Senator MacFhionnlaoich proposed the adjournment at the last sitting. He is not here now. Has any Senator been authorised to move the amendment standing in his name?
Credit Facilities for Farmers—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That, in the opinion of the Seanad, the Minister for Agriculture should request the Commission on Agriculture to consider and report as early as possible on the matters of the provision of credit, or working capital for farmers, by means of the capitalisation of the moiety of the land annuities remitted under the Land Act, 1933, and of the issue to farmers in respect of the sum so capitalised of land bonds bearing the same rate of interest as land bonds issued under that Act.—(Senator Counihan).
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Senator The McGillycuddy of the Reeks undertook to second my amendment, and he has not spoken yet.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Will anybody move Senator MacFhionnlaoich's amendment?
I understood, Sir, that he had got in touch with Senator O'Dwyer and he is not here now.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Would the Senator move it himself? He may formally move it.
Well, if that is within the rules of the House I formally move the amendment:—
To delete all the words after the word "farmers" where that word first occurs.—(Peadar MacFhionnlaoich (Cú Uladh).
I formally second.
Mr. Quirke rose.
Perhaps Senator Quirke would explain to us now what this amendment of Senator MacFhionnlaoich's means.
This is Cú Uladh's amendment, and I think——
Speak to us in Irish.
I would do it in Irish flying if the Senators insist on it, but I would rather not.
I would rather not too.
I intend to support this amendment for the simple reason that it is the lesser of three evils. Without going into details on Senator Counihan's motion I would say that the thing is not really practical at the present time. First of all if this motion were to be carried I feel that we would be dictating their business to the Agricultural Commission. I feel that the better way of doing the thing as indicated in Cú Uladh's amendment would be to ask them to hurry up with the job if you like to put it that way. In my opinion the people to whom the subject of this motion should be put is the Agricultural Commission. Let them examine the thing.
They have their experts to go into it and examine it and it is up to them to decide whether the motion is to be recommended to the Minister or to the Government. In my opinion, without going into details, the only way of putting it into effective operation would have a serious effect on the general position in the country. I would draw particular attention to the position that would arise in connection with the banking or loaning institutions. That is a matter that must be borne in mind. I am myself aware of several cases where farmers applied for a loan a number of years ago and where the application was refused. When after the halving of the land annuities, these particular farmers made application to the bodies that refused them previously, it turned out that because of the reduction in the land annuities and because the outgoings on these particular farms were reduced by half, the loans that previously had been refused were granted. The suggestion now is that we should go back to the original position and that the farmer would again have to pay the full land annuities. Is not that so? If that is so the passing of this motion will depreciate the security of the farmers.
The point is that the farmer would get a concession which would bring him in a principal equivalent to the capitalised value of additional payment of the land annuities.
But the farmers would be back in the position in which they were when they were paying the whole of the land annuities. That is my reading of it.
That is not so.
I would be delighted if something like this could be done but I do not think it is practicable. I know that various people have gone into it and they are convinced that it is a workable proposition. I do not believe it is. Again if these land bonds were thrown on the market, as apparently they would be—I do not believe that many of them would be held off the market—in that case the bonds would depreciate. The principal reason why I do object to the motion is because it would be dictating to the commission. I support Cú Uladh's amendment because it is the next best thing. It would read as follows if passed:—
"That in the opinion of the Seanad the Minister for Agriculture should request the Commission on Agriculture to consider and report as early as possible on the matters of the provision of credit or working capital for farmers."
I do not think that anybody could take exception to that. In the meantime it would be up to Senator Counihan or anybody else to take up that proposition with the commission and perhaps convince them that it is a good one.
The view I take of this motion is certainly not that of the last speaker, even though I may not perhaps be quite as sure that Senator Counihan and Senator Johnston are necessarily correct in all their hopes as to the possible result.
I am quite convinced that the attitude taken by Senator Quirke on this proposal is one which this House ought not to take. He regarded the three proposals as three evils. So far as I am concerned, any proposal which could conceivably find credit for the farmers could not be an evil. Such a proposal could only be an evil if you were convinced that under no circumstances would it work. Possibly, that is Senator Quirke's view—that he is convinced the proposals made are unworkable; so much is he convinced of that that he does not want to send the proposal to the Commission on Agriculture with a view to its investigation.
That is the very thing I did suggest—that it should be sent to the Commission on Agriculture.
The motion proposes that it should be sent to the Commission on Agriculture. The amendment proposes—I prefer this course myself —that it should be sent to a conference of experts appointed by the Government, the bankers and the farmers. The amendment which the Senator has proposed and which he considers the least of three evils takes that proposal out of the motion and sends it neither to the conference of experts nor to the Commission on Agriculture. That means that the Commission on Agriculture is to be asked to consider the question of the provision of credit without any specific proposal as to how that provision should be made. That is clearly what they have been asked to do by the Government and which, no doubt, they will do in due time— from what we hear from Senator Johnston, in a year or, possibly, two years.
The whole case that can be made for this motion is that Senator Counihan and others conceive that it is something which is clearly and definitely good or is, as I think, something which ought to be fully investigated. I am not sure that there may not be some snags in connection with it, but it is worth investigation. If it prove workable, it might be of the greatest possible assistance and, if there is anything in it, its investigation should not be left over for two years. I was very much impressed on reading the speech by Senator Johnston, who is an economist and not the type of man likely to fall for harebrained schemes of credit. If it was only on account of his opinion and that of Senator Counihan, I should be in favour of the motion which asks to have the proposal fully investigated. I have a feeling that the experts might find some snag in it which would render it impracticable, although I am unable to see clearly what the snag is. I have thought of as many snags as possible and I have put them to various people who do not seem to think them insurmountable.
Under this motion, it is recognised that the farmer has been given a valuable security by the reduction of his annuities by half. That security, given him by the State or as the result of circumstances, is a thing which he cannot make use of for the purpose of getting credit. If that were something which would be accepted as collateral by the banks for credit which they were satisfied the farmer would use wisely, the position would be enormously improved. The proposal of Senator Counihan is to convert that security into something which is marketable and which, therefore, could be used as collateral. I am not able to say, with the same confidence as Senator Johnston, that that is a workable proposal but I have not the slightest doubt that it is a proposal which ought to be investigated by experts as soon as possible. It has been discussed for the last three or four months in various quarters. It has been mentioned in the banking world and it has been discussed in the precincts of this House and elsewhere. No convincing argument has been adduced against it but it is quite possible that the experts would find such an argument. I think that the Seanad would be acting wisely in accepting the motion, with the amendment as proposed by Senator Johnston.
I can see no possible reason for passing the motion with Senator McGinley's amendment because you would be simply asking the Commission on Agriculture to do what it has already been asked to do and which we know it will do after the lapse of a considerable time. That would be a silly course for the House to adopt. Senator Quirke seems to be quite convinced that this proposal will not work. He may be right but he has not brought before the House any arguments sufficient to convince it that the proposal ought not to be investigated. For that reason, I completely disagree with the attitude taken up by him and I do not think that it would be a wise attitude for this House to adopt. The reason why I favour the motion is that it does not specifically say that the proposal is workable or that we should definitely adopt it. If it said that, I should hesitate a good deal before I would support it. The motion merely says that the proposal is one which ought to be investigated. With the addition of Senator Johnston's amendment, the motion will mean that the proposal will be investigated immediately by a conference consisting of experts appointed by the Government, the farmers and the bankers. It is a very interesting proposal and one which may turn out to be of the greatest possible importance.
In a way, I am rather reluctant to address myself to the motion or to either of the amendments. I have been saying a great deal on this question of credit. So far as the right side of this House is concerned, what I have said has fallen on deaf ears. Nevertheless, I suppose we must go on dealing with the matter whenever we get the chance. It seems to me that Senator Quirke completely misunderstood the purport of Senator McGinley's amendment. From what he said, I take it that he thought that Senator McGinley was anxious to get the proposal in the motion considered by the Agricultural Commission. Senator McGinley was not in favour of that course and I think Senator Quirke sees that clearly now. Senator McGinley was merely in favour of asking the Commission on Agriculture to consider the question of agricultural credit. I am not speaking now as a member of the commission but as a member of the House and I say that, if Senator McGinley had never thought of asking the commission to do that, they would have done it, because it is in their terms of reference. There was therefore, no necessity for Senator McGinley's amendment so far as the consideration of the question of the provision of credit by the Agricultural Commission was concerned, so there was nothing constructive whatever in the amendment of Senator McGinley.
Speaking from my knowledge of the position, as a member of the Agricultural Commission, I would say to the House that any solution which this House can find for the problem of agricultural credit would, I believe, be very welcome to the members of the commission. Their task is a tedious one, a very comprehensive one and if one of the most vital problems that would have to be considered by the commission could be solved by some other method than by the commission having to consider it, I believe the members of the commission would be immensely relieved. They would be able to go back to their ordinary work perhaps six months earlier than if they had to consider this question as it will present itself to them unless some prior recommendations are made by some other body. As to the motion of Senator Counihan, as amended by Senator Johnston, in a way the proposition looks so original that you naturally ask what is the flaw or what is the difficulty about doing this and you are convinced that there must be some difficulty. I think the House generally would be in agreement that what the country wants most to-day is increased production, increased production everywhere, but particularly increased production from the fields. I think the great majority of Senators who know rural conditions are equally convinced that increased production cannot come from the land unless the owners thereof are provided with the means to bring about that production. You cannot get more milk from your byres unless you either increase the milk yield per cow or put more cows in. You cannot, as I have said before, till without ploughs and you cannot feed another 100 or 200 pigs unless you have the housing accommodation or unless you have the credit or the capital to go out and buy pigs and to buy feed for the pigs. In addition to that you must be able to pay for extra labour as well.
If we go on as we have been going on here, particularly since the last Budget—a Budget that has had, and is bound to have, such a deflationary effect on the credit position of the country—there are other great dangers to the whole financial and economic structure through the continuance of such a policy, and the only antidote to this increased expenditure which Government policy is demanding is that we shall be put in a position to have increased production to meet it. We cannot pay high taxes, growing higher, unless we are producing more and selling more so that we can pay rates and taxes. That money will only come to the producer members of our community by their being put in a position to produce more than we are getting from them at present. They cannot to-day produce more because they have not the means to produce. Every farmer who knows the country, who knows the condition in which the soil of the country is, who knows the depleted resources of our farmers in live stock and machines, in his ability to feed nitrogenous manures to his soil and so on, is perfectly satisfied to-day that the greatest need is more money to put into the land and the work on the land. Wherever that money can be found or by whatever means it can be procured, the people who can show the way will be doing this country the greatest possible national service.
