and daughters working for him on the farm have a present income of less than £3 10s. per week. Who is fighting about that? How is that an argument against the Bill? Every Deputy of the Labour Party is in favour of increased earning power, increased income for the farmer by guaranteeing prices.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Why not give adequate prices then?

Mr. Connolly

We are in favour of a high standard of living for the farmers.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

And vote against it.

Mr. Corry

Did they not help the farmers by voting with Deputy Halliden on a motion with regard to the price of milk?

Mr. Connolly

The fact that the average farmer receives £3 10s. 0d. per week is surely no argument against the 47,000 farmers who are involved giving four hours of a half-holiday to their labourers. The figure of £3 10s. 0d., however, is one of interest. It would appear to be very low and, in so far as it is low and in so far as it is correct— I have no means of checking it—we would deplore it; but there is one aspect of that figure which has escaped Deputy Cogan, though he says there is no escaping this figure, that is, that, with that figure of £3 10s. 0d. per week as his actual cash income, Deputy Cogan has forgotten to assess the value of the security which the farmer enjoys and which the farm labourer does not enjoy. Even if the farm labourer were getting £4 or £4 10s. 0d. per week, I would say that he would not be as well off as the farmer getting £3 10s. 0d. per week, because the farmer has what the human being prizes most, security, which the farm labourer has not got.

Mr. Maguire

What about the new Social Services Bill?

Mr. Connolly

The farmers have that security. They know that, whether the weather is bad or not, they have some part of this earth which they can call their own. At least it can be said, in the case of farmers, that they have some part of this earth which, as far as the laws of this State will permit, they can call their own. There is a portion of land which Deputy Corry can call his own. He can call it Corry land, but there is no part of Ireland which the farm labourer can call his own. He has no title deeds to land which he can lodge in a bank if he wants an overdraft, whether it be large or small. He is at the mercy of the economic vagaries. Therefore, there is no need for us to be unduly pessimistic when we read Deputy Cogan's statement that the average income of the farmer is less than £3 10s. a week. Because the farmer's income is so small, Deputy Cogan adduces that as one of the reasons why he sets his mind definitely and vigorously against this Bill, and why, as he has suggested, it should not be enacted. Instead, he says we should raise the standard and status of agricultural workers by all means.

We are all in agreement with Deputy Cogan there, but it is a mode of argument that has not much weight. When one is trying to do one thing for a particular person, it is a very good way of evading one's responsibility by suggesting that something, which is not in the same category at all as that which you are trying to do for him, should be done for him. We are trying to raise the standard of agricultural workers by one means; we are trying to improve his status and to bring him into line with the industrial worker. Deputy Cogan has made the objection that we should do other things, and not this thing, for the farm labourer. These other things may be good in themselves, but the fact that Deputy Cogan can give examples of those other things that can be done for the farm labourer is a very good reason why, in fact, he should support this thing that we are doing. He has not made any good argument as to why he should exclude the one thing that we are discussing. He says to us to do a certain number of things such as B, C and D, but not to do A. If he is in agreement with us in doing B, C and D why can he not throw in his lot with us and do A as well? That seems to me to be a logical question to ask him. He says he is concerned about the agricultural labourer. I honestly believe that he is, and that he will ultimately support this idea of reducing the working hours of farm labourers generally by legislation.

Deputy Cogan thinks that this case might be met by increasing the children's allowance by 1/-. May I point this out to the Deputy? I think I have abundantly proved that if the proposal in this Bill is accepted it does not follow that it will mean any impost on the farmers, any increase in wages, or any increase in the cost of living through an increase in the cost of foodstuffs. Yet, what he proposes for the farm labourer, an increase of 1/- in the children's allowance, will certainly lead to an increased impost on the farmer because he will have to pay his share of that 1/-, since the money required for the purpose is derived from general taxation. I would not be so bold as to say that the farmer will pay the major part of that, but if the children's allowance is increased there will be an increase in taxation, and the farmer, to some little extent, will have to pay his share of that. Of course, the farmer would be in a position to pass on some part of that to the general community by increasing the cost of foodstuffs. At any rate, the point is that if the Deputy's suggestion were adopted there would be a greater tendency to increase the cost of living than there would be by giving the half-holiday to the farm workers.

The Deputy also suggested that farmers could co-operate with their farm labourers in other directions and help them to improve their status. He suggested that they could help them to cultivate their plots and provide them with additional allotments of land for the growing of vegetables, and that farmers who have tractors or horses could help their workers in the cultivation of their plots. I do not know very much about agriculture. I am quite frank in admitting that. I will just make this comment, that an agricultural worker would need to have a fairly considerable plot if he could be assisted in increasing his production from it by the aid of the farmer's tractor.

Mr. Cogan

He could do it with a spade.

Mr. Connolly

In the case of an agricultural holding, I think there are limits to the extent to which you can use a tractor on it. However, the sentiment is very good. I am sure that whether the farmer came with a tractor, a horse or a spade to help an agricultural labourer to cultivate his plot he would be very welcome. If the farm labourer is given an additional allotment of land he will require more time to cultivate it, and so if you promise that the farmer is to help him by the aid of his tractor or his horses you should also make available to him the extra time that he will need for the cultivation of that land. It appears to me that the Deputy's suggestion is like very many of his other statements in this that it is a very good argument in favour of granting the half-holiday to the farm workers. It is an ideal thought that the farmers should share their land with those who are working for them and so enable a community of interest to be established between them. It would, I think, not only directly but indirectly lead to an increase in the productivity of labour.

