I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. I do so because I am wholly at a loss to understand the economic policy which begins by raising the cost of living by deliberate action of the Government to every citizen of the State by increasing the price of the loaf by 6d., a stone of flour by 3/6 and the lb. of butter by 7d., and which then proceeds, equitably and fairly enough, to hear the remonstrance of the various sections of the community and to make some provision for the industrial worker by sanctioning an increase of 10/- a week in wages, by authorising the elimination of price control so that all manufacturers compensated themselves for that increased charge, by meeting the civil servants equitable and reasonable demand and providing extra pay for every civil servant, civic guard and member of the Army, and by acknowledging in respect of every section of the community that some adjusted remuneration was required to compensate for the increased cost of living and then approaching the agricultural community who, most Deputies know, consist, in the main, of small farmers, all of whom have to consume bread, butter and flour, and telling them that they must bear their share of everybody else's compensation.
In the last analysis, it is the small farmer or the substantial farmer who has to provide the taxes to raise the prices for commodities sold in this country and out of which the increased pay provided for civil servants, industrial workers and everybody else has to come. And then, to add to that, after the small farmer has helped to meet all these increases, he is not only to be told that his compensation will not be increased at all but that in respect of wheat, barley, pigs and milk he most have his income reduced by the positive action of the Government of the day and mainly by the positive action of the Minister for Agriculture.
I do not understand the Minister for Agriculture sitting in the Government and finding himself in the position that while every colleague he has in the Government makes the case and sees it prevail that that section of the community with whose interest he is primarily charged must be helped to meet the burden of the increased cost of living created by the general policy of the Government, he alone takes up the position that the agricultural community, which is producing 80 per cent. of our total exports, which is helping to bear every other man's burden, is not only to be denied what it is at present receiving but must accept cheerfully a reduction in these four fundamental commodities to which I have referred.
The danger I see in that is this. In the last analysis, every section of the community, whether they live in town, city or country, depend for their standard of living on the success or failure of the people who live and get their living on the land in exploiting the resources of that land to the optimum degree. If the lesson is borne in upon the farmers of this country that, if they conform to the universal request to expand production on the land, their only reward is to be told that they now have the privilege of producing more for less reward, so certainly as we are in this House production from the land will go down. If it goes down, our agricultural exports surplus will decline, and if that exportable surplus of cattle, butter and bacon had not manifested itself during the year 1957, I would like to ask every Deputy to examine his conscience now and ask himself: where would the extra wages come from, where would the extra salaries come from, where would the extra social services come from and where would the essential imports come from which employ our industrial workers?
It is not so very long since we had no butter exports and no bacon exports. They amounted last year to £8,000,000. They can vanish. I do not mind confessing that I have an instinctive, and for me, uncontrollable indignation at the inequity and inherent injustice of segregating out the agricultural community and telling them in so many words that they were destined by God to be poor and that Dáil Éireann intends them to be poor; that while everybody else is to have his income adjusted to meet the increased cost of living, it is not necessary in their case. To me, that sounds wrong, unjust and outrageous. But leaving out of consideration all questions of justice and equity, I think it is just economic suicide. People can talk and make propaganda about a thousand dreams of pie in the sky, but ultimately rational economists will have to come back to the fact that the natural resources upon which this nation depends are 12,000,000 acres of arable land and the people who live and get their living on that land. If those are not fully exploited, no other device will maintain the economic viability of this State.
I heard the Minister speak to-day of the present system of fixing the price of wheat. The total wheat requirements of this country can be produced on 3 per cent. of our agricultural land, but it seems to me that the present system of fixing the price of wheat has abandoned the only feature of the price fixation system which was of any value. If I understand the agricultural mentality—and I think I do— what they desired was certain knowledge of what their crop would be worth at harvest time before they sowed it. Sometimes they were pleased with the price; sometimes they were displeased with the price, but they knew with certainty what it was. Any man who felt it was not fair or adequate could turn his land to another crop or another purpose and any man who felt he could make a profit at the price offered could sow his land for wheat. To-day nobody knows the price.
As I understand the present system of price fixation, an estimate is to be made in July, and it is on that estimate of the surplus that the price of the whole wheat crop is to be based. How anybody is to make an estimate in the month of July of what the outturn of the wheat crop is likely to be is a mystery to me. But some genie in a bottle is to be invoked for that purpose and an arbitrary figure will then be fixed which will govern every barrel of wheat sold in the country. That is a thoroughly bad and dishonest system. I think it was adopted by the Minister to avoid the necessity of telling the farmers honestly the price the Government intended to pay for wheat of this harvest. It has introduced a note of uncertainty into the situation, which is highly undesirable and which I hope will not be accepted as a precedent for price fixation in respect of other commodities.
I listened with interest to what the Minister had to say, but I also scanned with interest the White Paper that he was good enough to circulate. I am glad to observe that that is one of the revolutionary changes in procedure which I inaugurated, I think in 1949 and which various successors have determined to maintain. I think it right to direct the attention of the House to the fact that the only reliable test of the success or failure of a policy is its results. The Minister has given us figures in the White Paper for the results that have eventuated in 1957. I think the House will agree with me that the cattle, the sheep and the pigs herein referred to, and the crops gathered in this year, are all the fruit of a policy which was followed in the years that went before.
