Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Oct 1933

Vol. 17 No. 22

Funding of Land Commission Annuities. - Motion by Senator Counihan.

Mr. Counihan

I move the motion standing in my name:—

That in view of the depressed conditions at present existing in the farming industry owing to the operation of British tariffs on agricultural exports the Seanad recommends the Executive Council to take steps to fund the Land Commission annuities falling due in November and December of this year.

I want to assure the House that my only object in moving this motion, which I hope the Seanad will pass, is to try to induce the Government to afford this much-needed relief to our farmers. I also hope that the discussion on this motion to-day will induce the Government to take stock of the situation of the country and of the position to which the country is drifting if this dispute with England is not settled immediately. I have been told that I should have included in my motion the remission of all rates on agricultural land as well. I considered the proposal and I agreed that if all rates and annuities were remitted it would be very little compensation to the farmers for the loss of their markets, but I have taken into account that this motion for the funding of the annuities falling due in November and December next will be no loss to the State and no loss to the Government. Consequently, I have confined the motion to the funding of the Land Commission annuities.

In asking to have the annuities funded for this year I am asking only for a small concession. I am not an advocate of the non-payment of rates and annuities but I say that it is not right or just for the Government to demand annuities from the farmers during the period in which they have already paid these annuities to the British Government four times over in the shape of duties on their exports. I also make the appeal to the Government to grant this concession on the grounds of the farmers' inability to pay. The farmer cannot pay rates or annuities or anything else out of the profits he has made on his land for the last two years.

If the Government compels the farmers to pay these charges they will be only compelling them to pay out of capital which they badly require for the working of their land or out of moneys which they owed to the banks, the merchants or the shopkeepers—money which is not their own. I know farmers in many parts of the country who were two or three years ago able to afford a motor car and to live in comfortable circumstances but who are in the position to-day that all the stock in their land, if sold, would not pay their rates or annuities. These are the crippled soldiers of the economic war. I say it is up to the Government to consider these farmers and to accede to the request which I hope the Seanad will make.

I make this statement, and it has been made time and again by responsible representatives in the Dáil and in this House, that we have paid our annuities to the British Government four times over since the start of the economic war. That statement has been disputed by many members of the Executive Council and by many supporters of Fianna Fáil. The Minister for Agriculture stated that the farmers were getting only 18/- per head less for their cattle than was being paid to the farmers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Other statements were made that prices in this country were quite as good as they were in any part of England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The foolish statement was even made that the people in Northern Ireland were sending cattle and other agricultural produce across the Border in order to have them sold in the Free State markets. I do not want to say anything further about those statements because that sort of argument would not deceive a child. I will instance how the tariffs are affecting me, and I am sure I can prove that I have paid my land annuities to the British Government four times over. My average annuities would amount to slightly over £1 per acre, and most of my land would fatten, during the grazing season, a bullock to the Irish acre. On that bullock that I export, I pay £6 to the British Government in duty and I receive from the Irish Government 35/- in bounties. Taking 35/- from £6 you have left £4 5s., which I am directly out of pocket because I am paying it to the British Government since the land annuities were withheld from the British Government. I am consequently paying £4 5s. and land annuities, together with a demand made upon me to pay my land annuities again to the Land Commissiou.

I have here a sale note which I got from Birkenhead last week for the sale of 25 cattle. The Minister can have a look at it. The 25 cattle sold at Birkenhead at £14 a head made £350 and I have returned to me out of that £350, £172 18s. 8d. There are some ordinary charges but the Customs charge on those 25 cattle is £146—£6 apiece on 23 and £4 apiece on two. I, therefore, contend that no man can dispute that that £146, of which I get 35/- a head back, represents £4 5s. a head which I am paying to the British Government for the 25 acres of land on which those 25 cattle were fed. I hope that that will finish the statements that have been made that we are not paying our land annuities and that the British buyer is paying portion of the tariffs. No matter what the British buyer is paying, we are paying directly £4 5s. out of our pockets. We pay £6 and we get 35/- back, which means £4 5s. for every acre of fattening land is paid to the British Government for the retention of the land annuities, and in most cases these land annuities would be very slightly over £1 per Irish acre.

The farmers are the only sufferers in the present dispute with England. They are paying practically all the duties on the exports; they are paying most of the import duties; they have lost their 10 per cent. preference and they have lost their markets. They have been told to do something different from what they have been doing and everything will come all right and that prosperity awaits them if they follow the schemes advocated by the Government. None of those promises has materialised. We were told to grow more oats, to fatten more pigs, to have more tillage, and we would be prosperous. We have seen what has happened in the case of oats. The Minister for Agriculture is going frantic trying to get somebody to buy oats and relieve the farmers of what they cannot store, but nobody is going to buy, nobody is going to feed anything because nothing pays the cost of production. That has stopped the sale of the oats. We are told to produce more pigs. A quota has now been put on pigs, and the quota for the month has been used up in a fortnight or three weeks and we are left stranded with our pigs for the balance of the month and cannot turn them into cash except at ridiculously low prices well under the cost of production. What are we going to do with the surplus produce unless we burn it?

It has been said that if we produced oats and went in for more tillage, everything would come right. What do we want oats or any feeding stuff for unless we are going to produce and to make beef, bacon and mutton? That is the only thing we have tillage for. Looking at our imports and exports since this policy was adopted by Fianna Fáil, we see that in the period September, 1931, to August, 1932, we exported 711,786 cattle, which realised £11,294,667. We come then to the period of the economic war, September, 1932, to August, 1933—there is a little portion of the economic war in the previous period—and we find that we exported 585,082 cattle, which realised £6,503,000, a loss of £5,000,000 in our cattle alone. In sheep, we exported 522,872 in 1931-32, which realised £942,722, and in 1932-33 we exported 348,000—a little more than half—at a value of £388,159, about one-third of the value. We exported in the 1931-32 period 416,672 pigs of a value of £1,616,755, and in the 1932-33 period, 190,884 pigs—practically one-third—of a value of £415,250, practically one-third of the former value.

Mr. Dowdall

Would I be in order in asking the Senator what he is quoting from?

Mr. Counihan

I am quoting from the statistics in the Free State returns.

Mr. Dowdall

Of the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. Counihan

Of the Department of Agriculture and not as made up by myself. The same thing applies to horses, poultry, eggs and every other form of agricultural produce. Our total trade for the period 1931-32 was £80,366,644, and for the same period in 1932-33 it was £55,790,000, a reduction of £25,000,000 in our total trade. When all these things are adverted to, I say that if it is going to continue, the outlook for the country is very serious and black. We have certainly imported less maize, but I should very much prefer to see imports with increasing exports. We see by the papers to-day that the Danes are rushing headlong to England following an intimation that their quota in bacon was to be cut down. What are our people trying to do to save our quota and what are they doing to save our markets? I heard from a man who had been in Denmark lately that in practically every cinema and shop window all over the city there are placards with the inscription "Buy British Goods—Buy from those who buy from us." What does one see all over this country? "Boycott British Goods." Still we want to sell our goods and get the same preference for them as the Danes or other members of the British Commonwealth are getting in the British market. Those things are starting us in the face, and any man with any common sense or any man who has any regard for the prosperity of the country must look very seriously on them. I put it to the Seanad—can nothing be done to rectify this position or to try to fix it up? The President says that we might as well look for the moon as to get back the British markets. I do not believe that. I think, if a little common sense or a little goodwill were displayed by the President or somebody else in authority in the State, that the British market could be got back and that in a couple of years we would find ourselves in the same position as we occupied hitherto. At all events we would be doing something to try to regain prosperity and to try to hold out some incentive to work to the farmers who are thoroughly disheartened by the present position.

Miss Browne

I beg to second the motion and to support and endorse everything Senator Counihan has said. I come from a tillage country. The ridiculous term, "ranchers," has never been applied to us, but we are in a more desperate condition, perhaps, than any other part of the country. I was in the district between Ferns and Enniscorthy yesterday—the greatest barley growing area in Ireland. The barley market has been stopped there after a very limited sale and the barley as well as practically the whole crop of oats has been left on the people's lands. Outside Ulster my county also is the largest pig producing county in Ireland. Up to the present the farmers there could sell their pigs and make at least their expenses if they did not make any profit. Now that has stopped. Hundreds of pigs remain unsold there, and they will have to be held until the next "quota" comes on. The quota ban is to be taken off from the 1st November. Then for a week pigs will be on sale again, but after a week the quota ban will be applied once more. It is estimated that pigs can only be exported for about a week until the quota is filled again. That is a desperate state of affairs, so serious that no language could describe it adequately, not to mention exaggerating it.

