Sir, by your leave, I want to make a short comment on the statement made by the Minister for Agriculture to-day on the annex to the trade agreement. I commend the prudence of the Minister for Agriculture in adhering strictly to the terms of the agreement negotiated by our Government in 1948 and I am glad that its provisions have been continued for a further three years. Article 2 of this annex reproduces Article A of the 1948 trade agreement subject to the qualification of which no doubt the Minister has knowledge that the British Ministry of Food, when they realised they were not going to get supplies of Argentine meat, desired us to send them as much carcase meat as we could so as to spare them the obligation of erecting extra abattoirs in England to slaughter increasing quantities of live stock and it became convenient for them to get as much carcase meat as they could. It was in the light of thatthat the carcase meat industry has made such considerable expansion in the last few years. But I think it is appropriate to recall the cautionary words which the Minister for Agriculture used some time ago in this House when he warned those who contemplated entering the carcase meat trade that the existing capacity for the slaughter and dressage of meat for export is probably sufficient to cover any likely exports that may develop. I think the Minister would be wise before this Estimate is finally disposed of to give his considered opinions to the House again on the subject.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture.
On a point of order. Is it permissible for Deputy Dillon to get in and talk about the annex? Are we not discussing the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture?
I assume that the annex is part of the Estimate.
Mr. Walsh
He has already spoken on the Estimate.
We are in Committee and Deputies are entitled to speak more than once.
It has never been done before.
It has been done on several occasions. In Committee, Deputies have spoken more than once.
I would like to direct the attention of the House to Article 3 of this annex. It reproduces paragraph (a) (5) of the 1948 trade agreement. It reproduces that article subject to an important qualification. The House will remember that the Minister for External Affairs, when he was Deputy Aiken on this side of the House, was profoundly troubled by the acceptance by our Government of a limitation of 10 per cent. on the exports of live stock to destinations other than Great Britain.
So he should, too.
The annex to this agreement applies that 10 per cent. restriction,not only to live stock but to carcase meat as well.
Mr. Walsh
We had no carcase meat in 1948. Consequently, it could not apply.
Deputies should scan the two agreements carefully for the purpose of observing that the 10 per cent. restriction in the 1948 trade agreement did not expressly apply to carcase meat.
Mr. Walsh
You had not any and, therefore, it could not have applied.
So that in so far as it is now extended to carcase meat it represents a further concession to the British Ministry of Food. I am bound in honesty to record my opinion in the House and to the country that I am of opinion that that 10 per cent. restriction on our total export of live stock and cacase meat to destinations other than Great Britain is not going materially to affect the prosperity of the live-stock industry of this country.
Mr. Walsh
It gives freedom for about 120,000 extra cattle. That is what it gives.
I have no fault to find with the Minister for making that concession although I appreciate it would be possible to raise a stink in the country about it just as he and his colleagues tried to raise a stink in the country about the paragraph referring to a 10 per cent. restriction on exports of live stock contained in the 1948 trade agreement when I made it. That was a fraudulent ramp then. To start it now would be fraudulent and I would be sorry to stoop as low as the present Minister for External Affairs in that regard.
There is one cautionary note I would like to sound. I hope, and, indeed, I expect, the Minister will be able to reassure us in connection with it. If the Minister will look at the annex he will find in paragraph 3 that:—
"The Government of Ireland undertake that exports of live cattle and carcase beef to countries other than the United Kingdom shallnot in any year exceed 10 per cent. of the total exports of live cattle and carcase beef from Ireland. The Government of Ireland further undertake that in any year 25 per cent. of total exports of live cattle from Ireland to countries other than the United Kingdom shall consist of second-class cattle.
For the purpose of calculating these percentages (i) no account shall be taken of exports of cows and bulls and the carcases thereof."
Suppose our total exports of live stock amounted, say, to 600,000 cattle. The 10 per cent. proviso entitled us to send 60,000 to destinations other than Great Britain. If we take no account of bulls and cows in making that calculation and suppose our annual export of bulls and cows comes to 50,000 and we do not have regard to them, that reduces our exports of cattle for the purpose of the 10 per cent. calculation to 55,000 which means that instead of being entitled to send 60,000 head to destinations other than Great Britain we can only send 55,000 albeit that regard will not be had to any of the cows and bulls that go to destinations other than Great Britain.
The Minister did not, I think, dwell on that aspect of the calculation. I am not seriously apprehensive in regard to——
Mr. Walsh
You are on a false premise again.
There is no need to get cross.
Mr. Walsh
I am not getting cross.
I am just drawing attention to an apparent ambiguity. This causes me no serious concern but I think the Minister would be well advised to clarify the matter so that all would fully understand it in his statement. If he looks at it I think he will realise he did not deal with that aspect of the paragraph which excludes totally exports of cows and bulls from the entire calculation.
Article 4 of the new agreement reproduces Article A (6) of the previous agreement, subject to an improvementof 6d. per cwt. I do not want to sound in any way derisive if I say to the Minister that securing 6d. per cwt. under that heading in the agreement——
Mr. Walsh
The Deputy knows that there is more than 6d. involved. He knows the principle that is involved.
I do not.
Mr. Walsh
You should. The British had the right of increasing the 5/- under the 1948 agreement.
If the Minister will consult his files he will find a rather interesting story on that. This formula was employed in 1948 when there were abundant supplies of Argentine beef coming into England. There are none coming in now so that it is a good deal easier to talk to the British than it was then. This formula was employed:—
"The Government of the United Kingdom undertake: No excessive differential over the existing 5/- between the prices of home-bred and Irish-bred cattle after two months in Great Britain will be introduced."
Now, the important words are the United Kingdom undertook not to introduce any excessive increase in the existing difference. I think the Minister will find, if he refers to the files, that some months after that an enterprising public servant in England communicated to us an inquiry with a view to requiring if that might accurately be described as not to go beyond 15/- per cwt. I did no more than this. I asked our ambassador in London to take a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ask him: "Does that faithfully reproduce the spirit of the agreement that we made?" And the answer he got was: "Tell the Minister for Agriculture to tear that letter up". Now the Minister believes perhaps in the written word.
I have negotiated with the late Sir Stafford Cripps, and I came to theconclusion that he was a man who was a great deal too able to try to pin down with the written word because he had the dialectic skill to drive a coach and four through any written word as we found to our cost in respect to Article 1 of the 1938 agreement which, when we invoked it in London, he was able to drive a coach and four through it and we discovered that we had landed in London with an article worth nothing. We believed that it contained a restriction on the British Government but by the time Sir Stafford Cripps was done with it it appeared to contain a restriction on the Irish Government. I took the view which I think subsequent events amply vindicated that the same Sir Stafford Cripps was the kind of man whose word was infinitely better than his bond. The Chancellor led the British delegation, and that is what the spirit of that paragraph was understood to mean between us. I know there were those who took the view that such a procedure on my part, such advice on my part to the Irish Government was imprudent. I advised the Government, of which I was a member, that in doing that I was adopting the wisest course in dealing with the man that we had to deal with, and I think the events have justified it.
Mr. Walsh
Why make agreements at all?
I made the agreement that way. It was sought to change it but it stuck. Did the British Government ever increase the differential? Now it was my judgment that in dealing with the late Sir Stafford Cripps that was the wise way to deal with him. An event transpired when a dutiful public servant intervened and his Government sought to put a different construction on that paragraph. I have told you what occurred. When that happened all that was necessary on our side was, without comment, to send a communication to the Chancellor and ask was that the spirit of this agreement? The answer, as I have told you, was: "Tell the Minister for Agriculture to tear up that letter", and we never heard another word from anybody to suggest that that paragraphshould be interpreted in any other way. After all, judge a policy by its results.