If we are to judge the success or failure of that policy by results, I direct attention to page 1 of the Minister's White Paper, where the production of wheat from the 1957 harvest reached 502,100 tons—which is, as far as I am aware, a record for all time. On page 2 of the Minister's White Paper, the production of barley from the 1957 harvest is estimated at 400,700 tons, which I believe is a record for all time. The number of cattle exported to Great Britain, shown on page 6, is approximately 800,000 which I believe represents a record for all time. The export of carcase beef amounts to 26,673 tons, which is 70 per cent. more than the previous year and, I think, must be very closely approximating to a record for all time. Certainly, taking the exports of cattle and carcase beef together for the year 1957, they represent a record for all time.
Turning to page 7, I note with satisfaction that the export of bacon has realised about £4,000,000. Turning to page 8, I direct the attention of the House to the fact that the muchdespised large Irish White Pig was being delivered to the factories in the year 1957, 67 per cent. Grade A, 21 per cent. Grade B, 9 per cent. Grade C, and 3 per cent. Grade X. I think the figure of 67 per cent. for Grade A and 21 per cent. for Grade B closely approximates the best average performance of any other breed in Europe.
On page 10, the Minister refers to the turkey trade and the export prices. I do not find much information here as to the progress that has been made in distributing the new variety of turkey imported from the United States some years ago. I direct the attention of the House to the fact that on page 12 the quantity of creamery butter produced in 1957 is 977,883 cwts. which, according to this paper, is the highest figure reached since records were first kept in 1937 and which I venture to inform the House is the highest figure ever recorded in the history of Ireland. Unfortunately, the export of chocolate crumb tends to decline. If we are to judge the success or failure of an agricultural policy, it is important to keep these figures in mind. I hope the Minister will have as good a tale to tell when he has been in office—if he is in office—for another year.
The Minister spoke of the minimum price of bacon proving more costly than was expected and of having to find £787,000, from the Exchequer for export subsidy—which appears to have shocked him. I think the Minister ought to tell the House, when concluding the debate, why he reduced the levy—I think it was his pradecessor, the late Senator Moylan, who did it—which was put on pigs before the present Government took office, to build up a fund to meet the very contingency that arose, of an uncovenated collapse of bacon prices in Great Britain. The aim was to keep the levy on and to allow it to accumulate, so that if there were a fall, the price of pigs could be maintained throughout the period without discouraging the producers here. The present Government was not in office three months until they reduced that levy, with the result that the fund which should have been there was materially depleted. I regret the House is not informed in the Minister's statement of the fact that, if the Exchequer had to find £787,000, the industry found substantial sums itself, through the levy, to assist in the stabilisation of pig prices.
I would further ask the Minister how he was betrayed into what I regard as one of the most disastrous decisions he has made so far in his administration. At a time when publicity was being canvassed widely about the catastrophic prices for bacon in Great Britain, the Minister for Agriculture in Ireland announced that he was going to reduce the price of grade A pigs by 5/- a cwt. That announcement was made nearly six months ago. The first consequence of that announcement was consternation and dismay amongst pig producers and the second development was the traditional one which we have always sought to avoid that is, that the bacon curers reduced the price of grade B pigs, not by 5/- a cwt., but by 50/- a cwt. I received for grade B pigs 160/- per cwt.—and what was the consequence of that? I was one of hundreds in that position.
The result was that in-pig sows were being sold on the streets of Carrickmacross at £15 a piece. Hundreds of in-pig sows were sent into the factories for slaughter and converted into sausages. I remember saying here at the time that I most strongly advised these people not to sell—to keep any Pigs they had—and the situation would come all right in the end. How any Minister for Agriculture could have allowed the bacon curers to get away with that, I do not know. He is largely to blame himself for allowing himself to be bulldozed by the Minister for Finance into making an announcement six months ago that he was going to reduce the price of grade A pigs by 5/- per cwt. Mark what will happen on 1st July next. The fixed price will be 230/- and the grade A price will be 240/- to 245/- at the factories. At the moment the bacon curers are paying 245/-.
In the name of common sense, what induced the Minister to make the announcement he did make four or five months ago? Remember, this regulation is not to come into operation until 1st July. He had in his hand powers which I provided for him in the Pigs and Bacon Act which this House passed at my instance in 1956, powers that were subsequently used. If the bacon factories would not maintain a steady supply of grade A bacon to the British market in order to foster and develop that market, the Minister for Agriculture had power under that Act to direct them. In the period during which I was in office, I never found it necessary to use those powers, because there was a voluntary arrangement under which the bacon factories were shipping 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. grade A bacon. I think the Minister was perfectly right to direct that they should export such extra quality bacon as would compel them to pay a fair and economic price for grade B pigs.
Now, in the meantime, the panic which the Minister's procedure has created in the pig industry may result in our having far fewer pigs for conversion into bacon next autumn than we ought to have. That, in my opinion, will be a grave disaster for the agricultural community and for the balance of trade generally. The Minister says he does not believe that this will have any serious effect on production and I notice that the January livestock census shows a big increase in the number of pigs as compared with January, 1957. I think that is true. I think the price stabilisation operated by me and the late Senator Moylan was gradually restoring confidence and people were getting back into pigs. There were more seas, but there has been a slaughter of sows from March right up to this day, and it is only now that people are beginning to get back into pigs. I would like to ask the Minister, if he wants to check on that, will he inquire from the Pigs and Bacon Commission how many sows were supplied by them in the first half of this year as compared with last year and how many people were looking for sows this year as compared with previous years.
