Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Feb 1951

Vol. 124 No. 1

Private Deputies' Business. - Loans and Grants for Farmers.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the loans and grants provided for farmers under existing schemes are inadequate and suggests to the Government that, in order to be effective for the purpose for which they are intended, loans for the erection or improvement of farm buildings, the betterment of land, the improvement of live stock and the purchase of machines and equipment should be made available to whatever extent is required at low rates of interest.— (Patrick Cogan, Patrick O'Reilly.)

Mr. T. Walsh

On the last occasion on which this matter was before the House and on which I was speaking, the Minister did not deem it worth his while to come in and listen to me. To-night I am not in a condition to say very much as I am suffering from a heavy cold. However, I believe I have covered as much of the ground as I need cover in connection with the matter of the availability of grants and loans to farmers.

On the last occasion on which I spoke on this motion I did not mention the matter of a subsidy for manures. On one occasion I think the Minister challenged me on that subject to the effect that when the manures were available they were not used. I pointed out on that occasion that they could not be used because they were not available. Now, however, that the Minister has gone to the ends of the earth and has been able to get an ample supply of manures for the farmers of this country I suggest he should go a little further and make them cheap enough to enable the farmers to buy them. I suggest that the Minister should try to inveigle or induce the Minister for Finance to give a sum of money that will enable the Minister for Agriculture to offer a decent subsidy to the farmers to enable them to purchase those manures. That is one of the ways in which land development can be helped. Another way in which it can be helped is the making available of a certain sum of money to enable farmers who are living in remote rural districts to provide decent avenues or roadways to their farmhouses. In many parts of the country we have laneways and culs-de-sac where modern machinery cannot be taken. Even in County Kilkenny, which is a fairly modern county, I know that there are places where tractors cannot travel. If grants were made available to enable farmers to widen the laneways and culs-de-sac and to put a decent surface on them it might help in furthering the agricultural production of that particular area. I understand that in parts of the country—particularly in the West, where beet is brought to the factory— there are many small farmers who have to cart their produce three, four and five miles to a pick-up point. Very little encouragement is given to people living in remote districts, and who are in such a bad way in regard to reaching the public roadways, to increase production. I think that more production in agriculture is one of the Minister's pet subjects and I agree with him on that, provided he goes the right way about giving us more production.

Those are the things I wish to mention and those are the ways in which I think the Minister can help, if he is anxious to help, the people who are living in the more remote parts of the country. If he does help them as I have suggested, it will facilitate greater production and it will be an inducement to our young people to remain on the land because they will have better conditions there. The Minister should give some consideration to the argument which I put forward—especially if he has, as he claims to have, a genuine sympathy with the farmers of this country—to induce the Minister for Finance to give the money which he should make available in order to help those people.

Mr. Cogan

I second this motion. I regret that I was unavoidably absent from the House when the motion was proposed. However, I am glad that the Minister is here to consider it and I am grateful to Deputy T. Walsh who proposed the motion, as it will enable us to hear the Minister express his views on this very important question.

This motion is worded very much the same as a motion which was moved by the Labour Party in the Seanad some time ago. I intentionally followed the wording of that particular motion because I was anxious that this motion should have the support of the Labour Party, for whom I have a great respect. It will be admitted that this motion raises an important issue. It points out that the existing schemes of loans and grants are inadequate and that loans for the erection and improvement of farm buildings, the betterment of land, the improvement of live stock and the purchase of machinery and equipment should be made available to whatever extent is required at low rates of interest.

In view of the fact that very elaborate details of existing Government schemes in regard to agricultural loans and grants are just now being circulated to Deputies of the House, I have a sort of suspicion that the Minister may attempt to rest upon his laurels, or those of his predecessors, in so far as grants and loans are concerned. There is no doubt that we have a multitude of schemes of various shapes and sizes to promote the development of agriculture in different ways. Notwithstanding the existence of these schemes, we find that there is a great variety of agricultural development work which farmers desire to undertake but which, because they are handicapped for the want of finance, they are unable to carry out.

When a motion similar to this motion was being debated in the Seanad, the Minister made great play on the fiction that a credit-worthy farmer need never be without the capital to develop his farm. However, when he was asked to define what was meant by "a credit-worthy farmer" he said that a credit-worthy farmer was any farmer who brings in two Deputies to sign his promissory note.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

From what is the Deputy quoting?

Mr. Cogan

I am referring to a debate on a motion for loans and grants for agriculture which took place in the Seanad, I think, on the 12th January, 1949—I am not sure of the date.

Mr. Dillon

Does the Deputy purport to quote my words?

Mr. Cogan

I am doing so from recollection.

Mr. Dillon

It is faulty recollection.

Mr. Cogan

Before the end of the debate I shall find the quotation and I shall give it to the Minister.

Mr. Corry

I will look for it for you.