Is it not the best test? I agree that you tried to get the best agreement you could. We found that paragraph (1) of the 1938 agreement was not as secure as we thought it was. I am suggesting to the House that that paragraph (5) of section (8) of the annex which we negotiated in 1948 in the event turned out to be as strong as steel. Five shillings was the figure named in it and there was to be no excessive increase. Ultimately over the whole period of the agreement that was interpreted to mean that there would be no increase at all.
There is no use in saying "you did a very dangerous thing." Every time one crosses O'Connell Street one is liable to be knocked down by a bus or a bicycle and unless one braces his shoulders one runs the risk of having a lifetime on one side of the street. I had to make up my mind as to what advice I would give the Government and the best formula we could get which would give our people the best and the greatest security. I think the event has demonstrated most eloquently that we found a formula that did give them security.
I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture upon securing the extra 6d. I hope that paragraph in his agreement will stick as fast as the 5/- proviso stuck in mine. As regards Article 5 there is one word in it which I should like the Minister would deal with. Its insertion does cause me a little anxiety. Article 5 says: "The seasonal schedule of prices for fat cattle imported from Ireland shall be agreed annually in consultation between the representatives of both Governments."
The word "annually" does not appear in the 1948 agreement because it was foreseen that there might be variations during the year in the schedule prices and in fact there have been. Wherever a variation in the schedule was made during the currency of a year then without any fuss or bother the officers of my Department met the officers of the British Ministry and the proper adjustment was made in our price schedule to correspondwith whatever interim adjustment was made in the British schedule. There may be no significance in the insertion of the word "annually" but lest any ambiguity might arise I should like that the Minister would direct his attention to it.
Articles 5 and 6 reproduce Article H in the 1948 agreement and Article 7 reproduces Article 8 (4). Articles 8 and 9 of the new agreement forecast the Minister's intention to negotiate hereafter for a market for eggs and butter in Great Britain; for eggs when the existing agreement terminates at the end of this year and for butter if and when supplies are available. I think that both of these articles must be read in the light of the cautionary word uttered by the Minister for Agriculture when introducing his Estimate yesterday in which he reminded the dairy farmers of the country that we had reached saturation point in the domestic consumption of butter at 4/2 per lb. and that he knew of no market in the world where he could negotiate the sale of butter produced in this country at that price and that he must advise the farmers that unless they cut their costs he was at a loss to know what he could do.
I do not think the Minister for Agriculture does anybody any service in saying that large quantities of vaccine cattle are now released for annual shipment to the Continent. There were never large quantities of vaccine cattle sought there. The Dutch did buy some from us in August, 1948. When the British Ministry was consulted as to whether they would regard that as a relevant matter under the agreement the reply was: "Not at all". So far as cattle are required for vaccine purposes, they can be regarded as not coming under the terms of the trade agreement at all. I think the Minister will find, if he refers back to our experience over the last four years, that nobody had any regard at all to any vaccine cattle bought by the Dutch. I think there was an understanding with the British Ministry of Food that they would not be taken account of when any calculation fell to be made thereafter as to the 10 per cent. total exports. I do not think it makes sense to be pretending thatthere is an immense demand for vaccine cattle on the Continent when in fact the exports of vaccine cattle do not amount to a fleabite on a flea.
I do not know what the potentialities of the trade for manufacturing beef in America are. We, as the Minister knows, developed and did all we could to promote it. It consists of the export of the frozen and boned carcases of cows and bulls to America, boxed, for conversion into salami, sausage and soup stock. It came our way because the Americans were afraid to buy that class of cattle in Mexico consequent on the serious outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease that obtain there.
A lot of people thought at one time that there was a vast and growing market in America for prime beef. That belief, of course, was quite illusory. Every ten years or so there occurs a shortage of prime beef in America, when the Americans will buy beef anywhere in the world, but it always dwindles down and the domestic supplies in America catch up on demand. It would be folly on our part to build up the hope that we had any permanent remunerative market in America for prime beef. If I were pressed for an opinion as to whether there was a permanent and profitable market in America for this manufacturing beef I would say, on the whole, I would think it was worth taking a risk upon, but it does not matter a hoot to the live-stock industry of this country because it is merely a method of getting rid of old cows and bulls.
I quite agree that where you have to dispose of an old cow it is very nice to be able to get £40 for that for which you used to get £20 but, in fact, none of us will grow rich out of producing old cows and, of course, none of us wants to have many old cows to dispose of. Let us not blow down or make little of a useful outlet for something that used to be quite an embarrassing commodity to get rid of. I am not without hope that this market for manufacturing beef, if it is nursed and handled and promoted, may help us materially to eliminate from our herds the uneconomic cow; and the cow that is giving only 350 gallons of milk, Iwant to say now, would be much better boned in a box on her way to a soup canner in Chicago than eating good victuals in a dairy farmer's byre in Ireland.
I would like the Minister, perhaps, to have the opportunity of using this outlet to constitute himself into an Aladdin striding through the country roads offering new lamps for old and taking the old uneconomic cows out of the farmers' byres, boning them, boxing them and sending them to the soup canners and, with the proceeds of the sale, purchasing and presenting to those farmers a three-year-old in-calf heifer to replace the old cow which he had frozen and put in the box. But, that is all that trade is going to be worth. That is an important consideration and that is why the Department of Agriculture felt it right to promote it in so far as it could.
Therefore, Sir, in so far as the Minister has recognised the value of this market and has so prudently adhered to the terms of the 1948 trade agreement, I am greatly relieved, and I rejoice that for the next three years the benefits of the trade agreement we negotiated in 1948 are to be preserved.
I would be doing less than my duty, Sir, if I concluded without recalling to the House that this confirmation of the agreement made by us in 1948 marks a very important milestone in the economic history of this country. At last we have got agreement on both sides of this House that no one would be well advised to thank God that the British market was gone forever. At last we have got agreement on both sides of the House that it would be no blessing to Ireland if all the ships that sailed the seven seas were sunk and that we were called upon to live to ourselves alone. At last we have got agreement on both sides of this House that the Egyptian bee is no adequate substitute for the Shorthorn cow. Some of the younger Deputies may think it is hyperbole to speak of that.
I do not think there is anything about the Egyptian bee in this agreement.
May I be permitted to thank God that there is nothing in thisagreement about the Egyptian bee? What this agreement speaks of is the Shorthorn cow, the Shorthorn bull, the Shorthorn calf and the Minister, in commending it to the House, has had the fortitude, the courage, to say that it carries with it the implication that the farmers of this country have a duty to grow better grass than they ever grew before.
Mr. Walsh
And to do more tillage.
I wonder will the Minister hereafter share with me and our most distinguished predecessor, the late Mr. Patrick Hogan, the honourable title of Minister for Grass. If he does, he will have grown in wisdom and in dignity and I will be glad to see him do both.
I must say that Deputy Dillon has lost none of his impudence in his journeys through the country.
On a point of explanation. I moved to report progress last night. I understood that Deputy Dillon was allowed time to intervene on the trade agreement, because it was not known to us at the time.
Deputy Dillon intervened in accordance with his rights under Standing Orders in Committee and no other Deputy offered himself at the time. Deputy Blowick did move to report progress and he was not present to offer himself. Deputy Blowick will be called very early after the Minister for External Affairs.
Does it mean that nobody else can speak on it?
The Vote for the Department of Agriculture is before the House and the agreement is an act of administration of the Department of Agriculture and is, therefore, relevant for discussion on the Vote.
