I had not an opportunity of speaking to this motion at an earlier stage, but as an agriculturist and employer, I should like to congratulate, as I do sincerely, the Labour Party on being the first Party since I came here to expound the doctrine of uplifting agriculture. I agree with practically all that the motion proposes always with a stipulation which I suggest is essential to the security of the land. Once that is provided I endorse everything else in the motion.
To come down to the big question that confronts agriculture, looked at nationally, we find the famous £35,000,000 about which we have heard so much this afternoon, and, along with that, we find a considerable number of unemployed and, as well, agricultural wages at what I deem to be the unhealthy figure of 27/6 to 30/-a week. I listened with interest to the suggestions of Senator Counihan and others in regard to the giving to children, during their impressionable years, of lectures on the protection of public property. Some five or six years ago I was standing at a crossroads and I asked three young fellows who were standing there where the sign post pointed. They gave me the name of the townland, and I asked why should the names be blotted out and why the sign post should be twisted when we had tourists coming to the country. Sitting at the back of the hedge across the way were two middle-aged men, one of whom said: "Well, sir, to tell you the truth, what do we want with the tourists? We did not do a day's work for the last three months, and what interest have we in public property?" While nobody could tolerate the pervading of the entire nation with that idea, is it any wonder that, with unemployment as it is and with wages at 27/6 a week, there cannot be much loyalty to the nation, much less to the man paying the wage of 27/6 a week?
I wonder frequently how men with eight or ten children can be expected to do a fair day's work for that wage. I wonder how they can be expected to give the loyalty in the field and on the farm which is essential to the creation of the credit which the Minister tells us it is so difficult to obtain. My difficulty does not end there. As a member of a public body, I know that we get frequent applications for increases in salaries, wages and everything else. I wonder what right I have to pay wages of £2 and 50/- a week, when, at home on my own farm, I am confined to 27/6 and a lucky man to be able to pay 30/-, if I can, while all the time the rates are increasing regardless of the demand at home. I mentioned this evening that the judicial courts took cognisance of the outgoings of every farmer, of the 3d. in the £ valuation, and here again the question comes in.
With regard to rates, I sometimes notice that county councillors say that rates are a just and inevitable demand that must be met. I look on rates as simply another avenue through which taxes may be taken from the individual, and I look not only upon the intrinsic value of the rate itself, but upon its potential value over which the citizen who has to pay rates on agricultural land has absolutely no control. I hold that this little community of ours here in Eire should stabilise the position definitely and accurately, and not permit every public body, guided by the best ideas in the world, no doubt, to strike rates and to impose taxes on individuals to provide better wages, better employment and a better life for those to whom it is contributing than those who contribute towards it have. It is the potential value of derating as much as the intrinsic value of rates that affects every farmer.
There was a rather successful debate here this evening in which the farmer's case was pleaded very well. Sometimes I think the farmer is only a pauper. "Rattle his bones over the stones; he is only a pauper whom nobody owns." I have heard a respected Senator on the other side, in speaking of the security of land, say that, in County Waterford, he was approached with regard to the taking up of a certain farm. But for the kindly conscience and Christian outlook of that Senator, that farm might have been confiscated. There was nothing to stop it. How will the governor of any bank, of Senator Sir John Keane's outlook, look on that as sufficient security? You want to do something more solid because, otherwise, you will rattle the farmer's bones and, in some instances, you are doing so. The Minister for Finance spoke of the social advantages and disadvantages as being the cardinal difficulties. I admit and agree that they are, but it is up to the Minister, as much as to any other Minister, to see that these difficulties are solved, and solved equitably. They can be solved equitably. There is nothing, to my mind, to prevent the State from appointing the courts to give farmers a licence to continue in occupation of their land. That will be a guarantee to the bank that he is in occupation at the wish of the Government, and, if he does not carry out the essential demands which ownership of the land entails, then, out with him and in with the Land Commission. I suggest that along lines such as these a good deal can be done.
I am sorry that the question I asked was asked in the absence of Senator Quirke. He told us that 19,000 loans had been granted by the Credit Corporation. I took the liberty of asking how many had been refused. There is, we are told, a little difficulty in getting to heaven, and I was often told that it was difficult for a man of my size to get through the eye of a needle, but when you go to the Credit Corporation, you may be prepared to do many things. If 19,000 loans are granted, I think you might almost multiply that by ten to find the number that were declined. What of them? I submit that, amongst these 190,000 farmers, are some honest and industrious citizens, and what the State should see to is that these citizens, when they go forward to look for money to develop their land, will be placed in a position to back a winner. There is no use in giving that money, if, in giving that money, you are giving something which they must lose. There, again, the State has a duty to perform, to see to it that so far as the charges which it makes upon the land are concerned, solvency will be permitted on the farm.
To-day, there is nothing to prevent the Minister for Finance giving at least £1,000,000 in relief of rates on agricultural land. The Constitution of the country permits the State to send demands to county councils that they shall put up one-sixth of a particular amount and that the State will put up the balance. That is all very good, and it is sound finance so far as the State goes, but I think that county councillors will agree that it frequently becomes a very lop-sided arrangement. The State is sometimes inclined to load its unemployed on to the rates although employment on the farms is not in a position to finance it. It was stated by the Minister that you cannot take from one class of citizens and give back to the farmers. Agreed, but has the State at any time utilised the agricultural community to fight its battles? I leave the answer to that to somebody else. I would say that Irish land has always been a first-class asset, and it cannot be stated that the want of honesty or want of industry is such as to discredit 200,000 people. It is the land which has been made uncreditworthy, and not the citizens.
I have also heard the question put by the Minister as to what is the justification for giving these moneys. One justification would be the employment it would give. We are told that the flight from the land exists in every country. Admitted again, but it has never been as marked as it is here just now. Every Bishop's pastoral and every newspaper one reads has something to say about it and would anyone not be a fool who would come to live in rural Ireland? You have simply to look at the ordinary life of the citizens. The first-class roads are all main motor roads, but the rates are struck for every road and there is no grant for the fourth and fifth-class roads. A new scheme was introduced here when certain people had the enterprise and industry to come into rural Ireland with a lorry. Even that is taxed, lest too many of these lorries should go out to the farmers or the labourers at home and supply them with goods. In order to keep the towns going, an extra tax is put on. It is not enough for the farmer to have to walk or his labourer to "sludge" to church and his children to the schools.
A straw shows how the wind blows. The Shannon scheme, to which the rural dwellers are called upon to contribute, is of no benefit to the home of the ordinary farmer. The only thing he gets from it is posts put in his way in the fields. There is absolutely no benefit from any of these things. There are postmen going their rounds and it would be inhuman for the State to suggest that the daily paper should be delivered through them and brightness brought to the rural districts. They made one mistake, however. They forgot to put a tax on rural wireless and we get the same benefit from that as the town dweller but, when it comes to education, pity the children walking two and four miles home, and to church on Sunday, if they have any religion left. They talk of all they are doing for the farmer and they say that the same problem exists everywhere. I stood up to say something about these ideas, and I hope the Labour Party will pursue the policy that neither of the other Parties has succeeded in pursuing. I am sorry the Labour Party did not do it earlier but, as the saying goes, it is better late than never and, now that they have put their shoulders to the wheel and many agriculturists are willing to grasp their hand, I hope they will pursue the course they have set out for themselves and, for our sakes, pursue it successfully.