Mr. Cogan

The Minister will find that the remarks which I attributed to him are correct. I have reasonable grounds for suspecting that the Minister will put up the same proposition here—that he will suggest that anybody who can bring two Deputies to sign his promissory note can get all the credit he wants. I do not think that either Deputies or farmers desire that particular type of credit facilities. It can be clearly demonstrated that credit facilities are inadequate and that the rate of interest is far too high. For the last year for which figures were quoted in this House, of the total number of applications made to the Agricultural Credit Corporation for loans, two-thirds were rejected. That means that of every three farmers who applied to the Agricultural Credit Corporation for credit facilities, two were refused. A departmental credit organisation which rejects two-thirds of the applications made to it can scarcely be said to be fulfilling the function of capitalising agriculture. I am quite sure that anyone who considers the matter will acknowledge that the Agricultural Credit Corporation are not to blame. They have to pay a substantial rate of interest for the money they use. They have only a narrow margin of interest on which to work and they are expected to make a profit on their transactions. Within the narrow sphere in which they are compelled to work they are doing their best but they are failing completely to satisfy the needs of agriculture. The fact that agricultural production has remained static since the establishment of the State is a clear indication that the necessary capital is not being put into the agricultural industry in order to make it as productive as it should be.

When this matter was under discussion in the Seanad, the Minister, on the question of interest, also made a remarkable statement. He said that he did not see any reason why interest rate should be charged on loans. That is a very sweeping statement. Personally, I would hardly be inclined to go as far as that but I would say that nobody has ever given reasonable grounds for the State paying interest on money required for national development. There may be a case for an individual or a firm that lends money to charge interest to cover the possibility of loss or the possibility of default on the part of the borrower, but no case has ever been made for the State being required to pay interest on money required for national development. No one has ever attempted to make that case for such a levy. That is what it amounts to. It is a levy on industry, a levy on enterprise, a levy on the worker engaged in industry. We have a State bank here and I do not see how, with some addition to their powers, they would not be able to finance works of national development on the security of the country's credit, which is as good, if not better, than the security of any nation on the face of the earth.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy would print the money as required?

Mr. Cogan

I think the Minister is trying to create a little fog in the minds of the people.

Mr. Dillon

The fog was here before I came into the House.

Mr. Keane

Such as Baltinglass.

Mr. Cogan

The Minister does not know of any money which is not printed. With the exception of the small amount of silver, nickel and bronze coins, all currency is printed. It is ordinary paper. During the last few weeks a very considerable amount of business was transacted with money that was not even printed, simply written on ordinary notepaper.

Mr. Davin

Public-house banks.

Mr. Keane

Or sub-post offices.

Mr. Cogan

The less the respected Deputy says about sub-post offices the happier he will be.

Mr. Keane

I am not a bit sorry.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must not interrupt or he may be sorry.

Mr. Murphy

What did you do about the telegraph poles?

Mr. McGrath

That is enough about Baltinglass.

Mr. Keane

What about Clondrohid in Cork?

Mr. Davin

Who paid for the aeroplane?

Mr. McGrath

Who surrendered in the battle of Baltinglass?—General Everett.

Mr. Dillon

I thought it was Galloper Smith, crying "no surrender".

Mr. Cogan

The battle of Baltinglass was fought and won as it deserved to be fought and won and the victory was on the side of justice and fair play. The Minister knows that.

Mr. Keane

By gallowglasses.

An Ceann Comhairle

I will have to ask Deputy Keane to leave the House.

Deputy Keane withdrew from the Chamber.

Mr. Cogan

We all realise the burden which the existing rates of interest place on the agricultural industry. I will give one demonstration. Under the land project, if a farmer decides to avail of the credit facilities provided, for the £12 per acre borrowed, he or his children will repay £29. I do not know who gets the balance over and above the £12 but the farmer who borrows £12 in order to drain a statute acre will repay £29.

Mr. Dillon

Over 60 years.

Mr. Cogan

I have in mind the case of a farmer who borrowed £500 in 1921 and he repaid no less than £1,500 within a period of 35 years. It is this high rate of interest which frequently deters farmers from availing of any credit facilities that are available, if they can otherwise secure the money.

Mr. Dillon

What rate of interest would the Deputy suggest?

Mr. Cogan

A farmer who has money on deposit gets a maximum of 1 per cent. on the money he lends to the bank. Surely, that should be the maximum that an ordinary farmer should be asked to pay.

Mr. Dillon

One per cent.—well, that is a proposal.

Mr. Cogan

And there is nothing unreasonable about it. If the banks think they are justified in paying 1 per cent. for the loan of the farmer's money, I do not see any reason why a farmer anxious to get money for the purpose of agricultural development should not be able to secure it at the same rate. The existing rate of interest puts a severe burden on the primary producers; it puts an excessively severe burden on agricultural production; it adds to the cost of production and ultimately to the cost of living because it affects the cost of food, the cost of the essentials of life.

These are important considerations, and I am sure that the Minister, having listened to the expression of these views on usury and interest, will give them his careful consideration. There is no use in the Minister saying: "I believe the interest charges are unjust," and at the same time doing nothing whatever to remedy that injustice.

I have indicated how easy it is for a farmer who needs credit to obtain it. If a man can bring two solvent sureties to the Agricultural Credit Corporation or to the banks, he will get a considerable amount of credit; but that is not a task that any farmer likes. There are very few farmers who wish to go to their neighbours and ask them to go security for a loan.

We can see all around us evidence of the under-capitalisation of agriculture. I use that phrase because it is the phrase that is used very extensively by one of our Ministers, Mr. MacBride, the Minister for External Affairs. We can see ample evidence in a soil that is deficient in lime and fertilisers. We can also see evidence in out-offices and farm buildings that are altogether unsuitable for progressive and efficient farming. We can see evidence, too, in the farmers' houses, though to a certain extent an effort is being made to remedy that. We can also see evidence in the fact that many farmers have to use out-of-date equipment. There are many farms of a fair size which would be better cultivated if the farmer could use a tractor, but the initial cost is too high.