Deputy Dillon has displayed his usual impudence in dealing with this matter to-day. He tried to turn the House into a bear garden when the Minister for Agriculture wasreporting to this Dáil and to our people the result of the negotiations with the British. Before the terms of the agreement were announced, Deputy Dillon spent his time going around the country telling the farmers that under it we were going to become paupers and he gave the people in East Cork and Wicklow to understand that he knew what was in the trade agreement, that thereunder they were going to become paupers.
What was in the Sunday Press?I read it in theSunday Press.
Down in Roundwood, the agreement, he said, apparently meant that live-stock exports from this country would be prohibited.
Is not that in the Sunday Press?
That is what Deputy Dillon said.
Is not it in the Sunday Press?
It is not in the Sunday Press.
It is.
Nobody interrupted Deputy Dillon and he will just have to sit down and be quiet for a second.
I read that in the Sunday Press.
No, you did not.
I did.
Deputy Dillon must allow the Minister to make his statement.
The Deputy went to East Cork and Wicklow trying to make out that he knew what was in the agreement, that under it the farmers would become paupers, that under it there would be an end to our live-stock exports because we would not be allowed under the agreement to export cattle on the hoof. Deputy Dillon tried to make out that this agreement is exactly the same as the 1948 agreement. He did not tell us about the secret 1948 agreement which he madewith the British Government. In the 1948 agreement, there was a clause under which the Government here, apparently, undertook not to export more than 10 per cent. of our live cattle to countries other than Britain. After that agreement was made, a number of people here who had a very profitable market in America wanted to build an abattoir and to get licences to kill cattle in it and in the various abattoirs in existence and export the carcases to America. Deputy Dillon said: "No, you cannot do it. The export of cattle, either dead or alive, to other countries must be kept within 10 per cent. of our total export of cattle."
They did do it.
You would not allow them. You would not give licences. You doled out licences as if they were gold in order to keep down the export of dead meat.
The export of dead meat developed under our Government.
The export of dead or live cattle to countries other than Great Britain was never allowed to exceed 10 per cent. of our total export.
I think it never did.
You would not allow it. The people were looking for licences to export dead cattle to other countries and Deputy Dillon would not allow them. When the Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture came in he said that under the agreement, not under any secret agreement that Deputy Dillon might have made with Britain, our bond was not to sell to countries other than Britain more than 10 per cent. of our live cattle; that dead cattle were out of it; that we were not committed not to sell as many dead beasts as we could. Deputy Dillon would not allow that. Under that agreement, while he was there, he would not allow the export of cattle, dead or alive, to countries other than Britain to exceed 10 per cent. of the total. Coalition Deputies at that time were annoyed by people coming along and saying: "Wecan sell ten times as much carcase meat to America or some other place", but they would not be allowed by Deputy Dillon to send more than 10 per cent. of the total at any time.
That is only blatherskite.
When the present Minister came in he stated: "That applies only to live cattle. We will export as many dead cattle as we can." We did that. That is how the American trade was built up. Deputy Dillon may sneer at our bulls and cows. He does not like cows of any kind. If he had his way, we would have very few cows. He would have some artificial process of producing bullocks. If he had secured an agreement for 1/- a gallon for milk for five years, there would be very few cows in the country. One shilling a gallon for milk would have resulted in having them all killed off. What does he want us to do with the bulls and cows? He sneered at the export of bulls and cows. What are we to do with the bulls and cows? Are we to become Hindus and worship them and let them go round until they die?
I would not put that past you.
I would not put it past the Deputy. Under this agreement we are at liberty not only to send every beast that we can send to England in carcase form but, in addition to that, we are at liberty to send bulls and cows anywhere we like. The export of bulls and cows last year totalled at least 120,000. We got millions and millions of dollars even for a very small number of them. We sent the rest of them to England and the Continent. This agreement definitely takes us out of the yoke into which Deputy Dillon tried to put the industrial and agricultural development of the dead meat trade. Deputy Dillon, of course, hates to see any industrial progress.
The dead meat trade of this country is not founded on bulls and cows.
Nobody interrupted the Deputy when he was speaking. Heshould not be always exposing how badly he was reared. He is always going on the principle that there is no use in being ill-mannered unless you show it.
Deputy Dillon should allow the Minister to make his statement without interruption.
It is very dangerous to say that the dead meat industry is founded on cows and bulls.
He made a misstatement. Bulls and cows were never exported as dead meat.
There is no use in Deputies opposite losing their tempers. Even if they are disappointed with this agreement you would think they would try to pretend that they are pleased that the farmers are not going to be the paupers that Deputy Dillon said they would be, and that we still have——
The British market.
——that we still have the right to export cattle live or dead, that we still have the right, which Deputy Dillon tried to deny to people, of slaughtering them here, keeping the hides and offals and building up, not only a slaughtering industry and a meat-packing industry, but any ancillary industries arising from the byproducts. Deputy Dillon tried to make the point that the reason we got this freedom to kill all our cattle if we could do it and sell the carcase meat to England was that really the poor British were so occupied in killing their own cattle that they could not kill ours any longer and they asked us to kill them for them and send them over as carcase meat. That was his argument. Everybody knows that the previous Fianna Fáil Government and Deputy Dillon's Government tried to get liberty from the British Government to kill the beasts here and to export them to Britain in carcase form, but the British would not have it. When Deputy Dillon asked them they said: "No, you can send 200 tons a week but not an ounce more; 4,000 tons a year is all the carcase meat you willbe allowed to send to Britain." We can now send 400,000 tons if we have it. We have not only the right to give employment to our people in rearing cattle, attending to them and killing them, but we have the right to give them employment in packing the carcases and in processing the offals.
No one knows how quickly the dead meat industry will develop. Deputy Dillon tried to kill it just as he tried to kill the growing of wheat, just as he prayed for the day when wheat would follow beet and peat up the spout. He did not see it. We have lived to see the day when he congratulates the Minister for Agriculture on the good work he is doing in keeping up tillage. The day will come when he will come into the Dáil waving the Tricolour flag that he once called a dirty rag.
We are glad that Deputy Dillon is coming along and I am glad particularly that the result of the secret agreement which he made with the British—that he would interpret "live" in the phrase live cattle as meaning both dead and alive—is clear. We have at last got that particular freedom and I am very glad I must say for the sake of our farmers here that they have an alternative market to the British slaughterer. Heretofore, if a man had a fat beast and could not sell it to England in carcase he was compelled to sell it alive and the British slaughterer had not the competition which we hope he will have in increasing measure from Irish slaughterers, and from Irish dead meat packers being able to give him an offer for it.
This agreement, therefore, is not a pure extension of the 1948 agreement but a radical amendment of it, particularly as interpreted by Deputy Dillon. If Deputy Dillon had continued in office until this day—and he could have—the 1948 agreement would have been continued to be interpreted by him as it was until he left office. That was, that we could not sell one ounce of meat dead or alive over the 10 per cent. of our live exports.
What can you do under this agreement—under Deputy Walsh's agreement?
Under the 1948 agreement as interpreted by Deputy Dillon —let us say under the secret agreement or under the interpretation of his own crazy mind—if we had 600,000 head of cattle for export in the year, we could export 60,000 to countries other than Great Britain. The 60,000 limit applied to both dead and alive. If we elected to export 60,000 dead beasts we could not export any live. If we elected to export 60,000 live beasts we could not send an ounce packed. Under this agreement there is no limit. We could export the 600,000 cattle if we had the way of fattening them in carcase form.
Where to—Great Britain?
We could—to Great Britain. If the Deputy exported 60,000 live to other countries, under his interpretation we could not have exported one ounce dead to Britain.
To what destination?