I observe that the Minister has authorised the importation of the Landrace pig. Now, I do not give a fiddle-de-dee whether they have Landrace pigs or any other class of pigs in this country, so long as they are the best pigs. What puzzles me is that up to the day I left the Department of Agriculture, the unanimous advice of all the veterinary advisers I could get in Ireland, and outside Ireland, was that the Landrace pig had an inherent susceptibility to atrophic rhinitis and that, if those responsible for the control of animal diseases in Great Britain and Northern Ireland had their way, they would never have let in the Landrace pig and, if they could get rid of it now, they would.
I know that the Minister is in the position that he finds it extremely difficult to maintain the exclusion of the Landrace Pig from here because of the existence of the Border. I would like to hear from him now is be satisfied that those responsible for bringing in the Landrace pig here have not also brought into our pig industry a hazard that was not there in the past and which, if it develops, will finish for all time our access to the American and other markets for pedigree stock, a market which was beginning to develop as a result of our disease-free status. One outbreak of atrophic rhinitis in this country and all that is gone.
I know that there are certain irrespossible elements here which take a kind of delight in trying to infringe and break regulations made by the Department of Agriculture because they are the kind of cranky imbeciles who believe that the Department of Agriculture makes regulations just for the fun of making them, not realising that so far as the Department is concerned, the optimum desire is to let everybody do what he pleases; and their only reason in intervening in veterinary, or any other matters, involving regulation, is that they conceive it to be the inescapable duty of the Minister for the time being to do so.
It means more work for the Minister and for everybody in the Department. The enforcement of disease regulations means endless annoyance for everybody in the Department, including the Minister. Why any rational creature should imagine the Minister or his Department would make a regulation, if they did not conceive it to be absolutely inescapable is a mystery to me. I have yet to understand why everybody believes that the higher civil servants and the technical advisers to the Department want to make a new regulation just for the fun of making it, because, so far as the higher civil servants are concerned and so far as the Minister and his technical advisers are concerned, the existence of that regulation is simply an additional headache for all and an involvement in most disagreeable work, involving the refusal of permission to people whom everybody in the Department would much sooner see quite free to do what they pleased, without having to seek permission from the Department or anybody else.
We prohibited the import of the Landrace pig for no other reason than the unanimous advice tendered to me that they carried in them the hazard of atrophic rhinitis. I wonder has that situation changed or does the advice which the Minister now receives differ from the advice that was tendered to me? I do not believe it does, and the figures which the Minister incorporates in his White Paper, and to which I have referred, as to the improvement in the grading of the pigs delivered to the factories suggest to me that, with the continuation of progeny testing, the Large Irish White pig will give quite as good an account of itself as the Landrace, with the additional immense advantage that the Large Irish White has, up to date, in any case, shown itself to be not utterly immune but largely immune to atrophic rhinitis, and certainly, so far as the records were available to me, has never manifested atrophic rhinitis, except when direct contact with Landrace pigs could be established.
Perhaps the Minister would be able to give us comparative figures for Denmark, Holland and elsewhere, but, taking the average of all factories in the country, I think it would be hard for any breed to beat the record of 67 per cent. A and 21 per cent. B. When you realise that only two years ago, it was 54 per cent. A and 29 per cent. B and that these figures have been improved to 67 per cent. A and 21 per cent. B, it seems to me to be peculiarly cracked to accept the hazard of atrophic rhinitis to bring in the Landrace pig whose performance I very much doubt will equal, much less exceed, that of our improving strain of Large White pigs.
There are some matters I want to refer to which have not been dealt with in the Minister's opening statement, which is, to say the least of it, succinct, though I am prepared to concede at once that the Minister's general statement is supported by the White Paper which he has circulated and which I very specially commend to Deputies' attention as being a mine of valuable information.
That leads me to the first point I want to make. I hear a lot of talk of people moaning and groaning and it has become a most noxious habit in this country to cry stinking fish about one's own country. I do not know, why anybody is concerned to do it, but one variety of stinking fish that is habitually shrieked from the house-tops by certain elements is that there is no research of any value done in this country. I venture to swear that the very warriors who are shrieking the loudest have never opened a volume of the annual report or of the journal of the Department of Agriculture. They will find in the annual report a long list of the scientific papers issued by the scientific officers of the Department of Agriculture in the leading journals of the world and that is over and above all the research work that is being done in the Albert Agricultural College, which is the Agricultural Faculty of University College, Dublin, and whatever work is being done in University College, Cork. In fact, all the time, very valuable research is being done and in more instances than one unique types of research are being done.