In addition to all that, we know that there are dairy herds in the country which are under-productive; they are not producing what they should and the unprofitable cows require to be replaced. There, again, capital is necessary. These are all things to which capital could be usefully applied. I am sure it is only necessary to mention these things to arouse the Minister's sympathy, although he did not show so very much sympathy to a similar proposal when it was before the Seanad.

I have mentioned that soil deficiency is one aspect of agriculture that deserves to be rectified. There are also deficiencies of lime and phosphates. I raised this matter in the debate on agriculture last year and, when concluding that debate, the Minister indicated that he intended to extend the land rehabilitation scheme so as to provide a scheme of loans for the purchase of fertilisers. In due course the scheme was introduced but it was implemented in a manner which would appear to me to be calculated to deter any farmer who required these facilities from availing of them.

In the first place, a farmer making an application for a loan is required to pay a fee of 1/- per acre for every acre in his possession. That means that a man with 100 acres has to send along a fee of £5. Does the Minister consider he is encouraging the ordinary farmer to avail of the scheme by imposing this fee?

Mr. Dillon

I do not think a 200-acre farmer is an ordinary farmer; I think he is a very rich farmer.

Mr. Cogan

I am referring to the farmer with 100 acres.

Mr. Dillon

He is not so dusty either; he is a comfortable man.

Mr. Cogan

That may be the Minister's opinion, but 100 acres of poor land subject to a high rateable valuation, subject to a very high rate, does not make the farmer a very wealthy man. I know farmers with 100 statute acres who would find a fee of £5 an important consideration. Farmers do not find £5 notes on the roads in Wicklow or in Carlow. Why was this fee imposed? In the Agricultural Credit Corporation there is a fee of 1/- for each application, but that is a reasonable thing. One would consider that desirable for the purpose of stopping frivolous applications. In this case you have a levy of 1/- per acre.

There is a more serious drawback. A farmer who desires to improve one field, say ten acres—let us assume he has 50 acres—is compelled under this scheme to have his entire holding taken into the calculation. That is to say that the farmer is required to go into debt to the extent perhaps of five or 10 times the amount he wishes to borrow. It is just the same as if the farmer went to a bank for £10 and the manager said: "I will not give you £10, but I will give you £50 or £100." That is the principle embodied in this scheme.

Mr. Dillon

Is that the measure of my sinning, that I make them borrow too much.

Mr. Cogan

The farmer, who is the best judge of what he can repay, the farmer who is an honest man, should not be penalised in this fashion. He will know how much he can repay and it is wrong to dictate to him what amount he should be given and the extent to which he ought to go into debt. The Minister, when he considers this matter, will admit that that is a reasonable point of view.

No attempt should be made to coerce a man to accept more credit than he thinks he can reasonably repay. I think that is a consideration which would operate against the success of this scheme. The Minister may say, in justification for bringing an entire holding, rather than portion of it, under the scheme that it is better from a purely administrative point of view and perhaps also from the agricultural point of view, that the entire holding should be dealt with. I should like to submit this consideration to the Minister, if that is his answer to the point I have made. Would it not be reasonable to meet the farmer in this way: "If you do not feel that you would like to undertake the liability for borrowing an amount sufficient to provide for the liming and fertilising of your entire holding, it would be sufficient if you avail of this scheme to apply the necessary lime to your entire holding." The application of lime effects a more permanent improvement than the correction of phosphate deficiency. Once the acidity due to the absence of lime is corrected, there is a prospect that a considerable number of years will elapse before the lime content is exhausted in that land. That, I suggest, would be a reasonable compromise. I have tried to meet the Minister in a reasonable way. Such a compromise would make the scheme more acceptable to a great many farmers. In addition, it would enable something to be done which should be done right now. That is, to correct the acidity in every acre of acid soil in this country as soon as possible. We have available in this country limestone to produce all the lime that this country requires. The sooner that lime is applied to every acre of soil that needs it, the better for the productivity of the country.

With regard to phosphates, there are limiting factors, not alone because of its cost but due to the fact that it has to be imported. If we were to avail of phosphates to the extent that the soil requires, it is doubtful that even the Minister with all his powers would be able to supply the necessary quantity. We know that in the last year for which figures were available, less than four stone of fertilisers per statute acre were applied to the agricultural land of this country on the average. That is merely insulting the soil of this country. I am sure that if we were to attempt to provide all the phosphatic and potassic manures the soil requires, we would find considerable difficulty in importing it, but there is no difficulty in regard to lime as far as I can see. There is no reason why we should not make a tremendous effort to get lime applied as quickly as possible to the soil. We want increased output; we want it urgently and even in regard to crops which are urgently needed, such as barley and wheat, lime is an absolute essential. I want in connection with this whole question of credit to pay a tribute to the good work done by the Irish Sugar Company. There is no doubt that they have provided beet-growers with very substantial credit facilities both in regard to lime and fertilisers and I believe the results forthcoming have justified their progressive approach in this matter.