Senator Counihan has put his motion in very moderate terms indeed. It is the same story with every branch of farming. The cattle and sheep trade, of course, was the sheet-anchor, the backbone of agriculture in this country. Small farmers as well as large farmers were dependent on it. The tillage farmer depended on it as well as the farmer who had grass. The small farmer depended on the sale of three or four cattle to pay his land annuities and rates. He kept his family and paid his shop bills out of the smaller items—butter making and poultry rearing. When I come to speak of poultry, I find it difficult to find words to express what I feel at the destruction of that industry. It is a woman's industry in Ireland. Again in my county we produce more poultry than any other county in Ireland outside Ulster. Statistics will show that. We did a very fine trade in poultry through Rosslare. The cottiers, mind you, are suffering as much from the loss of the poultry trade as the farmers. Every cottage that I know in my part of the country could send its box of poultry through Rosslare and have it in the London shops on the following morning. A great amount of money came into each house through this trade, and the loss of that money is a very serious matter indeed. I am very much surprised that the Minister for Agriculture is not present to deal with this motion. Is it that a proper sense of shame is coming over him at last, or that he is afraid to face such a motion? He had the audacity to come down to my county last Sunday week and indulge in his usual tirade of absolutely false statements. He promised the Wexford farmers that after another week or ten days all the oats would be out of the county. Not only has that not been done but all this year's oats and last year's oats are there still. We grow black oats in County Wexford, but now no possible use can be made of them. I am glad to see that the millers' representatives refused to present the people with black bread, the war bread.

What is the Minister going to do with the oats? Whose money is going to pay for the present brilliant scheme that is being proposed under which the Government will buy the crop themselves? What are they going to do with the oats? What is going to be done with it next June? Is it going to be thrown on top of last year's oats in the stores? The condition of the country is absolutely desperate at the present moment. One would imagine from reading the speech of Mr. Lemass in the paper this morning that we were rolling in wealth and that the industries of the country were flourishing. All his industries are not worth a button so long as the agricultural industry is destroyed. Of course his statements, like all Government statements, are gross exaggerations. I have read statements that have been made in those areas where the beet factories are to be established and I say here that the same deceitful statements are being made about them as were made about wheat and other things. People are being given an absolutely false idea of what that industry is going to do for them at the price the Government is offering for beet. In my county and in the ten other beet growing counties, we have to accept 9/- per ton less than what the Carlow factory paid us. I defy anyone to produce figures to show me that any farmer can make £11 per acre on beet at the price the Government is at present offering.

Senator Counihan has mentioned the "boycott British goods" campaign. I think, in that connection, we can remember a certain very dangerous society condemned by the Church which brought about by its dreadful actions the first Public Safety Act. It is well known that the name of the society which was called Saor Eire in 1931 has now been changed to the Boycott British League, a Communistic society whose aim is to destroy the social structure of this country. It is very well known that although the name has been changed the same people who formed and ran Saor Eire are now running the British Boycott League. I could talk until morning, but I could not say anything that would add to the force of Senator Counihan's very able statement in regard to the seriousness of the present situation. The least I think that the Government might do is to grant the very modest request put forward in this motion, that the land annuities falling due in the last two months of this year should be funded. That would be very small compensation indeed for the terrible losses which the farmers are suffering up to the present. It is not the farmers alone who are suffering; the farm labourer and the poor people in the cottages are suffering just as much as the large farmer. I hope the Seanad will pass this motion, and show that this House at any rate has some sense and a realisation of the serious state this country is in.

Mr. Dowdall

Since within one month of the start of what is called the economic war, Senator Counihan has preached a consistent wail here that the country is going to the dogs and that we are all being ruined. His attitude reminds me very forcibly of a poem written, strange to say, by an Australian, "We will all be ruined, says Hanrahan." First, he was going to be ruined by persistent drought and then by persistent rain, and when the crops grew flourishingly he decided that inevitably they would have forest fires. I am sorry to see that Senator Counihan's wail has been taken up, but I regard it as a deliberate attempt to create an atmosphere of insolvency in this country. If Senator Counihan would take the coloured glasses from his eyes and make a comparison of the quantities of agricultural produce imported from other countries into Britain with the figures which he has quoted in relation to this country, he will see that they have declined at least as much in value as our exports of agricultural produce. When Senator Counihan comes here to talk about Denmark, I would advise him to read the Daily Mail occasionally. Two years ago the Daily Mail was shouting week after week, while not putting it in so many words, to boycott Danish goods: that the Danes bought practically nothing from them. It would be some help to Senator Counihan's political and economic education if he were to take up and study the returns dealing with imports and exports relating to different countries. He will, no doubt, find them in the library. In those returns he will get figures showing the amount that Denmark purchases from Britain either per head or in the aggregate, and can make a comparison with the purchases of this country from Britain. If he does that he will find that the balance is altogether in favour of England— that our purchases from England are much larger than the purchases made by Denmark. In saying that I am not attempting to support any such organisation as “boycott British.” I am simply dealing with the facts which I know. Senator Counihan comes along and says that in the shop windows in Copenhagen and other places in Denmark notices are displayed to the effect “Purchase British.” That may be, but the fact of the matter is that our purchases of British goods are six, seven, eight or ten times per head larger than the purchases made by the Danes. I have said that I regard this motion as a deliberate attempt to create an atmosphere of insolvency in this country. We are told that the farmers cannot pay. I say that there is a conspiracy amongst some people to ensure that they will not pay.

Mr. O'Hanlon

Prove it.

Mr. Dowdall

I am going to give one concrete example that has been thoroughly examined and analysed. That is the celebrated case of the Clonmel cattle, where a man would not pay rates or death or succession duties. It was not a case of not paying annuities at all. What were the rates? They were not this year's rates but last year's rates. Members of an organised force which is attempting to create an atmosphere of inability to pay—700 of them—attended at the first sale. When that first sale proved ineffective a prominent supporter of the movement boasted: "We won the first round hands down"—that is to say, not to pay last year's rates or the death or succession duties. My information on this has been obtained from Press reports, from which we learn that 1,000 farmers—I do not know if they were farmers, but at any rate 1,000 persons interested in this organisation to create an atmosphere of insolvency in this country—turned up at the second sale, which was also ineffective. When the cattle were brought to Dublin and the Government insisted on governing, the staff work was so good that at the place where the cattle were driven to be stored the poor woman who kept it said: "Take your cattle away; it would ruin my business to take them in." When a bid was eventually made for the cattle——

Mr. O'Hanlon

By whom?

Mr. Dowdall

It does not matter by whom. Everybody knows the details. When a bid was made the people—the hooligans—who were there to create disorder and to prevent the sale and break the law, did not know by whom the bid was made.

Mr. O'Hanlon

Hooligans!

Mr. Dowdall

A physical outrage was committed on the man. The very gentlemanly assistant leader of the Opposition or deputy-leader of the Opposition said—it shows what he knows about the country—"Oh, yes, such things are done in undergraduate circles." We all know what an undergraduate rag is. We know what it is compared to the assault that would have been committed on that man if he had not succeeded in getting away.

Mr. Milroy

What about the assaults that were committed in Tralee?

Mr. Dowdall

I am making no attempt to justify the assaults that were committed in Tralee and I hope that those who committed them will be brought to justice. Will those who are attempting to create an atmosphere of insolvency say the same with regard to their particular activities? With an experience of 40 years I claim to know a little about the dairying and butter trade in this country and other countries. I say that the price the farmers have got for butter this past year in Limerick, South Tipperary and North Cork has been higher than the average pre-war price.

Mr. O'Hanlon

But who has been paying it?

Mr. Dowdall

You and I, and the working men and citizens of this State. The fact is that relief to that extent is being given to the farmer. Who is paying for it does not enter into it very largely.

Mr. O'Hanlon

Of course it does.

Mr. Dowdall

It does not. I repeat that the average price paid for butter this past year has been higher than the average pre-war price. That is due altogether practically to the scheme formulated by the Government, under which the urban and city dweller pays an increased price. It is he who pays. The Government have so arranged it that in the only market over which we have control the farmer in this country will get an economic price for his produce.

Miss Browne

And pay the English people to consume it.

Cathaoirleach

I do not think you ought to interrupt, Senator Miss Browne. You had an opportunity of making a very good case.