He could export 4,000 to Britain, a bagatelle not worth talking about, but he could not export one ounce to anywhere else.
Under this agreement you can only export 10 per cent.
We can export 10 per cent. of the live cattle to any other country than Great Britain—in addition to exporting alive 120,000 bulls and cows, or 150,000 bulls and cows if we had them.
I thought the 10 per cent. now covers beef and cattle. Does it not?
It excludes bulls and cows.
But it covers carcase beef and cattle.
Yes, but not bulls and cows.
Long live the bulls and cows!
And I say they would not live long if Deputy Dillon had remained in office and paid 1/- a gallon for milk. The situation was this—that even if wehad to slaughter them, we could not have exported them anywhere. The British would not take them and we could not have exported them elsewhere if they were over the 10 per cent.
I do not know where they have been going for the last five years.
I want to say in relation to the general agricultural situation that it is very pleasant to go around the country and see that the policy of the present Minister for Agriculture and the Fianna Fáil Government is being put actively into operation by our farmers. Instead of the big decrease year after year in tillage that was quite apparent under Deputy Dillon's régime, when the area of tillage fell by 500,000 acres or thereabouts, we have quite a large increase this year. I had not the opportunity of hearing the Minister for Agriculture yesterday, but I am sure he told the House that 42 per cent. additional seed wheat went out this year over last year. That would give us another 100,000 acres of wheat, and we hope it will save us many millions of dollars and we will not have—even if we had the dollars that we got from Marshall Loan—we will not have to worry how many million we can spend on wheat.
You did not buy a pound of dollar wheat last year. It all came from Australia.
If we had not grown so much ourselves, Australia could not have supplied us with it all. There must be a little help to world production in various countries, and if our farmers were so foolish and, indeed, if Deputy Dillon had been there and had continued to give them 12/6 per barrel less than we gave them, they would probably have produced no wheat. We would have had to buy all the wheat that was grown last year from Australia. And seeing that Australia was largely committed to the British, we would have been pushed over to America and this year we would have to pay an extra 40 cents.
Oh, no. Wheat has dropped 40 cents in the past few weeks.
Faraway wheat is cheap. It was always cheap in the Deputy's view, and anything that could be grown in Ireland was dear.
I am glad to see also that feeding barley has gone up by 22 per cent.
Ymer is the word, Sir.
Herta is the word. Ymer is only one of those old-fashioned wheats.
Ymer is a barley.
Ymer is not in the same class as Herta or Beorna. I would not ask Deputy Dillon to agree with me that Beorna could be better than Ymer because Beorna is a product of Irish brains, knowledge and skill. I am glad to say that our plant breeders have produced in Beorna a barley that is much stronger than Ymer to stand up, even as strong as Herta, and is as good as Spratt Archer for brewing.
I thought we were talking about feeding barley.
We will get back to feeding barley. We are glad to say that feeding barley is up 22 per cent. That is a considerable amount which will again save us many million dollars for maize. Feeding barley produced here is a much better feeding stuff, as most Deputies know—Deputy Dillon might admit as much—for producing good bacon than imported maize. We are living in the sort of world to-day in which we cannot import these feeding stuffs very cheaply. Deputy Dillon once in his enthusiasm thought that maize would cost only £20 per ton. He promised the farmers that never would maize rise above £20 per ton; we are now paying £28 or £30 per ton, and we paid even more. Many people on the plea that maize was never going to rise above £20 per ton built exaggerated hopes on egg production. Deputy Dillon promised every farmer's wife when she saw the beak of a chicken peeping through the shell could say: "If you are a pullet, I know the price of every egg you will lay as long as you are a good layer." It was not very long after the Deputy made his prophecy in regard to chicksand eggs that the price of eggs fell first by 6d. per dozen and then by 1/- per dozen while the price of maize went up from £20 to £30 per ton. That is the promise Deputy Dillon made. I do not blame Deputy Dillon; the people I blame are those who put the Deputy in charge of the Department of Agriculture and who kept him there.
I am also glad to say that Deputy Dillon, in the final analysis, was the cause of their downfall, because we debated his Estimate for Agriculture for three or four weeks. Everybody on the then Government side who could say a word was asked to preach for hours until finally, instead of taking a vote, they bolted to the country. We are still keeping Deputy Dillon running around the country and we hope to keep him occupied in that way for many years to come.
The Minister would appear to be greatly obsessed by me.
I am not, but I regard Deputy Dillon as a godsend for Fianna Fáil. With his help, as well as by reason of our own virtue, we remained in office for 16 years. After all, the people did not know that a Coalition was going to be formed. Deputy Blowick went round the country before that election saying that he was not going to coalesce with anybody, that there was a bad smell in the Dáil after all the Farmers' Parties that had been gobbled up by Fine Gael and that they were not going to allow the same fate to overtake them. We know, of course, that the Coalition lasted for three years and we are glad to say that it was Deputy Dillon finally bolted them to the country. It is unfortunate, however, that the Party with which Deputy Dillon is now associated, for a time, would not apply a little bit of discipline to his tongue. It is amusing to listen to his exaggerations but, if our people want to do their business in a constructive fashion, they should be allowed to learn the truth without being interrupted by Deputy Dillon's exaggerations and positive falsehoods. The people of the country are entitled to expect that an ex-Minister, whether he appears in a by-election or on anyother occasion, should not create a scare by stating that the farmers of the country were going to be pauperised under the agreement which we have negotiated. They are also entitled to know that there would be a continuing export market for their live stock and that under the agreement, which everybody knew was on the point of being signed, they would still be allowed to continue the export of store cattle.
Store cattle and fat cattle—that they will be allowed to continue to export store cattle and fat cattle. The Minister said store cattle.
All cattle. Is the Deputy trying——
You said store cattle.
The Deputy is trying to create a little bit of confusion. What the Deputy said down in Roundwood the other night was that under this agreement, if it was implemented, there would be an end to all store cattle exports.
Fat cattle and store cattle. That was clearly forecast in the Sunday Press.Read theSunday Press.
Mr. Walsh
There is nothing like that in the Sunday Press.
It may be in some article he wrote for the Sunday Independent.What the Deputy said in Roundwood, although he did not quote his authority, was that the agreement apparently meant that live stock exports from this country would be prohibited.
That was clearly forecast in the Sunday Press.
It was not.
It was.
The Minister should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.
Evidently the Minister did not read the article
I would remind Deputy Blowick about his statement in regard to all the Farmers' Parties who were swallowed up by Fine Gael.
That blather flows off me like water off a duck's back.
I know it does, but neither Deputy Blowick nor Deputy Dillon——
You are very ineffective. You are making a very poor job of attacking Deputy Dillon and the Taoiseach knows it.
Deputy Blowick should restrain himself. He wanted to be called on a short time ago. He is now trying to make a speech in advance.
Neither Deputy Dillon nor Deputy Blowick pay the slightest attention to their duty to tell the truth to the people. Deputy Dillon has no more compunction in making an allegation and trying to create a scare among the people that they will not be allowed to export their store cattle than Deputy Blowick had when he went around the country before 1948 swearing he would never sell into a Coalition and talking about the bad smell that the previous Farmers' Party left when it coalesced with Fine Gael. I am sorry that the Opposition Parties we have in this Parliament are not an Opposition which will hit as hard as it can any Government for its sins of omission or commission instead of trying to create scares or trying to get nine or ten seats on false pretences by swearing they will not join a coalition. If Deputy Blowick approached the people and said: "Although we are completely opposed to Labour we will join with them," then the people would know ahead of time that if they elected Deputy Blowick they would either have to find another £10,000,000 for the civil servants or not to be too sure whether they would not have £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 less.