I noted with satisfaction that the officials of the British Forestry Commission were glad to come over here and see the research in progress at the Peatland Research Station at Glenamoy. What often fascinates me and what I have referred to before in this House is that the individuals about whom stinking fish is howled most loudly by our own people in international spheres are held in the highest esteem and those qualified to speak on these matters look with eagerness for the advice of the experts of whom we dispose in this country. I often wonder how many of them continue to carry on because, if they did not receive the encouragement and admiration of their colleagues from abroad, but measured themselves by the esteem in which they were held by their own fellow countrymen, many of them would throw in the sponge and quit. I have heard it said in academic circles that it is time this country pulled up its socks, because, if our own are to be habitually denigrated in our own country, there are too many people in the world anxious to get them and to pay a great deal more than we pay them, and they may go.
I, therefore, commend specially to Deputies, if they have not done it, a perusal of the annual report of the Department of Agriculture which, incidentally, is the only report of any Department of State which is up-to-date, and there they will find an abundance of material, both in detail and in bibliography, which, if they peruse it, will greatly edify them in regard to research.
I want to refer to another matter. One of the things I frequently hear commented on is the lack of agricultural credit in this country. I wish we could arrive at common ground about that. I was never short of money for agricultural credit when I was Minister for Agriculture and I do not believe that any successor of mine was left short of money to facilitate the provision of credit for agriculture. I do not believe that there is anybody concerned with agriculture who is not prepared to get up and clamour that there are no facilities available for agricultural credit, but when you pin him down and ask: "What exactly do you want?" I cannot find anybody who will tell me what he wants which is not at present available. The only person, so far as I know, who cannot get agricultural credit in this country at the present time is the man who does not intend to pay and every community has its fair share of these gentlemen abroad. Any man who means to pay what he borrows, I think, is able to get agricultural credit and, if there was any loophole that required to be stopped, I introduced in 1956 a new and additional scheme for agricultural credit. Under that scheme, any small farmer, apart from the larger men, could get credit up to ten times his present valuation without any security at all, except one guarantor, provided he paid his land annuity punctually in the last two gales. I found to my dismay that that proviso knocked out about 85 per cent. of the applicants.
I am going to make this suggestion to the Minister. Quite frankly, I think I made a mistake in putting in that proviso. I am a great believer in the truth. Magna est veritas et pracvalebit. What is the history of that? The history of that is that I proposed at first that we should have an agricultural credit scheme for small farmers up to ten times the amount of their valuation, without any guarantor at all, and I said: “If we are to have that scheme, we want some evidence that the fellow is reasonably honest, and if he has paid his land annuity punctually twice in the last two gales, I want to suggest that that is sufficient guarantee.” That view was accepted.
I do not think I am guilty of any breach of confidence when I tell the House that I brought that scheme to the Agricultural Advisory Council, representative of all agricultural interests in the country, and it was they who threw their hands in the air and said: "You could not do that. You would have to get at least one guarantor." To my dismay, the system of guarantors was trust back on me. The mistake I made was that, if I accepted the advice to take back one guarantor, I should have dropped the condition about the two gales, but the scheme ended up with the two provisos, the two gales of the land annuity punctually paid and the one guarantor.
The result was and the strange thing was that the block which excluded nearly 80 per cent. of the applicants was that they had not paid the last two gales of their annuity punctually but had waited for the red letter. I think I made a mistake in providing these two elements of security. I put it to the Minister now that he ought to drop one of them in respect of the special scheme for credit for small farmers.
There was another proviso, and this was a good proviso, which the Minister ought to retain and reinforce, that is, that any applicant for a loan under this scheme had to undertaken that, in the use of the money, he would consult the parish agent or the county agricultural instructor. This proviso was inserted so that you would not have farmers borrowing money and dissipating is recklessly, and while you did not put upon them the obligation to carry out the advice of the adviser —which I felt would be an excessive interference in a man's freedom to run his own farm—you did put upon him the obligation that if he did borrow money, he would consult either the parish agent or the agricultural adviser. You would then proceed on the assumption that a man who was prepared to borrow £100, £200 or £300 and consult the agricultural adviser was approaching the matter in a sufficiently responsible frame of mind and, having got good advice, would carry out most of it, at any rate.
If that defect is corrected in that last credit scheme, I wish somebody on any side of the House would stand up and tell me, not that agricultural credit is badly wanted, but in what form it can be provided that will make it possible for farmers to avail of it fruitfully. We are all agreed that there is no use lending out money to a fellow who has not the slightest intention of repaying it, but such farmers constitute a very small percentage of the total number of our farmers. There is no use lending out money to a man who has heaps of idle capital lying on deposit in the bank, because the correct procedure for him is to draw his money out of the bank and invest it in his land. However, if there is a body of farmers between these two, be it small or large, the time is past for people to stand up and simply say: "There is not enough agricultural credit." I believe there is plenty of agricultural credit. The time is past for saying to us: "More credit must be provided." The problem at present is to get those who could fruitfully use it to avail of it.
The real key to this problem is to teach the farmers how to use credit. The nightmare that hangs over every Minister for Agriculture and every chairman of the Agricultural Credit Corporation is that in a time of booming prices for cattle, the farmer will borrow £1,000 or £2,000 and buy 40 cattle, only to find that because he came by the money easily, he has paid £3 a head too much for them and that at the end of the season, instead of making the money wherewith to pay interest on the loan and something to amortise the principal, he has in fact lost £100 to £120, and the grass which ought to have yielded him a substantial income has been consumed.