Mr. Dowdall

According to this motion these men are to be relieved of the payment of their annuities, which are only half of what the pre-war annuities were, even though the price they are getting for their butter is higher than the pre-war average. In spite of all that Senator Counihan tells us that they are now paying four times their annuities. The figures given by the Right Honourable J.H. Thomas do not agree with those given by Senator Counihan.

Mr. Counihan

I gave those in my own case.

Mr. Dowdall

The only difference is that the Right Honourable J.H. Thomas seems to have given specific figures, whereas Senator Counihan deals in generalities. It is well to get rid of cant. I am not speaking loosely when I speak of certain people trying to create an atmosphere of insolvency. It is well for the farmer to bear in mind that the only title which he has got to the land is that he pays for it— that he pays his debts and pays his annuities. I know the farmers of this country all my life, and I have a very high opinion of them. I have not been dealing with farmers for the last 40 years without knowing that the rank and file of them are honest men, anxious to fulfil their obligations. In hard times the farmers have to get credit facilities and they get them because they are honest men, and such men as those do not want to facilitate the continuance of the economic war by creating an atmosphere of insecurity and insolvency in the country.

Mr. Fanning

I would like to ask Senator Dowdall if he is of opinion that Mr. Ryan, Chairman of the South County Tipperary County Council, ranks in his opinion as a hooligan.

Sir John Keane

Senator Counihan has adopted the same line of argument as the Government in treating this whole problem in the aggregate. If you pay so much in duties you make so much less but, on the other hand, you gain so much by the non-payment of annuities. The one exceeds the other and, therefore, you are, to that extent, so much better off. That may apply to the agricultural industry as a whole, and even there I dispute it, but if it did apply to the agricultural industry as a whole it is not the only aspect. Senator Dowdall says the dairy farmer is better off now than at any time in the past. I do not dispute that, but what about the dry stock farmer and the grazier? The grazier is an honest man of business, though some people may not like his methods, and he should be treated fairly. The Government ought to be fair, and they should recognise that a certain class of the farming community has been brought almost to destitution by their policy. Others, of course, may be no worse off than they were, but the Government should be fair. They should take individual cases into consideration, and not lose sight of those people who cannot pay their way owing to the Government's policy and its influence on farming. They should take cognisance of these individual cases, and they should deal with them on their merits. If only 10 per cent. cannot pay their way owing to the Government's policy it is the duty of the Government to come to their rescue. It is not fair that the Government should force this 10 per cent. of the people to sell under cost of production in order to meet their obligations.

Mr. O'Rourke

I support Senator Counihan in this motion. I am surprised to find a man like Senator Dowdall taking up such an attitude as he has taken up with regard to the farmers of Waterford and Tipperary, and accusing them of hooliganism because they came up to Dublin in sympathy with their fellow-men who could not pay their rates or rent. In all the agitation against the British Government in the old days Senator Dowdall stood by the people whom he is prepared to describe as hooligans to-day. I come from a tillage county which does the largest amount of tillage in Ireland after Wexford, that is the County Monaghan, and I say that the people there are unable to pay their way. I challenge Senator Dowdall to come with me to the County Monaghan and I will show him the difference between conditions to-day and what they were two years ago. We are being bled to death; we are getting poorer and poorer every day, and so long as this Government is in power we will continue to get poorer until we are driven out of business.

Senator Connolly told us some time ago that the economic war was a blessing in disguise. I am afraid a lot of people think that. In Carrickmacross the other day there were 300 pigs in the market 2 cwts. each, and they sold for 25/- a cwt. That is a terrible state of affairs. At the last cattle fair one and a half year old bullocks sold for £3 10s. apiece. No farmer could live under these conditions, but the ordinary town dweller does not understand the significance of these things. The ordinary person does not realise what these prices mean. It is as if one said that members of the Executive Council should be paid only £100 a year each; that doctors should only get 1/- per visit, and that the dock workers on the quayside should only get 4d. an hour. We who live amongst the farmers know that they are only getting these prices while they have to pay a higher price themselves for everything owing to protection. I admit, of course, that butter is sold at the present time at a good price, but it is the Government and the taxpayers who are financing it. The taxpayers themselves, including the farmers, pay a price in order to send our surplus butter over to feed John Bull at a cost of 8d. per pound, while the citizen in the Free State have to pay 1/3 per pound for it. The farmer has to sell everything he produces at a price below the cost of production while he has to pay extra for everything he buys. He has to pay 10/- a ton extra on English coal because of the import duty. He has to pay extra on his machinery. He has to pay extra for his implements, spades, shovels, buckets and everything else. How can that go on? If it continues for two years longer there will not be a solvent farmer in the County Monaghan.

If the Government press for the annuities in November they may get them by seizing the farmers' cattle, as they did in the County Waterford. When they can get nobody in this country to buy them they send them over to England, but the result will be that the county councils will get no rates. The only chance the county councils have of getting their rates would be if the Government gave a moratorium on the land annuities for November. I got a demand for my annuities this morning. In my opinion if the Government insist on the collection of these November annuities no county council in the Free State will be able to function. The only chance these local bodies have of carrying on is if the Government do not insist upon the payment of the annuities in November.

Then again let us look at the conditions in the small towns outside the industrial centres, which means the vast bulk of the towns in this country. The Government claim that they have done a lot for industry. I do not deny that they have done something, but very little has been given to the small towns of 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants. The people in these towns live on the farmers. When the farmers are down they cannot make purchases in the towns adjoining them. I went to the fair of Ballybay a short time ago and there were simply no people there. There was no business being done. The shopkeepers were getting no money. The fact is that if you bring the farmers down you bring the whole community, including the small towns, down.

Mr. Jameson

There was one note in Senator Dowdall's speech that I did not like to hear in the Seanad. He practically said that the ventilation of this subject was going to do financial injury to the country and that it was done more or less for that purpose. He used the word "conspiracy" which we hear so often at the present time. I do not like to hear any Senator say, because of the views we are expressing and the statements we are making, that there is anything in the nature of a conspiracy amongst us to do damage to the country and that is what Senator Dowdall practically implied. Of course, you can always abuse the plaintiff's attorney and so he turned on to Senator Counihan and pitched into him, but he did not refute his facts as far as I could hear. He did not tell us that the British are not getting their annuities out of the duties which they are collecting on our cattle and agricultural produce. I believe that there is a credit in the British Exchequer to the annuities account made out of the sale of our agricultural produce in Great Britain. Where is it coming from? Who is paying it? Somebody must have produced that money. The British have got it anyway.

Mr. MacEllin

That is not so.

Mr. Jameson

Again, he did not tell us that the ordinary citizen here is not paying anything to the farmer to enable him to sell even at present prices in the British market. He did not tell us that the British are not making anything from the duties. If he could tell us that none of us was paying anything in the way of bounties to the farmers then he would probably have a case. But Senator Counihan is pretty right. If the British are making money out of the importation of the stock and agricultural produce they get from the Free State, and if the other citizens of this country are paying our farmers a bounty to enable them to sell their produce in the British market, Senator Dowdall has not proven his case. Does the Senator mean to tell us that the British are extracting duties from Danish butter and the other produce that they are importing from other countries? I have not heard of it. I have not heard of the Danes giving bounties to their butter exporters or of Canada giving large bounties to the people sending cattle to Great Britain. As far as the ordinary citizen looking at the matter can see, there is a very great difference between the trading now carried on with Great Britain by the Irish Free State and the trading carried on by any other country, such as New Zealand, Australia or Canada.

Mr. Dowdall

The Senator is not correct in saying what he has just said. Australia does subsidise her exports.

Mr. Milroy

To what extent?

Cathaoirleach

There is a subsidy on butter exported from Australia.