We are discussing the Vote for the Department of Agriculture.
I think it is Deputy Dillon and myself that are being discussed.
I am glad the farmers have had the sense to increase their tillage this year. I am glad they have increased their use of ground limestone so phenomenally and I am glad also that they have increased the use of other artificial fertilisers. It is unfortunate that after the war when fertilisers became available freely we did not go in for a good campaign of urging the farmers to build up soil fertility by using all the artificial fertilisers the land requires. I am sorry that Deputy Dillon stopped the burnt lime scheme when he became Minister for Agriculture. Although we were regarded as a Government of misers we had produced the money, taxed for the money, in order to give our people an opportunity of putting burnt limestone on the land. When the more modern form of calcium became available in ground limestone we encouraged our people to use that. Indeed, we were engaged in promoting a scheme for encouraging the farmers in every way to put on the 2,000,000 tons of ground limestone necessary to restore the calcium status of the soil. When Deputy Dillon came into office he stopped the subsidy on burnt limestone. At the end of 1948 he told the agricultural committees that he would not give them any subsidy on ground limestone. That was unfortunate because this year going around the country one can see the improvement in the countryside caused by a mere 1,000,000 tons of limestone put on the soil in the last couple of years.
Does he believe that? I am wondering does he really believe what he is saying.
Not only do I believe it but I can prove it.
You are as daft as a penny whistle.
Before this debate ends we will give day and date. This can be proved. The first thing Deputy Dillon did when he came into office was to cut out the subsidy on burnt limestone. The second thing he didwas to cut out the subsidy on ground limestone and it was only when he was kicked into it that he agreed to spend some of the Grant Counterpart Fund on ground limestone.
Quite daft!
Daft? I can produce the letter. When it was suggested to him that we should spend £2,000,000 in subsidising ground limestone—I can see the letter—he wrote: "This makes me mad." At the bottom there is a signature as big as the 15 acres in the Phoenix Park.
Is the Minister talking about a Department of Agriculture file?
I am talking about the Department of Agriculture.
What are you doing snooping about the Department of Agriculture?
First, he denied it and now he wants to know why I am snooping around.
I know what that file is about.
Does it make you mad?
Not a bit. I would not allow any foreign diplomat to dictate the policy of an Irish Government. Anyone that tried it made me mad, and I told him so. Now produce the file and put it on the Table.
You tried to stop the application of ground limestone.
I put a foreign diplomat, who tried to run our Government, in his place in double quick time; and I would do the same to-morrow in similar circumstances.
Everybody knows that Deputy Dillon has been going around the country for the last three years talking as if he was the father and the mother of the ground limestone scheme. Now he admits he wrote: "This makes me mad."
Produce the file.
You had to be kicked into it.
Produce the file. If Deputy MacEntee had said that to Mr. Butler we would not be where we are to-day. He got his tail twisted.
We know whose tail was twisted in 1922 and 1925 and all back the years.
Deputy MacEntee's was.
The damage has not yet been undone.
Why did the Deputy not stick to his guns if he did not want to spend money on ground limestone?
The diplomat is no longer in Ireland.
The Deputy was kicked into producing a subsidy for a ground limestone scheme.
The man to whom I wrote the letter in question was no longer in Ireland.
I am glad that Deputy Dillon was forced by some means into producing a scheme, even at that late hour, a month or two before the general election. He killed ours and I would like to see him humbled now into admitting to foreigners that Fianna Fáil was right.
It was in March, 1951, the scheme started.
He would not do it for the Irish experts who had advised him that the Fianna Fáil scheme for applying 12,000,000 tons of ground limestone was an ideal step towards getting increased agricultural production here. He had to wait to be kicked into it by a foreigner. There are many other things Deputy Dillon had to be kicked into—I am glad to say by the Irish people. We kicked him into having a good respect for the Republican flag. We kicked him into having some little respect for wheat and peat and beet. The beetacreage has gone up this year. So has the wheat.
And the barley acreage has gone down.
Feeding barley has gone up by 22 per cent.
The total acreage is down.
Feeding barley has gone up by 22 per cent. We kicked him into believing that wheat should be grown and could be grown in this country. We kicked him into growing the beet. We are glad to say that the peat which he hoped would go up the spout is now producing the cheapest electricity from solid fuel in the world. There are other things we hope to teach Deputy Dillon or at least the people behind him and who support him: that the right thing for the people of this country is to utilise their own resources in the land and anywhere else in order to have a reasonable standard of life here.
We are glad that the farmers of this country are availing themselves of the lime scheme to a large measure. I hope that they will avail themselves of it to a much greater extent in the years to come. It is their duty not only to themselves and their families but also to the country to see that the calcium status of our country is restored within the shortest possible time. It is ridiculous that we should have a limit to growth in this country for want of calcium since we have it in abundance. It is richer and purer than the calcium in most other countries in the world. We have an abundance of it. Twelve million tons to our total reserve of limestone is as a grain of sand on a beach.
We are glad, too, that our farmers are increasing their use of artificial fertilisers. We have a long road to go, unfortunately, until we have applied to our soil all the lime and artificial manures that are required. That grand little country of Holland could give us many lessons in that respect. The Dutch apply to each acre at least six times as much potash as we apply and about 40 times as much nitrogen.
Why are we not doing the same?
We should.
Why are we not?
One of the reasons was that Deputy Hickey supported Deputy Dillon in his gallop to the swamps of the country instead of trying to apply lime and fertilisers to the land that was reasonably available for cultivation and growth.
I think it would be much better if you told us how we are going to do it from now on.
The Minister for Agriculture has done it and one of the ways in which we are doing it is——
We should do something for the farmers.
We have given the farmers 12/6 more per barrel for the wheat than Deputy Hickey gave them when he supported Deputy Dillon. Deputy Hickey wanted Deputy Dillon to give the farmers 1/- a gallon for their milk.
I never did.
We are giving them a reasonable amount.
We paid £38,000 for the storage of fertilisers.
I did not hear Deputy Hickey criticise Deputy Dillon for offering 1/- a gallon to the farmers for the milk. If Deputy Hickey was against that he should have said so at the time.
Of course, I did.
Will Deputy Hickey support him again in that? The people of the country have a right to know. If Deputy Hickey goes to Cork to ask the people to vote for him, the people are entitled to know what Deputy Hickey's policy is in regard to Deputy Dillon. Is Deputy Hickey going to support Deputy Dillon in offering 1/- a gallon to the farmers for their milk?
One would want to have great patience to listen to the stuff spoken from both sides of the House.
The Deputy cannot talk in a neutral manner about both sides of the House. Deputy Hickey is on one side. He should stand up and defend himself. There is no reason why he should be running away because I attacked Deputy Dillon.
I am concerned with the condition of the people in the country.
Deputy Hickey should allow the Minister to continue without interruption.
I have sufficient knowledge of what is happening in the country.
I want to let Deputy Hickey in. It will be interesting to hear him tell Deputy Dillon what he should have done. When Deputy Hickey was supporting him three years ago he did not tell him.
He did as much as any other Minister while he was in office.
He did as much as any Fine Gael Coalition Minister. He reduced tillage by 500,000 acres.
There was more tillage than the Taoiseach said there was going to be.
Mr. Walsh
There was an increase of 700,000 acres.
Tillage was reduced by 500,000 acres in three years. In 1948 there were 1,527,000 acres.
The Minister is now Minister for External Affairs. His predecessor sent a memorandum to the American Government on the 23rd October.
Deputy Dillon succeeded with Deputy Hickey's help in reducing tillage by 500,000 acres in three years.
I am saying that there was more tillage in each year.
