I move:—
That, while recognising the fact that the possession of compulsory powers in relation to tillage is essential to the Government in the present emergency, Seanad Eireann is of opinion that every other possible means should be employed to obtain the requisite increase in the area under tillage before these compulsory powers are exercised.
In putting down this motion for discussion, I have no desire to do anything other than to assist the Minister in the aim he has in view, namely to get the greatest possible increase in the area under tillage. Whatever may be said in the course of the discussion will I hope facilitate him in carrying out that policy. I may say, however, that I am anxious to know just exactly the Minister's point of view and to hear what he has got to say in justification of the application of compulsion to our farmers in the present emergency. I do think that much more might have been said in the other House about the exercise of these powers. I am quite satisfied that the country is rather more disturbed than is evident, up to the present anyhow, by the attitude of Deputies and Senators and while I am prepared to go as far as anybody in assisting the Minister and the Government in whatever policy we generally feel is essential for our well-being, I think that there would be nothing more disastrous than silence and acquiescence in an agricultural policy that does not meet with general approval down the country.
One might say that the other House seemed to give the Minister carte blanche to go ahead, but I know from my personal contacts—and I think other Senators, and I am sure many Deputies, from their own personal experience have had it brought home to them—that there is considerable perturbation in the minds of many farmers because of the introduction of compulsion. I am not disputing the fact that it may be essential to have all these powers, but what I am concerned about is this: in the first place, whether or not the Minister could not by other means achieve his ends. I think myself that there is nothing our farmers will dislike more than compulsion of any kind. The truth is that they have had a great deal of it applied to them in recent years. While, in the last great war, similar powers were in the hands of the Government of the day, it is quite a different position when an Irish Minister under an Irish Government comes along and, through civil servants and his Department staff, goes to one farmer after another, visits his home and tramps his fields and indicates to him generally that he has got to till whether he likes it or not, whether he has got facilities to enable him to do the job efficiently or not, and whether or not he has got any guarantee that when he sows and reaps, he will be able to sell the fruits of his harvest at a price that will pay him for the labour he has put into it.
My view is, that before the Minister makes this order operative he ought to adopt other measures to get such an increase in tillage as would satisfy him and the country generally that we will be, so to speak, fairly safe. Those of us who have given any study to the position know that, as a minimum, we ought to aim at an increase of 500,000 acres under tillage. Somehow or other we will have to try to make up the 300,000 tons of maize—most of which we may not get—and the 300,000 tons of wheat which we may not get. Therefore, if we can increase the area under tillage by another 500,000 acres we will be going a long way to meet the Minister's point of view. In my opinion, it would be ever so much more satisfactory if, instead of proceeding with his compulsory order, the Minister were able to enunciate a policy that would encourage the farmers to aim at this increase under tillage of their own free will, because there are problems in the carrying out of a compulsory tillage scheme which the Minister may not have come up against yet but which he must come up against inevitably when the stage is reached that his inspectors will be going out amongst the farmers to see whether the Act is being obeyed or not. The truth is that during the last couple of years our farmers have gone through a very trying time. During that period some of us here have been pointing out how weakened and depressed they were, and, above all, what little reserves they have got: how little credit they have got to enable them to get the amount of production which they ought to be getting if agriculture is to be put in the position in which it can stand on its own legs and give a decent livelihood to those engaged in the industry.
So far as the farmers are concerned, the situation has not improved since the war began. If anything, it has worsened. You have many farmers who have not stock on their lands. There are others who have not got machinery and many who have not got cash to buy either manures or seeds to be put into the land next spring. More money will be required for these purposes next spring than was the case last spring. If our land was carrying the number of cows, heifers, dry stock and sheep that it could carry—that it was carrying, say, before the last European war—then, in my opinion, we would be better off to-day to the extent of 200,000 cattle than we actually are. We all know that the lands of many of our farmers are not fully stocked because they had not the money to buy stock. In that situation the Minister is going to make an order that these people must till one-eighth of the total amount of land they hold. The order is to be applied to the country generally, regardless of the fact that we have in the Twenty-Six Counties much more than 26 different types of soils. The order is to have general application regardless of the fact that the soil and condition of the people are very different indeed in the various counties. In my opinion that is going to work a great injustice in the case of those people. What I fear is that, if the order is applied generally, you are not going to get a return either in the area under tillage or from the tillage when you have it which we want in order to give us the food supplies that are requisite here.