Mr. Jameson

I leave butter out of it. We are paying 1/4 a lb. for butter. We know where the money is coming from. That is a small industry compared with the others. The Free State case that has been put up by Senator Counihan is totally different in many aspects from that of any other country which is carrying on trade with Great Britain. Great Britain is making money to go to the credit of its annuities account and the farmers here are paying that. That is Senator Counihan's point. I did not hear Senator Dowdall say anything about that or show us that the British were not collecting any money for the annuities; that the Irish citizen was not paying considerable bounties on a great many things which other countries are not paying. Australia may pay some bounty, but it is a very small thing compared with what the Free State is paying. Great Britain is dealing with every European country under different conditions from the conditions under which she is dealing with the Free State. Senator Counihan is right when he says that conditions are getting very much worse. Any sane business community trading a good deal with a great country like Great Britain would be straining every nerve at the present moment to get to windward of the other nations who are also trying to deal with Great Britain. Instead of that, what are we doing? We are quarrelling with Great Britain. I do not say that the Government are in the least responsible. I am sure that they are putting down this anti-British boycott as much as they can. I will give them credit for that. But there it is. At the present moment that is being used greatly against the Irish Free State and we have no compensating Government effort to try to help us to fight against that. The conditions are getting bad. Take the bacon situation which we have disclosed to-day. Look at the situation there. What knowledge have we that our Government have done anything to sit down with the British authorities and try and get better terms for our bacon than these? During my lifetime I have never known any Irishman sit down alongside English people to do any business that they did not get very favourable treatment. There is not the slightest doubt about it. That favourable treatment is waiting there if we only make an effort to try and get it. This quarrel is not only affecting us in Great Britain. The feeling that we are quarrelling with our standing in the British Commonwealth is having very considerable influence against us with the various other nations in the Commonwealth. We are not liked. Stating these things does not mean that there is a conspiracy. The sooner they are appreciated the better. Our Government is not at present helping the best business of the country. We will not be able to carry on in the present condition of affairs in the world if we have not a Government doing everything they can to help our trade in every corner of the world, principally of course in Great Britain. If we quarrel with Great Britain we quarrel as a consequence with a huge part of the earth. We ought to consider that and not be arguing amongst ourselves as to whether this or that individual is right politically. If our Government does not wake up to the fact that our trade is going backwards because of the present condition of affairs and if they continue on the same line they are now pursuing, everything that Senators Counihan and O'Rourke say is going to happen will happen.

Mr. O'Connor

I entirely concur in everything that Senator Counihan has said with regard to the price of cattle. I was surprised at what Senator Dowdall brought in as an illustration of the times and of an atmosphere of conspiracy, and I entirely repudiate it on behalf of the farming class. I resent very strongly the implication that the people who attended the sale of the cattle in Prussia Street were a set of hooligans. There were special friends of mine there from Tipperary. I am not ashamed of them. I look upon the people who went there from Tipperary as old friends. I do not think they should be called hooligans, because they attended as a matter of principle. Perhaps their action would not be approved of by other people whose opinions of what is right and wrong might be somewhat sensitive. Many people from Kildare were there, too. Because they attended that sale they should not be called out of their proper name. Owing to the atmosphere of insolvency that has been talked of, the sympathy of those who attended the sale was with the farmers.

The statement made by Senator Counihan is a true one of present circumstances, despite what may be said to the contrary. The position of the farmers has gone from bad to worse. They are almost in despair. I have avoided saying anything about this dispute because I thought it would only be a short time until it was settled. The time has come, as I anticipated, when, if such an attempt is not made by the Government there will be bankruptcy and, if care is not taken, there might be rebellion, because the patience of the people can be exhausted. As a friend, I appeal as strongly as I can to the Government, because I wish to see our country prosperous and contended, that even at the eleventh hour some steps should be taken to restore the confidence that existed here. I have been associated with the English market for perhaps 30 years. I crossed to England every week to attend the markets. I have a very close acquaintance with the outlook of the English people, and, having been dealing with one firm in the cattle trade for years, I must say that I never saw them change, once they had formed a good opinion and believed that they were getting fair play and that there was fair dealing on the part of those with whom they did business. I do not like to hear of statements about boycotting British goods and other things by a very irresponsible class that is out for mischief in this country. I give credit to the Government for making an effort to put down that conduct. At the same time there is a certain element that always asserts itself when there is a dispute on, and that takes advantage of it to do things that the people are against. I say distinctly that it is the duty of the Government to deal with the present situation in order to restore confidence amongst the farming people and to give them a chance of looking forward to better times.

About a month ago the firm with which I am associated sent 100 head of cattle to England on behalf of a client. We had to pay £564 duty on the consignment, and the owner got a return of 35/- per head. Where did the balance of the money go? Mr. Thomas has made a very good job of his proposals owing to the stoppage of payment of the annuities. It was no exaggeration of Senator Counihan when he mentioned that the loss on young cattle from three years old, and up to a certain weight, amounts to £4 10s. or £5 per head. It is a question for the Government when that state of affairs is going to end. The longer it lasts the more difficult it will become. It is hopeless to think that this country can prosper in present circumstances. The sooner the Government realises the foolishness of keeping on this economic war the better. It will show more sense by restoring confidence to the people. Senator Dowdall referred to the butter question. All the butter in County Limerick will not wash away the hardships that the people have endured. The Government has advised the people to till more land and to grow more wheat. I am interested in the pig trade, and I looked forward to selling a large number of pigs within the next fortnight. Owing to the British quota that has been set up there will be a reduction of £1 or 30/- per head in the returns. Wheat is being sold at present at 17/- a barrel. I have oats in my stores. The price of wheat would hardly pay for the labour required to deal with it. We are told that we are to have more tillage and more small farms.

It is a mistake to think that agricultural conditions can be changed here. When tillage was compulsory during the war, at great loss I tilled land, which was practically fattening land. I consider it will result in a loss if people are compelled to grow more wheat or to have more tillage. That policy is more or less a reflection on the intelligence of those who are trying to live by agriculture. A man who has studied the question knows best if it is in his interest to till land. He should be allowed to be the judge on that matter. From experience I know that small farmers turned to the rearing of calves from tillage and that they had some return for their labour until the unfortunate economic war started. The change that has been made is affecting the position of small farmers now, because they have experienced losses that they never expected. I appeal strongly to the Government to do what the motion suggests. After many mistakes have been made it would be a most useful policy. The Government should try to get back our markets and should maintain our association with the British Commonwealth in order to put an end to the deplorable state of affairs that exists. There is no use now in talking about what is past and gone. I compliment Senator Jameson on having put up such a sensible case. There is no such thing amongst the general body of farmers as an endeavour to get out of payment of their debts. The general body of the people is sound. They will pay their way if they are able. The position is that their income has been reduced and that they have no means of paying until the Government makes some effort to bring back prosperity. Otherwise it is almost hopeless to be talking about their position. I hope the motion will be carried.

Mr. Crosbie

It will be within the recollection of the Seanad that the present Minister, when he introduced the Bill for the removal of the Oath, told those of us who voted against that motion that in 100 years' time we would be regarded as the people who voted for the Act of Union are regarded, as traitors to their country. Personally it does not make the least difference to me what Ireland will think of me 100 years from now. I would be very, very uneasy, and very remorseful, if I thought that in two years I was able, under any Act or Bill, to bring my country from the prosperity it enjoyed in 1931 to the position it occupies to-day. Senator Dowdall alluded to an execution sale and he thoroughly disapproved of the methods by which that sale was opposed. I give no opinion upon that. Senator Dowdall is not old enough to remember the execution sales that I remember, but I may tell the House that the entire country was behind the opposition to the sale of seized cattle. The people felt that the farmers could not pay the imposts that were on them then because of the prices. The present Government, as far as I can see, have reduced the prices that the farmer gets for his produce to the prices that were paid them for their produce in the time when a very fierce agitation raged throughout the country, eventuating in getting the various Land Acts passed which established the tenant in his holding. That, I think, is an accusation of a far more serious kind than anything that can be thrown at anyone of us here, whatever may be the view we took upon the question of the Oath.

Senator Dowdall says also that we are trying to run down the credit of the country. After all, all of us are business men before we are politicians. We have all got to live out of the country and, certainly, I cannot imagine anyone of us here wishing to see the country in as bad a state or in a worse state than it is in to-day. But, when you look at the figures, you cannot help seeing that the country is heading for insolvency. Four million pounds were required to balance last year's Budget. We are in the extraordinary position that the more business we do the more money we have to borrow. For instance, Senator Counihan told you that he lost £4 5s. on the sale of his cattle, but he forgets that there was another sum of 35/- lost on these cattle. There is only one way to find the money for that, and that is by borrowing. In view of all this, I think that no sane man will say that anyone of us who points out that this is a very disastrous course that is being pursued is crying down the credit of this country. That is quite wrong. We have been told by responsible people that the reason we are badly off is that the whole world is badly off. The whole world is no worse off than it was two years ago, or very little worse off. Senator Counihan explained that for the cattle for which he got £14, nominally, this year, he would have got only £15 two years ago; but it has been preached and explained to the farmers of this country—and, unfortunately, many of them are believing it—that the cause of the reduction in the price of their produce is because of the world-wide conditions, not recognising that in reality the world-wide conditions have not so very much retrogressed as they are told. I think that it is a very serious position. Of course, we are told that this is a war. That is a perfect misnomer. There is no war, as we know it. There is a trade dispute. You might just as well refer to a strike or trade dispute between an employer and his employees as a war as to refer to this trade dispute between the two countries as a war. This is purely a trade dispute, and it is a mistake to call it a war. A great many people, because they are told and believe that it is a war, are inclined unthinkingly and unreasonably to support Ireland in the dispute. We are heading, in my opinion, for a very serious state of affairs. Our national indebtedness will go up enormously as a result of this dispute and, of course, interest will have to be met on all that. While I think that the farmer is in a very serious position, I have a feeling really that the proposition put before us by Senator Counihan here is only robbing Peter to pay Paul because, if we take from the farmer it may help the ordinary taxpayer, but if we give to the farmer it is given out of the profits of the rest of the community.