If farmers were to carry out Deputy Cogan's suggestion, which I think most progressive-minded Deputies will agree with, and to grant the farm labourers these additional facilities and amenities, I am perfectly certain, from our knowledge of Irishmen, that the farm labourers would reciprocate very whole-heartedly and give the farmers full measure in return; that there would be no necessity to look at the loss of four hours in 54, a loss of a mere 8 per cent., but that by such a creation of goodwill and the relationship which would grow out of such a movement as that we could be sure of a substantial increase in productivity.

In answer to Deputy Maguire, who has concerned himself so much about the vagaries of the weather, we have the advice of Deputy Cogan, who, I understand, is a competent farmer, who is evidently talking from the hearthstone and knows something about the subject, and who says that the farmers, as one of the things that could be done to ameliorate the conditions of the labourers, should give to their labourers a full week's employment irrespective of weather conditions. I should like the Deputy to mark that. He is answered out of the mouth of the principal opposition speaker to this Bill. I do not need to know anything about agriculture or to have any knowledge of the conditions.

All I need is to go to column 846 of the Official Report and cite a competent authority. The Deputy would not give this advice to the farmers if the thing could not be done. He would not be talking through his hat. Surely that is not a habit of Deputy Cogan's. I have only to cite that, irrespective of weather conditions, it is possible for a farmer to give a full week's employment.

If that is so, it follows logically from the other arguments I have deduced for a full week's employment, meaning in this case 50 hours, that it would be possible for Deputy Cogan so to organise the time of his labourers, irrespective of weather conditions, that in 50 hours they could do the work that has hitherto been done in 54 hours. It should be possible for farmers, with the aid of a few extra time-saving machines, and even without the capital cost involved in that, to find sufficient occupation for labourers in repairing dilapidated homesteads or dilapidated outhouses that require improvement or in doing many other items of work that should have been done and could have been done long ago to improve the capital value of their land and business so as to enable them to carry on their activities in better and more comfortable surroundings than they had hitherto by the provision of storage for crops, etc. It is possible to organise sufficient work for the farm workers to enable that amount of output to be achieved in the lesser number of hours.

Mr. Maguire

Would you agree to let them do masonry and carpentry work?

Mr. Connolly

So far as the rural workers are concerned, they have, as trade unionists, if I might put it this way, a most elastic conscience. They have to have it. They are conditioned by the rural conditions. One knows that there are not so many rural carpenters, plasterers and so on about the country as there are handymen. There are handymen who are carpenters cum bricklayers cum plasterers, etc. As Deputy Maguire knows, trade unionism is most fruitful in its work in large industries where there is a large number of men employed in one factory or works. Even on the large scale farms employing up to 20 or 30 workers or more, such as in County Wicklow, you will find a more rigorous application of trade union principles and rules than you will find in some out of the way place round Ardee or beyond Dundalk near the Border where there may be only two or three farm workers employed on one farm. Therefore, there is no valid objection that I can see to the proper utilisation of the farm worker's labour indoor by the farmers in doing these things which are necessary. Carpenters and other building workers are scarce because the Minister for Local Government and his housing commission have put a premium on carpenters, plasterers and other tradesmen who are employed in carrying out the housing programme. Deputy Maguire knows well that if there are handymen who are not in a carpenters' society or any other society and who are organised in the Rural Workers' Federation, there will not be any great objection to the spasmodic or occasional employment of farm labourers by a farmer for certain restricted types of work in order to get their 50-hour week in. If that is the objection that Deputy Maguire makes, I think it is readily overcome.

Mr. Maguire

I am glad to have that assurance.

Mr. Connolly

That is an example of the fair-mindedness of Labour. It is an example of the fact that we in the Labour Party as far as we possibly can, particularly when we meet such sympathetic people, with such a knowledge and understanding of living animals and growing things which they cultivate, as the farmers, are prepared in every case to meet them half-way.

That is why I make an appeal that those who feel an objection to this Bill should, out of their human sympathy and understanding and on the basis of ethics and morals, permit this Bill to have a Second Reading and then argue out a case with us section after section, and sub-section after sub-section, or by the provision of additional sections to safeguard anything about which they may be doubtful. Give us a chance of implementing this Bill for the sake of raising the standard of the farm workers and there is no doubt that you will find that you have done a good day's work for the farming community as a whole, for yourselves as employers and for the peace of the countryside because, if you are always in opposition to the just demands of farm labourers, you cannot expect them to tolerate that they should be held back while all other sections go forward. They are not insulated from the workers in the towns. The farm labourer goes into town probably every evening and certainly every week-end. He is constantly mixing with the town workers, knows the conditions of the town workers and he is envious of them. He knows the time they have to spare for cultural or other recreations and in that way he is likely to resent any continued opposition to his interests.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.