This has been a most interesting debate, particularly for me as I have had very little experience of this Division. In the past four weeks, I have done my utmost to acquire knowledge of the Forestry Division and both the Department of Lands and the Department of Fisheries. Therefore, if some of my replies are rather hesitant, I hope Deputies will forgive me.
At the outset, I should like to deal with Deputy Dillon's comment on the work done by Deputy Blowick while he was Minister for Lands. I am not the kind of person who would in any way refrain from complimenting a person to whom honour is due. There is no question but that Deputy Blowick had great enthusiasm for forestry work and that, during the post-war period he increased the planting rate.
When we achieved office in 1951, we continued the plan. However, I must make it clear that Fianna Fáil started the drive for afforestation. We progressed a certain distance until the Emergency inevitably cut down the planting rate. In 1947, we had plans to expand afforestation if we were returned to office at that time. There-fore, I do not think Deputy Blowick can take credit for thinking of afforestation. In the very beginning, Fianna Fáil had the concept that, as we were the most treeless country in Europe, we should do something about it.
If I pay tribute to Deputy Blowick for showing enthusiasm and success in his work, I must also point out that the original idea for developing forestry on a large scale was put into operation by Fianna Fáil during a very difficult period. It was at a time when agricultural prices were low and when there was an economic depression. We had the difficulties of an economic war and the programme was barely started when the second World War began. Staff had to be diverted. Materials such as fencing, and so on, became very difficult to obtain. We did not succeed in securing office in 1948 and consequently the plans which we intended to put into effect did not mature at that time. I hope I have been fair in saying this because I am the last person in the world to want to deny the competence of another individual, simply because he happens to belong to a Party other than my own.
First of all, Deputy Dillon raised the question as to whether I, and my colleagues in the Government, are really anxious to keep the afforestation programme going or whether we have some doubt in our minds about it. In that connection I should mention a fact that is being lost sight of in this debate, namely, that a cut was made by a former Minister for Finance in the amount available on the assumption that there would be no wage increase in the Forestry Branch this year. If there are wage increases, then it will be necessary to find more money, if the money is available. The Forestry Branch has been subject to a cut, which may or may not have certain adverse results in the present financial year. The Government will naturally have to consider that, along with all the other liabilities they will have to face in the future.
In regard to the general position, I would like to repeat again what I said in connection with the Department of Lands. I regard the period of the last three years as a turning point in our national history. No Minister could enter any Department of State which deals with production or involving heavy capital expenditure without automatically considering the import of every development in his particular Department and its significance in the life of the nation. The reason for that is known to all of us. We had a former Minister for Finance informing us that £200,000,000 of our war-time savings had largely been wasted on non-productive expenditure. We had another Minister for Finance in 1951 warning us that savings were being wasted. We are now facing a position in which capital will be more difficult to raise. Capital is difficult to raise in many European countries. The position is that we are now taking our place with a number of European countries in which savings are not automatically available; they have to be earned. We are not in an exceptionally dire position, but our position has altered and, therefore, when a Minister for Lands takes office he adverts to the fact that for the last ten years £17,000,000 per year has been flowing out in the form of savings, creating an appearance of prosperity.
When I come to examine the work of the Forestry Branch I want to make quite sure, therefore, that the maximum economies are being effected and the maximum output is being achieved. I naturally want to examine every aspect of forestry. Incidentally, I have a natural curiosity in regard to all these things. I think one learns, as life proceeds, that one must have curiosity. I want to know why everything is being done, the purpose of it, the cost of it and what lies behind the decisions taken. If I have the honour to be appointed as a Minister in Government, I immediately try to satisfy that natural curiosity and the sort of questions I have been posing to my officers are questions relating to the economic development of forestry, the cost of forestry and the other questions which from time to time disturbed the minds of former Ministers, even the mind of my predecessor. I ask, for example, as to whether in relation to the area of submarginal land, which amounts to about 15 per cent or 20 per cent of the total being acquired, it is safe to pursue planting at the present rate. We are planting a very large acreage on an experimental basis—when I say "very large" I mean large in relation to the risks attendant thereto—and that experiment is, I understand, being repeated in Great Britain. It commenced there about the same time as it commenced here and we have no practical experience or precedents to follow. We do not know whether the timber grown on that land will prove remunerative in the end.
I naturally ask what are the risks in that? Should we take them? I would like to take them but, before I can speak here with perfect confidence, I would at least like to examine the situation myself. I believe we must give up a vast amount of sentimental codology in regard to the spending of public money on anything and everything. We must make sure that the maximum amount is channelled into production, or we shall die as a people. I think everybody appreciates I am speaking truth. It has been said, and mercifully for us it has been repeated by members of all Parties, that our whole future relies on trade—more and more trade, trade for which capital is required, and capital is scarce. Therefore, I naturally have to ask certain questions and the decisions we make in regard to this matter will be made as quickly as possible.
Another question I have to ask is whether some of this work could not be done through private forestry. If I could get part of the acreage planted by private effort to arrive ultimately at the target of achievement set since the war, I would very much like to do that. There would be great enthusiasm and that, in turn, would encourage agriculturists to consider other types of new rural development. We could encourage, too, a spirit of initiative in our rural population. Naturally, there-fore, I want to inquire into that aspect.
I am determined to examine every aspect of this whole question. It is quite natural to dismiss with a facile shrug of the shoulders the comparative employment value of forestry vis-á-vis sheep rearing and to say that forestry employs so many thousands and sheep rearing almost no one and, therefore, we could easily replace sheep by trees. Unfortunately, the formula is not nearly as simple as that. It is true there is direct employment afforded in forestry but the scientific breeding and fattening of sheep, coupled with the improvement of hillside pasture, in all of which employment would be given, would also yield an absolutely certain return. But that return would not necessarily come to the people living in the area; it would come in the sales of sheep and the money received from the export of sheep will assuredly employ thousands here. I am satisfied from my preliminary reading of the case that the ultimate yield from afforestation on the amount of land we are securing will be greater than the yield from sheep, but I am nevertheless going to inquire into the costings again and examine them fully for my own satisfaction, because that is the kind of examination we must carry out if we are to progress as a nation.