Mr. Counihan

Not at all—posterity.

Mr. Crosbie

Posterity, of course, never did anything for us. However, there is a point beyond which the borrowing power of the country cannot go and the more you borrow the higher the rate of interest will be to you, and in a very short time the rate of interest that Ireland will pay will be the largest charge on her Budget. It will be far and away greater than the amounts that we do pay in old age pensions. Accordingly, I thoroughly disagree with Senator Dowdall when he says that those of us who point out the mad course which the Government is taking in this case are crying down the credit of the country.

Mr. Milroy

Most of the speakers who have intervened up to the present have been farmers or persons with an intimate personal knowledge of that phase of life. I cannot claim to have that experience or intimate knowledge, and the reason I intervene is not because I wish to add to the elucidation of the farmers' point but because I think that this motion raises an issue in which more than the agricultural classes are concerned and which concerns the entire community. The reason specially why I intervened is to request that the Minister will avail of this opportunity to inform the House, and by informing the House to inform the country in some degree what is really the outlook of the Executive Council on this question and what they anticipate is going to be the ultimate outcome of this alleged war with England. I agree—thoroughly agree— with Senator Crosbie when he says that the use of the word "war" in this relation is entirely misleading. If it were a war then I am afraid the present Government would be indictable and liable to serious penalties for one of those offences which are supposed to be committed in time of war, namely, trading with the enemy. I remember when, after 1921, there was a divergence in national opinion about the Treaty, President de Valera said he believed that Ireland could stand another round with England. I think that the present situation is President de Valera's idea of another round. A stranger or visitor to this country, knowing nothing of the circumstances and listening to Senator Dowdall's statement, would consider that the country was in a state of great prosperity and that anybody who criticised the existing conditions was a crank and a faddist. We know that that is not the fact. Senator Dowdall spoke about the atmosphere of insolvency and of a conspiracy to see that people would not meet their liabilities. The only conspiracy that I know of is the conspiracy to secure that the people cannot pay their annuities. That conspiracy exists amongst the members of the Executive Council. If I may use a simile, the present Government remind me of an industrious but inefficient charwoman. She comes into an office, makes a great parade of hustling and bustling; everybody believes that she is very active and doing her utmost to earn her pay. But when she is gone, it is found that the papers are splattered with ink, that the dust is worse than before and that there is considerable dissatisfaction all round. That is exactly the position of the present Executive. I do not accuse them of lack of energy but, to a large extent, their energy is misapplied. They have dissipated their energy, like Don Quixote, in fighting windmills when they should be facing up to realities. I do not criticise them at all for trying to bring up the industrial arm more closely to the level of the agricultural arm, so that we may have a more balanced national economy than we have had heretofore. So far as I can judge, what they may have secured by their industrial stimulation—we have not been supplied with reliable data on that point and it is very difficult to know exactly what has been achieved—has been more than counterbalanced by the lunatic policy which they are pursuing as regards a neighbouring country.

Senator Dowdall said that Senator Counihan spoke in generalities. I hardly think that that is correct. He gave a specific instance of the extra liability imposed upon him by the operation of Government policy. Senator Dowdall said that the annuities had been halved. If you destroyed a shopkeeper's business, destroyed the possibility of trading on his part, and, as compensation, reduced his rent by half, would he consider that adequate compensation? That seems to me to be what is happening in respect of the agricultural community.

I want to stress a point made by Senator Crosbie. I want to anticipate the Minister in the case he may make in dealing with this motion. It is claimed that those who criticise Government policy should remain silent at this juncture, that we are playing the enemy's game, that we are letting down the nation. No more senseless demand than that could be made upon an intelligent community. We are not in the position of having an attack made upon us militarily or economically. We invited and provoked not an attack, but the circumstances which have brought about so much distress and so much economic dislocation. Those of us who foresaw that, those of us who believed that that policy was wrong, who warned the Government of what their policy would lead to are not going to be silent now when we see what we predicted working out day by day with more deadly certainty than even the most gloomy of us anticipated. I say that it is a national duty to deal with these facts as facts. It is no substitute for rational policy for the Government to present us with the dreams of a prophetic future. We are entitled to know from the Minister to-day what steps this Government propose to take to end this so-called economic war; if it is to drag on interminably or until everybody is ruined or bankrupt or everybody claiming unemployment assistance. If that is their policy, if there is no hope of a solution of the difficulty, if this condition of affairs must go on until the last man dies in the last economic ditch, I hope that issue will be put in plain and clear language to the electors next time the Government have the courage to face them, which I hope will be soon. We are entitled to know what the Government mean. Is the position that they blundered into this situation not really knowing what was likely to eventuate? If that be so, let us have a clear confession that they have blundered into something the full commitments of which they did not appreciate and that they hope, by further blunders, to extricate themselves from the effects of the original blunder.

I hope that the Minister will state clearly what the country is to expect from his Government in the near future. If this destruction of economic intercourse with England is the definite, settled, unchangeable policy of the present Executive, then let us have that made perfectly clear. If that is not the policy, and if the Government hope to recover and restore normal economic relations, then we should be told when they expect to secure that, and by what means. The Government, at least, should desist from the policy of trying to lead this country in blinkers. Let the country know where it is going, what it has to face and whether the future holds out conditions of at least reasonable prosperity or conditions growing worse and worse until the whole country is plunged into destitution and insolvency in order to justify the President's ten years old prediction that Ireland can stand another round with England.

Mr. Dillon

I did not intend to intervene in the discussion, but I feel obliged to do so in view of the statements made by Senator Dowdall. The Senator declared that there was a conspiracy in existence to create an atmosphere of insolvency. I desire to repudiate emphatically the suggestion that there is such a conspiracy in existence.

I wish to support this motion. In my opinion, the farmers should be relieved in respect of their annuities. The contract to pay annuities was based on the earning capacity of the farmers' lands. The Government, when they put their economic policy into operation, made it at least three or four times more difficult than in normal times for the farmer to pay his annuities. In other words, it means three or four times his normal live-stock production, or three or four times his normal agricultural produce to enable a farmer to meet his ordinary commitments. All that is due to the Government's existing policy. I am not going to enter into the merits or otherwise of that policy.

I will not touch on the economic war, but the outstanding fact is that at the moment the farmers are unable to pay. I live on a farm, and I am in daily touch with farmers. I am aware they have to rely on their live-stock, their fixed capital, and on the fertility of their lands to try to make enough money in order barely to live. I put it to Senator Dowdall and other Senators that the farmers cannot carry on much longer unless the annuities are funded, unless they are relieved from annuities and rates. The farmers were promised de-rating, but that promise was never carried into effect. Our neighbours across the Border and across the Channel have got de-rating, while in our case the Government have withdrawn grants to the extent of £448,000. The consequence is that while we have half the annuities remitted our rates are increased, and one balances the other.

I suggest we should keep before our minds the simple terms of the motion. I think the motion deserves to be supported by the Seanad. We should make an effort to meet the people half way by giving them this concession. If the Government agree to this motion they will be conferring a benefit not alone on the farmers, but on the country generally. The farmers are the great wealth-producing class, and it is of importance to the nation as a whole that the farmers should be given an opportunity to advance. Instead of that, there is an atmosphere of discouragement. I think it would be a very useful thing if the Government would grant the farmers this concession.

Mr. Johnson

It was a relief to hear Senator Dillon asking that the terms of the motion should be considered in the discussion of it. I am afraid that that appeal has come rather late in the day, because it is quite evident from the general discussion that the issue raised is not the funding of the annuities so much as the general policy of the Government and the effect of that policy upon the farming community, and the country generally. I do not think it can be expected that the issues actually raised by Senator Counihan can be separated from the discussion, because the course of the discussion must have a bearing on the decision of the House.