That is one of the great dangers of agricultural credit, but the solution to that is plain and simple, and it is this. There should be available to every farmer who wants to avail of them the services of a trained parish agent or agricultural adviser—call him what you will. What the farmer who contemplates borrowing money wants is what every business man employs, an accountant, to give independent and objective advice, to examine the project and to consult with him as to whether it contains any prospect of profit or success. The trouble in this country is that a great many farmers who could increase production and increase the income of their own families will not borrow money because they are afraid, and those who do borrow money borrow it improvidently and use it improvidently; whereas the first procedure of the man in business who contemplates the same operation will be to consult a firm of accountants with whom he habitually deals, not necessarily to be coerced by their opinion but to hear their opinion and to review the project he had in mind in the light of their detached view.
That is what the Irish farmer particularly lacks and that is what the small farmer particularly requires. So far as I know, there is no way to provide that for him, except through the medium of the parish agent. The reason I say the parish agent is that farmers are naturally suspicious of advisers. Until they can become familiar with some individual whom, out of their own experience, they have come to recognise as a good adviser and as a good man and with whom they have become familiar in their everyday dealings, they will not consult him. Equally, it is true that if the parish agent operating in their own area wins their confidence, such a man could be of inestimable value to farmers, large and small, and in no sphere more so than in that of using credit.
I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that we are now getting from the university the type of graduates which I was very largely responsible for generating because I wanted agricultural graduates for the parish plan. Is there any Deputy with any knowledge of rural Ireland who will not agree with me that one of the things most urgently needed is technical advice in respect of credit, crops, husbandry and the utilisation of land? Yet there are large areas in this country in which there is no technical advice available at all. Up till recently, there were counties with two agricultural instructors in the whole county and the C.A.O.
If we provided one agricultural parish agent for every three rural parishes, we would require 300 parish agents. There is no reason why we should not do that to-morrow and if we did it to-morrow, every available unemployed agricultural graduate could be put to useful work, instead of being sent out to Rhodesia or the other ends of the earth where he has not the slightest difficulty in getting a job and where they are most anxious to get him. I signed testimonials only last week for one agricultural graduate to go to Canada and for another to go to Rhodesia, and that at a time when I know there are hundreds of parishes the farmers of which cannot get the technical advice without which it is not possible to get the maximum return from the land.
Surely it should be possible to put that situation right. I was in the process of doing it when I left office and I am sorry to say that I was harried and blocked in the doing of that work by a number of unscrupulous vested interests. I regret Deputy Moher is not here so that I could look at him when I am saying that. The Fianna Fáil Party are in office now and they ought to put an end to that dishonest racket. They can appoint them now as I never had the power of appointing them. The men are there. They are leaving the country and they have no difficulty in finding employment. It is not for the purpose of employing them that I press this scheme. It is because I am certain that until we have at least one agent for every three parishes, we will be hag-ridden by the inescapable problem of helping the farmers to use the resources that God made available, namely, the land, and that the Government makes available through the services of the Department of Agriculture.
I want to ask the Minister for Agriculture a question which I think he ought to answer. Would anybody tell me what is the true story about the abolition of the double byre grant? I think what happened was that when the Minister was pressed by the Minister for Finance to abolish the double byre grant he took the decision to do so and it evoked a violent reaction from a number of his own supporters. I believe that he inadequately perused the file, that he believed that I had abolished the double byre grant, that Deputy Moran, the Minister for the Gaeltacht, was mooching around and in an unguarded moment the Minister for Agriculture said: "James Dillon did that" and the Minister for the Gaeltacht waltzed in here shouting off his mouth and said a lot more than he ought to have said. The Minister for Agriculture made some effort to support his colleague and got himself out on a limb when I asked him to produce the document.
Quite frankly I could not remember but I have so profound an admiration for the Department of Agriculture that I thought: "If the Minister was sent in here to say that, I am perfectly satisfied nobody in the Department of Agriculture briefed him if it was not true." But it bewildered me that it could be true and that it had gone so completely out of my mind and I was reluctant to challenge him. When I examined the record I felt that he had not been briefed and that it was his colleague who had been shouting his mouth off.
The documents were produced and it emerged then that the fact was that the Minister's statement was based on a memorandum sent by me to the Minister for Finance in respect of a very restricted area which, I think, consisted of Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo and a few other counties. I recommended that, as it was very necessary to expedite the voluntary participation of farmers in this area, I should be authorised to give them a year's notice that if within the next 12 months they did not all voluntarily participate in the eradication scheme in that area they would not be eligible for the double byre grant after the end of that 12 months. That is a very different proposition from abolishing the whole double byre grant for the whole antituberculosis scheme.
The proposal for which I sought sanction was that I would be authorised to give notice that if everybody in a restricted area was not in voluntarily within the 12 months, as a special action against their laziness in joining the scheme they would be excluded from the double byre grant. That is a very different cup of tea from saying: "As from to-morrow, the double byre grant is over." I think it is a silly kind of defence for any Minister for Agriculture to come in here and say: "Do not condemn me for doing something I did, because my predecessor decided to do it six months ago." Even if the Minister for Agriculture is right in saying that I did intend to do it that does not absolve him, unless there are better grounds.