Senator Counihan, aided by Senator Johnston, has put this idea before the House. Senator Quirke thinks apparently that it is not possible, and a great many other people have doubts, but what can be against having the possibilities of such a scheme as this explored? What can be against carrying out investigations? What is against what Senator Johnston suggests—getting a conference of the representatives of the banks, the Government and the farmers to consider it? What possible reasonable argument can be advanced against such a course as that? If these three groups are prepared to meet to consider this scheme, we shall be all satisfied if they can put it through. If they cannot put it through, we shall have to be satisfied that this scheme is not workable or feasible. There is every justification to my mind for urging that this motion should be passed unanimously by the House. I believe that if the House is not prepared to do that it is only pretence for us to be talking about finding credit for farmers. If I were met with the case that there is no need for credit, or that there are ample instruments available to provide credit for the farmers, that would be one case, but if I am told that credit is needed and, at the same time, that we are not prepared to consider the possibilities of a scheme to provide us with credit. I cannot understand that attitude or mentality at all.
Senator Johnston gave the House very interesting and informative figures on the last day. A great deal of industry is required to make a study of figures and to get the correct sense from them and we ought to treasure a member of the House who shows the industry and the will to work as laboriously as Senator Johnston did to get these very valuable figures and to provide us with the interesting information which they convey. There is no doubt about it, the credit position here, the money that is made available to our farmers in any form to enable them to increase production, compared with what is done anywhere else, certainly in England or New Zealand or any other country, shows that we are years and years behind. I was looking the other day—probably this information would have come into the hands of other Senators as well as into mine —at some figures which show the relative credit facilities of this and other countries. In England, for instance, they have a somewhat similar institution to that which we have here under the term of the Agricultural Credit Corporation. They have the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation. That institution was established about the same time as the Agricultural Credit Corporation was established here— approximately ten years ago. In the ten years of their operation they have actually lent to the farmers in England a total of £12,889,740. They have given these loans on 879,000 acres and the total value of the security, land and buildings, which they have obtained amounts approximately to £20,000,000.
According to the Report of the Banking Commission, in the same period, or up to 1937, the Agricultural Credit Corporation here had lent out £1,370,627 to 16,719 farmers. Side by side, of course, with the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, we may presume that the English banks were doing the same thing for the English farmer as the Irish banks were attempting to do here. Beyond question, much more money has been lent to the English farmers than what has come from the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, but just look at the figures. They have given out £12,000,000 odd, while our farmers have received only £1,000,000 odd from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Somebody, of course, will say that England is a much richer country. I do not know from whom exactly that will come. Yes, it is a bigger area. The area on which they have to operate in England would be about 24,000,000 acres of arable land. Here we have 12,000,000 acres of arable land. Just measure the amount of credit which the English farmers can get from the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation as against what our farmers have been getting. Perhaps somebody will tell us that the English farmer will repay more readily and that it is much easier for the English farmer to get credit than the Irish farmer. Look at these figures. The English Corporation lent their money to their farmers at 4½ per cent.
Our corporation started charging 6 per cent. The figure now stands at 5 per cent. The English corporation, within seven days of the gale day, had repaid to them 92.6 per cent.—92.6 per cent. of the money had been repaid, or, at least, the annuity had been repaid by 92.6 per cent. of the people, at 4½ per cent. interest. In 1932, at the gale day, 89.38 per cent. of the Irish farmers had repaid their annuities to the Credit Corporation. Seven days after the gale day the English farmer had paid 92 point something. Let us take the figures during the bad years —1936 and 1937. In 1936, in May, the Irish farmer had repaid 71.95 per cent. In May, 1937, he had repaid 73.52 per cent. In that, certainly, there is no case proven that the Irish farmers will not pay and when you consider that they paid, at 5 per cent. and at 6 per cent., from 71 per cent. to practically 90 per cent. of the amount due at the gale day, when the English farmer was paying 92 per cent., it shows clearly that the Irish farmer will pay if he can pay. I think in so far as that might ever be used as an argument against giving credit it will not hold water. It is not representative of what the Irish farmer will do if he is given a chance. But, he is not being given the chance and he has not been given the chance for a great many years. He has been selling his goods against a falling market ever since the war. He then came into the period of the economic war when those farmers who had withstood the attack that had gone but who had used up some of their resources in holding on to what they had got and managing to sell against the falling market were again attacked.
We all know their condition to-day. We know that the country to-day is not producing anything like what it is capable of producing. We also know that there are certain lines of agricultural production which could be made profitable to-day if our people could get into production but they cannot do so unless they are helped by forces outside themselves. Where is this help going to come from? Here is a proposition. And Senator Counihan is not much of a politician. Senator Johnston' is even less so, and Senator Johnston's contributions to the debates in this House all along have been the contributions of a man who thinks about his problems and the problems of the country. He studies them and then tells the House what he thinks. When we receive the information which he places before us what we have got to do is to try to balance out things and see if there are possibilities in the scheme. If Senator Johnston were not the distinguished economist that he is, some of us might be a good deal more sceptical. I confess I was myself when this proposition was first mooted but there are none so blind as those who will not see and I have not reached that stage yet. I am prepared to examine what there is in such a scheme as this when it is put forward.
Apart altogether from the general position with regard to the farmer and his need for credit—a need which I saw was stressed recently even by the Minister himself—there is another and much more urgent problem arising out of the season which has just passed. There is a much more urgent problem than even the others to which I have referred and that is the terrific losses in cattle stocks which have occurred throughout the country, of which there seems to be very little discussion at all. As a matter of fact, I am rather appalled at the general silence of the agricultural community, if they know what is going on and what the position is in regard to the loss of stock in the country. It is a fact that there have been colossal losses in cattle stocks this past winter and spring. I do not know how much information the Minister has about it, but I have made inquiries in a few counties. I know what has happened in my own county, which is not anything as bad as what has happened in adjoining counties and the truth about it is that, from one end of the country to the other, there have been losses which have been even worse than the bad year of 1924-25 or 1925-26—I do not know which—when there were dreadful losses through fluke.
I have seen figures and I have seen reports in the papers. I saw a statement made the other day by the Chairman of the Longford County Committee of Agriculture. He is also Chairman of the local committee. He was making a plea for some assistance for the farmers there who had lost their stock. He said that every day a motor lorry came into his district collecting the dead cattle and taking them off to Belfast. I have seen that lorry pass my own place day after day myself. That story is going on up and down the country. Senators saw the Press reports about Connemara. I know, for instance, in the County Clare that there have been colossal losses going on from early in the year. I have heard of, I think, four townlands in West Clare where I am told they have lost up to 200 head. On very poor land along the Atlantic, between cattle and sheep, they have lost 200 head. I have seen figures of a return from a knacker's yard—I need not say where it is. In February, 1938, 69 cattle went into the yard. In February of this year 126 went; in March, 1938, 136 went; in March, 1939, the figure was 233. In April, 1938, 124 went, and in April of this year there went 314. That is in a district in which there is some of the best land in the country. That is the story throughout the country.
This is not a political question at all. It is not a matter for which Governments or political Parties or anybody else can be blamed. We have no responsibility at all. At least, we have no responsibility for the present situation. In how far there may be responsibility in not making provision for agricultural education and the treatment of cattle and providing against the harsh winters and springs which we experience now and again, is another problem. Anyhow, there is a grave situation confronting the country at present. I do not know if there are any figures to indicate how many thousands of cattle have been buried this year or manufactured in a knacker's yard or burned, but we may take it that our farmers have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds. The worst feature of it is that it is the poorest farmers who have lost, the men who had nothing. No man likes to see his cattle die and he will keep them alive as long as he can. It is a tragedy on any farm when cattle die but it is the greatest tragedy when it happens on the three or four or five cow farm and then the cattle die when every available penny has been spent on keeping them alive. What is going to happen on farms like those to-day? From what source are we going to get the money to replace the cattle so as to give those people a fresh start? If they do not get a fresh start, what happens? I have seen some of those places. I know what will happen. There may be a young growing family of perhaps three, four or five children. Perhaps some of them are grown up. Perhaps there may be only an old couple. No matter what the conditions are, if there are young people they are not going to stay on the land. They are going to strike out for themselves because there is nothing left for them on the land. There is not much hope of reproducing if they have not capital to restock the land. They may go to work on the roads. They may clear out of the country altogether. If there is a small family they are undernourished, and not properly clad. There are all sorts of other difficulties arising as a result of such a situation as this. That position is there and it is not one that will improve by delay in receiving treatment. Something ought to be done about it.
On another occasion many years ago the country was confronted with a somewhat similar problem. I was a member of the other House then. I did my best to stress the difficulties of the situation and to urge that remedial measures should be taken by the Government then. A certain line was adopted. An effort was made to establish credit societies to get the local people interested in restocking their land but it did not work.
I myself did everything I possibly could to bring about those forms of organisation to supply the want that was there, but I could not succeed. There is no use in going to the man who has lost two out of four cows and telling him that he will get credit if he has a reasonable proposition; that if he has £10 he would be given £10 more so that he can buy a couple of cows. You will not re-establish a man in that way; you will not give the farmers faith in themselves and encouragement to work by any method except that in which the State, by a system of credit, will enable these people to re-stock their land, at least to some extent. It may be argued— and I think that Senator Quirke did use it as an argument against the carrying of this motion of Senator Counihan's—that, if you were going to adopt anything like what Senator Counihan has suggested and make large sums of money available to the farmers who would use them, you were going to have a condition of inflation where thousands of pounds would be made available to the farmers and would be thrown on the market and that you would depreciate the value of the bonds. I presume he meant that you would inflate the value of the commodity with the cash you would have.
Both.
Perhaps both. In the first place you are never going to get a scheme working here at such high pressure that it is going to put so much money on the market all at once. In the second place, no sensible farmer is prepared to go to a fair and give £20 for a cow which he believes is worth only £15. There is a grain of sense left in the farmer still. He will not do that: he will come back home and bring the money with him and he will say the cow was not worth it and he will not buy that day. Some other farmer may buy, but I know that I have gone to fairs and I am sure Senator Quirke has been to some also —horse fairs and pig fairs—and it is the same everywhere. I have no use whatever for the argument that if our farmers get money they will spend it so rashly that they will bring home goods which are not worth half the price that they paid for them. I say that they will do nothing of the kind and I am prepared to bet that there is no money spent better than the money that is spent by the farmers on the goods they buy. There is no farmer that I know of who is not reluctant to pay even 5/- more for a beast than it is worth. Many times Senator Quirke or I have tried to obtain 5/- more for a beast and have never succeeded with the farmer, because he is not living by cash economy at all: goods are the things in which he trades, and he measures that by the value of what he things the goods are going to produce. There is not the slightest fear that what we are going to do will result in inflationary consequences arising out of any policy of credit which may be promulgated.