I noted with interest how differently Senator Sir John Keane approached this question as compared with Senator Counihan or any other Senator. The motion asks the Executive Council to take steps to fund the land annuities falling due in November and December of this year. That includes the land annuities of all those who have been paying land annuities. But Senator Sir John Keane was more discriminating. He realises, I think, the import of this motion, and he asked that those people who were unable to pay should be treated with some kind of special consideration. That is a position I can appreciate, and I will ask Senator Counihan and others if that is what they mean. If so, do they intend to ask the House to alter the motion accordingly? There is a big difference. The agricultural community is treated as a whole in the motion as though every section of that community had suffered equally as a consequence of the British tariffs. I do not think even Senator Counihan would allege that. He laid special stress upon the cattle export trade, and showed what heavy losses had been suffered, because of the British tariffs, by those who exported cattle. That is not true of every other section of the agricultural community. I think the Senator will be the first to admit that some agriculturists have suffered more than others through these British tariffs, and yet he asks that all those who are paying annuities should be treated in the same way, irrespective of the amount of suffering caused by reason of the British tariffs.

Somebody asked that this matter should be dealt with by Senators, not as politicians, but as business men. I too, would like that business men should look at this problem as a business man would look at his own business problems, and make some kind of analysis or some kind of an examination. It is quite misleading to take prices to-day and compare them with prices in 1932 or in 1931, and say that the difference is due to what is called—I agree, quite misleadingly and foolishly—the economic war. In fact anybody who keeps his eyes open knows that where there is no dispute with Great Britain with regard to tariffs—as in Northern Ireland—there are very loud complaints as to the effects on the oats market, the bacon and pig market and on other markets, owing to some factor, but not because of the British tariffs. Denmark has been mentioned. We know that Denmark is suffering terribly in its agricultural economy because of some factors. We know that these factors are not British tariffs alone. It is no use to talk of the difference in prices between 1931 and 1933, and to say: "this is a consequence of the British tariff policy." I do not think that anybody with any sense is going to doubt for a moment that the Irish agriculturists are considerable losers in this year, 1933, as a consequence of the British tariffs, but do not pretend that the whole agricultural depression is due to the dispute between Great Britain and the Irish Free State.

Let us examine the terms of the motion. Owing to the very great agricultural depression that the agriculturists are suffering, it is asked that the annuities should be funded—that is the annuities that are falling due in November and December of this year. As I said earlier, there is no discrimination made between the different types of agriculturists. I have had occasion to read appeals from tenants of local government authorities' houses—the Dublin Corporation houses, and the board of health houses all over the country. Appeals are made that the rents cannot be paid because of unemployment. I take it that the arguments of Senator Counihan would be that all those who are unemployed or have been unemployed should be allowed to defer payment of the rents of their houses, and as a consequence that the local authorities would be allowed to defer payment of the interests on the loans, owing to the general depression; and following up that, that the national Exchequer or the national finance department should be allowed to withhold payment of any interest on moneys that have been borrowed, and that, in fact, owing to the general economic position, nobody who ever lent money in the past should be paid any interest on those charges until the national economic condition of the country has improved. Is that the aim of this motion? Is that the desire of the supporters of this motion? Are we generally going to take the position that because of the general economic depression, moneys that are due to people on account of loans of one kind and another, should not now be paid? Are we to take it in those cases where the annuities are to be funded that the money that would be required to meet current expenditure for this year should be borrowed, and that the people from whom these moneys will be borrowed would be told that because of the national depression payment of the interest is to be postponed?

It seems to me that when one speaks in a wholesale way about the funding of annuities without discrimination that that is what they are inviting. I say that Senator Sir John Keane was much more discriminating in his suggestion by saying that this request should be confined to those cases where there is proof of the need and of inability to meet the payment. But in view of the general line that has been taken in this debate, apparently, this motion, whether intended by Senator Counihan or not, has been used simply to repeat all the arguments and denunciations of the policy of the Government which led to the retaliatory tariffs. In the first instance, the House should be reminded, the decision of the British Government to have no undertaking and to make no agreement with the Irish Free State, was not because of any economic action on the part of the Irish Free State Government, but because of political action by the Irish Free State Government, as, for instance, the decision to remove the Oath from the Constitution. That was the beginning——

Sir John Keane

Nonsense.

Mr. Johnson

——of what is now called the economic war.

Dr. Gogarty

Not at all.

Mr. Johnson

I have not the extracts in front of me, but I can prove to the House definitely that the policy of the British Government not to enter into any negotiation or any agreement with the Irish Free State was announced before any tariffs were threatened or before any withholding of the land annuities.

Dr. Gogarty

Why should they negotiate?

Mr. Johnson

That was the beginning of what is now called the economic war. I am not going to enter into that large subject. It would have been advantageous to the mover of this motion if the discussion had been confined to its terms, but in fact that motion has been used merely for general denunciation of the Government policy and, therefore, its value has been destroyed.

Minister for Lands and Fisheries (Mr. Connolly)

When this motion was brought to my attention I considered very carefully whether it really merited any attendance from me or the attention of any member of the Executive Council. It is obvious that motions of this type, which have been springing up in one form or another, have not the really serious purpose which is generally suggested in the terms of the motion.

Dr. Gogarty

Quite untrue.

Mr. Connolly

I have sat listening to a good many speeches to-day; I have not interrupted, and I refuse now to go on if I or any member of my Party is to be subject to interruption.

Cathaoirleach

I heard no interruptions. I will stop them if I do. I hope the Minister will not be interrupted.

Mr. Connolly

Certain Senators come into this House at occasional intervals without any serious notion of what the discussion is about or any capacity to deal with it.

Dr. Gogarty

May I answer that implication, sir?

Cathaoirleach

Did you take that to mean you?

Dr. Gogarty

Most decidedly.

Mr. Connolly

The Senator was quite right.

Dr. Gogarty

May I answer it, sir?

Cathaoirleach

I think you will get an opportunity later on when he has finished his speech, Senator.

Mr. Connolly

I am quite willing to allow him to answer now.

Dr. Gogarty

Do not sit down. Stand up and answer.

Cathaoirleach

Please go on, Senator.

Mr. Connolly

As I say, the question of whether we should deal seriously with this motion or not gave me some thought. Senator Counihan's motion, which he very plausibly puts up to the House, indicating the terrible position which he and the rest of his colleagues in farming have reached, assumes that the Government is entirely unconscious of the difficulties of that position or has no sense of reality with regard to the economic conditions in the country. He also would seem to indicate that the conditions of 1929 and 1930 were the prevalent conditions of 1933 with everybody except the people of the Free State. Senator Counihan's motion might be dealt with very briefly, very definitely, and very much to the point by indicating in how far the Government has been conscious of its liabilities and its responsibilities to the agriculturists of this country. I will read for the Seanad just what the position of the land annuities is to-day. The Land Act of 1933, which has just recently been passed, relieves tenant purchasers to the extent of £4,392,000 representing unpaid instalments of land purchase annuities up to and including June, 1933, and £14,000 cost of proceedings. Of this sum of £4,392,000, £250,000, or a quarter of a million pounds, of arrears of more than three years have been written off as irrecoverable, leaving £4,152,000 to be repaid by means of funding annuities for a period of fifty years. The proportion payable within the year works out at a rate of 6d. in the £ of the debt. The funding annuity to repay the debt for the November-December, 1933, half-year, amounts to £118,550, to which is to be added £1,043,318, being the reduced instalment of the regular land purchase annuities, making a total liability for the year of £1,161,868 as against £2,094,636 which would have been the amount payable for the November-December, 1933, gale were it not for the relief given by the new Land Act. There are 438,000 tenant purchasers, so that the average amount payable for the November-December, 1933, gale is £2 13s. 0d. That is the position that we are in with regard to the amounts which we have to collect as the reduced annuity and what the position would have been had the Land Bill not included the condition of halving the annuities.

The advances made under the Saorstát Land Acts amount to a sum of £25,093,000, and the annual charge to repay sinking fund and interest on this sum is £1,194,948. The relief given by the Land Act of 1933 applies to tenant purchasers under the Saorstát Land Acts as well as to tenants who purchased under British Acts. This has been made possible by the retention of the annuities hitherto paid to Britain. To summarise, the gale falling due in November-December will amount to £1,160,000 odd. That is the revised figure following the halving of the annuities, and £610,000 will be needed for the service of the Land Bond Fund to pay the interest and sinking fund charges in respect of the 1933 Act bonds. The remaining £400,000 is needed for the general purposes of the State and has been budgeted for by the Minister for Finance. If the motion were accepted, the money would have to be found from some other source within the coming half-year. That is the financial position of the land annuities, and that is the position that Senator Counihan's motion wishes us to deal with in the sense that he wants these two gales that are falling due in November-December to be funded in addition to what has already been funded. In listening to the various speeches that have been made here to-day, one would come to the conclusion that the Seanad had authority to speak for the Irish people——

Dr. Gogarty

Certainly.