The Deputy can say all that afterwards.
I want to know whether Deputy Hickey is going to supportDeputy Dillon in reducing tillage again.
Neither you nor Deputy Dillon will vote for the Labour Party policy.
We know that Fine Gael will not support the Labour Party policy. As a matter of fact, they kept Deputy Hickey and Deputy Norton on a string for three years in regard to social security. Is Deputy Hickey going to support Deputy Dillon in regard to offering 1/- a gallon for milk?
You——
Deputy Hickey should not be so easily drawn. He can make his own statement afterwards.
It will be interesting to hear him. I hope that instead of interrupting me he will get up and say whether he supports giving 1/- a gallon for milk and take off the 12/6 per barrel for the wheat. When Deputy Dillon was in office for three years Deputy Hickey said nothing.
That is not true.
Does Deputy Hickey accept 1/- a gallon for milk and 12/6 less per barrel for wheat?
I deny all that.
The Deputy denies that.
Deputy Hickey should allow the Minister make his speech without interruption.
Will the Deputy get up, cross his heart and say: "I will never again support Deputy Dillon in offering 1/- a gallon for milk".
I think you should speak in a more responsible manner.
I am trying to be responsible. Will Deputy Hickey assist me in being responsible? Will he support Deputy Dillon in giving the farmers 1/- a gallon for milk? Deputy Dillon does not like cows. He admitted that to-day. Perhaps, he would like to see them all gone up the spout with the wheat and beet. Will Deputy Hickeysupport him? These are things we would like to know and it is not fair to people to postpone answering these questions until the election is over.
I suggest you should make your own speech and I will make mine. I have no doubt what I am supporting.
We are only reminding Deputy Hickey what he did support. He supported 1/- a gallon for milk and 12/6 less for wheat. He supported Deputy Dillon when he said he was going to put peat and wheat up the spout for three years.
What is going to be done during the next three years?
Will Deputy Hickey support Deputy Dillon in that regard? At least the people in East Cork from whom Deputy Hickey expects to get support for his candidate at the present time are entitled to know the answer to those questions. Deputy Hickey is going round East Cork asking the people to support the Labour Party candidate to put him up to collect votes and hand them to Fine Gael.
Is that so?
He is simply going round trying to scrounge a few votes to hand them over to Fine Gael.
That is not true.
The people are entitled to know, therefore, when Deputy Hickey succeeds, if he ever succeeds, in putting Fine Gael in the saddle again what policy he is going to support.
We will support the policy that will take taxes off the shoulders of the people. We are entitled to say that.
You were entitled to open your mouth when Fianna Fáil were in, but it is only two years since Deputy Dillon offered farmers 1/- a gallon for their milk. We are now hearing from Deputy Hickey that he approved of that.
That is not so.
Will the Minister tell us how much wheat he has sown himself?
I have not a very big farm, but about 10 per cent. of it is under wheat. Deputy Giles is another 1/- a gallon man. After all, Fine Gael got some prestige from being a Government. They had a majority of Ministers in that Government and they were able to represent themselves for a while as being very important people. Deputy Hickey did not get very much prestige out of it.
That is the trouble here that there are too many concerned about their prestige. It is the prestige of the country that we should all be concerned about.
I was putting it in the soft way. He did not retain his honour.
Who did not?
Deputy Hickey and the Labour Party because they told the people that they were standing for certain things before the election, and for three years afterwards they dishonoured themselves by taking the Fine Gael Whip.
That is the kind of propaganda that is going on.
It is not propaganda. It is a fact, and the records prove it.
I often wonder at the patience of the people, at the waste of time that goes on here and of the things that are said inside and outside.
Deputy Hickey has been speaking for the last half hour though I am supposed to be in possession in the House. Deputy Hickey, I am sure, will take occasion to tell the people that Deputy Dillon was at his usual tactics of trying to create scares.
I think it is time to ring the bell to get in a crowd to listen to this performance.
I never said anything but what is true.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
I have practically concluded my remarks. I hope that Deputy Dillon will take occasion to deny the falsehoods which he has been spreading during the last few days about the agreement. Because he is an ex-Minister, a lot of people may take it that he had some inside information. Therefore, in that way his falsehoods are very dishonourable. The people of this country are entitled to know from time to time what the Government is at. They are not entitled, just immediately before a by-election, a general election or a local election to be told that the Government are proposing to stop the export of all store cattle, and Deputy Dillon was quite well aware that his statement on that was a complete and absolute falsehood.
And that the Government do not intend to stop the export of fat cattle?
That will do for another lie.
You do not intend to stop the export of fat cattle?
I have told the Deputy that will do for another lie.
I have just been wondering what the people in the two constituencies where by-elections are being fought would think if they could be gathered into the gallery and see the scandalous exhibition which the Minister for External Affairs has given us on the most important Vote that comes before the House. I wonder what they would think? The Minister has kept the House for exactly an hour without making a single worthwhile contribution to the debate except to try to paint in his own way the picture that everything Deputy Dillon did was wrong, as well as a whole lot of things which he said Deputy Dillon did, but which he never did. No matter how the Minister for External Affairs tries,he will not get away from the fact that Deputy Dillon put the land reclamation scheme and the ground limestone scheme on their feet in this country. Before Deputy Dillon became Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for External affairs knew as much about ground limestone as a cat does about the moon.
"This makes me mad."
The Minister is running away now.
I am not.
He is going to his supper after making a scandal of himself in the House and wasting the time of the House.
It would be a good job if the people were listening to what is going on now.
The Minister for External Affairs spoke at length on the trade agreement. He tried to point out that there was some secret agreement in the trade agreement of 1948. What has the Minister for Agriculture been doing for two years if he has not discovered that? Why is it that he has saved Deputy Dillon's bacon if there was such a secret agreement? Why has the Minister for Agriculture allowed the Minister for External Affairs, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, the Taoiseach and everybody else to roam and prowl through his Department and make an office boy of him? The decent thing for him to do would be to resign.
Do not forget the Tánaiste.
Not far behind the Tánaiste was the Minister for Finance with his head down and his nose smelling keenly for any coppers that could be picked up at the farmers' expense. I repeat what I said last night, that the Minister for Agriculture should have told those fellows to mind their own damn business, and that he was going to run his own Department. He should have told the Taoiseach that, if that kind of work continued, he would just get out.
Mr. Walsh
The Deputy's experience in the Coalition Government is showing itself now where even the Ministers did not know what was going on in each other's Departments.
See what is happening? The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is bleating in Cork and the Minister for External Affairs is shouting and blowing in Wicklow, with every one of them giving away supposed secrets out of the Department of Agriculture that the Minister himself does not know the first thing about.
Mr. Walsh
No secret in that.
I think the Minister for Agriculture should do as was done to a certain Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party during the time when Dr. Ryan was Minister for Agriculture, that is, to give strict instructions at the door of Merrion Street that that Deputy was not to be allowed into the Department under any consideration. The present Minister for Agriculture could do the same, he could hang up a notice giving directions to the door porters that none of the other Ministers are to be allowed in there without his permission because it seems they are just making a sheer humbug of the present Minister.
Mr. Walsh
That is the system that prevailed in the Coalition?
It is a weak-kneed man who allows himself to be bandied about in that way. He is the man in charge of the destiny of the farmers. The Minister for External Affairs was talking about some secret agreements. The poor Minister for Agriculture knows nothing about it. I always notice that the Taoiseach enjoys making a cod of the farmers every time he gets the chance. The farmers have no doubt about that. They know his temper and his mettle very well by this time. When he comes down the country and appears on platforms wearing a sanctimonious face, appealing to the small farmers to give him his beloved over-all majority, he does not tell them about the way he enjoys and laughs every time he can make a cod or a joke of them in the Dáil.