The main fact is that the farmers want money, and want it badly. The land wants it. The farmers are there and they will work the land better. There are thousands and thousands of farmers and probably 1,000,000 derelict or semi-derelict acres producing next to nothing at the same time. The farmers are trying to carry on paying rent and rates and are struggling to carry families as well. They are certainly not doing their duty to the owners, to the local authorities or to the State. I suppose those of us who are arguing this case here will be looked upon as being much more conservative than some of the people on the opposite side of the House. We would not like to be so extravagant in some ways, but I for one would be prepared to take the risk. I feel every time that if the farmer gets a chance he will pull his weight in building up this country, that there will be profitable production in which the farmers will engage if they get capital. They cannot find it themselves. There is money in our Irish banks that could be very well used on the land in this country. That capital could be advanced on the security of the reduced annuity of which the farmer is supposed to be enjoying the benefit, and if it is so advanced I believe that it will bring a return of 100 per cent.
We need not shut our eyes to the fact that production is decreasing in this country, unfortunately. That is due to want of capital. The farmer has not sufficient capital at the moment. From 1915 to 1918 the banks were liberal in giving farmers credit. During what we might call the "land rush" in this country the farmers went out and paid three times the price of land, on the assumption and on the guarantee that this money would be advanced by the banks. The money was advanced, and when the world depression set in the farmer was not in a position to pay the interest—let alone the principal— and up to the present day he is trying to liquidate that debt. Immediately afterwards, we had the economic war, and as we know, when the banks asked for payment the farmers were compelled to sell their stock at a very reduced price in order to meet the call of the banks.
When we come to the question of other countries, and the export of agricultural produce to the British market, we have to ask ourselves what is wrong here. Take, for instance, Denmark. The export from Denmark to the British market last year was three times the amount of the export of the whole of Ireland and New Zealand was five times our export. The number of cows in Denmark is given as 1,900,000 and the number for the whole of Ireland is given as 1,700,000. As we know, Denmark is not much larger than the province of Munster and yet they have 200,000 more cows than we have in the whole of Ireland.
In New Zealand the cows are supposed to give, on the average, approximately 700 gallons of milk in the year, whereas in Ireland the average is only 400. Taking 400 gallons per year, even at 6d. per gallon the whole year round, it should mean something about £10; and, allowing that the price of the calf would be something about £9, so that if the farmer had capital enough even to purchase a few cows he would, to my mind, have made practically 100 per cent. on the amount of money borrowed and invested by him.
There is no question as to why the land of this country is not stocked. There are at least 75 per cent. of the farmers who are unable to stock their land. They have no credit and are helpless. I happen to be Chairman of a creamery with 2,400 milk suppliers, and the whole trouble of the farmers is not the land annuities nor the high rates but the want of capital. If they had adequate capital to restock their lands and to put a sufficient number of cattle on them, they would be in a position to carry on and to bring about some production to keep themselves and their families and, in some cases, to pay labour.
There is one branch of agriculture which the Government nursed very well and for which we have to give them credit. That is the dairying branch. We are not unmindful of the services rendered by, and the timely action of, the Government at the time when the depression set in and when butter was sold on the British market at from 70/- to 80/- per cwt. The Government, through the present Minister, came to the aid of the dairying industry and the price paid to the farmers here was 104/- to 112/-. Leaving aside tariffs and the economic war, if we had to sell in the open British market we would have received only 75/- or 80/-, whereas, with the assistance of the Government here we received 104/-. I do not mind what scheme is devised in order to provide capital for the farmers at a low rate of interest, but I say that it is absolutely essential that it should be done, and done immediately, because we must admit that agriculture is the key industry of the country. As Senator Baxter says, this should not be a Party business. It should be for this House and for everybody in the country to assist production as far as possible and to help the farmers in every possible way.
I do not intend to delay the House. I wrote down headings in order that I might either stick to the amendments or the motion and I hope that if I go over the whole field of agriculture you, Sir, will tell me to sit down. With regard to the motion, I do not know that it is the best means by which we may attain all we desire. It is a good motion and, aided by Senator Johnston's amendment, I am sure some good will come from it, but one snag that I see is that the bonds will be advanced only to those people who pay land annuities. The greatest crime of recent legislation was that perpetrated against most industrious patriots who, when they had spare money, paid off their annuities, and when redress was given in the reduction of annuities, had no attention paid to them, their homes or their families. There was no reduction of annuities for those people who had bought out previous to the economic war and there was no attention paid to the sacrifice inflicted on their homes.
With regard to credit, I hold that the entire question would be solved if the farmers were placed by the State in the position of owning their land, in the same way as they own their motor cars, the clothes on their backs and the teeth in their heads. To my mind, credit cannot, with equity to the citizens of the State, be given as a free grant by the Government. The banks exist to receive certain moneys and the State should see to it that that money is subsequently distributed for the benefit, firstly, of the depositors who own it, and then with due regard to the fact that the man who owns land should be held in the same sacred light as deposits are held in the banks to-day.
I must say that when I first saw this proposal I approached it very sceptically, because, for a number of years past, one has been wearied by ill-informed people coming along and offering, in a most pontifical way, propositions whereby, with an ordinary mechanical device in currency or credit, one would be able to relieve humanity of all the evils from which it suffers. One has had to listen to so much of this that, when anybody comes to talk of credit, one naturally assumes that there is some very cranky proposition coming forward; but when I read this proposal carefully, it did seem to me that a case could be made, although I admit that I am quite prepared to hear any case that can be made against it. The way I see it is that when the various Land Acts were passed, if a tenant were made an annuitant at £100 a year, to put it at a round figure, obviously those Land Acts presupposed that that farmer would be able, out of his land and his labour applied to his land, to provide for his family, to pay all overhead costs and to have a surplus of £100. Otherwise, it would have been a ridiculous thing to put that burden of £100 on him.
It was assumed, when the various Land Acts were passed, and preeminently the 1903 Act, that if you were made owner in fee-simple, subject to an annuity of £100 a year, your labour on that farm would produce what you required to live, your overhead expenses and leave that surplus which would allow you to pay £100. My experience is not universal in this country, but, in various parts that I know well, I do know that we are suffering from under-production, due to the poverty of farmers. We can all admit now that, during the economic war period, farmers were spending their accumulated savings, which we will call their capital. When the Agreement with England was made last year, a great number of people expected an immediate enormous resurgence in farming here. They have been disappointed for the reason, so far as my own limited experience in this matter goes, that, during the period of the economic war, the farmer went out of production, his land became impoverished and his stock diminished, and when the relief of the Agreement came, he was not able to get back to his previous standard of production and he was not able to do that by reason of lack of capital. During that period, the Government made a new arrangement whereby the farmer was due to pay only one-half of the annuities he previously paid. Therefore, if he had been in a previous condition of prosperity, one would assume that he would be able to do all he did before, and put £50 into the bank.
What I understand from the proposal is that here is a man with an asset which was assumed under the Land Acts to provide all his needs and leave a residue of £100 to be paid as an annuity, but now he has to pay only half. Consequently—and we have heard a great deal of propaganda on it—it is as though he were given, as a gift, a capital sum equal to half the capital sum implied by the annuity he previously paid. At this time, I think we can all admit that there is this problem of under-production, largely induced and maintained under the new conditions by a lack of means to enable the land and the farmer's labour to produce greater productive value. What I understand this proposes is that a farmer, having, as it were, received this gift, halving the value of his farm, should have issued to him bonds by the Government certifying, in effect, his ownership of that unburdened asset he possesses. Senator Counihan, I think, proposes that these bonds should be interest bearing. When these are issued, he, I presume, would be due to pay an additional £50 which would represent interest and sinking fund and would receive interest on those bonds, which would be that £50 minus whatever part would be due for sinking fund. It would be, in effect, a mortgage. He takes that to the bank and says: "I have this farm. As to one half of it, it is already encumbered by the payment of an annuity; as to the other half, here is this scrip representing its value. On that I pay, and I must be recognised as solvent to pay that for the very Land Acts themselves presuppose such solvency." He lodges that with the bank as security, and the bank, fortified by the control of that security, would be able to advance him a capital sum, the purpose of which would be to enable him to increase the productivity of his land.
This seems to be the only proposition with regard to the creation of capital with any soundness in it that I have met though I quite agree that the Minister may get up and prove to me that it is a most unsound proposition. The farmer is certainly a poorer man than he was seven years ago. But the Land Acts must have recognised that there would be good and bad years for the farmers. When the Legislature imposed that burden of say, £100 a year annuity on a farmer it must have been on the assumption that even in a comparatively lean year he would be able to pay that sum after the other outgoings of the farm and his expenses had been met. But the farmer now owns an unencumbered half of that amount. He leaves this scrip with the bank and that banker is due to receive the interest until the money has been paid back. The Government having issued that scrip to the farmer, the farmer will be due to receive £50 a year on that bond. The bank will receive the interest paid by the Government and the Government's machinery will collect that second half of the annuity by the same process as that with which it collects the present half that the farmer pays and with no additional expense to the Government. There would be no increased machinery or cost on the Government in the collection of these moneys. When the Government issues that scrip they actually put into the farmer's hands something that would be a very valuable security for him. They are giving him a Government bond. A Government bond lodged in the bank is recognised as good security justifying the bank to loan the money at the very minimum rate of interest.
It seems to me that this scheme of Senator Counihan is a sound one, though when it is gone into in detail one's point of view on that may be changed. However, so far as I have been able to judge from the criticisms on it, I have really seen no criticism that negatived the considerations that Senator Counihan has put forward.
Now we have another amendment by Senator Johnston which proposes that the Government should "convene a conference of representatives of the Government, banks and the farmers" to consider this proposal. That amendment by Senator Johnston does mean this, that if we pass Senator Counihan's motion as amended by Senator Johnston's amendment we do not commit ourselves to a positive assertion that the proposals in the original motion are completely watertight. We are going so far as to say that Senator Counihan has put forward a prima facie case for the solution of the problem of the provision of credit for the farmers. We are saying that he has put forward a solution which seems to provide on the face of it for farmers receiving cheap money from the banks and the banks receiving sound security for advancing this money for the development of agriculture in this country. All we are asked to do is to recommend it to the Commission for Agriculture. No sound argument has been put forward against it. We are asking the Government to convene a conference of representatives of the Government, the banks and the farmers to consider this matter. In my view, that is a body which would be eminently qualified to examine this proposition and to point out any flaws that might be in it, flaws which at first sight might easily escape out notice. As a result of the examination if they were not satisfied in entirely urging the steps proposed by Senator Counihan, if they did not think themselves justified in that they might themselves be able to amend the proposals put forward and bring forward some useful recommendation themselves.