Mr. Connolly

——but I want to make it perfectly clear here that the Seanad has no such authority.

Mr. Milroy

That is your opinion.

Mr. Connolly

And I give my reason. The land annuities issue and what is known as the economic war started in July, 1932. We were constantly told up to the end of 1932 that we had not the support of the people. We pointed out that we had a decided and a deliberate mandate from the people when we were returned in March, 1932. The first issue in that election was the Oath, and the second was the retention of the land annuities. Aided by people in this country and helped by all the propaganda that was circulated in this country, the British Press and others, including the pro-British Press in this country, carried on a campaign to indicate that we had not the support of the people and that it was not the will of the people that we should retain these annuities and that the struggle with Britain with regard to these matters should be continued. What happened? We went to the people in January, 1933. The issue surely was clearly cut then——

Miss Browne

It was not; no such thing.

Mr. Connolly

The issue, I say and I protest, was clearly cut then, and the people knew what they were voting on, and the Government of to-day was returned by an increased majority——

Miss Browne

On false promises.

Mr. Connolly

——and ordered to carry on this conflict and to retain the annuities. That is the position as it stands to-day. I say that that is the will of the people and that the Seanad's opinion is not. We have heard a great deal of talk about the farmers' inability to pay, and we are fully conscious of the difficulties of the position. We are fully conscious of the difficulties of the farmers in every country as well as in our own. We realise that the farmers, like everybody else, are going through a very difficult time but it is significant that the main howl that has sprung up from the country has not come from the small working farmers, from the struggling farmers who are trying to make ends meet and to make a living, but from people like Senator Counihan and the other big people in agriculture and in the cattle trade. It is they who have made all the protest and who have been suggesting that the farmers are unable to pay. We know that there is a great deal of reality behind the plea that the farmers are in a difficult position. I have discussed these matters with representatives from all sorts of countries. I have seen agricultural conditions in the United States within the last year, and I have seen the economic conditions in other directions in the United States.

I have discussed the position with people from Denmark and with people in Britain itself. The Minister for Agriculture at one conference in London stated that he could supply any man at that conference table with meat which any man at the conference table could safely eat at 1d. per pound. Agriculturists—cattle people, grain-growers and the others—in Britain are constantly protesting and proclaiming that they must have protection for their own products there. If protection is coming to the British market, that market is shrinking and that market is going to be conserved for the British agriculturists. My regret is that the conflict with regard to agricultural produce, cattle and other supplies, for the British market was not precipitated years ago when there was some chance of fighting our corner. As far as the future market in Britain is concerned —and I am speaking quite frankly now —the British agriculturist demands that the British Government should retain that market for the British producer. The reasons for that are twofold. In the first place, industrial production and the industrial market are not what they were. Secondly, they are faced with the difficulty of assimilating their own people in employment, and one of the ways out, as they see it, is to get as many people back on the land and to produce as much foodstuff at home as they can. The specific economic difficulties of this issue did not arise only with the Irish Free State. Representatives from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and from all the Dominions were fighting night and day during the World Economic Conference to get the best deal they could in quotas and otherwise.

Somebody has mentioned here about Denmark. I have spoken with the representatives of Denmark and they very much regret that their policy for the last twenty years has been what it was and is. The position in Denmark is more desperate than in most countries, and anyone who really knows anything about world agricultural conditions will admit that if they are telling the truth. Senator Counihan and others dealt with the position of world trade, and they seemed to indicate that the 1933 position in the Irish Free State was solely due to the economic dispute with Britain. Only last night I happened, for reasons other than my talk here to-day, to examine the comparative figures for 84 countries between 1929 and 1932. There is extraordinary harmony between all the countries as regards the decrease in the world trade. The decrease from 1929 to 1932 has been just one-third of what the total trade was in 1929. The world trade of the United States was just over nine billion dollars in 1929. To-day the world trade of the United States is a little over 3½ billions. The world trade for Great Britain and Northern Ireland was over eight billion dollars—I am speaking in dollars—and in 1933 was over 3½ billions. Right down the whole 84 countries the symptom is the same, and the percentage is almost the same, so that anyone who talks about the position of 1932, having no regard to 1929, and who suggests that if this economic conflict were not in existence we would be in an equally good position to that of 1929 and 1930, is really not talking by the facts.

Some Senators have asked what are we going to do about it. I think it has been made quite clear what the Government policy has been since it came into power. It has been made very clear that they are deliberately out for a policy of self-sufficiency, for the production of commodities at home and for the elimination of imports. That is a very wise policy. It is the only policy. What policy has President Roosevelt adopted to-day? What is he going to do about his middle-western farmers who cannot sell their produce and who have no money? In the middle west, when I was there, the people were reduced to barter. One would think, hearing Senators here, that there was no economic problem, that the doors were all open. I say deliberately that the only course for the country is to set out on the policy on which we have set out and to keep to it. World markets are not going to be available for agricultural products, and make up your mind on it. It may be desperate, it may be troublesome, it may cause a completely new orientation of the economic outlook of this country, but I am telling you what is the fact, and what anyone who studies the position knows, in every country in the world. There is another item that it is very difficult to lose sight of. It is suggested here on every occasion when a motion of this sort is put down or when it is dragged in on any other matter, that we ought to surrender. Well, so far as this Government is concerned, we are not going to surrender. We have definitely got a mandate from the people to hold these moneys and we are going to carry on that policy to the end of our term.

A Senator

Which I hope will not be long.

Mr. Connolly

That is as may be. We heard that before the last election and we put it to the test. Do Senators want an election every week?

A Senator

Yes.

Mr. Connolly

As I say, we talk about this matter as if it were a question on which we ought to go with our hats in our hands to the Right Honourable Mr. James H. Thomas and the Right Honourable the Prime Minister.

Mr. Staines

There is no necessity to do that. Talk to him like men.

Mr. Connolly

We have talked to him like men.

Miss Browne

Do the honest thing.

Cathaoirleach

I do not think we should have any interruptions of the Minister. I would ask Senators to allow him to proceed without interruption.

Mr. Connolly

I am not worried about interruptions, but we feel that when we allowed other members of the Seanad to finish their speeches without interruption, at least the same courtesy should be extended to members of the Government. We are not going to surrender on this, and we want you to feel that the line of policy on which we set out was not a case of blundering in. It was a case of a deliberately chosen policy on our part. We felt there was no moral justification for the payment of these moneys. We still feel that. Assuming for a moment that we, as a Government, went to make our apologia and to seek terms, that we gave way on this issue, at what point would the British Government's demands stop? People who know, and there are many people who ought to know, the mentality of British Governments in the past, know that it is not the policy which the British Government want, our Government will adopt. They also know that it would be a very unwise policy for the Irish people to adopt.

There were many minor points introduced, such as the statement that people are being charged 10/- a ton more for coal. I do not propose to deal with such things, except to say this, that there is no justification for any such charge. As a matter of fact, I am paying less myself for as good coal as ever I got, and it is not British coal. Senator Crosbie linked up the attitude of the present Government and the attitude of the Ministers here with a reference that I made to the removal of the Oath. I said at that time, and I say it again, that the people will have a poor opinion of those who voted for the retention of the Oath, and I think that the same will apply to the attitude that is being taken up by Senators with regard to the economic conflict with Britain. Senator Milroy wanted to know very definitely what the attitude of the Executive was and what was going to be the ultimate outcome. I have already told the House what the attitude of the Executive was. I cannot prophesy what is going to be the ultimate outcome. No man of sanity would, at the present time, attempt to estimate what the ultimate outcome of the present position, either here or elsewhere, is going to be: whether it is going to work to a position of world prosperity or world dismemberment or economic chaos I do not know. All the indications are, as things seem at the moment, that prosperity in the international economic sense is very far away indeed: that many changes will be made in finance, in monetary policy, in the distribution of commodities, and in the whole trend of world trade. The position that I have put to the House whereby there has been shrinkage of one-third of world trade from what it had been in 1921 is going to cause very considerable dislocation in every branch of business. You cannot displace two-thirds of the world's trade without having freights, shipping, insurance and employment on same—without having all those factors thrown into a chaotic state, so that what is going to emerge I do not know.