I was laughing at the stupidity of the play-acting on the opposite benches. That is what I was laughing at, and at the Deputy.
The Taoiseach laughed heartily at the mug he has placed as Minister for Agriculture and he is laughing and enjoying the joke that that man is making of the public.
The Deputy should not refer to any Minister in that manner.
Mr. Walsh
Nobody takes him seriously.
The Minister for External Affairs had great talk and great clapping of himself on the back about the development of the canned meat trade and the carcase meat trade in this country. Seeing that he had not the courage to wait and that he has fled from the House, it might be no harm to take him back over the history of it. I ask the present Minister for Agriculture what exactly was the position of the canned meat trade or the carcase meat trade before Deputy Dillon became Minister for Agriculture in 1948? Both of them were non-existent. I quote from the Minister's own figures that he supplied to us yesterday.
Mr. Walsh
Who started them?
Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture.
Mr. Walsh
Now we have it.
Let us take things nice and quietly.
Mr. Walsh
Is the Deputy aware that it was sent out in 1938? Would he like to have the figures?
The Minister supplied us yesterday with a document giving first-hand information from the Department. It is from his own document I am quoting.
Mr. Walsh
Interpret it properly.
He told us that the exports of carcase beef in 1938 amounted to 127 tons. In 1939 there is a blank. Apparently from 1939 to 1948there was none exported because they are all blanks here. In 1948, the first year that Deputy Dillon was Minister for Agriculture, it was not 127 tons, it was 692 tons. In 1949 it was 873 tons. In 1950 it had risen to 3,123 tons. In 1951, the year in which Deputy Dillon left office, it had climbed from nothing——
Mr. Walsh
Wait now; 1951 is my year, not Deputy Dillon's. The export starts in July. Deputy Dillon was kicked out before that.
That may be, but it climbed to 6,469 tons. In the following year it had climbed to 14,322 tons.
Mr. Walsh
Yes. That was progress.
On the next page of this very interesting document the Minister gives one short paragraph to canned meat. For the information of Deputies I will read it out word for word now as it appears in this document which the Minister so kindly got his Department to prepare for the information of Deputies:—
"Canned Meat: The quantity of canned beef exported during the calendar year 1952 was almost 18,000 tons as compared with 11,000 tons in 1951 and 9,000 tons in 1950."
He does not go back beyond 1950. It would not do because the figures for 1949 and 1948 would reveal that it was then the industry initiated by Deputy Dillon was put on its feet.
I will recall another little incident. The Minister for Agriculture may not know this. I do not expect him to know it. We have a bacon factory in Castlebar that we are very proud of. For three years before Fianna Fáil went out of office in 1948, the management on many occasions asked the outgoing Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, for a licence.
A shower of licences was issued immediately after Deputy Dillon went into office, including one to Castlebar, with the result that inside two years a most valuable and thriving industry was built up that almost overshadowed the bacon side of the industry in Castlebar. I am speaking of just one town. That went on merrily until lastJanuary. By that time, of course, the paralysing hand of Fianna Fáil descended on it the same as it descended on many other things, with the result that 150 employees, men, women and boys, were dismissed. I am just wondering what the present Minister for Agriculture is doing about that.
Mr. Walsh
Keep to agriculture and do not run away from it.
Canned meat is down here as one of the activities of the Department of Agriculture. I am keeping to it. None of these employees has been taken back since. I wonder what the Minister for Agriculture is doing about it. Would the Minister tell us if a like fate befell all the other factories that Deputy Dillon established during his term of office?
Mr. Walsh
You will not know yourself to-morrow when you read the paper.
From the exhibition that the Minister for External Affairs gave us here this evening I think he has a very enlarged gall as a result of how he finds Cork and Wicklow going. I have not been there at all but the Minister's attitude this evening has told me very plainly that things are not too gay-looking for the Fianna Fáil Party in these constituencies.
It does not arise on the Estimate for Agriculture.
The Estimate for Agriculture will certainly have a big bearing on them by this time to-morrow evening, a very big bearing, because I know the farmers in that part of the country——
Mr. Walsh
Deputy Dillon will not know himself to-morrow when he reads the paper, he has been made responsible for so many things to-night.
What is the Minister going to do to try to re-establish these industries or to get them back? What is to become of the canned meat trade? I do not think there is any need to bring this to the Minister's notice— the Minister for External Affairs hasdone much damage this evening by the statements he has made about the old bulls and cows—the worthless bulls and cows.
Mr. Walsh
The worthless?
My experience has been that the Americans were most choosy in the quality of the meat they were getting, most choosy. I am sure the Americans will be surprised if they read in their papers that what they have been buying for first-class beef from us has suddenly turned out, according to the Minister for External Affairs, to be old cows and bulls.
Mr. Walsh
Ask Deputy Dillon.
I am asking the man who made the statement and who has done terrible damage, in my opinion, to, at least, that dollar-earner.
The Deputy is so anxious about that, he wants to magnify it. Is not that so? The Deputy is so desperately anxious about the harm that he is anxious to magnify it.
I am anxious not to allow the Minister for External Affairs to injure a growing industry established during our period of office. I certainly am going to expose the damage he has done. The Taoiseach never interrupted to point out the damage he was doing to the industry. I know that the canned meat industry has been killed since last January, that hundreds have been thrown out of employment, that valuable industries in the towns round about have been killed by the action of the present Government, and I know that the words of the Minister for External Affairs this evening, if they get publicity in the American papers, will do nothing to restore that trade. I know that some representatives from America went to the trouble of visiting the factories from which they were buying food.
Is the Deputy anxious about publicity?
Is it not right that they sent representatives to Castlebar,Claremorris, Mountmellick, Waterford, Limerick, and other places to see the conditions under which the food was produced and handled?
Mr. Walsh
That is wrong.
It is not wrong. The Minister must be aware that they reported to his Department.
Mr. Walsh
To see how manufactured meat was prepared. Why give these stories publicity that anybody has been going round inspecting our factories?
What is wrong with it if our methods are open and above board?
Mr. Walsh
If it were the truth.
The Minister for External Affairs has done damage this evening by telling the people of this country and the American people that what they have been buying is not prime beef, but what has turned out to be nothing but old bulls and cows.
Mr. Walsh
That is wrong. The Americans knew what they were buying.
I hope they did. I do not mind if they did.
Mr. Walsh
Why talk about it?
I object to an ignorant Minister standing up and doing damage to an industry which he does not know the first thing about in order to try to put Deputy Dillon and the inter-Party Government in the wrong. That was his whole object and he wasted an hour in trying to do that.
The Deputy is doing his utmost to do harm, for purely political purposes. If there was anything wrong and the Deputy——
Do not be getting cross. Your crossness makes no impression on me.
If there was something damaging to the country being done, the best thing to do would be to keep silent about it.
The Taoiseach nominated the Minister for External Affairs and when he heard him making that statement why did he not point out to the Minister——
There was nothing wrong with the statement of the Minister. It is the Deputy who is trying to put something wrong into it.
Deputy Blowick is in possession.
That exhibition——
Mr. Walsh
You subscribed to the views.
The Minister for Agriculture last evening introduced the Vote for the Department of Agriculture at half-past seven o'clock. The two by-elections on Thursday, of course, had nothing to do with it. He withheld the text of the agreement which he must have had in his possession last night and then comes in this evening and gives the text. Then, of course, the Minister for External Affairs gets up here, and here are some of the statements he made: that Deputy Dillon wanted to give 1/- a gallon for milk; that Deputy Dillon killed the ground limestone scheme, the scheme which he established; that Clann na Poblachta was this, that Clann na Talmhan was that and the Labour Party was something else.