As far as I have been able to judge after reading carefully Senator Counihan's proposition, I think we might assume that when the various Land Acts were passed they were financially sound and that there was good judgment exercised in saying that such and such a farm was able to support the workers on it and pay out all outgoing expenses. If that reasoning is sound it seems to me that the farmer does now possess a real asset and that that real asset can be made able to be operated by such a proposal as that of Senator Counihan— that the Government should issue appropriate scrip and collect from the farmer the amount due with the other half of the annuity, and this would pay the interest annually due upon that scrip to the farmer himself if he does not realise the value of it in the bank or, in case he does, to the bank. It seems that that would be adequate security to the bank. As far as I can see it is a sound proposition, and one which would enable the farmer to get cheap money and that at a time when he is eminently in need of cheap money, so as to be able to put it to useful purpose in helping this country to get back towards the maximum agricultural production.
In my judgment the Agreement made with England last year offers wonderful potentialities to this country. It offers the people of this country an opportunity of being able to dispose profitably of their agricultural produce. We have here a country which is able to produce very much more than we are producing. This would give the farmer an opportunity of buying all that he needs in the way of stock, artificial manures and so on, the things that would enable him to make his farm productive. As a result of the Agreement last year with England, the farmer now has a profitable market that is able to absorb any increased productivity which could be brought about in his farm. Until one hears Senator Counihan's case destroyed by sound arguments, one should support it. Even as amended by Senator Johnston's amendment, we should support it. We are not actually ourselves approving of Senator Counihan's proposal but we realise that he has made a case that would justify such a body of representatives as is proposed by Senator Johnston being set up.
I have met quite a number of people through the country during the past fortnight since Senator Counihan initiated his motion here. I must say that I never heard such a consensus of opinion and relief as has greeted the motion. I find very wide gratitude to the Senator for introducing a motion about which we were all thinking or at least we are all thinking about something analogous to it which would bring relief to the chief industry in this country—agriculture. Consequently I welcome the discussion on this motion in the hope that we may focus the attention of the responsible Minister here and of the Government on the uneconomic position of the farmers and the rural workers to-day, believing as we do that prosperous agriculture is the pivot on which revolves the whole economic stability of the State. If we examine this subject impartially and objectively, I am sure we will all agree that agriculture is one of the chief, if not the chief, industry in the country, and the one on which the prosperity of the nation almost entirely depends.
No man can look upon the present condition of the country with equanimity. No country can continue to extract money from the same source when that source is gradually and inevitably diminishing. Agriculture is our chief source of wealth. If agriculture is depressed, then the source of wealth will suffer and it will operate against the source of supply. When that position arises, I hold it is the chief and paramount duty of the Government either to reduce rates, taxes and overhead charges or refund, by means of grants or by the means proposed in this resolution, the losses suffered by the farmers, so as to rehabilitate the source of wealth and keep the source of supply operating. I am absolutely convinced that the whole policy of the Government is wrong in regard to the agricultural community. The whole policy of the Administration for the past six or seven years has been one of industrialisation. That policy is good in itself when adopted cautiously and experimentally but the whole outlook and vision of the Government has been to industrialise the country at the sacrifice of the industry which must be the mainstay of industrialisation— agriculture.
We were told by the Minister for Finance—I think in this House—that there was £150,000,000 to the credit of farmers in Irish banks. It would be interesting to know what the proportion of the farmers who own that money is to the major number. Assuming that there is £150,000,000, as the Minister said, to the credit of the farmers, what good is that to the majority of the farmers who are down and out at present, as I hope to convince the Minister and the House before I resume my seat? Senator Parkinson told us last day that land is no longer a collateral security. Nobody will give a farmer a 1/- to-day. If the Government persist in that vision of industrialisation, if they continue to make the golden keys wherewith to open industries and forget the interest of agriculture, what earthly chance can there be of the success of industries when the basic, the fundamental and the chief industry is in a state of penury and want? The Minister for Finance must have convinced himself about this £150,000,000 because, in the Budget before last, he provided £2,500,000 for the unemployed—a very useful thing. When we came to analyse £2,500,000, we found that £850,000 was to be struck by the local authorities and superimposed upon the agricultural community. That represented, at a time when conditions were bad, 1/6 in the £. Some time prior to that, when agriculture was depressed and when the slogan was: "Speed the calf skins," we found the Minister for Finance doing an extraordinary thing. He extracted from the Guarantee Fund £750,000 and, when the legality of his action was questioned by the Louth and Cork County Councils and when the Attorney-General realised the equity of the demands of these county councils, the Minister for Finance, with indecent haste, introduced a Bill in the other House and legalised what would have been an illegal act. He robbed the Guarantee Fund of £750,000 and superimposed that upon the farmers at a time when depression was coming to its peak. That represented about 1/-in the £. The Minister must have been, with the Government, completely out of sympathy with the true position of the farmer. In that year, the county council of which I was a member found it difficult to collect the amount necessary for our normal commitments. Yet, we had to strike a rate for this purpose and impose £24,000 on the shoulders of a depressed agricultural community.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
I think that the Senator is getting away from the terms of the motion.
I am trying to prove that the conditions which operated during the past six or seven years have been adverse to the interests of the agricultural community.
The Senator is tending to go into other matters.
I am tending to state facts—incontrovertible facts—about things which have been done and which have contributed to making the condition of the farmer to-day as we find it.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
It is not necessary for the Senator to go so deeply into these facts. Perhaps the Senator would relate his remarks to the motion.
I shall. We heard a lot of talk during the last couple of years about "speeding the plough" and "growing more." Even if we grew 50 per cent. or 100 per cent. more food than we provide to-day there would be left 10,000,000 acres of grass. If any man here set out and visited every farm along the line of country to Ballydehob, what would be his experience? One Senator told us about the stock that have been dying. Another aspect of the matter can be pointed to by many other Senators here. I should say that one-fourth of the dairying farms to-day, if you take the line I have indicated, would be non-productive. Senator Johnston indicated, on an academic basis, the value of the dairy cow in his very informative address on the last occasion. It was really his statement and review and the imprimatur which he placed on the motion by Senator Counihan that recommended the acceptance of the motion to me. If you visit these dairying farms, five out of every 15 are non-productive. You know the reason why. The farmer has, say, fifteen cows. Five of them are very old. Some of them have no calves and are non-productive. But there is such a pride in him that he will not dispose of these old cows that are using good grass because he has not money to restock the land. We also find that about one-fourth of the land is non-productive. It is water-logged; white-thorn hedges are growing out into the fields because the farmer has not the capital to employ labour to clean fences and to get all that is possible out of the land. The whole position of the farmer is one that should receive the immediate and pressing consideration of the Minister and the Government, if he is to be rehabilitated.
There is another question and I think it is the most serious of all—the flight from the land. No one can dispute the figures of the Registrar-General. He tells us that the agricultural population has been reduced by 31,000 in 2½ years. He further adds that the number of boys and girls registered on the school registers is 26,000 less, as compared with 1932. Every day, in the trains and buses, we see boys and girls particularly from the rural areas, flying from their homesteads as they would from a pestilence. Despite the fact that 900 new industries have been created to provide essential employment, unemployment has increased until it touches a figure somewhere in the region of 100,000. Some 105,000 people have left the land; 31,000 farmers' sons have gone altogether from the country in the last four or five years, and there are 26,000 less children in the farmers' homes because they are not marrying. Again, 152 rural schools have been closed in the last five or six years. Is that not an appalling picture? Surely Goldsmith's lines,
"A bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied,"
apply to-day in absolute sympathy with the condition of rural Ireland.
The only thing to save the farmer is to provide money by way of easy-term loans. If the Minister does not accept the wisdom of the motion proposed by Senator Counihan, I, as representing a dairying county, make a strong appeal to him to do something to provide long-term easy loans for farmers. I pointed out in this House before— and it is not politics—that we had to take strong action against a body of men who were unable to collect from the farmers their commitments in rates. We have less cattle, derelict farms and have unproductive land. We have farmers to-day who are reduced to the position of mendicants and beggars. They are begging from the banks. They are begging from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. They are begging from the county councils, from the Land Commission, from the shopkeepers and, in fact, from everybody. The remedy for their plight is to produce more and to reduce the cost of production. Everything is against the farmer. I stated here before, and I repeat it now, that in 1914 I could sell a mowing machine to a farmer for £12 or £15. This morning I got a list from one of the leading firms showing the price of these machines. Anybody who wishes may see it, and they will see that a mower to-day costs £26. The cost of horse-carts, shovels, wheel-rakes, pikes, in fact everything they have to buy, has gone up by 100 per cent. over the 1914 level, while the price of everything the farmer has to sell is in the inverse ratio. He has to sell under the cost of production. How can that system of economy continue indefinitely without disastrous consequences, not alone for the agricultural community but for the whole community?
We all remember that during the Great War the farmers were paid handsomely for everything they had to sell. That bright and prosperous period was definitely reflected amongst other sections of the community. The towns and villages, business people and labouring people, in fact everybody had a smile of comfort and prosperity. Then when adversity came along for the farmers, it affected everybody else also. Senator Honan told us some time ago that everybody was talking about the condition of the farmer and that nobody had a word to say about our towns and villages. The towns and villages are monuments of decay and there is no necessity to talk of them because every responsible citizen knows that that is due to the want of capital and to the condition of agriculture. Put agriculture on a proper basis, make it remunerative for those engaged in it, and I believe that that will be reflected once more in the condition of the people in our towns and villages.
May I respectfully say that I do not at all agree with the arguments of Senator Quirke. He said that if capital were provided for farmers on this basis, it would mean an irresponsible distribution and a waste of Government money. The farmers have learned a very salutary lesson during the past few years. They may have been too generous during the Great War but they have learned a very useful and bitter lesson in the period that has elapsed since. I am sure that Senator Quirke, who is a countryman like myself, can appreciate the fact that the farmer has learned a very useful lesson in recent years, particularly during the period of the economic war which was a terrible infliction on the agricultural community. I believe that if this motion is adopted, we shall provide a means of restoring prosperity not alone for the farmers but for the community as a whole.