It is true that there are parts of the country where the farmers have the soil and a tradition in tillage. You have both in the Minister's native county—Wexford. You have a fair share of it in my own county as well as in the Counties of Louth, Offaly, Leix and elsewhere. But, as we all know, there are other counties where for ages the soil has been laid down in grass. There the farmers have not a tradition in tillage, and neither have the farm labourers. While they may be the best judges of stock in the world, it will be found that very few of them can handle a plough, and it certainly can be said that none of them will handle a plough like a Wexford or Louth farmer. It has further to be borne in mind that this compulsory tillage order is definitely going to create a labour problem. In those counties that have not a tillage tradition it will be found, I think, that the farmers there or their men have not the skill necessary to get the soil into the condition requisite for good cropping. I would remind Senators that while you can get a crop into the land it is a much more difficult problem to get it out and to save it. That is a difficulty that those people are going to be faced with.
There is no doubt at all that in the particular counties to which I have made reference there are stretches of soil suitable for tillage. You have scattered through those counties quite a number of very good tillage farmers, but generally speaking the tillage areas are confined to the lighter soils. That is a side of the problem that I think must be taken into account by the Minister, because while the tilling of our lighter soils is going to give us a return in grain, the tilling of the heavier soils may very well result in a waste of land that at the moment is growing the best grasses in the world, because there can be no guarantee that you are going to reap a reasonably good grain crop off it. Take the lands in Meath, Westmeath, South Tipperary and other parts of the country, you cannot have any guarantee when you sow a grain crop that you are going to be able to reap it with any sort of reasonable comfort or security. I have seen farms in the County Meath myself where they were only able to reap from four to six barrels of wheat to the acre. That is some of the finest land in the world. If that is going to be the result of this compulsory tillage order, then what it means for the country is this: that we will be destroying some of our magnificent grasses while gambling on the chance of a grain crop that we may not be able to reap.
That is an aspect of the question that ought to be taken into account by the Minister. I know he said, when replying to somebody in the Dáil who apparently was thinking of the County Limerick, that this compulsory tillage order was going to be good for the County Limerick land. I do not know all the County Limerick very well, but I am quite satisfied about this, because I have seen it happen myself, that if you break up some of our best grass lands you are going to break up and destroy the growth of indigenous grasses which you will not be able to replace probably for 20 or 30 years. I have seen experiments carried out in the growing of indigenous grasses as against commercial grasses. I know the Minister will argue that these commercial grasses improve the pasture. In my judgment they do not.
This order, I take it, will be carried out by civil servants giving directions from Government Buildings in Merrion Street. You will have inspectors going down the country to see that it is carried out with, as will be said, justice to all parties. People will be compelled to comply with its provisions whether they are able to do so or not, but, in spite of all that, I have no doubt in the world that if this order is applied generally we are going to destroy the carrying capacity of some of our best land, and that not even the efforts of our best farmers to improve the pasture by the use of commercial grasses will give us, for a very long time to come, anything like the sward which is there now. We have to think of the time when the war is over. We have to think of the possibilities of waste during the period of war, and, in so far as it is possible, to avoid that, and to enable ourselves to come through to the other stage with our soil unimpaired and its fertility remaining. To the extent to which we are able to do that, we will survive those other days which will come to the world when the war is over, and which possibly for the whole world will be more disastrous than the days of the war itself.
