When I was speaking on this Bill last night I was endeavouring to explain to the House that in five counties in the West of Ireland, according to recent statistics, there was an area of 2,400 acres put into cultivation for the production of wheat out of an approximate area of five million acres, as compared with 26,000 acres out of an approximate 11 million acres elsewhere throughout the country, where the land is a great deal better. That amounts to this, that the bounties are going to be distributed amongst the owners of the richer, ploughable lands, roughly about 1¼ millions of people. The admitted injustice which accompanies the distribution of the agricultural grants at the present moment will thereby be very considerably intensified.
When the Minister brought forward this Bill I think what was in his mind was a very honest endeavour to adjust the conflict between the individual and national standpoint as regards grass and tillage. In my opinion, however, it is not really in the individual or the national interest to submit a scheme which will benefit just over half of the agricultural population, the people who live on the richer lands, at the expense of half a million of people who live on the poorer lands. To my mind, the expense will be borne entirely by the poorer elements, those people who are not likely to produce considerable quantities of millable wheat and who experience, at the moment, a difficulty in procuring a market for their produce.
I always thought the late Government lacked vision in the matter of curing the unemployment problem.
I am in favour of a remunerative subsidy which will put our people to work, as I said at the beginning of the debate. I think the idea of increasing tillage, if it can be soundly and wisely done, is an excellent one. But if, at the same time, you adopt a political policy which is deliberately and admittedly calculated to do away with our overseas markets, the Government have made an economic tillage policy practically impossible. More tillage requires more farmyard manure. It requires not only more artificials but the best of all aids to tillage, farmyard manure. That presupposes more stock and more stock requires that there should be a market for the surplus additional to the present surplus. As a result of the present policy, that market is vanishing very rapidly and I am afraid will soon disappear altogether.
As regards the question of manure, I should like to refer to some of the reports published at different times by the Department in their technical journal. They state very clearly that farmyard manure has been produced in progressively increasing quantities in relation to the area tilled. That is the opinion of experts. It is the basic point of any tillage scheme which is undertaken. Three and a half million cattle, exclusive of the stores and fattening beasts which we are carrying now, are barely sufficient to manure the tillage we have got, not to speak of the top dressing of grass land. That will have to go by the board, or shall we have to use artificials as best we can? If we are to make any employment scheme of this kind a real success, we must almost double the number of stock. I think that the only chance for success of this scheme is to seek closer relations with the overseas market, rather than antagonise them, as we have done.
I should like to return for a moment to what I was saying yesterday. That had to do with the question of additional population and the potential consumption of our own products. After the debate last night, Senator Johnson very kindly corrected the figure I gave, which was 60,000 tons for an additional million. So as to leave myself on the safe side, I doubled the original figure on which I reckoned and gave the margin to the promoters of the Bill. The actual ascertained figure, Senator Johnson tells us, is 69 lbs., so that an extra million would consume 30,000 tons of live-stock products. We are at present feeding our population and, over and above that, we are exporting 130,000 tons of live-stock products in the shape of meat. We import 26,000 tons and even then we have a surplus of 104,000 tons. Add another 2,000,000 to the population and you have still a large surplus. If you till more, you have a larger surplus still and you must get rid of it in some way. That is entirely exclusive of the 8,000 tons of fish which we eat and export at the present moment. All these figures are taken straight from the Statistical Abstract for last year and wherever there was a margin in favour of the Ministry, I have given it and wherever the figures in favour of my argument were doubtful, I have taken the whole figure down to the last "one" or the last "nought." If you apply pounds, shillings and pence to these figures, you get the following result: We have been promised a saving of £9½ million. We are losing, by getting rid of the present market, about £19½ million. Deduct our imports of £2½ million and the total loss is £17½ million—that is, instead of doubling our stock and getting from £38 million to £40 million. I think it is a terrible responsibility knowingly—when I say "knowingly," I mean with the figures of the Statistical Abstract before us, which the farmer has not got—to put before the people a wrong course like this from which—if it is not a success—it will be extremely difficult to recover. To come here and say that you have already induced these unfortunate people to engage to grow 65,000 acres of wheat is a very serious thing.