I do not like to adopt the attitude of "I told you so," but I remember on a previous occasion, when we were discussing a motion asking the Minister to set up an Agricultural Commission, that I opposed that motion because, as I said, it would take the Agricultural Commission too long to report back or to achieve anything useful. It is rather strange, therefore, when we are told here to-day that this is a very urgent question, a question that should be dealt with immediately, that it should be said now that it cannot be dealt with by the Agricultural Commission for a year or two, I see no reason why it should not be dealt with, and dealt with as one of its first tasks, by the Agricultural Commission. We were told on a previous occasion, in answer to a question by me, that the commission could bring in an interim report as previous commissions had done. I do not see why this question should not be dealt with in that way. Speaking from that angle, I will say that as far as I am concerned, I prefer Senator Counihan's motion in its original form without the amendment of Senator Johnston. I would much prefer to have the matter dealt with by the Agricultural Commission, if the House is in favour of doing that, than setting up another body to deal with it. I have no great faith in a commission set up directly to deal with this matter. We have banking representatives, farmers and representatives of other interests, on the Agricultural Commission. Of the motions before the House, personally I would prefer that put forward by Senator Cú Uladh because I think the question can be dealt with by the Agricultural Commission, and dealt with immediately as a question that affects very seriously the whole agricultural community.
I quite agree with a good deal Senator Baxter has said. I agree that there is no doubt in the world that if agriculture is to be brought to any measure of prosperity and if it is to be the asset to the country which it should be we must get some form of credit. Senator Madden has told us that the farmer is producing below the cost of production. I have been preaching that for a great number of years. We have been doing that, not only for the last seven years, but for 15 years, producing most things, practically everything that counts, under the cost of production.
I am not quite clear yet, despite what everybody has told me, as to what exactly the meaning of this motion is. Perhaps I could not illustrate it better than if I were to take my own case and Senator Johnston or Senator Counihan might tell me exactly what would be my position. Take a man whose rent was £80 a year, purchased under the Wyndham Act of 1903, vested and finished with. It is now £40. Do I take it that he gets scrips for somewhere about £400? Would that be right? If he produces them at the bank he will get a loan of something like that amount and then he should continue to pay the full annuity for the rest of the term — 30 years or whatever it is. Personally, I would not be keen on that arrangement, and I know a number of farmers of the same opinion. They do not want anything that would bring them back to the original annuities. Everyone of us wants credit.
You want something for nothing.
No; we are quite prepared to pay for it but we would rather get it through the ordinary channels. We would like that some cheap means of credit could be arranged by the Agricultural Commission or the Ministry so that we could go to the bank or the Credit Corporation and get a loan of £100 or £200 at a cheap rate of interest.
Get it.
I am only voicing my own opinion. I give Senator Counihan every credit for trying to do something. He has been a long time trying to do it and I am quite satisfied that he is sincere and earnest about it. I am only giving my opinion about it. I am not a bit keen on this motion and I certainly say that I would much prefer that it should be sent back. Even if I differed about setting up the Agricultural Commission, as I said here, I would like to help it by any means I could help it. I am quite certain that it is their job to deal with this question and I think it should be left to them.
I was very glad that Senator Johnston and Senator Madden also referred to the question of cows and suggested that we should buy a lot more cows. I believe that we could do very useful work if we could induce all the farmers to join the Cow Testing Association. It is a scandal in this country that, despite all the talk there is about agriculture, there are only 4 per cent. or some low percentage of the farmers who are members of the Cow Testing Association. I understand the same position obtained in Germany up to recent years. It has been made compulsory in Germany, and, although I have no admiration for Germany or the people who control Germany, I certainly say that the Minister for Agriculture in this country ought seriously consider making cow testing compulsory in this country also.
As far as I am concerned, I think every farmer in the country is very anxious to get credit and if we cannot get it through any other means than this we would probably be glad to fall back on it but I, personally — I am speaking for no one here but myself — would much prefer some scheme that would not interfere with my annuities but which would enable me to go to the bank and get it on the security of my place or something else.
I rise to support Senator Johnston's amendment chiefly because the provision of credit is a matter of urgency. If we have to wait for even an interim report from the Agricultural Commission it may be too late. Nowadays there are wars and rumours of war all over the world and, chiefly on account of that, we will have to get back to the fundamentals. When we look across the water we find that in England they are pouring out money to try to revive the corpse of agriculture but it is probably too late because they have neglected it so long. They have realised that they will have to depend on agriculture when war does come. We should do the same. Our first line of defence in this country should be increased production so that we also may be prepared in case there is a European catastrophe. I think the Minister for Finance partially realises that situation too. At least, in winding up his Budget speech a short while ago, he said:
"If a widespread war comes, however, our difficulties will be intensified beyond measure. I speak now, not only of the reaction of such a disaster upon our finances. But there I know that with a much diminished real income, we shall be called upon to shoulder vastly increased public burdens."
He goes on to say:
"The problem in that regard will be aggravated by the fact that existing sources of revenue will rapidly dry up... And it will no longer be possible to get so large a part of our requirement by customs duties upon imported goods."
In other words, we have got to turn back again to agriculture and we have got to produce more if we can exist at all.
It is imperative then that the Minister should act quickly in this case. That is why this amendment of Senator Johnston's is preferable rather than referring the question to the Agricultural Commission. Our position at present is that our agricultural industry is starved for want of capital. We have the position that there are 126,000 farmers owing £30,000,000 to the banks of this country. If we take in addition about 50,000, which is a conservative estimate of those who are tied up in the banks also as guarantors, while they may not owe money themselves, we have practically half the farmers of this country involved with the banks and no longer able to obtain capital.
According to the Report of the Banking Commission, when this question of frozen loans was referred to, the Banking Commission did not regard that as being of major importance. They were looking down from the lofty eminence of a Banking Commission, and they would not consider it as of major importance in view of the assets of the farming community. I suppose the assets of the farming community are probably £300,000,000 or £400,000,000, so that a mere sum of £30,000,000, from the point of view of the Banking Commission, is not a huge sum, but, from the point of view of the farmers of this country, it is a huge sum in that it prevents them from getting any capital or utilising any capital whatsoever. It is like two people looking through opposite ends of a telescope. One sees things far away and small; the other sees them close up and rather big.
The admirable thing about this proposal is that it would not cost the State one penny; that it would simply mean that those farmers who would want capital would revert to the original, full annuity, and that, on the capitalised remitted annuity, it would provide them with a certain amount of free capital.
We all remember that, before the annuities were halved or before the economic war, it was much easier to collect the full annuity than it is now to collect the halved annuity; and the farmer himself never regarded the full annuity as being anything but what he should pay and what he always did pay. In the case of a man who would want capital, the full annuity would not interfere with him in any shape or form, and I am sure that the banks would be very glad if the old relations between the farmers and themselves were re-established. Senator Johnston, I think, said the last day that the capitalised amount would be something in the neighbourhood of £34,000,000. That would not put agriculture fully on its feet, but, in addition to the good psychological effect that it would have, it would be certainly an attempt to put the agricultural community in a good way. After all, the banks of this country were built up on the mutual confidence between the bankers and the agricultural community, and if you go into any town that has any pretentions now, the finest building in the town is the bank. I think they are the soundest and the best in the world, but if we are proud of those banks it is also a tribute to the honesty and thrift and hard work of the farmers, because it was their hard work that built up those banks. At present the relations between the bankers and the farmers are not antagonistic but a sort of stalemate. They cannot trade with each other and it is now a matter of re-establishing those good relations again. If we realise that during the period of the economic war the farmers lost £132,000,000 in diminished trade, surely the mere fact of capitalising half the annuities to the sum of £34,000,000 is not a desperate proposition. It would not go to the farmers' heads and make them buy a £15 cow for £20.
Senator Baxter referred to the huge losses that the farmers underwent this year. I can support him in that. I know that locally the master of hounds is refusing to take carcases of horses and cows and the local knackers are not able to deal with them, so that it is a question of urgency in that way. The Minister may remember the heifer scheme that he introduced a few years ago. Up to a point, that heifer scheme was very successful. The farmers bought those heifers and they paid back every penny that was advanced to them by the Agricultural Credit Corporation, but the good effects were nullified largely by the fact that the economic war continued too long. They kept those animals for a year, or probably two years, and then had to sell them, because there was nothing else saleable on their farms at the time. Therefore, if this money could be advanced to the farmers, it would be a method of getting back to a good stock of cows again. Somebody said that the number of cows in the country had not increased or had remained stationary at about 1,250,000; but it is rather strange that, if the number of cows has remained stationary, the output of the dairying industry is decreasing. It simply means that the cows of the country, taking them all over, are, I believe, deteriorating. The farmer had to sell his good cows and keep the worst or unsaleable animals for himself. That is reflected, also, in the bullocks and heifers, the progeny of those cows. In spite of the good work done by the Department of Agriculture, the bad cows are responsible for the deterioration in livestock generally. It is all simply because the farmer is suffering from lack of capital. I have every confidence in the honesty of the Irish farmer: he did not become dishonest in the last five or six years. Give him back some capital and he will start into production again and the old relations between the banks and themselves will be re-established. I would earnestly ask the House to support Senator Counihan's resolution and to provide the capital that the farmer needs.
Might I enquire when it would suit the Minister to make his reply? Would he like to hear all the speeches first?
I would like to reply now.
It will be understood that Senator The McGillycuddy has to second my amendment.
I would speak now, but perhaps the Minister might like simply to intervene in the debate at this stage.
I thought personally there was no necessity for me to come here. Senator Counihan suggested to me that I should be here, and I would not like to appear discourteous to the Seanad or to Senator Counihan; but I do not think I have very much to say. First of all I think that a number of the speeches made by Deputies here are based on assumptions that are not altogether correct. I have heard it said over and over again that the farms are very badly understocked. That may be true to some extent, but certainly there is nothing very appalling or disastrous in it. I think, if the statistics are examined, it will be found that we have more cows now than in any period before 1932. Anyone would think, on listening to some of the speeches made by Senators here at present — and I am sure any stranger listening to the debate would come to the conclusion — that we have now only half the number of cows that we had in 1932. Senators may have got the impression one from another, but that is not the position of affairs at all. I think we should try to base a debate on a matter like this on the facts as they are. The number of cattle in the country is about the same as it was for the last 20 years. There may have been 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. of a change, but, taking it on the average of the years 1922 to 1932, it is about the same.
Of young cattle?
Yes, of all cattle. It is the same as it was for those ten years. Now, listening to the speeches made by some Senators here, one would imagine that it would take £34,000,000 to bring us to the point at which we were in 1932. That is not the case at all. The cattle are there. The number of sheep is down, it is true: I do not know the percentage, but they are a good lot down over the past five or six years. I know that they were fairly low about 1927; I do not know if they were as low as they are now. I think perhaps they are lower now. The number of horses is about the same as ever it was, and certainly the number of horses exported is about the same. The number of pigs and poultry is down, but not to any alarming extent either. I think it is a pity that they are down, but they are down perhaps 10 or 15 per cent. on the average for the period 1922-32. Taking all in all, cattle being the same, horses the same, sheep down, pigs and poultry down 10 or 15 per cent., I wonder would any neutral person or any visitor get the impression from this debate that agriculture is down only to that extent. The Senator who has just spoken, Senator Doyle, said that our output from the dairying industry was down. I am not quite sure about the figures for 1938. I examined them and as far as I can recollect they are as good as for 1937. At any rate, there is no great decline in the output of the dairying industry.