In fact, I do not believe that the Minister was right. The document he put on the table merely indicated that my recommendation was that in the restricted area if people did not join within 12 months they would be excluded from the double byre grant. Does the Minister adhere to his decision to abolish the double byre grant? Consider the picture—less for pigs, less for wheat, less for barley, more for ground limestone and the double byre grant abolished. How in the name of Providence can you go to the agricultural community and ask them, as the Minister has done in the last paragraph of his speech to-day, to make a very special effort to expedite the elimination of tuberculosis from their herds if you tell them in the same sentence that they must pay the extra cost, that they must take less for pigs, less for wheat, less for barley, less for milk and pay more for lime and do without the double byre grant?
Unless they are all angels—indeed, even archangels—it is hard to believe you will get the kind of co-operation you ought to get, and must get, if the best job is to be done. I am hearing rather discomfiting rumours about the state of the sheep and wool trade. I am told that the price of hoggets is very unsatisfactory, as compared with last year, and that the price of wool is likely to drop below 3/- a lb. I wonder has the Minister anything to tell us about that?
The Minister referred to the pig progeny testing station the opening of which recently took place. I should like to place on record that the Minister had the courtesy to ask me to go to the opening but I am a strong believer that the Minister for the time being is the Minister for Agriculture and that if anything is to be opened he should do it unassisted and without the ghost of his predecessor. Doubtless I opened some things in my time which were inaugurated by my predecessor. What I am interested in, and I am sure the Minister is too, is when will the first pig progeny test be available. That is a matter of great importance, especially from the point of view of the average farmer, and it is one I think which the Minister should lose no time in answering in categorical form. We are all prepared to take it on its face value, even if we do not fully understand it, that pig progeny testing is a good thing. I should like to be able to answer a farmer who comes to me and asks me: "When can I get a tested sow?" I should like to be able to say how and when the concrete benefit of the pig progeny testing procedure inaugurated by me at Ballyhaise, and carried on in Cork and to be carried on in the additional station now in contemplation, is going to filter down to the actual pig producer.
The sooner we can formulate an answer to that question the sooner we will have made a good start and get the whole-hearted support of the farming community, which I think is one essential development for progeny testing of all breeding pigs. I hazard a guess that probably before the end of next year there should be some herds of pigs entitled to some certificate from this station which would indicate the superior strain available from that herd. I should like the Minister to tell us in greater detail what the prospects are in so far as the individual farmer is concerned.
I see that the members of the Council of the Agricultural Research Institute are to be announced shortly. I suppose the Minister had his own difficulties in choosing the elective bodies to represent agriculture but they are the queerest bodies I have ever seen together. However, if they produce the right men, it does not very much matter how they are constituted, but what with pig breeders mixed up with bee producers, I could not help wondering if the Minister intended to go into Egyptian bees. I suppose the Minister had his own difficulties and here again the best test of his exertions will be the results. If we get the right people out of these bodies, that is what matters. The sooner they do it and get under way, the sooner we shall be able to see the quality of the Minister's own nominees and the sooner we shall be able to see the value we may hope to get for this investment in agricultural research.
I do not know if the Minister noticed —I hope he did—that I have asked no parliamentary question about the German trade agreement in the past six or eight months. I did not do so because I did not think it would help the Minister in his negotiations with the Germans, but I should like to ask him now what has become of the German trade agreement? I always found negotiating with the Germans quite a difficult business and I had plenty of Job's comforters who would tell me that the proper treatment for the people of the German Reich was to take them by the throat and kick them in the stomach and turf them out of the country, if they would not sign on the dotted line. To that, I replied: "What if they do not sign and do not give a damn? Where will you go from there? Do we not attach any importance to the West German market?" I used be reassured that: "They will not go." I said: "That is as may be, but it is better to walk warily."
What has become of the German trade agreement? I think the present situation is that we have no trade agreement. If, having announced that we would not sign except on a certain basis we discovered they would not accept, what is the net result? Is there one fewer German Volkswagen, one fewer German toy or one fewer German steel product that the Germans want to send here coming here? Not that I know. But the Germans are no more co-operative with us in our meat trade than ever. If the negotiations have broken down, I think the House should be told.
I want to say quite clearly that I have nothing but the warmest regard of the German people and the Republic of West Germany; they are a reasonable people. I say quite deliberately that if one does one's level best to deal equitably and fairly with the other party, and if they do not deal fairly and equitably with you, then you must see that, if they exclude our goods, we shall exclude theirs until there is something approximating to a fair balance of trade between the two countries. But there is no rhyme or reason in one country exporting to us £3 to £5 worth of goods for every £1 worth we export to them and then telling us that, although we are only sending them one-fifth of what they are sending us, they do not expect us to discriminate at all regarding the type of merchandise they are sending here but that they feel perfectly free to discriminate against the quality of merchandise we send them.