In addition to those two facts which I think ought to be borne in mind by the Minister, there is, too, the decision of the Minister or the Government that wheat and beet are to be the two crops to which particular attention is to be given, inasmuch as there is to be a guarantee for those crops and for no other crops. It may be that the Minister's view is that the lands which we ought to exploit to-day are our good heavy soil. There is going to be very great difficulty, apparently, with regard to the obtaining of fertilisers, and, if we are to grow those crops, as apparently the Minister wants us to grow them, we must be able to take a chance and put them on soils where they will grow whether artificial fertilisers are put on them or not. I suggest that, apart altogether from the consideration that there are lands in this country more valuable to the nation if they are left under grass than if they are put under tillage, and apart from the fact that in a good number of places there is not a tradition of good tillage, or the training either on the part of the farmer or his labourer essential for good tillage, and apart also from the fact that considerable credit is necessary for a great number of our farmers to change over to this other scheme, and that that has not been made available to any extent by the Minister so far, there is in addition this other consideration that if you are going to break grass land you may be upsetting our internal economy to a degree not yet contemplated, because tilling one-eighth of a holding in a number of areas in this country may mean that we may have to cut down to a certain extent the number of dairy cows carried. The cow wants her living space, too, and butter is just as essential a food as anything else we can produce. It seems to me that that ought to be taken into account. If our internal economy is going to be thrown out of gear to a considerable extent on a number of our holdings because of the application of this measure, then I think there is necessity for a great deal of study before the measure is put into operation.
I would urge on the Minister that, in the first place, before he exercises those powers, he ought to give a guaranteed price for every crop which the farmer is prepared to grow. I find it difficult to answer the question as to why we have decided to give a guarantee to the farmer who will grow beet and who will grow wheat, while there is not to be any guarantee for the man who will grow oats, barley, kale, mangolds or any other of those crops, and not a word about potatoes. In my judgment the potato crop in this country is far more vital to the country's life than wheat. I believe most farmers in this country and most members of this House would prefer to do without bread than to do without potatoes. A man is to get a guaranteed price if he grows wheat, but not in the case of potatoes. Let us look at what we are asked to do. By far the greater area under tillage is going to be under oats, barley, potatoes and other roots, the smallest area by far being under beet and wheat, even assuming that the Minister is able to get the maximum for which he is looking, but we are to be compelled to put our land under tillage and to grow oats, potatoes, barley, and certain other crops, and there is to be no guarantee that we are going to be paid for our labour. I wonder what would an ordinary industrialist here in the city or elsewhere say if Mr. MacEntee made an order now demanding that a certain production should come from each of those factories in the next twelve months, and leave it at that? Certain facilities to help the production might be forthcoming in the shape of limited credits or something else, but what would happen if no guarantee were given to this industrialist that he was going to get a return upon the cost of production when the commodity was put upon the market? All I can say is that I think the industrialist would shut down shop and say: "I cannot do that. If the Minister wants to do it, he is at liberty to take over the industry and set the wheels in motion, but I do not think I can do it."
Look at what the farmer who is not growing wheat or beet may be asked to do. We have got to get the land ready from this time forward. The men are ploughing the stubble now for the potatoes for next year. The manure was out on the stubble as I came along to-day. That is being prepared for the potato crops for next year. Other lands will be turned up for the growth of other crops. As far as one can judge at the moment, the war may be still on in 12 months' time. It may not but, assuming that it is, the cost of putting in a crop next spring is definitely going to be higher than it was last spring. I know the Minister will say, and I have heard members of the Party to which I belong say: "You need not mind; you are going to get a good price for everything you have got to sell." That is possibly true, for awhile. While the war is on we may be able to get a good price, though the extent to which we can raise our prices is definitely going to be limited by Government intervention. But I am putting in a crop in spring which I cannot harvest until August or September. If I am to feed it to stock, I am not turning out the stock until the following January, February or March. The crop will go in during the spring, and the war may be settled in August, perhaps in July. Then, where is the farmer going to be? The grain grower is going to meet the full impact of Argentine and Canadian grain, wheat and grain from the Balkans and elsewhere; the Danish bacon will be back in the English market. The submarine will not be operating against it. We are going to be right up against all that, with our high costs for the putting in of the crop, and no security or guarantee as to what we are going to get when we take it out. We are expected to go into this tillage with empty pockets, with our credit not very high, and with our machines in bad condition. I agree the Minister has indicated that he is prepared to make certain credit facilities available to enable farmers to get machines. There is very little use in my getting credit to buy a machine if I cannot also get credit to buy manure and seed for the soil.