I have dealt with part of the question Deputy Dillon asked. We, of course, want to see the forestry programme progressing. We want to keep it going at an intensive level. I mentioned a few figures in relation to the origin of this programme. At one period a White Paper was published indicating that 1,000,000 acres was a desirable total planting. Then we had the report prepared by Mr. Roy Cameron in which he more or less followed the line that had previously been taken to show what 1,000,000 acres would produce in the way of forestry yield and what its relationship was to our national needs. Just to remind Deputies of that report, he did not recommend this planting acreage; he simply gave figures as to what it signified. He said that, on the assumption of an increase in population of about 40 per cent and a rising consumption to about the Danish level of 60 standards per 1,000 of population, based on certain yields per acre, the details of which I will not mention, we would require 1,000,000 acres. I understand that, in the view of our technical experts, he may have under-estimated the full potential of our forests, because he had little experience of a particular species which we had been planting. I might add that, if the population remains static and the present consumption of timber rises every year, 12,000 acres a year will satisfy our needs and that anything over 12,000 acres would have to be sold abroad. I just thought that I would give those figures because it may interest Deputies to know the basis upon which the present plantation programme is being carried out.
As I have said, we want to continue this programme and I should like to emphasise again that we do feel, nevertheless, that it is essential that it should proceed with the greatest amount of efficiency possible. With the great scarcity of capital, I should not like to be faced by a colleague of mine dealing with production who would say to me: "If you would reduce the forestry plantation grant by £X00,000 a year, I can use that capital out of which I can guarantee the perpetual employment of several thousand people in an export trade which would have a vital effect on this country." My duty is to protect my Department against inroads of that kind, because some of the appeals that might be made to me might be very difficult to answer. Therefore, my objective is to ensure that the forestry programme moves ahead with the greatest possible efficiency, and when I said in the course of my introductory speech that an inefficient worker who remained in the employment of the Department of Forestry would inevitably result in another worker who was efficient not being employed elsewhere; I meant what I said with the greatest seriousness.
I am aware that the vast majority of our workers perform a good job. I simply wanted to stress this point because these are the hard economic facts. Inefficiency of labour in one direction will produce unemployment in another direction. That is the law of economics which, unfortunately, has to be observed, which is universal and which has to be accepted.
Deputy Dillon then spoke of the question of the value of exporting timber and timber products and the comparative value of using them at home. I think he misquoted Deputy Cunningham. I do not think Deputy Cunningham suggested that we should not export timber. Unfortunately, the question of what timber we export and what timber we use at home, I understand, is a highly complex one. It involves the question of prices. It may on certain counts pay to export timber; it may on other counts pay to reserve that timber for home use. We naturally want to discourage what I might call speculation in timber exports, speculation by persons who are able to purchase timber very cheaply and sell it very dearly abroad.
We equally want to make quite sure that as thinnings develop in our forests, they can be used in the most economic way. There is a number of by-products of timber most of which are known to Deputies—cardboard, chipboard, wallboard, sawn timber itself, timber used for pulp for the manufacture of paper, and so forth— and every effort has to be made to see that our thinnings are used in a way which will promote the greatest trade and give good employment and that the factory locations in this connection should be satisfactory. Therefore, we do need to have a certain control over the use of our timber.
The market abroad varies. Exports of pit wood become very satisfactory at one period and diminish at another. It is a highly complex problem. The answer to Deputy Dillon is that we must take an intelligent attitude towards exports. I quite agree with Deputy Dillon that if we could export our timber at two or three times the price which our own people are prepared to pay for it, of course, we should export the whole lot and import our timber requirements and thereby improve the net balance of trade of this country. Unfortunately, the problem is much more complex than that, in a manner in which I have already indicated.
A number of Deputies referred to the use of machinery for making roads and for other purposes. I am afraid that here again I will have to speak realistically. The effect of the use of machinery, if used intelligently, all over the living world for the last 100 years has been to increase employment and not to diminish it. I do not suppose it is necessary for me to enlarge upon that, except simply to say that the intelligent use of machinery reduces the cost of the product and releases purchasing power to the people to buy other goods and, as a result, more people are employed. It is an irrevocable economic doctrine which, with the exception of short periods of technological unemployment, because a machine may temporarily displace the workers, has improved prosperity in the entire world in the past 100 years and I shall not tolerate any sentimental codology whatever with regard to that matter, so far as afforestation is concerned. If we can get forestry done more efficiently by the use of machines, one or two results will flow. We will either be able to do more in afforestation or, as a result of doing afforestation more efficiently, more money will be available in another direction which will give employment directly by being invested in some industries, in fertilisers, in the use of the land. That is the law of economics and it is an urgent matter that we in this country should apply that principle to our whole national economy or, again, we die as a nation.
As I have said, in regard to this matter, there is absolutely no exception. The economic progress of nations has been based on that principle. We want to ensure the humanities, ensure proper conditions of work and, as everybody knows, the immediate result in every well run country of using machinery is that wages of the people who use a machine go up and there are people who design the machines and service the machines, who repair the machines, which in turn inflates and increases the number of skilled as compared with unskilled workers. I hope all the Deputies will follow me in that line of thought, with that proviso that I have last mentioned that the well run country where the workers have their share in the increased output is, of course, one of the most important aspects of the whole thing.