I do know this, that our only line of safety and our only line of sane policy is to continue as we are doing: to make this country, as far as possible, self-supporting, to eliminate imports and to have our people in a position to feed, clothe and house themselves within this country. That may not suit many people in this country who are interested in finance, in what I may call the marginal profits of agriculture—of cattle or of industry generally. We do know that most of the protests that have arisen on this question of the cattle have come from those who, I believe, have done better out of the cattle position than any other element in the country. At all events, whatever losses they incurred in their cattle transactions as dealers have certainly been passed on to the smaller farmers from whom they bought the original stock they put on grass. It is from these people and not from the small farmers that most complaints have come. I have indicated exactly what this motion would mean in the finances of this year. The Government have no intention whatever of following out any suggestion that is contained in the motion, whether it be passed by the Seanad or not. We feel satisfied that we are the Government of the country, returned by the people definitely on this issue at the last election, and we feel that the Seanad has no justification for putting such a motion to us.

Dr. Gogarty

Senator Connolly has been absent from this country for a long time, for a far longer period than he presumes for my absences from the Seanad. I have a more regular attendance in the Seanad than any one of his Party. I have stood a good deal of vituperation and impertinence from Senator Connolly. Some time ago he accused me of "rolling up to the Seanad" in my motor car. I had a motor then. He has a motor now, but one for which the people of the Free State are paying. His "rolling up" is a charge on the Irish people whom he has impoverished. In a way I am satisfied to see that Senator Connolly is here, but I am disappointed that the Minister for Agriculture, who should be here, is not here. I presume he is suffering from that trouble which is known as agrophobia; that is, fear of the market place. The Minister for Lands and Fisheries in 1928 was drawing an income from the then Government of £1,760 per annum. He has now become the father of Fianna Failure and is drawing a far greater salary free from income tax. If the chaos which he, more than any other member of the Government, has definitely created brings about Communism he has seen to it that he will not be too far away from a stipend when it comes about. Does it matter twopence to this country what the economic condition of the foreign countries in which the Minister was wandering lately at the expense of our country is? What has that got to say to this country? We had a definite market for our agricultural produce, a market that brought great prosperity to this country; but what evolves from what the Minister said this evening is that anyone in this country who is prosperous is an enemy to him and his Government, an enemy to his bankruptcy complex. Senator Counihan's chief fault is that he pays his way. One would think from what the Minister said that the 40 per cent. tariff on our cattle trade, a trade that goes back to time immemorial, does not count at all, does not exist at all, and should not be a grievance to this country because somebody in Poland or Geneva or wherever he was Cook's touring at the farmers' expense, told him that he could get meat for a penny a pound. The Minister succeeded in being snubbed at the World's Economic Conference by the Belgian Minister, who told him to chuck archæology and to sit down. When one thinks of the present position in this country there was never a most disastrous cataclysm brought about and directly attributable only to one person since Cromwell was here and Cromwell was not a countryman of ours. Now the curse of Connolly is on the country, and all this was done by Mr. Connolly and with malice prepense. When there was an opportunity at Ottawa of doubling this country's income, that great opportunity was thrown away. We could have made a splendid agreement there with Great Britain if we had not mixed politics with prosperity, and if prosperity to Senator Connolly had not been like a red rag to a bankrupt.

Cathaoirleach

I think, Senator, you are now going outside the terms of the motion.

Mr. Connolly

I would prefer that the Senator should be allowed to go on; it is most interesting.

Dr. Gogarty

I will interest the country in Senator Connolly. I was about to emphasise this point, that the withholding of the annuities was done in such a manner that no self-respecting nation could have negotiated with this Government. It was represented to our people as a "war," but, as I said before, it is merely a discreditable skirmish with Scotland Yard, a kind of bag-snatching, and dishonesty. We are told that Senator Connolly will not surrender. That is the usual old claptrap. That is what the farmers will get from Senator Connolly and his dupes: "No surrender: no markets: no prosperity." Exempt from world conditions, we always had at our disposal the finest market in the world for our produce until these pedants and failures interfered and interrupted our trade. Dr. Johnson's epitaph on Oliver Goldsmith was: "He touched nothing that he did not adorn." Senator Connolly touched nothing that he did not destroy. And the result of his lunatic logic and that of the Government, in the withholding of the annuities, is that the unfortunate farmers are paying them four times over. They are paying against the 40 per cent. tariff on live-stock and other agricultural produce: they are paying them against tariffs erected by this Government against indispensable commodities that can only come in here via Great Britain. They are paying them in the Suspense Account, and, partially, in the 12 per cent. subsidy to themselves. That is the result of the Government's policy in withholding the annuities. I hope the Seanad will stand up and forget all the Senator's nonsense and that the people will wake up to the disaster brought upon the country by the return of these self-styled "warriors" to power.

Mr. Staines

I would not have spoken upon this motion at all only that I think it is an insult to the House that the President of the Executive Council, or the Minister for Agriculture, is not here to take part in this debate.

Cathaoirleach

The Minister for Lands and Fisheries is surely quite cognisant of all matters in connection with the annuities.

Mr. Staines

I have the greatest respect for the Minister, but when he purses up his lips, and talks about agriculture to members of this House, he gets upon my nerves. I know something about markets. I was Chairman of the Dublin Cattle Market Committee for years, and when the Minister talks about world markets, and the shrinkage of these markets, and when I know that Canada has increased her trade with England by over 100 per cent., I say the Minister is wrong in his attitude. Canada increased her exports to Britain by 11,000 head of cattle in the first six months of the year and by 23,000 head of cattle in the next six months. What is Canada's gain is Ireland's loss. We see by this morning's papers that because the pork and bacon quota into England has fallen Denmark has sent a representative to interview the British Government with a view to seeing how Denmark can improve her position in regard to her quota. Has the Free State sent any representative to Britain in regard to this matter? I do not know. I know they were in consultation with them for a time, but they would not admit they were in consultation with the British Government. I do not think it is any use replying to the Minister's remarks about the Middle West in the United States. He was only there on a holiday. What I am concerned with is the commerce of this country. This country is reduced at the moment to the position that the ratepayers and taxpayers are doing nothing but paying tolls and bounties. That is what the position which has arisen means because we did not pay our annuities. I do not want to pay the annuities, but I think the annuities question could have been settled very easily if the Government dealt with the matter in a reasonable way. Instead of that, President de Valera and his colleagues of the Executive Council assembled in a room in Merrion Street and said: "We will not pay the annuities. We will not take the Oath. We have John Bull by the throat now and let us choke him." The Minister talked about the realities of the present situation. The realities are these: This country is being bled white. They will not discuss anything with England, because they say England is our bitter enemy. They made England our bitter enemy, and there was no necessity for that. After all we did agree, when the Treaty was signed, to live in peace and harmony with England. Certain people amongst us accepted the Treaty in 1922. The present Government Party accepted it in 1926, and because they accepted it four years later the Minister says they should not be expected to take this motion seriously. I say they should, because this country at the moment is being bled white. I do not want to say anything about the economic war. The sooner, however, the Government realises that keeping oats and barley in our lofts, and keeping cattle in our fields, is bad for the country and for everybody concerned, the better.

Mr. Counihan

I do not think there is very much to reply to in what the Minister said. The point is that as we have the prospect of funding arrears and wiping out annuities in connection with the Land Act of 1923, I do not see that there would be any grave hardship in funding the annuities under the 1933 Land Act. The Minister stated that we are as well off as if there was no economic war, and that it made very little difference in prices; but he ignored the fact entirely that we are paying £4 5s. per acre on our land in duties, which is four times the ordinary annuities. I ask is it fair or just that we should pay the annuities now, since we are already paying them four times over since the start of the economic war? The Minister did not attempt to answer that argument. He says that Denmark and other countries supplying the British market cannot make any profit on their produce. He forgets that if we had this dispute with England settled we would get a 10 per cent. preference over Denmark or any other country outside the British Commonwealth. That is a big consideration, and one of the reasons why the economic war should be settled. The Minister said the Seanad has no right to interfere in this matter; that we do not represent the country. I say that so far as the economic war is concerned the Government do not represent feeling in the country. There is no doubt about that. They got into power on the plea that the economic war would be settled in three weeks. That was what they preached all over the country. The Minister stands up here and says that they were returned to power on the simple issue of fighting the economic war. That is not the reason they got back to power. The reason they got back to power was because they told the people that if they were returned the economic war would be settled on favourable terms in three weeks. Let them go to the country again on the issue that they would have no settlement with England and let us then see what the result will be.

Question put and declared carried.

The Seanad adjourned at 5.40 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 31st October, 1933.