I suggest to the Minister that, even in his credit scheme, he has only touched the fringe, and has not gone far enough. He has encouraged the farmers up to a point, but he has not gone far enough. I argue that there is no justice at all in a scheme that is going to compel us to till without giving us any guarantee that at least the costs of production are going to be covered when the crops are put upon the market. I urge that the right way to get an increase in the area under tillage in the country is by giving a guarantee to the farmers that, no matter what crop they grow, they will get such a price as will leave them something above the cost of production. It might have been better still —I believe myself it would have been better still—if the Minister did what they are doing in Northern Ireland and in England, that is, to give a subsidy to the farmer for every acre of land which he ploughed. That would have done certain things which were terribly important to our smaller farmers.
We know well the position we are in to-day. We have certain foodstuffs of our own, but unless we can add to these stocks we will not be able to retain our present stocks of cattle, pigs and poultry. From my own experience, you cannot pay £13 a ton for maizemeal and sell pork at about 73/- a cwt. What I fear most is that arising out of this whole position we are suddenly going to have a considerable reduction in our live-stock population. That would create a very grave situation in the country as a whole later on. If we cannot get grain to feed our stock, or the potatoes which is the food for our pigs, and which ought to take the place of the maizemeal, there is only one thing to do. I have heard of a man in the Six Counties within the last week who has had to kill off 1,000 of his pigs. We may be doing the same sort of thing with our smaller numbers. The Minister, I am sure, realises that, but some of us feel that in putting the case to the Government we must make them realise that what is most important to the life of this country is not the growing of wheat and beet but the growing of oats, barley, potatoes and the other roots, and that if we are able to keep our farmers in the production of live stock up to the minimum to which we have been able to hold them at present by the production from our own soil of the food for this stock, we will come through this emergency with our vitality unimpaired.
You have guaranteed wheat and beet but you have left the great majority of the farmers not knowing what they are going to do. At the moment, the farmer is not saying very much, although everywhere one goes one hears complaints. He is not complaining that he has got to till. Most of them realise that they have got to stretch their trace to-day and that they have to go as far as they can to provide from their own soil foodstuffs that we cannot import. What he does complain about is that he is getting unjust treatment, that he is not getting encouragement and that he is expected to take a leap in the dark without any guarantee that he is not going into the production of commodities which he may not be able to sell at all. I believe myself that that position ought to be faced. I believe it is a situation which will have to be faced. If the Minister or the Ministry is responsible for the initiation and the putting into effect of a policy which is going to put a great many of our people into the production of commodities which will be put upon the market at a time when the bottom has fallen out of the market it is then we will have to face chaos in this country. Now is the time to face up to that situation. It is not enough to say to the farmers, "Go on and produce. You will be able to sell anything you produce at a very good price." The very good price has not come yet and, anyhow, the farmers who are trying to produce pigs at 73/- or 75/- a cwt. on meals that are costing £12 and £13 a ton are not making money.
In my view, the means which the Minister ought to adopt in order to get the increased area under tillage would be to guarantee a minimum price for the production of all the crops which the farmer will grow or, alternatively, to guarantee a minimum price for the production of bacon, butter, eggs, poultry and all the other commodities which are the finished products of the raw materials which the farmer will take from his own soil. I think, in justice, he is entitled to get that much. If the Minister did that I believe he would go very far to get the total area which he requires put under tillage without the exercise of the compulsory powers at all.
I suppose the Minister feels that there are a great many farmers who will only do things at the point of the bayonet, so to speak, or that they will till only when there is no alternative. There are good reasons why men follow a particular scheme on their lands. My view is that the farmer always does what pays him. I believe he always did and always will. If ploughing his field will pay him better than the other method I believe he will plough, but if he has got an area of land that will carry an additional three-year-old bullock or 2½-year-old bullock to the acre he will be slow to till that land and will realise that he is performing an important function in the national life by finishing the product that has come from poorer soil elsewhere.
The Minister may ask what indication is there that the farmers will rise to this demand without the enforcement of these compulsory powers. In my judgment, anyhow, the farmer is a fairly wide-awake individual. He is as keen to make the most of his calling as anybody else. He is busy thinking out ways and means to improve his position and he will do so if he gets a chance.
