I want to deal today with the matter of farmers' incomes and the policies of the farmers' organisations at the moment. When one is discussing levels of incomes the point has to be made that farmers differ from people in industrial employment because farmers function in a market where every price or practically every price is a controlled price, determined by the Government. There is, for example, very little fluctuation in many of their products. There is, of course, continuing fluctuation in the matter of beef, but the prices are to a very great extent, within the control of the central authority. There is also no built-in periodic adjustment for inflation. If we develop the habit, as is now being urged, of all sorts of balance sheets and industrial reporting, reporting all incomes, not in terms of the going price at the moment but with an adjustment for inflation, then it will be perfectly clearly seen that farmers' incomes are, in fact, going down. The rises granted from time to time are not sufficient to compensate them, firstly, because of inflation, and secondly, because of the fact that while the prices of most of what they sell are fixed the prices of what they purchase, the industrial products, the fuels, fertilisers, the feeding stuffs, the animal and plant chemicals and so on are not, in fact, fixed but are rising.
There is a persistent impression among urban people that, somehow or other, no matter what happens to costs, farmers can take up the slack and go on living well. This is not the case. If there is increasing well-being it is surely equitable that it should be spread over all sections of the community. In those circumstances any examination of the relative incomes of different sectors of the community made by any unbiased person will indicate an absolutely clear-cut deterioration of the position of farmers relative to other sectors of the community.
This is an undeniable fact on which a great deal of farmer activity for better incomes is based. I do not want to talk about the omissions of the past on this occasion, though they are glaring and we are paying dearly for them and I do not propose now to analyse the activities and some of the policies of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and indicate where I think they are inadequate or, indeed, harmful.
I want to turn now to the campaign for higher incomes for farmers. We have the tragic situation in which farmers do not speak with a unified voice. I know the historical reasons for this but it has to be said over and over that whether a government or the Department of Agriculture intentionally exploit the division or not—if we were feeling charitable we would say that they do not always do so although maybe under pressure on occasions they do—it is asking too much of them to think that they should totally ignore those divisions and that they should never play one section off against another. The reproach is not so much directed at the Department and the responsible Minister for manoeuvring as between two pressure groups, because that is a very predictable and not surprising response, but that those two pressure groups ought to realise that until they speak with a single voice they will never be able to pull the full weight of the farming community which they represent in the tug-of-war as to who gets the proper share of the available income.
Farmers' organisations will never, as long as they are divided, as long as the possibility of playing off one against the other exists, be able to get the share of the national income for their members which in my view they deserve. I do not think there is any particular wickedness in the present Government in this regard but I feel that governments in general will always take advantage of a situation such as that. They have a job to do and they do it to the best of their ability. If organisations are foolish enough to go in divided into such negotiating situations, to an extent they deserve to get less than they are entitled to. It is their own fault.
I know the animosities, I know the history, I know the sources of continuing confusion but I would urge on both the main farming organisations the vastly greater need of their members, particularly in the current situation, which ought to transcend past divisions and present animosities. I understand also the sense of fury which exists among farmers everywhere and in both the main farming organisations at the continued relative deterioration of their position and their incomes vis-à-vis other sections of the community. I also understand why the current campaigns have been undertaken.
I want, before going on to discuss those current campaigns, to declare my own interest in this context. I am a member of the NFA and in the current campaign to withhold investment I have abided, on the farm in which I am a partner, by the policy of the NFA not to go on with development plans which were in hand both for the housing of livestock and the purchase of machinery. That is not to say that I think the NFA policy is correct in this matter. I will give the reasons in a moment why I think it is mistaken, although I understand the reasons for it. I want, before going on to discuss that, to make it clear that although I do not agree with this as a loyal member of the NFA I have operated it. While there is certainly a need for people to exercise their own judgment in answer to their own conscience there is also obviously need in any organisation, if it is to be effective, for discipline. I accept the discipline of the NFA in this regard.
The NFA policy is that one should abstain from investment in buildings, and machinery, and, although one is not asked to abstain from the use of artificial fertilisers, there is a campaign against the use of lime. While I have indicated that I understand the fury which has given rise to this campaign, I understand the reasons for the NFA doing it and I am abiding by this myself—I am bound to say I do not think it is well judged at the present time.