It may be that the special circumstances of the countries require consideration and agreement that in their special circumstances such restrictions must be operated and that in our special circumstances corresponding restrictions must operate. Nobody ought to be able to get 100 per cent. of what he wants out of any negotiations. Good negotiations end by both parties getting somewhat less than they hoped to get and unless it so ends then it is a bad ending and a bad agreement. I would expect to get less from an Irish-German trade agreement than I would wish to get and I would expect the Germans to express some disappointment with what they had been able to secure, but I would hope that each side would feel that the other had gone as far as it was reasonable possible to meet the other's legitimate desires. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the attitude adopted by him or by his predecessor has improved the prospects of German trade, or whether the absence of a German trade agreement is, in fact, operating almost entirely to the advantage of Germany and to the detriment of Ireland.
It is now almost 15 months since the Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture announced that he was appropriating £250,000 to finance foreign marketing research and so far this mountain has not produced even a mouse. I hear from the Minister to-day that he is full of hope that something will happen very shortly. I trust he is right, but I am very anxious to hear some news. I do not know if Deputies believe that there are some revolutionary discoveries to be made in the sphere of marketing, but if they do, they will be greatly disappointed. Fundamentally, our problem is the sale of good produce at the best prices you can get. Good produce is what really matters.
I have not the slightest doubt that marketing is very important, but the establishment of marketing machinery, once you have discovered what is desirable, is quite another cup of tea. Without any commission, I could say that if we could harness the marketing organisation of Nestles to our dried milk production we would double, treble, or even multiply by 100 our output of dried milk products and sell them cheerfully. To get a marketing organisation, such as Nestles, operating for us is, of course, another matter. I know that in respect of a variety of commodities, if we had at our disposal a world-wide marketing organisation such as operates for certain established firms, we would greatly benefit by availing of their services. I know what that marketing organisation is, but to create and finance it is another day's work.
As far as I am concerned, however, our marketing research organisation is assured of the best of my goodwill. Ultimately, what it will have to do is a job analogous to that which I had on hands when Bowaters interested themselves in the Athy wallboard factory and to what the Industrial Development Authority recently achieved in interesting American interests in the Waterford cardboard factory. God be with the days when the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that if Fianna Fáil ever got into office again he would legislate to abolish the Industrial Development Authority.
I want to ask the Minister a specific question. I went to Ballsbridge during the Spring Show. I went into the Simmonscourt extension and there I beheld something which, if it be true and is confirmed, is, in my considered judgment, the most sensational development in the live-stock trade of this country in the last 20 years. It was an exhibit of the results of a systemic cure for warble fly. If these results are confirmed the Department has not been too optimistic but, if they erred on that side, more power to their elbows. Knowing them as I do I would suggest they had very good reasons for suggesting that the cure works. When I remember that I myself directed the veterinary research stations at Thorndale and Clonsilla to initiate experiments on an American drug, to which our attention had been directed about 18 months ago, I am not without hope that the two heifers I saw at Ballsbridge are the result of that investigation. Conceive what this means.
Many Deputies are familiar with the damage done to the hides of cattle by warble fly. Heretofore, if you tried to get the collaboration of the farmers in the elimination of the warble fly, you had to ask a farmer to dress his cattle for his neighbour's sake. The warble fly had already done its work and burrowed through the hide of the cow on which you put the Derris dressing. It was through the opening in the cow's hide, made by the warble fly, that you put the Derris dressing. It meant that you dressed cattle which were already damaged and which already had warbles visible on them. I remember saying to the officers of the Department that if we could only find a systemic remedy that would destroy the warble fly in the course of its life cycle, from the time the egg is first laid in September to the following July when it comes out as a warble on a heifer's back, then we could go to the farmer and say: "We are not asking you to abolish the warbles for your neighbour's benefit but for your own."
According to the information available at the Department stand it appears there is now a drench which you can give to a beast in October and, even though her lymphatic system is infested with the warble grub they will never come out on her back, but will be destroyed inside the animal during the winter and early summer months. If that is dependable, and if it is available at anything like an economic price, I have no hesitation in saying it is one of the most dramatic developments that I remember during the last 20 years, and I register a mild rebuke to the Department of Agriculture that they did not make much more noise about it. It was the most important part of their display at the show.
When I am talking about that I would suggest to the Minister that he ought to consider asking the officers of the Department who are in attendance at Ballsbridge to wear some kind of identification label, such as the officers of the R.D.S. themselves wear. The number of times I have gone up to a respectable strong farmer at a stand and asked him the meaning of this and the meaning of that, and he has looked at me and sometimes replied civilly, and sometimes uncivilly, that it is not his business and that he is looking for information just as much as I am, is legion. Except in so far as the officers of the Department are known to me, I find it extremely difficult to determine who is in charge of a stand, and who to question about the exhibits that are on show there. A simple indentification button would resolve that problem completely.
I want to ask the Minister for Agriculture what are his intentions about butter. Are we facing a situation now when we are to have a progressive reduction in the price of creamery milk? If we are, we ought to be told. There is no assurance that we are not, and I want to direct the attention of the House to what other European countries are charging for butter. Butter in this country is wholesaled at 438/6 per cwt. The price in France is 604/- per cwt. In Germany the price is 535/- per cwt. The price in the United States is 479/- a cwt., the price in Canada is 578/- per cwt. It price in Belgium is 584/- per cwt. It is true that in the United Kingdom the price is 230/- a cwt. and that is the market where we have to sell our surplus.