What he said was absolutely true, and, in particular, about Clann na Talmhan.
In case the Taoiseach may not be aware of it——
Might I suggest, in the interests of the country, that we deal with the Estimate and nothing else?
There is one thing which is true about Clann na Talmhan which I will tell the Taoiseach. Clann na Talmhan are an independent Party which pulled their weight in the Coalition Government. Of course, if Clann na Talmhan had come to the rescue of the Taoiseach after the last election and saved him from the tail-twisting which he has endured ever since there would be nothing wrong with them.They would be a lovely Party until the Taoiseach could throw them overboard when the political weather suited him.
Mr. Walsh
Fianna Fáil would not fall to such low depths as to ask Clann na Talmhan to support them.
I know of some things that occurred prior to the formation of the present Government. Some day they will come out and the man who draws them out will not be proud of having done so. The Minister for External Affairs went to great pains to point out that Deputy Dillon seemed to have caused awful destruction to the agricultural industry. Deputy Hickey and the members of the Labour Party and all the Parties who supported him——
Leave the Labour Party out of it and discuss the Estimate.
I can tell the people on the other side, including the Minister for External Affairs, that Deputy Dillon left behind him——
Mr. Walsh
A hell of a mess.
——good work, and that the farmers of the country realise, as the Minister for Agriculture must know by this, that many of the best Fianna Fáil supporters all over the country admit that there was never such a good Minister for Agriculture. The Minister spoke about the trade agreement. I have gone through it, hurriedly, I admit, because I had not a great deal of time to do it.
Mr. Walsh
Does the Deputy know that it was signed this morning?
What the Deputy knows about the trade agreement is that it is an exact double of the 1948 agreement, and I want to pay my compliments to the Minister for that.
Mr. Walsh
Thank you very much.
Knowing the mess that Deputy Smith, when Minister for Agriculture, and Deputy Lemass, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, made in 1947, the time they went over to buy 1,250,000 tons of coal which turned out to be stones and wasdumped in the Park, even Fianna Fáil supporters all over the country were fearful that the present Minister would do the same. I am glad to see that he has learned his lesson. He was wise in doing nothing more or less than asking for a continuation of the existing agreement. In case there are some radical changes in this agreement which I have not seen, will the Minister compare it article for article with the 1948 agreement and point out to me where there is a difference?
Mr. Walsh
There are several. I will give you one or two to go on with until the next day.
Mr. Walsh
There are several. I will give you one or two to go on with until the next day.
I must say this for the Minister. He has not the poisonous ability of the Minister for External Affairs to twist things and make black seem white. If he regards that as a compliment, good and well, but at least it is the truth, in my opinion. If there is any major difference, would he point it out? There is also this shocking secret agreement of 1948. I am absolutely burning with curiosity to find out all about it. I was sitting along with Deputy Dillon for three and a half years and I would like to know how this scoundrel of an ex-Minister succeeded in fooling the whole Cabinet, according to Deputy Aiken.
Mr. Walsh
He told us that he did not let you see the Sir Stafford Cripps letter.
I would like to ask if it is in order to refer to Deputy Dillon as a scoundrel.
Sit down, sit down. I think we will be able to refer to Deputy Cogan as ex-Deputy Cogan after the next election.
That is the only thing which every canvasser of every candidate in County Wicklow is positive about.
I must say the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is a very tolerant Chairman.
That is another word for it.
I want to say a wordabout the farm building scheme. I want to bring one change that has been made recently in that scheme to the Minister's notice. During the inter-Party Government's time and, I think, for a year after the present Minister took office, it was customary that farmers were allowed to use the old roofing material again if it was galvanised iron or asbestos of fairly good quality and provided it was given a protective coat of paint. But they have been told now to get new iron or the grants will be substantially reduced. There is neither sense nor reason in that alteration or change. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of that or not. It would be in keeping with other things about that Department if he was not. Many farmers might pull down an old building with good roofing material that might have been put up only a few years ago and I do not see what is the reason they could not use it over again because after all, it is the main structure of the building that matters, and if a bad roof is put on, it is the farmer who suffers, not the Department. If the farmer feels he will suffer, he will not be so foolish as to put on stuff that will rot down within three or four years.
There is not nearly enough out-office accommodation on the average farm or holding in this country. I think if a check were made there would not be one farm out of 20 that has sufficient such accommodation. That really has to do more with another Minister's Department—that is the Minister for Finance and the Commissioners for Valuation, and with the Valuation Acts —than with anything else. We have still a relic of the landlord system hanging on here so that when a farmer improves his out-offices his valuation goes up.
Mr. Walsh
Not for seven years.
That applies to a new house.
It is not a matter for the Minister for Agriculture. It cannot be discussed on the Estimate for Agriculture. It arises on another Estimate.
I find myself in thisdifficulty, Sir. I know that the Minister for Finance, under whom it would probably come, does not understand the first thing about this, and it should not be out of place for me to bring it to the notice of the Minister for Agriculture so that that Minister would bring the situation before the Minister for Finance. I only want to raise it in so far as I am asking him to bring it to the notice of the Minister for Finance, because it does come more properly under his Estimate. But it is one thing that is holding back and retarding the development of farms all over the country. The loss is colossal. In our wet, rainy and damaging climate—at certain times of the year during October, November, December and January, the weather is very damaging on account of the heavy rainfall and lack of drying—the amount of crops that are damaged, the amount of farm machinery and tools that are damaged—I think I would not be underestimating that damage if I say it would run into £10,000,000 a year. We see a lot in this country about the estimated loss caused by various pests, rats, etc., and the damage they do, but this is one of the biggest drains we have. Now that most of the dwellinghouses are fairly good and in a healthy condition the out-office buildings must be the next thing to be tackled. If this Government does not do it the next Government will tackle it. The question of the valuations is the whole cause of the trouble, or one of the principal causes of the trouble there.
One of the most serious things brought to our notice during the present year was that 78,000 able-bodied persons aged between 15 and 45 left the country since the 1946 census was taken. I wonder what is the Government going to do about it.
Mr. Walsh
Fifty thousand left while Deputy Dillon was Minister.
We will say that. We will say that Deputy Dillon caused the economic war and caused——
Mr. Walsh
He caused a lot of damage.
This is something happening under our noses. It happensyear after year and what is the Minister going to do about it? I did not come here to listen to an apportionment of the blame or who is causing it.
Mr. Walsh
You tried to assess it.
I am asking the Minister what is he going to do about it. Suppose that a proportionate number of male workers left the industries in England we would say what is England going to do about it? In a country where there are only 500,000 approximately engaged in the principal industry, to say that 75,000 of these people have gone from that occupation —and I want to put this without any political bias—what does the Minister and the Government propose to do about it? If they find that during the next five or six years another 70,000 or 80,000 leave the country, the question of food production would be put in the background. I think it is one of our most serious problems next to the problem of the 90,000 unemployed because it is a steady drain that is not being replaced. If we travel to any part of the country we must be struck by the fact that many houses are becoming derelict, that holdings of land that once sheltered and reared happy families are gone and that whole families have gone into the towns or to England or America. Whole families have moved out. I put down a question to the Taoiseach recently to find out how many families had left. I was told by the Parliamentary Secretary that the information was not available. If it was not, it ought to be in such a serious matter as that. The population is pretty stable at the present time. I believe there is some slight increase. We have reached the bottom of the well and we are beginning to increase but we must take account of the fact that at the same time the trend is away from the land and into the cities and out of the country. What is the Minister going to do about it? I move to report progress.