This Bill is for the purpose of applying the £750,000 which it is proposed to provide for the additional relief of agricultural rates. When the agricultural rate was doubled some years ago, it was possible to give the exact grant on the basis of the old grant. It was decided in this case, however, that that basis was not a fair enough basis to be adopted, and what is being done now is to give half of the grant on the basis of the old grant and to give a half on the basis of the population of the counties. The effect of that is, that in the division of the £750,000 a greater sum will go to the poor counties with the large population than would have gone on the old basis. Counties like Mayo, Kerry and Donegal will benefit as compared with their position under the old basis. It seems to us that while we were not to adopt population as a basis, there is a great deal to be said about it as an important factor. A lot of charges had been made upon the population such as poor relief charges and charges of that sort which vary in proportion to the population, and it was felt that this change would give something which was not perfect, but a better basis than the old.
Local Government (Rates on Agricultural Land) Bill, 1931—Second Stage.
I was hoping that the Minister would give the House some reasons for refusing to accept the views of the majority of the De-rating Commission and falling back upon the advice given by the minority. The Report was an interesting one and contained valuable information. While I have no doubt at all that there is need for assisting the farmer in one way or another, I doubt very much whether the method adopted in this Bill is going to do for the bulk of the farmers what was hoped and what it purports to do. I do not know how many of the richer and larger farmers use petrol, but I would imagine a considerable number do, and I would like to have some estimate from the Minister as to what actual saving would be derived by the individual farmer, let us say, who is running 200 acres of land or a £200 valuation farm, and who has a motor car, perhaps possibly even an engine on his farm. He is going to pay 4d. a gallon additional, and put that against the remission of rates? What would be the net benefit to him? The middle-farmer will, I think, get a certain benefit, but that farming population which is on the low level of valuation is probably not going to get any benefit whatever.
I need only take the farms of 5 to 15 acres, owned by those who call themselves farmers. The number of persons who call themselves farmers in the answers to the census questionnaire, occupying 5 to 15 acres, show that there are 63,000 such farms in the country. I take it a very low estimate of sugar consumption, 1½ pounds for every 4 persons less than the average consumption throughout the country. Assuming that these poor farmers consume so much less sugar than the average, then they are going to lose and not gain by the sugar tax set off against the remission of rates. I spoke earlier of the province of Connaught, and I said that more than one-third of the whole of the farmers in Connaught will, in fact, be out of pocket at the end of the year as a result of this remission of rates and the imposition of the sugar tax. One-third of the farmers of Connaught occupy farms of less than 15 acres.
Cathaoirleach
Is it quite in order discussing a matter of this character? Certain moneys are voted, and they are going to be applied. You are arguing that the application is going to give no relief. I think it is outside the question at issue.
I do not happen to have the Bill in front of me.
Cathaoirleach
It makes provision for the application of moneys which may be provided by the Oireachtas. It is a question of relief, and I do not think what you are saying is quite relevant.
I only want to deal with the application of the moneys and the effect of the application.
Cathaoirleach
That would be in order.
I am sorry I departed from that. I want to show that in the application of these moneys the relief would be very small indeed, and not sufficient. For instance, it would not be enough to overtake the loss which that particular class of farmers would have to pay out. I am not going to deal with how they obtained the relief. Having made the assertion, I will now deal with the application of this amount to the farmers. I said that, taking the province of Connaught, one-third of the farmers there occupied farms of from 5 to 15 acres. The average remission for the counties of Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon would be round about 2/6 in the £, ranging from 1/10 in Roscommon to 3/1½ in Mayo. That means to say there is going to be a remission for this class of farmer of from 5/- to 25/-. Speaking of the average for the county and challenging contradiction of the figures I have given it is quite certain that the average farmer of that type in Connaught is not going to get any relief whatever.
The proportion of small farmers in other parts of the country is not so high. But the rates are lower in the main; therefore the amount of relief that other small farmers in other parts of the country will obtain will still be so little that they will have no benefit out of the application of this Bill. Admittedly, the middle farmer, who is not rich enough to run a motor car, and who has a holding, let us say, from £10 or £15 upwards, may get some relief, but I doubt very much whether the relief is being applied in the best way. Talking on the lines suggested by this Bill, I think some of the recommendations of the majority of that Commission would have been far more effective in the way of relief to the average farmer of the country. I think, perhaps, it would be deemed to be out of order if I were to enlarge upon some of the recommendations contained in the Report.
Cathaoirleach
I do not think so, Senator. It is the application of the moneys, but you were discussing, when you argued that sugar was going to be made dearer, something which did not deal with the Bill, to my mind.
It is too late now but I would make the suggestion when the next demand is being considered by the Minister for agricultural relief that the amount of money which is now being offered would be productive of much more certain benefit to agriculture and to the country, if it had been by way of provision, let us say, of very cheap artificial manures. That is to say that at a time when money is not very plentiful and a small amount of money would be expended by the average farmer, relief by way of very cheap manure would be productive and would have a really national benefit. It would be a stimulus to productive effort rather than on the contrary by the distribution in this very piecemeal manner, with no assurance whatever that the application is going to be beneficial, agriculturally or nationally. It was on these lines that I hoped the Minister would have proceeded after giving consideration to the majority and minority reports of the Commission on that inquiry.
It is obvious that if we are going to help agriculture by way of derating, the benefits would be very unevenly distributed. The man who only pays £1 in rates can only get £1 in relief by means of derating, so that the whole scheme contains limitations just as well as the benefits it may give. On the other hand, it is a scheme which can immediately be put into operation without involving much charges on the taxpayer for administrative costs. It will relieve the great bulk of the farmers. The very small farmer, who is practically a labourer, will get little relief, just as the labourer himself will get no relief. The very small farmer, who is little more than a labourer because his holding is so small, will get correspondingly a small amount of relief. The great bulk of the farmers will get a substantial measure of relief. A certain amount of the return of the sugar tax will, undoubtedly, be contributed by the farming community.
Perhaps the greater proportion of that will be contributed by others, and certainly the better-off families will contribute a great deal more of the sugar tax than the poorer families. Families that live on a different scale not only use sugar in tea, but also in the form of confectionery, jams, sweets, and so on. A higher proportion would be contributed by these people. Also the very large farmer is likely to contribute a proportion of the total by way of petrol tax, but on the other hand, if he does that, to some extent it meets the complaint of those who say that the very large farmer should get nothing at all.
We examined the various proposals put forward, and we were satisfied that if time did not matter in this connection it would be better to adopt the recommendations of the majority commission for increasing agricultural production. It is really meant, in fact, to aid the activities which the Department of Agriculture is already carrying on. The difficulty in that connection was that the absorption of the community for schemes of education and of improvement is limited, and if we tried to greatly increase the activities of the Department of Agriculture we were not getting good value for the money at all, and even if we were to get the best of value it would be some years before a great result would be obtained. De-rating enables something to be given in a year when things are difficult for the agricultural community, and when a certain fall is taking place not only in general prices but in agricultural prices. That fall had, in fact, already taken place to a very large extent in agricultural prices before the present juncture was reached at all. This is a speedy way of giving relief to the great majority of farmers, and giving it, on the whole, with as much fairness as even a more complicated scheme might permit. The most complicated scheme that could be devised for relief of this type cannot get over the fact that the man who pays £1 in rates can only be relieved to the extent of £1.