I am sure the Minister will have no hesitation in accepting this motion. I think that the improvement of farm buildings occupies a very high priority in agricultural rehabilitation at the moment. You can if you like divide capital requirements of agriculture into two classes. You have first the kind of capital, which once applied to a farm directly raises the market value of that farm. The point I want to impress on the Minister is that under this particular heading you have loans for the improvement of the soil, for reclamation of land, for building and loans for the improvement of fences, carways and approaches to farm buildings. All the money expended on these improvements creates immediately a permanent asset and for that reason there should be no hesitation in providing credit for these requirements.

The Minister has shown under one particular heading I have mentioned that he accepts my view and he is providing long-term loans for the reclamation of land. The same should apply in regard to buildings. He will say, of course, that loans for buildings can be obtained through the Agricultural Credit Corporation but, as I pointed out, two farmers out of every three, who apply for these loans, have their applications rejected. I think we should aim at having every farm properly equipped so far as accommodation for live stock and the storing of grain and crops are concerned. We would, in that way, make farming more efficient and more attractive to the farmer and members of his family. That is a very important consideration at the present time when we have so many attractions for young people to get away from the farm.

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order, the mover and seconder of this motion have now occupied over an hour and a half of the time allocated to the motion and presumably the mover will have half an hour to conclude. That is two hours. That leaves only one hour for all other Deputies who wish to take part in the debate. Unless the debate is to be turned into a farce, I suggest that that is absurd.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have no control over the length of speeches.

Mr. Dillon

We must assume that the proposer and seconder of the motion do not want to give any opportunity to other Deputies of contributing to the debate.

Mr. Cogan

I do not think I have been speaking for more than half an hour.

Mr. Dillon

Three-quarters of an hour, round as a hoop.

Mr. Cogan

If the Minister would refrain from interrupting, and if he is so desperately anxious to intervene in the debate, I shall try to give way to him very speedily, but I would ask him not to inflict on the house a rigmarole such as he has issued to us in typed form, showing all the things that he and his predecessors have done in regard to loans, grants and various other things.

I have indicated that these things, while good in themselves, are inadequate. I have made two points: (1) that the farmers who really require credit find it almost impossible to obtain it; and (2) that the cost of credit for agricultural purposes is altogether too high. I think that the interest rates are based, to a great extent, on the profits obtainable in commerce and in operations other than agriculture. They are not based on the earning capacity of agriculture. I should like the Minister to consider these two aspects of the question. I did not put down the motion in any spirit of criticism. It is similar to a motion which was tabled by the Labour Party in the Seanad. I think it is a fair one, and that it should be met in a reasonable way by the Minister.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

I believe Deputy Cogan to be a thoroughly dishonest man, and, in addition to that, he is an intolerably dull one.

Mr. Cogan

On a point of order——

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think a Deputy should be referred to as dishonest.

Mr. Dillon

I withdraw the word at once, if it is considered unparliamentary. I have never heard it questioned before. I suppose I have been called dishonest from every side in this House.

An Ceann Comhairle

Reflections on a man's character should not be made.

Mr. Dillon

I do not believe he means .05 per cent. of what he says, and the maddening thing is that he can say it at incredible length and be so dreadfully dull. I have got to sit through it all. I have sat now through three-quarters of an hour of tedious ráméis and nonsense. The Deputy has had before him—I took the trouble to prepare it and to distribute it outside the Dáil Chamber to-day—a full schedule of every credit scheme operated by the Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Credit Corporation, but he was too lazy to read it.

Mr. Cogan

On a point of order. This document was handed to me five minutes before this debate opened.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not a point of order. It is a point of information.

Mr. Dillon

He will take half an hour at the end of this debate to repeat it at interminable length. He led off to-day by trusting his bacac memory, and Deputy Corry was off like a scalded cat to the library for confirmation, but I noticed that the scalded cat did not come back because he is a cute old warrior. He knew when he sent down for the Official Report that I, too, would send for the Official Report, and that if he tried any of the tricks of his bacac memory he would get his two ears nailed to the post, so he has gone home with his two ears safe to North Cork. But Deputy Cogan, being a dull, stupid man, imagines that he can get up here and attempt to misquote me without being exposed. The Deputy in the rôle of galloper for broken down major-generals in this country, may present a desirable appearance in his native county, but he is not in the company of bailiffs or emergency men now.

What I did say on this credit motion as reported at column 578 and the ensuing columns—Volume 36, Seanad Debates, 9th December, 28th July, 1949—when dealing with this question of credit worthiness, was this:—

"I think it is a mistake for Senators to suggest that there is any ground for the suggestion, or even for the impression, that only large farmers can get loans, and that small farmers cannot. There is not a farmer in this country, large or small, if he has 10 acres or 1,000 acres, who, if he corresponds with the ordinary test as to the capacity to meet his debt when it falls due, cannot get to-morrow morning all the credit he can possibly want. Here is a problem I would ask the Senators to help me to solve. Is there any device that can be offered which would effectively segregate the sheep from the goats in applicants for credit? I may say that a ready and simple test would be to challenge Senator Quirke and Senator Hearne to put their names on the back of a man's bill. Neither I nor Senator Quirke nor Senator Hearne can in practice accept responsibility for putting our names on the back of a bill for every man we believe to be credit-worthy in rural Ireland. It is just not practicable politics, and we would not be honest men if we did because if any substantial number of them defaulted we would be unable to meet our guarantee. Putting the dilemma——"

I see the scalded cat is coming back.