A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion in this House in which it was urged—and the Taoiseach himself assented to the point of view and has recently stressed it elsewhere—that if we could organise our country people we could probably get them to tackle the problems with which we are faced with a great deal more energy and vitality and with a greater possibility of success than we could possibly get from any compulsion which a Government Ministry might employ. I would suggest to the Minister for Agriculture that before he decides definitely to put this order into operation he should make an effort to see if he could get the farmers in all the parishes in the country organised. I see that Senator O'Dwyer has been trying to do so already in his own parish, around his own creamery. I believe that if the Minister set himself to it and sought the aid and co-operation which I believe he could get if he tried, he would bring into existence now organisations throughout all our parishes of the farmers and the workers that would do much more to increase the area under tillage and get good tillage done than could possibly be obtained by the exercise of any compulsory powers.
I am not one of those whose point of view is that you can do nothing in this country unless you do it from Dublin. I think that right from the beginning of home government our people got an entirely wrong point of view about the function of government. Their eyes were drawn towards the Government and Government Buildings. They expected too much. Some of them are now disappointed and it is no wonder. They were promised much more than they could ever expect to enjoy. I believe that if they were thrown back on their own resources now they have both intelligence and initiative, and if these forces were put to work in their own districts I believe it would put new life into rural Ireland. They have done it in another form in England. I cannot say that they have done it in the Six Counties. I know the country myself and I believe that if you could get groups of farmers, with their workers, irrespective of creed or political belief, with the co-operation of the heads of the Church, of teachers and of the public men, whoever they might be, in the respective parishes, to come together, either in their halls or schools or other suitable place, they could consider the particular problems of their own parish and see what they could do with the land of their own parish to make it more productive.
There are all sorts of problems. There is the widow with the small family. What can she do? There are others short of stock, short of machines, short of manure and all that. No work on files kept in the Department's offices will solve the problems that are there to be tackled. I believe if you could get the people together themselves they would face up to this situation in an entirely new spirit. I believe that you would breed a spirit of co-operation and of new enterprise that the country needs and I believe that you would get a completely new attitude and a new outlook towards this whole work. It is the people's work just as much as it is the Government's work.
Instead of the Minister taking staffs who are engaged on the work of the Land Commission from that work and sending them amongst the farmers to compel them to till a certain area of their holdings without any regard to the kind of soil or the conditions of the farmers or anything else, I would suggest that careful consideration should be given to these other aspects of the question. It is not for to-day, but for to-morrow and the days to come, and I believe that if you can, in the present emergency, make our farmers realise how much is dependent on them, and show them the need for pulling together, working together and co-operating where they can with their horses and machines, and showing a general desire to help the weaker members of the community, the total productive capacity of the people and the land would increase beyond the wildest hopes.
There is this further consideration. In other and difficult days in this country, when the men at the head of affairs here were hunted from post to pillar, when it was not always possible to get orders from Michael Collins or Dick Mulcahy or somebody else, there were forceful, vital units up and down the country working on their own, men with courage and initiative—here to-day Seán McKeon struck out, and next day Seán Moylan struck out, and so on. Deeds like theirs gave hope and courage to the people as a whole, held them together and enabled them to keep up their courage and fight on to victory. I believe in every district you have people who would be prepared to throw all their energy into this kind of work, more energy than they have put into anything else since 1918 and 1919. I believe that in the storms that will break upon us here, if not in this war, possibly in the war that will follow this one, that we will want these people.
Let us be clear about it, these things may come, and our capacity to weather these storms will depend, not on the perfection of the machine that you are going to create in Government Buildings now, but on the initiative and resourcefulness and courage, and above all, the spirit of co-operation that our people down the country are prepared to display. That is something that should be encouraged by the Minister and I suggest that he should attempt to get an increased area under tillage by giving a guarantee to every man who is going to till that he will get a price that will pay him for the total area put under tillage. If the Minister will try to get the farmers to carry that scheme into effect, he will not want any inspectors obtruding themselves on the farmer and his wife at the busiest hour of the day. Under such a scheme the farmers will be desirous to go on with the job and they will be anxious to have the area under tillage that the Minister requires and everyone will be satisfied.