Again, the Minister mentioned that people are now eating meat who never ate it before. Why? Because it is being hawked around. Take a 40 lb. wether; it was being hawked around at 4d per lb. People have lately got so completely sick of it that they will not buy it at all. At 4d per lb., the wether is sold at 13/4. Last August, the price would have been from 32/- to 35/-. That is the explanation of the people eating more meat. Touching on what Senator MacEllin told the House about a fortnight ago, that Britain will never be able to do without our cattle, I should like to mention a letter which I received from a big North of England farmer recently. He said: "A short time ago I stocked 80 heifers in the spring. I am doubling the number this year. A good many of my neighbours are doing much the same and we will soon be independent of you fellows over there." There are probably other people in other parts doing the same and if we let this movement grow there will certainly be a greatly reduced demand for our stock and no demand for the additional surplus which I maintain very definitely any tillage scheme will demand. A lot of difficulties are being suggested. I do not pay a lot of attention to them. The farmer is a tradesman and a highly skilled one at that. He knows all about the weather and he knows how to handle labour. Provided he has the land, he will overcome most of those difficulties but he will not, throughout this country year in and year out, be able to produce a uniform quality of wheat approaching in any way what can be imported from Canada. It will be good enough. Further, without the use of machinery he will not be able to get as good a return for his efforts as he gets at present, and if a high figure of rationalisation is introduced much of the value of the tillage scheme as a means of giving employment will automatically disappear.
I had forgotten one point about the wheat scheme. That is the question of failures. Senator Comyn said that if a wheat crop fails, you can always set another crop. But it takes about £9 in cash to set and put into the sack an acre of wheat, allowing for the various incidentals but not allowing for rent or rates. If it fails, it is going to cost you £4 8s. 0d. more That is a rather important point. Again, you cannot set that fresh crop if it is spring wheat that is in question and very little autumn wheat can be set here except in very dry parts. To sum up, the expansion rather than the restriction of our overseas market for livestock is essential to any increase of tillage. Lacking the advantages of an overseas market, employment in the growing of wheat will be of a seasonal nature only and will be of little advantage to unemployed workers. The conditions which obtain in the Saorstát make the cultivation of barley and oats, as well as wheat, desirable and efforts in this direction will in consequence provide more constant employment to a larger number of workers. The distribution of the proposed bounty on wheat will operate to the advantage of the richer counties and will at the same time lower the standard of living in the poorer ones. It is desirable to restrict the purchase of maize from countries of origin which make no appreciable purchases from the Saorstát in return, rather than whole wheat, which can be purchased from countries with which there is a trade agreement. The Bill appears to visualise an army of inspectors but I hope that most of the work will be carried out by the young man whom the Department keeps to sharpen up the "bad" farmers and who nearly got a pike in his chest when he went to tell Senator Wilson to cut his thistles.
Now, sir, nations have become great by reason of their trade rather than their isolation. Will the problematical saving of a problematical £9,500,000 compensate for our loss of trade with Empire customers and the resulting credits which we must lay up abroad in order to provide for the imports of those raw materials which not only any progress in industry but ordinary existence will continue to require? If we are to subsidise a tillage scheme I suggest that we concentrate on barley and oats, both of which can be more easily grown than wheat.
[The Cathaoirleach resumed the Chair.]
I have been, I think, sympathetic and not destructive, and for a moment I want to be constructive as regards the scheme. I suggest that in Committee of the House we might consider what amendments to insert in order to correct any faults in the measure. The bounties are a mere bagatelle in these days. In the first case the bounties should be expended so as to make the Bill just to the whole country and oats and barley should be included as well as wheat. Then there must be housing grants. The farmers must have some place in which they can put their corn. There are lots of farms where they have got nothing whatever and there are hundreds of farmers who will be growing this wheat and they will be clamouring for implements. At present they have not got any implements to grow either wheat, oats or barley. In order to make the scheme a success it is essential that the House should feel that it is on the right lines.
If the Government want the people to help them, they must help us, and the way they can best help us is by making some attempt to restore the British markets for the sale of our surplus produce. If the Government fail to do that, the tillage scheme as a means of employment and as a means of producing wealth will be of no use whatever and will only lead to disaster. I am afraid I have kept the House for too long a period. I trust the Minister and the House will realise that I have not spoken as I have on this Bill from any partisan motives whatever and that I have looked at it from the purely national point of view with a view to increasing the wealth of the country and to increasing employment in the country. I only wish to point out the imperfections in the scheme. The scheme has to be properly remodelled and if it is it might be considerably improved.