"——in that way is an easy way to demonstrate the impracticability of such a test; but it would be ridiculous to suggest that it really belongs to the sphere of practical politics."

Now, that is described by Deputy Cogan as a declaration by me that the only test of credit worthiness is that a man could bring in two guarantors to back his bill, and he is ablaze with indignation when I use the word "dishonest" in this context. I have read every word——

Mr. Cogan

You have not.

Mr. Dillon

——of what I said in Seanad Éireann.

Mr. Cogan

I can get it for you.

Mr. Dillon

I wish you would stay where you are because I have a little more to say to you. Any Minister for Agriculture, confronted with this resolution on the Order Paper, must of its very nature, accept it. I, certainly, accept the proposition that there should be made available to the farmers of this country all the credit they require. I assert that, for the first time since this State was established, there is no amenity requisite or accommodation, that any farmer in any part of Ireland requires for the fullest utilisation of his land that he has not now accessible to him on credit terms within the reach of the smallest, or the largest, holder of land in Ireland. I issue this challenge to the House, that if there is any single amenity calculated to increase the earning capacity of any farmer in any part of Ireland which at the present moment he is obliged to forgo for want of credit, then let him name it, and he will have credit to get to-morrow morning.

The object of this Government is to put within the reach of every farmer, on every acre of land in Ireland, the means to utilise that land to the greatest possible advantage, measuring the advantage by the test of the excellence of the living that he can get from the land for himself, his wife and his family, always provided that he leaves the land in the autumn a little better than he found it in the spring. If there is any amenity now lacking, or facilities which the farmer must forgo for the want of credit calculated to produce that result for him, let it be named, and the facilities will be provided forthwith.

Mr. Davin

What is the rate of interest?

Mr. Dillon

Four and a half per cent. is the rate of interest to-day.

Mr. Davin

Is that fair?

Mr. Dillon

In the world we live in, yes. I once said to Deputy Davin's colleague, Deputy Hickey, that I personally sympathised in the view that the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas on usury in its strictest application would probably be the road of perfection. I agree with that view still; I adhere to it. But Deputy Davin and I have reached a time of life when we realise that so little time is left to us that we may not, with propriety, spend it couching chivalrous lances to overthrow the windmills of adversity. We have to do the best we can with the instruments we have got and leave it to our children and our children's children to reform posterity.

Mr. Davin

I should like to change some of them before I go.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy wants to put his hands to the task of abolishing the lending of money at interest, I invite him to start his operations on the executive of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and invite them to invest their funds by providing credit for their neighbours free of interest and I think he will get a very chily reception. If he succeeds with them, he can then turn to the National Union of Railwaymen and invite them to invest their funds on a similar basis and I think he will get a very chilly reception. He may then turn to his colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare, who is about to amplify and extend the entire horizon of social services in this country on a basis of 4½ per cent., and tell him that that whole element of the financing of his scheme is to be swept away and, while I have no doubt that my colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare, will agree with him that the abolition of interest on money would be a most desirable reform, I think he will say to Deputy Davin and to me: "Look, what I am concerned to do is to carry the social security scheme now so that the people who are waiting and longing for the reforms incorporated in that code may enjoy them and leave it to posterity to produce perfection."

Mr. Davin

Is the Minister aware that the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union gave a substantial amount to the national loan free of interest?

Mr. Dillon

Yes, and feel very virtuous as a result thereof, but that they were able to do it because the balance is, as are all other trust funds in the hands of any trustees, as by law required, invested by those trustees at remunerative rates of interest. Is not that true? Why do we attempt to turn our backs to it? Is there a Deputy who ever set out to save a portion for his child or family or who insured his life who did not do it on the basis of the social system in which he lived, founded on rates of interest? The difference between those who effect worth-while reforms and those who do nothing except bask in the sunshine of their own self-esteem is that these are cranks who spend their lives in the latter happy occupation, who rejoice that they are not as other men, scorn interest and all things associated therewith, while the poor despised publicans put their hands to the imperfect plough available to them and, with its blunted edge, attempt to make some step forward towards a better state of society than that in which they find themselves for the time being. It is true that the idealists get the praise of weekly periodicals, but it is the mundane politician who does the job. For my part—I suppose it is middle age—I have ceased to long for the approbation of the sophisticated weekly and shall be well content if I can look back on a furrow, however irregularly ploughed, which in the spring bears a crop however inadequate and however unlovely.

Therefore, I want to make it possible under the system in which we live for those who hold our land in stewardship, not for the State but for God, to make it produce two blades of grass where heretofore only one grew, and I am not ashamed to formulate that in an aphorism which I borrow from a better man: "One more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough." I am glad to tell the House that I believe I shall shortly succeed in negotiating an agreement with the British Government whereupon I shall sell to the British people, to feed the British people, as many pigs as our people will be able to produce and at a price guaranteed for five years of from 200/- to 210/- per cwt. dead weight, with an understanding that, if the price of pigs is raised in Great Britain during that time, it will rise in Ireland too.

Mr. Killilea

The same basis as the eggs agreement.