Let us tease this out a bit under the three headings. We have throughout the country many people who, either as the proprietors of companies selling farm machinery or as employees in these companies depend for their income on continuing sales. We also have a thing which not, perhaps, in terms of scale or income but in terms of possible outlook for the future is extremely important. We have a nascent industry for the production of farm machinery which may be started by a vigorous, ingenious man here and there. We have it on a larger scale with Pierce's of Wexford. We have other places. We have the excellent example of the Irish Sugar Company with a very fine piece of harvesting machinery which I think is world class: it is a great credit to them.
The big companies who manufacture a lot of machines—whether it be tractors, Ford, Massey-Ferguson, Ransome, ploughs or whatever—will not suffer significantly—one or two per cent—as a result of the ban by Irish farmers but we could murder the little indigenous companies who are trying to get off the ground, who have not big reserves, and who have to face a very difficult economic situation. There are difficulties from the point of view of credit, of how much one has to pay for credit, and there are difficulties for all small, home-grown industries. These difficulties are partly of the Government's making in my view but if we want to be accurate about it, these difficulties are not entirely of the Goverment's making. Since they declined to set up a separate currency for Ireland, they do not determine the cost of credit and are not able to protect us against international inflation. Therefore, the problem is not entirely of the Government's making.
The campaign about machinery jeopardises jobs in the countryside but not those of farmers. It jeopardises a small, often physically small, Irish industry which is something we ought to protect. It does not jeopardise the big international companies that produce so much of the machinery we use. If we have to put the finger on anybody surely we ought to get at the big international combines and not the little indigenous industries that are dependent on the vigour and energy and the entrepreneurial talent of some small man who has got into the agricultural machinery business.
Very much the same arguments operate in the matter of farm buildings, in regard to the sorts of people who put up such buildings. They are home-grown Irish industrialists. They are employing labour. We have rather advanced and good ideas in this country about modern, simple, cheap, farm buildings: this is a credit to our research workers and others. We erect simple, functional buildings. In Britain and places where the climate is as good as ours, we see how much money they waste on these enormous palaces for stock. We know more about putting up good, cheap, farm buildings in this country. However, we are damaging the employment and we are damaging the people who have the Irish-owned small companies and who, by and large, give this fairly good service to agriculture.
On the question of lime, anybody who farms, such as myself, feels a bit irrational about it. The country has a lime shortage, a fact which was recognised many years ago. It seems to me, almost in a moral sense, awful that, when we have limestone and are able to process it ourselves, when there is a good scheme and a rising level of use, when there is Government help for it and when it is such an obviously useful thing, that farmers reject it and say they will not use it. I am a bit sad to see that that is so. At Question Time, a few minutes ago, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said he did not know of any evidence which would suggest that our application to join the EEC would not be successful. It occurred to me to ask him where he had been in the past 18 months because I suppose everybody else knows that our application may not be successful. If one were opening a book on it, the chances would be, I think, about fifty-fifty of our getting in—something like that.
The EEC has certainly a lot of small farmers who are inefficient and against whom we would stand up very well in competition. It also has big farmers who are magnificently efficient and against whom we would stand up very badly. Therefore, at this moment, we should be getting ready as fast as we can. I suggest, therefore, that, while the NFA policy is understandable in its genesis, it is not well-considered either in its effect on the farmers themselves who are losing the opportunity of getting ready for the competition of the Community, if we get in or, indeed, for the hardships of fighting our way into a bigger sector of the British market if we do not get into the EEC. Either way, we must increase our productivity, our efficiency and our competitive edge. Increased investment of an intelligent sort in agriculture is continuously necessary—in machinery, buildings, lime and in anything that makes us better able to compete. We have very sensible ideas about how to get protection for stock as cheaply as possible. We are not wasting money on farm buildings.