Another statement made was that there is more unemployment. On what basis is that statement made? I do not think it is right that we should go into these figures which are outside the scope of this debate, but I think that if we can show that, in respect of national health insurance and unemployment insurance, there are many more cards stamped now than in 1932, it means that more people are employed. There may be more on the unemployment register, but why should a person from Donegal or Mayo register in 1932 when he had nothing to get out of it? Another statement made was that there were fewer children at school. Children do not go to school until they are four or five years of age, and if there are fewer children at school the fault must lie six or seven years back, when the children were not born, or when somebody refused to have children born. If there were fewer children at school in six or seven years' time, one might blame the economic war, but let us not blame the economic war for the present low attendance at schools.
It was also stated that if we grew all our own cereals we would still have 10,000,000 acres of grass. Of course, we would. I remember saying in the Dáil — and I think that the statement was largely agreed to — that there is no great difference between the two Parties on this question of tillage and livestock. The Fianna Fáil Government have been trying to get more tillage, so that more of the cereals required will be produced, and the Fine Gael Party say that they want to see a certain amount of tillage done — what they call mixed farming. Honestly, I do not see much difference between us. The Fine Gael Party say they want mixed farming with tillage and livestock. We want the same. We may be advertising wheat growing to a greater extent than the Fine Gael Party, but there is only 500,000 or 1,000,000 acres between us which would be put under cereals if our advertising and other schemes were successful in getting wheat grown. We are all agreed that we should have the livestock for the rest of the land. There is not, as I say, very much between us, and it should never be taken for granted that there are two altogether distinct parties, one being out completely for tillage and the elimination of livestock, and the other out completely for livestock and the elimination of tillage, because that is not the position.
It used to be the propaganda position during the elections.
I do not think so. As a matter of fact, I think I could produce leaflets from the Fine Gael Party in which they actually say that, if they got into power, they would maintain our wheat scheme and other schemes.
I should like to remind the Minister that there are no political Parties in this House.
I am sorry. If so, I will be forgiven for dealing with Senator Counihan in a personal way. I think Senator Counihan is a most unreasonable and most erratic Senator in many ways. He is overcredulous, for one thing, and he also suffers from what I might best describe as intermittent optimism. During the economic war, I do not think I ever came to a debate here during which I was not told by Senator Counihan, no matter what the debate was — whether it was on oysters or not — that if the economic war was settled, the farmers would be all right. I defy the Senator to look up his speeches any time I was here and to find that he made a speech without making that statement. Now, is everything right? He comes along and says everything is not right, having persuaded me that nothing was necessary except to settle the economic war.
What sort of prices would we be getting now, if it were not settled?
Did the Senator make anything on the cattle he had at the time the economic war was settled? To give another illustration, Senator Byrne said that there was a motion before the Seanad some time ago in which Senator Baxter advocated setting up a commission. I was opposed to it at that time. Senator Counihan supported it and again said that if we set up a commission of independent men and put the whole question to them, everything would be all right. Now everything is not all right. He wants another commission set up to deal with this particular question. Naturally, I do not want to influence the Seanad, but if the Seanad should agree to the motion, and if the motion, as amended by Senator Johnston, should be passed, I am afraid that I will be called to the Seanad in three or four weeks' time to set up some sort of body to look after this body which has been set up. We cannot be setting up one body after another like that and asking them to look after the other body and to see why they are not doing their duty.
The motion itself is objectionable from this point of view, that it is a direction from the Seanad to the Agricultural Commission to investigate a certain method of financing agriculture. From that point of view alone, it is objectionable. I do not think there would be any objection whatever if Senator Counihan, as a Senator or a farmer, were to put his scheme to the Agricultural Commission for their consideration, but, when the commission is set up, I think it is scarcely right that either the Dáil or the Seanad should give that commission any direction as to the lines on which they should go, and, from the very beginning, I thought this motion was objectionable from that point of view. With regard to the amendment by Senator Johnston, I think that, as there is a commission in existence, which has been asked to consider an increase in production in agriculture, surely one of the things they will naturally consider is the question of credit and whether a farmer has enough money or not for this purpose.
Might I interrupt the Minister to say that it is apparently objectionable to ask the commission and objectionable not to ask the commission.
That is what I was coming to. A commission was set up to inquire into and report on the means possible to increase production in agriculture, and surely they would naturally consider whether more money was required by the farmers or not. If they came to the conclusion that they wanted more credit, the next thing they would consider, I suppose, is what scheme of credit would be best to recommend. As I say, Senator Counihan, or any other Senator, could put suggestions to them on that point, and I do not think there would be any objection whatever; but I think it is a different thing when the Seanad comes along and makes a recommendation. But, as that commission is there, I think we would be casting a slight on it, or making little of it, if we were to set up another commission to investigate this particular question. The Agricultural Commission might very well say to us: "As this credit question is one of the principal questions in regard to the production of agriculture, if you set up a separate commission to deal with it and to make recommendations which the Government may adopt, it does take the greater part of the work we have been asked to do from us and makes it very difficult to carry on," so that I think there is a distinct objection to the setting up of the second commission visualised by Senator Johnston. At the same time — it may seem contradictory — I think it is quite true that it is scarcely right that we should give directions to the commission now sitting, so that it does amount to what Senator Johnston said. It appears to me to be wrong for the Seanad to give a direction to the commission, and also wrong for the Seanad to suggest the setting up of a second commission which would work on more or less parallel lines.
Do I take it from the Minister that he holds the view that the House is muzzled, once a commission is set up?
No. I think that if the Seanad itself considered this motion of Senator Counihan's and decided itself that it was a good scheme, I would not see the same objection to it. I might see some objection to putting it into operation, but no objection from the point of view of the commission.
I should like to think that the Seanad regards itself as being quite competent to understand and recommend a scheme of this kind, but everybody seems to be afraid to say that he approves of it, or to say whether there are real difficulties in it or not. No one has the courage to say whether he really approves of it as a sound scheme or not.
I do not want to take in any way from the ability of the men on the commission, but I think the Seanad ought to consider itself as able a body as the Agricultural Commission to investigate a question like this. I do not think there would be the same objection, if the Seanad were to consider the motion itself, if they came to the conclusion that it was a good scheme and that they could not find any very serious objections to it, and to recommend the Government that they should go into it and consider putting it into operation.
I do not say that the Government would naturally adopt it, but there would not be the same objection, if it came from the Seanad, instead of being a recommendation to the commission. I think the amendment proposed by Senator Cú Uladh is not objectionable because it amounts to saying to the Agricultural Commission: "We think this question is urgent, but we do not in any way dictate to you as to what system of credit should be adopted. We just think the question is urgent." That is my view, but it is a question for the Seanad to decide. Having said that, as to the objection I have to the Seanad passing a resolution of this kind to go to the Agricultural Commission, I wonder have Senators considered the point that the Agricultural Commission will be in rather an invidious position? One House of the Oireachtas has approved, as it were — as somebody put it, has approved in a prima facie way — of a certain scheme and put it to them for examination. They must give that, having come from one of the Houses of the Oireachtas, very serious consideration, and they will be perhaps unduly influenced in coming to a favourable decision on that scheme because it comes from the Seanad. On the other hand, if, by any chance, they decide to reject it, they may find themselves faced with the very unpleasant duty of having to reject a scheme put to them with the approval of the Seanad. At any rate, I have come to the conclusion that it is not possible in my opinion — the Seanad may think otherwise—that the Seanad should put up a scheme like this to the Agricultural Commission for their serious consideration. I do not intend, for I did not note any of the points made, to go into the merits of the scheme in any way. I listened to the debate and I was interested in it, but I took no notes of it. If Senator Johnston, for instance, went before the Commission on Agriculture, he would certainly make a very strong case for the scheme. On the other hand there were objections raised here which I am sure would weigh on the minds of the commission too. I do not know on which side they would come down in the end. If they were to get all the points that were made for and against from the Senators it might be very helpful to the commission for they will have to consider this question. It would help them to make up their minds on it, and they will have to make up their minds on that matter sometime.
I hope I am not disappointing the Senators in any way by not giving my opinion on the merits of this scheme. I have not gone into it at all except just to listen to the arguments put forward here. I did hear the figures fairly fully developed by Senator Johnston. I am quite sure these figures are correct. As I say, the Senator made a very impressive case for the whole scheme. On the other hand certain objections were raised and these were pertinent objections to the scheme. Notice would have to be taken of these objections before the scheme could be adopted. I only hope that the Seanad will understand my position. It is not that in any way I want to evade the responsibility of giving an opinion on this scheme but it is because I have come to the conclusion that the motion itself was not advisable and I naturally came to the conclusion that it was not up to me to give my opinion on the scheme before it would go to the Commission on Agriculture.
The Minister did not advert to my point about the losses the farmers suffered in their cattle.
I did hear from one particular county that the losses were high. That was in the County Clare, but I did not hear that the losses were big anywhere else. The Senator referred to the losses in Connemara. But as far as the reports of the officers of the Department are concerned, I am inclined to think that the losses in the province were over-rated.
The losses in Leitrim were not over-rated. There is the advertisement in the Leitrim paper which said:—"Farmers, do not bury your dead cows, but send them to So and so."
The losses were due to the heavy rainfall we had in 1938. The losses were incurred because the clerk of the weather did not give us more sunshine in 1938.
Does the Minister believe in fixity of tenure for farmers or does he not?
Leas-Chathaoirleach
That does not arise on the motion.
As a matter of fact both Parties agreed to this principle so far as fixity of tenure is concerned. That has been the same on both sides since the Land Act of 1923 was passed. There has been no change in law since 1923.
Whatever way this debate goes we are all pleased at the change of heart on the part of the Minister and his Party. I well recollect, as do other Senators, the time when very prominent members of the Government Party gave it as their definite opinion that the tillage scheme was going to continue until the cattle trade had been killed. These were the actual words used. This change of heart on the part of the Minister and his Party is welcome in every way. As to the motion, I think there is a great necessity for Senator Counihan's proposal. But I think the best way of ventilating this question is by the amendment which Senator Johnston has tabled to the motion, that is, bringing the three high contracting parties together in some way to discuss this rather than to bring it to a commission which has got no powers—a body which has got to draw up a report and hand it over to the Government. I am not confident that there are to be any great results even from the meeting of the three high contracting parties except there is a change of heart on the part of the Government.