Mr. Dillon

No. I did not negotiate the eggs agreement. It was my predecessor, and my predecessor left me in the position of going to England with £5,000,000 worth of eggs on my hands to negotiate an agreement. There will be no agreement about pigs which does not provide that, if the price goes up in Great Britain, it goes up in Ireland too. I will never make an agreement about eggs, with such a provision as was in the agreement of 1947, that we would spend £1,350,000 maintaining egg production with no proviso as to what the British would pay for those eggs when produced, and I will not send my successor to London with a vast surplus hanging around his neck to try and make a price agreement for that surplus, as in my case, when the other parties to the agreement knew that if I did not take their price I would have to throw them away. I fix them with notice that after this year a low price for Irish, eggs does not mean cheap eggs for England; it means no eggs and they have got full notice of that fact and they know I mean it. I want the land of this country to produce more eggs, fowl, meat, cattle and sheep to feed the British people, and I am proud to do that, provided they pay our people a fair price for their produce. Any agreement they make with me, so long as I speak for the Irish people, will contain a proviso that when the agreement is made, and thereafter so long as the agreement operates, they will continue to pay a fair price.

Mr. Cogan

On a matter of personal explanation, I have got the quotation which the Minister urged me to get. It is in column 575 of the Official Report of Seanad Éireann, 12th January, 1949, and is as follows:—

"Mr. S. O'Farrell: It is important for the Minister to specify what is the test of credit worthiness.

Mr. Dillon: The signature of Senator Quirke and Senator Hearne on the back of the bill, the signature of Senator Baxter and Senator Hayes on the back of the bill."

That is the Minister's declaration of credit worthiness.

Mr. Dillon

That is the type of base, miserable fraud that characterises Deputy Cogan in this House.

He thinks to get away with that slingeing corner-boy quotation and he would have got away with it only that I know him so well.

Mr. Corry

On a point of order. Is it in order for a Deputy to call another Deputy a corner-boy?

An Ceann Comhairle

No, it is not.

Mr. Corry

I would ask that the Minister be called upon to withdraw that.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister did not use the term. He said it was a corner-boy quotation.

Mr. Corry

I only wished to have the matter established for future reference.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy MacEntee's disease is getting infectious. Everybody is getting so tender and delicate in this deliberative. Assembly that we will have to serve out cotton wool before a debate starts. I deliberately in the same speech said in a column further on "though one might attempt to apply that test every Senator in the House will agree with me that it is neither practical politics nor a reasonable proposal and what I ask the Seanad to do is to give me their help and counsel in finding a reasonable method of securing the assurance necessary prior to lending money which ordinarily is made available by getting two guarantors to sign a bill." Is there any decency left in debate if a Deputy well knowing the contents from which he extracts the quotation deliberately seeks by a suppression veri of that kind to distort the meaning of the words he purports to quote? Does he think that he deceives anybody? Does he think that kind of fraud helps him?

I do not think that it is unparliamentary or unreasonable to describe that kind of controversy as corner-boy tricks. Honest men do not do that sort of thing. I cannot educate Deputy Cogan and I am not going to try. He is sitting alone now where he ought to sit. It is a poor creature who would risk the danger of contamination by sharing his questionable company.

Mr. Corry

That is not very parliamentary stuff.

Mr. Dillon

It is said with deliberation, Deputy. There is no test of a policy more effective than results. I appeal to that test and to none other. Good intentions constitute the pavement to hell and they are not alibis for a statesman or a politician. There is only one justification for a Government remaining in office and a politician, which I proudly claim to be, claiming the suffrages of the people, and that is, the results of his continued activities in the public life in this country. I quote from a leading article in the Donegal Vindicator on the 10th February, appropriately headed: “Why the Barometer Burst.” That leading article refers to speeches made by Deputy Vivion de Valera and my distinguished and prescient predecessor, Deputy Smith. They both went to Bailieboro and with that hospitality characteristic of that distinguished son of Cavan on that occasion he elected to play second fiddle to Deputy Vivion de Valera. Deputy Vivion de Valera worked himself up into quite a passion, because he said that during the last three years we should have aimed at greater independence of foreign grain and fuel, but Deputy de Valera had overlooked the enduring quality of the printed word and he had forgotten that Deputy Smith had gone on record in 1947 as to what acreage and quantity of grain should be grown in Ireland in 1950. That is, unfortunate for poor Deputy Vivion de Valera, that we are now in a position to compare Deputy Smith's anticipation with the performance of your insignificant humble servant. Deputy Smith, in 1947, as reported in the kept newspaper of the Fianna Fáil Party on the 22nd October, 1947, prognosticated that in 1950 or 1951 we should have £257,000 acres under wheat. Your insignificant humble servant managed to return 350,000 acres under wheat with a larger yield of grain from that 350,000 acres than Deputy Smith had been able to extract from 600,000 acres which he had under wheat during his ministry.

The Deputy forecast that in respect of almost every other product of the land we should have a lesser quantity as tillage in 1950 than we had in 1947. On live-stock he set his targets high, and although I understood it was somewhat disreputable to encourage farmers by credit or otherwise to expand their live-stock production Deputy Smith in 1947 declared that the apex of his aspirations target was for the cattle to increase in number from £3,961,000 in 1947-48 to £4,200,000 in 1950-51. I know that his colleagues in the front bench of Fianna Fáil will be glad to know that though I was obliged to take over the agriculture of this country at a time when the cattle population stood at the lowest recorded figures since 1847, that we have far outstripped Deputy Smith's most optimistic anticipation and have nearer £4,500,000 than the £4,200,000 which he foresaw.