Some people ask us why do we not sell it in countries where the wholesale price is 535/-, 604/- or 584/- a cwt. The answer, of course, is that they will not buy it. Britain is the only free market for butter. All other markets are severely restricted, as is our own.
Remember, the whole trend of agricultural policy in this country for the last ten years has been to try to introduce into agriculture as high an element of security in regard to prices as it was possible to produce. The result of that policy has been that in the year 1957 we exported more cattle than ever before in our history. We produced more butter than ever before in our history. We produced more barley and what than ever before in our history. We probably had more sheep than we ever had before, and our pig population was rising. That was the result of a steady policy of seeking to introduce the maximum degree of security into the price structure of the agricultural community, but at a very modest level. It was by no manner of means a high level and to the certain knowledge of Deputies it has allowed to the farmers and their employees the lowest fixed wages provided under any national fixed wages agreement in Ireland. It did, however, give them some element of security and even on that modest level it resulted in the record of production to which the Minister has referred in his opening speech to-day.
Think well where we are going. If we are to abolish all that, I beg to direct the attention of Deputies to the fact that ten short years ago the total value of our total exports was £39,000,000 and to-day they are £131,000,000. Though price has played a considerable part in that, the volume of our exports ten short years ago was one half of their volume to-day.
Can you conceive what will happen if, as a result of the whittling away of the feeling of security enjoyed by farmers, we ever went back to a volume of exports approximating to the level that obtained ten years ago? Remember that, of this £131,000,000 of total exports this year, over £90,000,000 was agricultural produce. I ask the Minister, before the debate ends and in the light of the motion I have put down, to tell us what are his intentions in respect of maintaining price stability in the agricultural industry. I think he is being pushed off by certain elements in the Cabinet. I think they are mad—stark, staring mad.
I have already said in this House that you have to have some regard to reality and that you cannot take up a perfectly rigid position from which you do not propose in any circumstances to depart. When the creamery milk suppliers came to me howling about this fraudulent milk costings report— remember it was brought to birth by Fianna Fáil and was buried by Fianna Fáil; there never was a more noxious political abortion in this country—I remember saying to them, 18 months ago, that I believed the best they could hope for would be an increase in the domestic price of butter to correspond to ld. a gallon for milk and, thereafter, we would have to let the industry, fortified by that additional 1d., meet the cost of exports whereever they could best be placed. That did not seem to please them at the time. I am not so sure that they would not be pleased if they had the same offer now.
I do not think it would be right to demand from the Minister for Agriculture that he would accept for all time a certain rigid price which in no circumstances should be departed from, but I do suggest that there ought to be a very energetic attempt to get back to some feeling of security in the agricultural industry. In the light of the possibilities mentioned, it would be preferable if it were fortified by the kind of period guarantee which I was authorised to give the pig producers and which ensured that nobody could change the price of pigs without giving pig producers six months' notice and thus give them an ample opportunity of liquidating existing stocks without crushing losses.
If we are to get a steady output from the land, we want confidence amongst the people who get their living from the land. We want the certainty that those who are on the land will have the means to exploit it. That involves either their own savings or the availability of credit, where their own savings are not adequate. With the climate and the soil we have, all we need is knowledge and the means to apply it. That involves fertilisers and ordinary skilled husbandry. The indispensable sine qua non of these things, especially of the small farmers of Ireland—I make no apology for saying that it is with those I am primarily concerned—is informed advice.
I offer any Deputy, however prejudiced, the opportunity to make this test. I offer it especially to Deputy Moher who did more than his share to wreck the parish plan. Let him go out and visit any parish agent—any one of the 256 parish agents who are operating in this country—and let him judge the fruits of their work by the performance of the least effective amongst them. I would be prepared to accept the verdict on the result of the least effective, and on that result, to argue that these results justify most amply my contention that the sooner we increase the number of parish agents to the optimum point of having a parish agent for practically every rural parish in Ireland, the sooner will we arrive at the point of full exploitation of the potential wealth of Ireland. Without it, no matter what schemes we adumbrate, no matter what research we carry out and no matter what inquiries we continue, we will not succeed in bringing to the only people who can operate upon the land itself the knowledge and information they really require.
Let no Deputy doubt that if that kind of help is made available, it will be availed of by 95 per cent. of the farmers, large and small. It may take time and patience, but I have no doubt whatever that, in the long run, 95 per cent. of them will avail of it. Approximately 5 per cent. never will. They are the people who have semi-derelict farms; they are the people who are used as an argument for the claims that the Land Commission ought to go in and take the land over and distribute it. The people who misuse the smallest fraction of the land are the standing guarantee for the security of tenure for all the others who would use it well if they had the means to do so and there is no means more effective than skilled advice. They ought to be given that and, if they are given that, I believe everything else can be added thereto.
If the farmers of Ireland do as much in the next ten years as they did in the past ten years, nobody in this country need cry stinking fish about Ireland. If the farmers are given a chance, if they are given the facilities they should have and if Deputy Moher and those associated with him, lay and ecclesiastic, let the parish plan develop as it ought to develop, we could afford to put the Minister for Lands out to grass or send him around Europe in a cage as the stinking fish that does not smell because there is no man in this country who did more to denigrate the credit of this country before the world than the Minister for Lands.