There are two main views which I like to stress when I get an opportunity and that is that no credit to farmers or to the agricultural industry is of any real value until the monopolies which have been created in the effort to make ourselves self-sufficient are controlled to a greater extent than they are at the present time. As long as these monopolies exist we will have a very high cost of living, and that very high cost of living takes away so much from the available capital which the farmer has got.
Such capital as he is not using for his family and his personal wants he uses for the production of livestock and livestock products. When the cost of these feeding stuffs is high, his margin of profit is so small that it is not worth while. I saw where the Minister stated the other day that, while the British gave us a quota of 10,000 pigs, we produced only 4,000. Why? Although the Minister says it is profitable to fatten pigs, in actual fact the margin is so very small that it is not worth the doing. Senator Johnston raised the point in his statement that we should produce largely increased numbers of cows. That could be done quite quickly if it were possible to feed them at a worth-while profit. If there is a penny left in your pocket it is, possibly, a profit but it is not enough compared with what people earn in the various business undertakings which are supported by the Government or even in those old undertakings which are not supported by the Government.
Take the case of the mountainy farmer in my part of the country. About two-fifths of the country is in that condition. During the winter, the cattle go back so much in the mountainy districts that half the summer is gone before they get into production. The cost of feeding stuffs is so very high that they cannot put anything into these animals during the winter season so that they may profit by the spring grass. In a year like this, when you have a period of drought, there are parts of the country where cattle have practically nothing to eat up to now. Another thing that the three high contracting parties would probably tell the Government in connection with the question of credit is that you must have some security in your land. The present proposal is to issue bonds. At any moment the Land Commission can come along to a farmer who has paid his annuities, and that bond can be broken up into small pieces. We are using a tremendous lot of money in that connection and, in many cases, proper advantage is not being taken of it. I have got several certified cases, with names, situations and other details — I can easily get a great number more — to show that divided land is not occupied and that houses which have been built have not been occupied either. If these things were rectified, I am quite satisfied that there would be immense success as a result of Senator Counihan's proposal to provide credit for the farming community.
I am sorry the Minister has gone. He rather deplored the tone of debate in the Seanad and pointed out that we were cutting across the investigation by the Agricultural Commission. He also explained how Senator Johnston's amendment would be contrary to the activities of the Agricultural Commission. I intended to ask him what action the Government had taken, or intended to take, regarding the motion passed here in March. I want to say to Senator Counihan and Senator Johnston that if their proposals are to be treated in a similar manner to the motion passed here in March it is not worth our while to discuss either the motion or the amendment. The motion passed here in March was very far-reaching and if adopted, in whole or in part, by the Government would give very great relief and assistance to the farming community. So far as we know, the Government have ignored that motion and intend to go on ignoring it. In view of that, I do not think we are going to get very far.
The Minister reminded us that he would take much more notice of a motion passed in the Seanad regarding this question of credit than he would of findings by other parties, and he rather suggested that the Seanad should express its own opinion on the matter. I took the trouble to get that opinion in connection with the motion to which I refer, and there it is. The Minister takes no notice whatever of it. I do not think that it is worth while commenting on either the motion or amendment, as the Minister is not here. Judging by the way that motion has been treated, I do not think we are going to get very far when we pass a motion of our own, or ask the Agricultural Commission to take notice of a motion that may be passed by us.
Is not the subject matter of the motion to which the Senator refers being considered by the Agricultural Commission, and is it not sub judice?
That sounds like a good explanation.
It is a question, not an explanation.
Before the debate concludes, I should like to deal with a few points arising out of this motion. The history of it might be interesting. It was first put up, I think, as a suggestion to the Government — a suggestion that they should adopt this particular scheme. The Agricultural Commission was then set up and it was thought that the motion would come within their scope. It was decided by Senator Counihan, in the terms of the motion in his name, to ask the Commission for an interim report on the specific scheme put forward.
On the paper we have two amendments. One amendment, by Senator Johnston, proposes that Senator Counihan's scheme should be submitted for report, not to the Commission, but to a special conference of the parties interested — the Government, the bankers and the farmers. Senator Johnston eliminates the Agricultural Commission from the motion for reasons which commend themselves to himself and Senator Counihan, and, I think, to the House. The Agricultural Commission is very busy at the moment. They have other matters under discussion and I think the Minister is right in saying that it would not be proper for the Seanad, through the Minister, to hold the Commission up in their proceedings, and ask them to consider one particular problem. Therefore, Senator Johnston proposes another type of conference — a conference of persons who are bound to understand this question, because it cannot come to anything without the co-operation of the banks. Senator McGinley's amendment, which the Minister seemed to favour and which Senator Quirke proposed——
He did not propose it.
Mr. Hayes
He did really propose it.
I was asked to explain it when I came in.
Mr. Hayes
It had been proposed without explanation. Then Senator Quirke explained it and nobody understood it.
That is very complimentary.
He understood it himself.
This is not fair.
Mr. Hayes
I would hate to be unfair to anybody. Who did understand it?
I did.
Mr. Hayes
I am sorry. The amendment in the name of Senator Cú Uladh——
Is it in order to refer to another Senator by a pet name?
Mr. Hayes
I should have to explain to Senator MacDermot what a pet name means to explain where he is wrong and I would hate to continue his education.
Is it not an absolute rule in this House and the other House that a member should be referred to by his legal name and no other?
The Senator was returned in the name of Cú Uladh.
Returned by whom?
Acting-Chairman
He was nominated by the Taoiseach as "Cú Uladh."
Would it be in order to demand that I should be referred to as "The Lion of Connacht"?
Mr. Hayes
That is a different thing. Senator MacDermot is not the "Lion of Connacht" and Senator McGinley is Cú Uladh. Apart from that, the amendment in the name of Senator Peadar McGinley — if he were here himself he would probably object to that name — is really a direct negative to the motion, because it eliminates entirely from the motion a specific scheme which Senator Counihan wants to have put to the Agricultural Commission or some other commission to decide definitely upon it. It seems to me that this amendment, if carried, is really equivalent to defeating the motion altogether. It would be a simpler process to defeat the motion than to carry the amendment proposed by Senator Cú Uladh.
The motion as amended by Senator Johnston's amendment is really what is before us because we have Senator Counihan's statement that he agrees with the amendment. It seems to me to have a great many merits. I do not profess to be able to discuss the financial aspect of it, but it is supported by an entirely non-political person who has put forward very convincing grounds for its adoption. It is an advantage for a person like myself that it is not a demand on the Government for money for farmers. We hear that far too frequently. This particular motion has the merit that it does not ask the Government for a dole, a bounty or a present for anybody. It would not, if adopted, affect the taxpayer and it would at the same time give the farmer something he wants and make him responsible for the payment of any loan which he may be advanced. The amount of money involved is not £34,000,000 as suggested by the Minister because, I think, not one in three would opt to have this particular scheme put into operation. The actual figure, therefore, is much nearer £10,000,000 than £34,000,000.
The situation according to the Minister is quite a good one, but whatever the Minister's figures may prove about the number of cattle, there can be no doubt at all that agricultural production in money value in Northern Ireland has gone up and agricultural production in money value in the Twenty-Six Counties has gone down. The situation is a bad one from that point of view, both economically and politically. Therefore, any scheme, for which a case can be made, to improve that situation is worth consideration, and I think this particular scheme should get consideration, and get it more rapidly than the Agricultural Commission can give it. I think that no scheme of that kind should be left untried and that it would be proper for the Seanad to pass this motion amended by Senator Johnston's proposed amendment. The other amendment, in effect, is a direct negative and I think should not be supported.
I did not know that I could speak on the motion as I had formally proposed the amendment put forward by Senator Cú Uladh. As, however, Senator Hayes, who seconded Senator Johnston's amendment, has been allowed to speak again, I presume I am in order in speaking now.
Acting-Chairman
The Senator is quite in order.
I just desire to say a few words in support of the amendment put forward by Senator Cú Uladh. In the first place I want to maintain that it is not a direct negative because the Senator's amendment definitely emphasises the desirability of facilitating credit and working capital for farmers. That is the main object of Senator Counihan's original motion. It is the main object of Senator Johnston's amendment and the main object also of Senator Cú Uladh's amendment. I must confess that in reading Senator Counihan's motion I did not understand it. I did not know what it meant. I heard Senator Counihan proposing his motion here, but actually — and if Senators like they can read the report — he proposed Senator Johnston's amendment. I asked him if he was doing that, and of course I was told he was proposing his own motion and that he was merely adverting to the amendment. The Official Report shows that he was really proposing the amendment. Whether he was clear on that himself I do not know. He said:
"For that reason I would very much prefer the motion as amended by Senator Johnston's amendment, and I would ask the House to accept the motion as it stands with the alteration suggested by Senator Johnston."
I maintain that that is an impossibility. The House will have to accept the motion as it stood originally or else adopt the amendment. It cannot do two things at the same time.
Senator Counihan, as I have said, proposed his motion but he really spoke to Senator Johnston's amendment and at the end of his speech I must say that I did not understand the speech. I still confess to that ignorance. Senator Johnston spoke to his amendment and he explained the machinery, to some extent, of Senator Counihan's motion. He certainly went a far greater extent to try to explain what it meant than Senator Counihan himself did but I still do not understand the motion or the amendment. I must admit that even having heard the Minister speak, I do not understand it. Senator Johnston asked that somebody should attempt to express an opinion of it. I can tell the House that I do not understand it yet. The first point that was clarified by Senator Johnston's speech was that the farmers would have to go back to their original annuities. He quoted a case in which, say, the annuity was £24 originally. The farmer was, he said, now paying £12 and he suggested that he should again be asked to pay the full annuity of £24.
As against that he would get a bond bringing in about £10 a year.
He gets a bond which brings him in a revenue of £10. I presume the bonds are handed to him as a capital amount to equate what the reimposed annuity would be, something in the nature of £200, and he gets 5 per cent. on it. By that transaction he loses £2.
The £2 is his contribution to the sinking fund that will eventually redeem that bond.
But actually he loses his £2.
He does not. He keeps the bond indefinitely. In the end, that £2 a year goes back to him in payment for the bond and he gets cash instead of the bond when the bond is redeemed.
Anyhow, I am not financial expert enough to follow this redemption of bonds, and the £2 sinking fund but I can follow that annually he pays £12 and gets back £10. That is the annual effect of this motion. I understand that the whole idea of this motion is that he gets these bonds and then goes and presents them to a bank —
He brings them to a bank and pledges them to the bank as security for a loan but he remains the owner of the bonds so long as he maintains the interest payment on the loan.