In pigs we have not achieved the £1,000,000 that he hoped to realise by 1950, but I think we shortly will. In sheep there were £2,095,000 in 1947-48. He hoped in 1950-51 to see 3,000,000. We will not be far short of that either. Poultry—I would ask Deputy's Killilea's special attention on this as I know he is troubled about the price of eggs. His colleague, Deputy Smith, set as his aim 25,000,000 hens in 1950. We have not got quite that far, and, if we do not get more for eggs, we never will, but fortunately, if the need for decimation matures, we have made a provident arrangement whereunder every fowl slaughtered and trussed in the holocaust will bring 14/- to her proprietor, if she will take reasonable precautions to turn it out as she should.

Mr. Moran

All the hens will be slaughtered anyhow.

Mr. Dillon

That is what the Deputy hopes, but his poisonous and vicious desires to see his neighbours injured in order to bring political grist to his own disgusting mill are usually frustrated. It is not the first generation in which a Moran has sought to see his neighbours suffer that his fortunes might thereby be inflated, and not the first generation which will see that the Moran fortunes are not suffered to batten on the sufferings of their neighbours.

Mr. Moran

Every countrywoman knows that you are the fowl pest.

Mr. Dillon

Our people always had the means to protect themselves from the Morans of this country in the past and they will have them in the future, and the Deputy should not reveal his desire to see his neighbour suffer.

Mr. Moran

They will want it, so far as the Dillons are concerned.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should restrain himself.

Mr. Moran

The Minister should restrain himself.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am the authority with regard to that. I am allowing the Minister to proceed and the Deputy will restrain himself.

Mr. Dillon

I am happy to think that our people's programme of protection, facilitated by the credit schemes outlined here to-day, imperfect though they be, will bring to them a further expansion of that which they at present enjoy, a higher standard of living on their own homes, no matter who tried to take that from them, in dignity and peace, by their own unaided efforts. It sickens me to hear Deputies like Deputy Cogan, who consider it their mission in life to paint the farmers of this country as grovelling beggars for charity. I and those associated with me have concerned ourselves for many generations to make the tenant farmers of the country independent men, able to earn their own living and rear their families beholden to no one, landlord, agent, emergency man or Fianna Fáil hatchet man, and I saw grow up in my own time a fouler system of intimidation, built on the poverty of our people, than ever Clanrickarde attempted to operate and that was the rotten, corrupt Fianna Fáil machine which battened on our people because they were poor. The aim and object of Fianna Fáil to-day and of people like Deputy Cogan is to see our people poor again, so that they can swagger around and threaten to deny them the right to earn their own living in their own country if they do not grovel before the ward heelers of a rotten, corrupt political organisation.

They will not be the first gang that hoped to get our people down in the dirt and to keep them there, but they ought to remember—and if they do not know, let them learn—no gang, whatever their power and whatever their resources, ever kept our people down for long. I do not deny that Fianna Fáil brought our people very low, brought them to a depth of poverty, frustration and misery unlike anything I ever believed I would see. Thanks be to God, we have swept it away. We have put within the reach of those who live upon the land the means to earn their living on the land and the means to tell any rotten and corrupt hatchet man who comes to threaten them across the half-door to get to blazes before he is thrown out.

Mr. Moran

You are on the way out.

Mr. Dillon

I remember the nocturnal expeditions that took place in County Mayo before a general election when our people would be told, at night that, if they did not vote the right way, the old people would lose the old age pension.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is travelling far away from the motion.

Mr. Killilea

And it is a damned lie, of course.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will have to withdraw that remark.

Mr. Killilea

I cannot withdraw. I will leave the House because every statement the Minister has made since he started is one damned lie after another.

Deputy Killilea withdrew from the Chamber.

Mr. Dillon

The purpose of all the schemes outlined in this Vote and of which the House is aware, is identical, that is, to make the people who live upon the land independent of any kind of benefaction or eleemosynary aid from any source, able to earn their own living and to tell the Minister for Agriculture, his officers or anybody else who comes unbidden on their holdings to go to blazes if they do not want him. I know that makes Deputy Cogan laugh.

Mr. Cogan

I thought you were going.

Mr. Dillon

Just think of telling the great major-general to go to blazes! It would be neither respectable nor respectful, but it is not by being respectful to major-generals that the decent people of this country acquired the reputation of respectability. It was by being too proud to grovel and it was by being proud to be seen beside our own people when they were in opposition to the major-generals and the rubbish that begot them that our people acquired, not perhaps the title of respectability, but the claim to be respected wherever they were in Ireland or outside it, rich or poor, and God grant that they will always retain it. It is the purpose of this Government to see that they will be able to retain it vis-a-vis everybody and anybody who comes their way.

Mr. Moran

That goes for this side, too.

Mr. Dillon

It went for every galloper and battering-ram proprietor in Ireland——

Mr. Moran

And every Dillon.

Mr. Dillon

——who was susceptible of education to reform their ways.

There has been nothing vindictive in our people. There will be no better memories kept, but it is right to warn the major-generals that if they think they or their gallopers can start their tricks again, they will find there is a limit to the forbearance, the tolerance and the readiness of our people to forget them.

Mr. Cogan

That is very like corner-boy stuff.

Mr. Dillon

It is not. It is what the decent people of this country feel.

Mr. Halliden

The manly people.