With regard to the NFA campaign —I do not know if Deputies in different parts of the country find it the same—I think that clearly, the weapon —at a time like this when we have fairly straitened economic circumstances—of withholding purchases, is turning out to be a pretty serious and one might almost use the word a "desperate" weapon. Anybody who talks to people must know that the banks are being very tough, awkward and ruthless at the moment. There is a liquidity squeeze everywhere. Small business people who got into financial difficulties, through no fault of their own, when the bank strike was over, are starved of cash. In any community, we all know that unemployment or bankruptcy has a sort of multiplying effect. It hits not only the people to whom it happens but it runs through the community. Our inflationary situation was made worse by the Government's messing last year by the sort of Budget we got which was not the one we needed. Inflation is coming through our borders, regardless of what we do at home. We will not be able to stop, for example, the rise in petrol and fuel oil prices that will come from the settlement over the weekend with the Gulf States oil producers. There is nothing we can do about it.
We have a rather precarious international situation. We have a continuing inflation. We have a shortage of liquidity at home. Clearly, the NFA has a very powerful weapon in its hands. It has made the point now— extraordinarily powerfully everywhere —of what a weapon it is. Of course, a farm can continue. You do not see the effects of a cut-back in investment straight away with a farm. The lack of buildings, fertilisers, machinery, and so on, will show up in maybe 18 months or two years time: it will show up in circumstances where we could expand our production and sales rapidly if we had the inputs to take advantage of it.
I understand the anger of farmers but I think they have made their point. I think everybody throughout the country recognises—I hope the Minister, in his reply to this debate, will recognise it also—that the farmers have made their point. This is a powerful weapon. Farmers are angry. Farmers feel excluded. Farmers feel their relative position continuously deteriorating. They have now found a weapon which is powerful and dangerous. They have shown their militancy and discipline. They have shown that a request from a leadership does produce a very marked drop in expenditure for machinery, buildings, land, and things like that.
It takes strong and courageous men then to show statesmanship and one might even say to show mercy, if that word is acceptable in the current context. It takes a good man to be generous at a moment like this. I simply continue my intervention in this debate to use this rostrum to talk, of course, to my colleagues in the House but, through the House, to the farmers of the country, to say that their anger is justified, their case is a just one, to say indeed to the Minister that I hope he will see fit to recognise their deteriorating position, see fit to recognise the effects of inflation, see fit to recognise that the cost of all their inputs is soaring away in inflation and that the farmers are feeling the pinch very sharply. This is the thing that does not show up as quickly with farmers as it would with wage earners; it is a thing that comes through more slowly but it is there beyond a shadow of doubt. I hope the Minister will be able to find the funds to restore their position.
I should also like to use the occasion for the reasons I have given—I say this as a member of the NFA, maybe I am popular with my colleagues in the NFA, maybe I am popular with farmers—to say what I think has to be said, to ask them on this occasion, having made their point very powerfully, to think again before their argument becomes any more powerful, before the weapon in their hands, which has shown itself to be such an effective one, does in fact do damage to themselves and to others in the community and in my view most importantly of all to the relationship between themselves, or as a farmer I should say between ourselves, and the rest of the community. I want to beg them not to abandon this but simply to pause in this campaign which can be reintroduced at any moment, to see if the professions of good intentions, of goodwill, from the official side have, in fact, any substance at all. Such a pause will be an indication of strength, discipline, responsibility and indeed mercy. It will give the Minister an opportunity to act if he wishes to act and if he is bluffing it will call his bluff.
All my experience leads me to the conviction that at this time and in this place it was necessary for me to say what I have just said about the NFA campaign. If this seems like weakness, if this seems like a climb-down, I can only say that it is my conviction that it is not. It is my conviction that it is an argument from discipline, from strength. It is an argument by people who have been neglected but who, I hope, will reciprocate by saying: "You have been unmindful of us; you have permitted our position to deteriorate but even in these circumstances we will not behave in a way that forgets national interest and forgets the interests of people who are dependent on the agricultural industry."
I realise that I have been accused on other occasions of going on too long. I hope I will not inconvenience people who expected that there would be a rather long interval before they got a chance to get into this debate. I simply took this occasion to make that plea and I hope it is a plea that will not be made, from any side of the House, into any sort of political football because it is not offered in the political sense, it is offered, without trying to apportion blame, at a time when difficult circumstances obtain both in industry and agriculture, when there is not a great deal of spare gravy in the country to be distributed to anyone. I will hand the Minister that observation also for what he may choose to make of it. There is not a lot.