Let me put the point of the bonds. He pledges them as security against the loan and the maximum amount of the loan would be £200. He does not get that from the bank for nothing. Has he not to pay interest?
Certainly.
Probably at the rate of 6 per cent.
We will suppose the interest is at the rate of 5 per cent. If he goes to the bank and gets the loan, he has to pay £12; or say £10.
I think that if it is Government security there is a specially low rate of interest, and I suppose these bonds would be Government security. The Senator should not then assume a rate of interest as high as 5 per cent.
I am told the bank would lend at 3 per cent. on the security of the bonds.
The point is that I have to confess my ignorance after all this debate. The most charitable thing I can say is that when Senator Madden was speaking I left the House because I did not want to listen to his speech, but I am proving to those who are now trying to explain the motion that many Senators in the House are just as ignorant as to what the thing means as I am. Even if it were the case that he had to pay 3 per cent. on it, he first pays £12 and gets back £10 and then has to pay another £6 on it, at the 3 per cent. figure. It amazes me. I do not know the workings of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, but I fancy that a farmer would be in a better position for getting a loan than that. I am only speaking on the figures. The thing does not seem to cut ice with me. I do not think the farmer is getting anything great under this motion. And, even though it is voluntary, let it go out from this House that we want farmers to go back to pay their full annuities again——
I never said that at all.
Is not that the kernel of this proposition?
The proposition gives any farmer, who chooses to take it in that form, the right to revert to the full annuities and get this concession in another form.
Even let it be voluntary, the mass of the agricultural community of the country will object to it. They are not such fools that they will not say that that is a snag. That snag in itself will be objectionable to them. I am convinced that the whole financial system of it, as I have put it, is not satisfactory.
The farmer has to pay £12 and £6. making £18, even at the 3 per cent. rate, for his £200. In addition there is the fact that the system entails reverting to his full annuity. As I told the House, I do not understand it. It certainly was not explained by Senator Counihan. It was partially explained by Senator Johnston, with a lot of other classroom lecture.
The motion explains itself to any fairly intelligent man.
I must be below the average because certainly, as the motion is worded on the Order Paper, I do not understand it and it is quite plain to me that the members of the House do not yet understand it.
The Senator is making a good case for examination by technical experts who do understand it.
Well, get the technical experts.
That is what I am proposing.
Senator Counihan said:
"I am sure these facts clearly show that the State would be running no risk in advancing to the farmers the amount which was previously remitted when the annuities were halved."
Under the motion he has to pay his full annuity and on those bonds which bring him £10, he loses £2.
He does not lose £2. He contributes £2 to a sinking fund, which is a different thing altogether.
What is the effect on his annual income and outgoing?
Has he not to pay his full annuity? He has to pay out £12. His annual income is £10, according to Senator Professor Johnston. Then he goes to the bank. I was told I was wrong in saying the interest would be 6 per cent. or 5 per cent. I was told it would be 3 per cent. Nobody in the House understands it at all.
The point is that he gets the use of free capital. At present he cannot borrow from a bank.
I am a farmer's son, reared on a farm. I know something of the country. I do not believe that farmers are in that position — that no farmer can get credit in a bank. He can get it in a better way than under this scheme, the principal advertisement of which is that the farmer will have to pay back his full annuity. Economically, it does not seem sound to me. I would like somebody to explain it to me.
I think that the Seanad is doing a wise thing in recording the fact that credit and working capital is necessary for some farmers — not for all of them. Professor Johnston describes Senator Counihan's motion as a stroke of genius. I think it is more or less a hare-brained scheme.
I am convinced that Senator Counihan, in putting forward this motion, has done a really good service in bringing this question to the front. I do not agree that the amendput down by Senator Cú Uladh is a direct negative of Senator Counihan's motion. I am sure that Senator Counihan and all those who are anxious that something should be done for the farmer, are not concerned as to the method by which credit is to be distributed. What really matters is that credit be made available to the farmers. It does not matter whether that is done by the issue of land bonds as is suggested, or by making arrangement with the banks. If this amendment of Cú Uladh's is carried by the House, I am sure that the Agricultural Commission will take note of the intention of the House.
I notice that it has been suggested in Senator Johnston's amendment that a conference consisting of representatives of the Government, the banks and farmers should be convened to consider this proposition. The Agricultural Commission would be in a position to call those experts together and to get their advice. There is no doubt that if they considered this question of credit at all they would naturally consider Senator Counihan's proposition. I think it meets the situation exactly if the House would pass this amendment by Cú Uladh. There is no doubt that the question would receive immediate consideration. I would ask the mover of the original motion and Senator Johnston to agree to this amendment.
I will not try to explain the substance of the motion to Senator O'Donovan. We have been discussing it here for practically two afternoons and, after all the discussion, he says he does not understand it yet. That looks rather hopeless. I do not think at this hour of the evening I will try to explain it to him. To any man with ordinary intelligence the motion as it stands in the Order Paper should be quite plain. Senator O'Donovan, after two days, cannot understand it yet. I do not think any case has been made against it, but the Minister seems to have a great grievance against me, because I was persistent in talking and moving and requesting the settlement of the economic war. He said that I always kept at it. I admit that I always kept at it. He said that I have stated time and again that the country would be all right if the economic war were settled. Well, the country is certainly improving since the settlement of the economic war, but only for the settlement of the economic war, and the making of the Coal-Cattle Pact previous to the settling of the economic war, I do not know where the country would be. I have not referred to the economic war in the course of the debate, and I do not want to have any discussion on it now.
The Minister has stated that we have got as large a number of cattle in the country at present as we had in 1932. I cannot remember the exact figures. Possibly he is right, but what class of cattle have we? We have a lot of calves, yearlings and 1½-year-olds, but we have no aged cattle in the country. They are all cleared out, and if anybody would refer to statistics I am sure he will verify that statement. At this hour of the evening I do not want to detain the House in any long speech, but I want to say that I accept Senator Johnston's amendment to my motion and that I believe if the House were left to their own judgment they would agree that the Government, the banks and the farmers are a much more suitable body to consider the question of credit than the Agricultural Commission.
And who are the Agricultural Commission? I suggest that the Agricultural Commission is the very kind of commission that the Senator is talking about.
There are many matters of credit which the banks and the Government and the farmers would want to consider and they would be sure to hammer out a scheme of credit for farmers in a very much shorter time, and a scheme which would be more acceptable to all concerned, than the other body to which those matters have been referred.
There is another important matter — the question of frozen loans—in which the banks and the farmers are vitally concerned; and before any satisfactory settlement can be arrived at, the banks must be called into consultation with the farmers and with the Government. The question of frozen loans is certainly of vital importance to very many farmers, and there are people going around the country — political agitators — saying that these frozen loans should be repudiated to the banks, that many nations in Europe have repudiated their debts to Great Britain, France and America, that Great Britain and France in turn repudiated their debts to America, and that our Government repudiated its debts to Great Britain — although I cannot see how that could be considered a war debt. All those war debts should be wiped out, but the farmers do not want to repudiate their debts.
On a point of information, when did our Government repudiate a debt to Great Britain? No debt existed.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
I do not think the question of international debts is really relevant.
It has been said that all war debts should be wiped out and that the people advising the farmers contend that frozen loans are war debts just as much as all the debts which have been repudiated by the countries that I have mentioned. But I want to say that the farmers are an honest class; 85 per cent. of them reject with scorn that advice to repudiate their debts. They want to pay their debts as far as it is possible for them to do so, and if they get any opportunity they are satisfied to meet all their obligations; but they feel that those debts are now weighing so heavily upon them because their ability to meet them was taken away through no fault of their own. That was brought about by Government policy, to a large extent, and also by the depression in the times.
Of course, there is a number of farmers who do not want to pay any money, but they are a small percentage, and they will get fairly decent treatment from the banks; but the banks, on the other hand, are fairly harsh on a number of farmers, and particularly on the honest farmers who want to meet their liabilities as far as possible. These people are getting very little consideration, and I would suggest that if this commission were set up, both the farmers and the banks should get a limited time to fix these frozen loans up between them, and that when they have settled that question the Government would come to their rescue by issuing these land bonds which the farmers could apply as a compromise with the banks and so redeem their settlement. Otherwise, I would say that it would be the Government's duty to set up a tribunal to determine what percentage of these frozen loans the farmers would be obliged to pay. Something must be done, and done in a comprehensive way to fix up these frozen loans which the farmers owe to the banks and, in a good many cases, half of which they cannot hope to repay. These are questions which the banks and the farmers ought to discuss, and they are very much more appropriate bodies to discuss and settle their differences than the Agricultural Commission.
I do not suppose, from the speeches I have heard from Senator O'Donovan and a few others who have spoken on the Fianna Fáil side, that the motion as amended by Senator Johnston is going to be carried. At the same time, I am going to test the feelings of the House and show what regard the agricultural representatives on the Fianna Fáil side have for the farmers whom they are supposed to represent in this House.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
The question is: "That the House agree with Senator Johnston's amendment."
I have accepted the amendment.
What is needed is a decision on Senator Mac Fhionnlaoich's amendment.
You will realise now that Senator Counihan has proposed Senator Johnston's amendment and that Senator Johnston has explained Senator Counihan's motion.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is there any objection to accepting Senator Johnston's amendment?
Agreed.
Take it that Senator Johnston's amendment becomes the original motion.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
I now put the second amendment to the original motion as amended by Senator Johnston's amendment. The question is: "That the House agrees to the amendment standing in the name of Senator Mac Fhionnlaoich."
Question put.
The Seanad divided: Tá, 21; Níl, 16.
Tá
- Byrne, Christopher M.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Goulding, Seán.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Healy, Denis D.
- Johnston, James.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kennedy, Margaret L.
- Lynch, Peter T.
- MacCabe, Dominick.
- McEllin, Seán.
- O'Callaghan, William.
- O'Donovan, Seán.
- O'Dwyer, Martin.
- Nic Phiarais, Maighréad M.
- Quirke, William.
- Robinson, David L.
- Ruane, Thomas.
- Stafford, Matthew.
- Tunney, James.
Níl
- Baxter, Patrick F.
- Butler, John.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Counihan, John J.
- Crosbie, James.
- Cummins, William.
- Douglas, James G.
- Doyle, Patrick.
- Foran, Thomas.
- Hayes, Michael.
- Johnston, Joseph.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- McGee, James T.
- McGillycuddy of the Reeks, The.
- Madden, David J.
- Rowlette, Robert J.
Tellers—Tá: Senators Goulding and O'Donovan; Níl: Senators Counihan and Johnston.
Question declared carried.
Motion, as amended, declared carried.