Mr. Dillon

We have no love for landlords or for their gallopers either, and we never will have—and God forbid we should. So long as they recognise that they have lost those privileges and will never be allowed to assert them——

Mr. Moran

On a point of order, is this relevant to this debate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am just wondering what it has to do with farm benefits and the betterment of land.

Mr. Dillon

This relates to credit. Deputy Moran cannot think of providing benefits or credit for farmers on the land for any other purpose than to enable Fianna Fáil to get back to dispense it. I take the view that they should be independent of Fianna Fáil, independent of Fine Gael, of the Labour Party, the Independents, and so on. It is for that reason that I wish to see every variety of credit that our people require to enhance that independence, to enable them to get a better living from their land; and I bind myself in anticipation to make it readily available to those who want to have it and to all on equal terms, without being beholden to me or to anyone else in Ireland in the full knowledge that it is their own, and that they are entitled to expect those who are its stewards to use it primarily for the benefit of those to whom it belongs.

I want the farmers to be faced with the fact that in the conditions where God made this country and put our people in it, it is the farmers of Ireland who must carry all the rest on their backs. The farmers of Ireland given the means, have the resources and the ability to do it—and trot at the same time. But I want to say to others, whether they be trade unionists, professional men, shopkeepers, traders or public servants—let them remember that in the last analysis the living of them all comes out of the land.

So long as I am Minister for Agriculture, the agricultural policy of this country will be founded on the assumption that provided the farmers get a fair living——

Mr. Moran

They are not getting it.

Mr. Dillon

——they have the land and the capital and will be glad and happy to see their neighbours share their prosperity. I have never been afraid to say to the farmers that if this credit is made available to them for a variety of purposes it is provided on condition that the man who works for him gets his fair share of the profit. It is not in Leinster House that I have said that but at farmers' meetings up and down the country—and I will say it again.

Mr. Moran

Tell them not to kill their hens.

Mr. Dillon

A Leas-Chinn Chomhairle, I do not profess to be a man of equable temperament and if Deputy Moran wants, as we say in the province of Connacht, to draw me on him, he must not complain at subsequent events.

Mr. Moran

I do not mind at all. The Minister is drawing the country on him.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to be unkind, but I know too much about him. I cannot close down my mind in that way. That is not the way I was made. This is the way God made me and he will have to take me as I am. I now assert that the farmers to-day are better off than they have been at any time since the famine of 1847. I now assert that it is the duty of the Minister for Agriculture and the Government to which he belongs to keep progress in so far as it is capable of affecting affairs, in that direction and when no longer able to do it to get out and make way for better men.

Mr. Davin

Like Deputy Moran.

Mr. Dillon

Thanks be to God, the people can choose anyone they like and if they wish to go daft for five years they have a right to go daft.

Mr. Moran

They have gone daft for three.

Mr. Dillon

We wish to give credit where credit is necessary to our farmers. I met a deputation recently consisting of Deputy P.D. Lehane, Deputy Corry, Deputy Walsh and some four or five others from the Beet Growers' Association and I discussed the price of beet and other things with them. Amongst the other things we were discussing were how best to increase the output of cereal production. I was emphasising to the deputation how vital it was to do that, and I think it was Deputy Corry who said: "If you want to increase Ymer barley— you have guaranteed a minimum price, not a fixed price, of 16/- a cwt.—but if you want to do the thing rightly, make that more than 16/- and even though none of the barley is sold to you but is used by the farmers themselves, the knowledge that that increased price is ultimately there will encourage it." Very well. I am a great believer in going half-way to meet somebody whom I believe in good faith and Deputy Corry, I confess, on a deputation, is a very different creature from Deputy Corry in the House. He can be a rational man in a discussion then, but when he comes in here he is like a lepping lunatic. I would like to say in public that, largely as a result of the discussion I had with that deputation, I have directed Grain Importers Limited to announce their preparedness to accept any quantity of Ymer barley grown by farmers, at the end of the harvest, at 20/-. That is only the price of last resort. I hope they will not be able to buy a barrel of it, that every farmer will use it for feeding on his own holding. But I want him to know that, if circumstances do not permit him to use it, he will have a means of getting rid of it for a cash price.

Mr. Moran

Did you tell them anything about the price of eggs?

Mr. Corry

Will you not pay them what you paid to the nigger last year —£26 a ton?

Mr. Dillon

I do not know to what the Deputy refers. I know that the Deputy in a room is a reasonable man, but bring him to Leinster House and he is like a lepping lunatic, and if you try to speak to him fairly and deal with him as a civilised human being, the only reply is he bites you. I have learned the lesson well before this, that one might as well try to talk to Deputy Corry as a reasonable man in this House as go up and put one's finger in the cage of the chimpanzee in the Zoo. I would like to give credit where credit is due, and certainly he was one of the members of the deputation who made that suggestion to me and, wisely or foolishly, I am prepared to adopt it, to try to give as much encouragement as I can to individual farmers to grow barley—not for sale, but for use on their own land.

Mr. Moran

Feed it to the hens. Will you tell us about the price of eggs?

Mr. L.J. Walsh

We are paying 3/6 and 4/-.

Mr. Dillon

I have tried to demonstrate the purpose this Government has in mind.

Mr. Moran

Tell us what you are going to pay for eggs.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would the Minister move the Adjournment?

Mr. Dillon

Yes, Sir, but I will resume with a short discourse on Deputy Smith's agreement in relation to eggs. I move the Adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.