Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Mar 1942

Vol. 26 No. 11

Wages of Agricultural Workers—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion and amendments:—

Motion:—

That Seanad Eireann is of opinion, complementary to the announcement of increased minimum prices for certain agricultural products, it is essential to increase substantially wages payable to agricultural workers and to effect reasonable amelioration of their conditions of employment, and requests that the necessary steps to these ends be taken immediately. —(Senators Foran, Campbell, Cummins and Tunney.)

Amendments:—

1. To delete all words from the word "essential" to the word "employment", inclusive, and substitute therefor the following words:

"desirable that a small expert committee be appointed to consider and report as to what steps, if any, can be taken to increase wages payable to agricultural workers and to improve their conditions of employment, without placing an unbearable burden on the farmers";

and to delete the words "to these ends". —(Senator Counihan.)

2. To delete all words after the word "workers" in order to add the words:

"provided it has been determined by a technical agricultural costings organisation that such agricultural prices can bear increased costs."— (Senator Baxter.)

Sir John Keane

In continuing the debate on this motion I feel like a man who had been very angry. I feel like that in regard to Senator Cummins. He made me frightfully angry with his remarks in regard to this motion, but my anger having subsided in the meantime, what I have to say would have been more effective if I had spoken when he made his speech. We are going to have a considerable debate on finance, I imagine, in the near future, and I hope that the Senators will have some regard for reason and reality. I have a copy of the Debates here. Senator Cummins talked about an enormous sum of money, £180,000,000 looking for investment abroad; that now was the time to invest it in our own country, and secure credits on the strength of the nation. He continued:—

"Even one twentieth part or less of those millions, lent to the nation at 1 per cent., which would be a working cost on such an amount and would set up agriculture".

Why, it does not make good English. What does he mean by saying it would cost only 1 per cent.? Does he mean it would cost the banks only 1 per cent. to lend money? He says, "the working cost". The working cost of what?

Mr. Cummins

Of lending the money.

Sir John Keane

There is no working cost at all if you take the entry in a book.

Mr. Cummins

The officials who handle the loan.

Sir John Keane

He makes out the working cost of lending £10,000,000. You would have to give the depositors 1 per cent. on the money borrowed. Banks are not charitable institutions. They have to maintain services and pay salaries—and increasing salaries, as a result of a detailed inquiry recently. Senator Cummins goes on to say:

"It is a tragedy that £180,000,000 of our money should be under lock and key waiting for 10 per cent., 15 per cent., or 20 per cent., gross interest, while lending it would cost only 1 per cent. and would help the nation. Where did he get those fantastic figures? Does he suggest that banks are lending at 10 or 20 per cent.? I rather understand the Senator suggested that the banks are holding money, waiting for 10, 15, or 20 per cent., where the working cost of that money is 1 per cent."

Mr. Cummins

Certain of the banking institutions have got as much as 20 per cent. on those investments.

Sir John Keane

That may be so, but the implication is that the banks are to lend this money, bulging out of their pockets, at 1 per cent., instead of holding it for 10, 15 or 20 per cent. The thing is so fantastic that I do not propose to pursue it any further. I hope that if, in the near future, there is a very prolonged debate on finance, we will get down to reality and not have these wild and fantastic statements.

With regard to the motion itself, I think we all have every sympathy with the desire to pay a living wage to our agricultural workers, and I feel, with Senator Johnston and others, that there is great scope for improved technique in our agricultural matters. There is very great difference between theoretically improved technique and the practical work on the farm. This must be approached very carefully and with regard to practical experience. Any of us who have farms and who have been attracted by modern methods have suffered. Following the lines of improved technique, and many of the things experts advocated, has had disastrous results. I have heard a shrewd farmer say: "If you want a farm to give a profit, you will keep near the ground, without departing from the method the man who is making his living on the farm adopts and which he has not seen fit to change." I have yet to see people, other than certain lucky individuals, who have ever been able to improve on the recognised methods of the men who have been born and bred on the land and who have had to make their own living by it.

You can make progress by education and example. When it comes to the question of example, I feel that the Government is to blame in two respects. It has steadily set its face against experimental farms on a profit and loss basis. I know that we have experimental farms which do research in seeds and methods of plant cultivation, and manurial experiments, but the Government has always refused to face up to the demand for a farm which is under Government control and run to pay, where the accounts are published, and where you can say to the farmer: "Come along; here are the books; here is the 5, 10 or 20 per cent on capital. We have men doing it, who have been trained in agricultural colleges, and here is what they can do." The Government always has hesitated to do that, and until they have shown what can be done on a profit and loss basis, people will hesitate to be pioneers.

On the other hand, I am forced to admit that if, by some occult process, you could remove the population of this country, age for age and sex for sex, and transplant them to Denmark, and replace them by the Danes, the Danes would get more profit and far greater production out of our resources than we do. It is one thing to deal with this on a purely imaginative basis, and another to deal with it on a purely practical basis such as people have here. I hesitate to accept the view that merely to adopt the theoretical methods given by experts will put the farmer in a position to pay wages which are really due to people who have to work on the land. I hope that, in the course of time and by education, the younger generation coming along in the agricultural community will be able to obtain higher wages, which must come out of the profits made by the owner of the land.

Mrs. Concannon

Listening to the Minister for Agriculture speaking on this debate, it seemed to me that he tried to impress on us that we would be violating the territory of the Agricultural Wages Board and the Agricultural Wages Committees if we were to pass this motion. I do not take that view at all. I think it gives us an opportunity, and that the Seanad is not only entitled to give an opinion but that it is its duty to give an opinion, on a matter of such great national and social importance as is embodied in this motion. Moreover, when we passed a motion a few weeks ago raising the price of wheat from 45/- to 50/- a barrel, and made it obligatory, I think it is logical that we should adopt a motion such as this. Part of the increase rightly should go to the people who will earn it—the agricultural labourers. Moreover, it would be impossible to make wheat-growing obligatory unless we pay them an adequate wage. Therefore, when we passed the first motion, we cannot escape the consequences, and we ought to pass this motion, too.

I am particularly interested in the position of the wives of agricultural workers. They are doing a great national service. The business of rearing children for the State is the greatest industry the State has and these particular children are of great importance to the nation. They are the future agricultural workers. Unless we have a good supply of agricultural workers we cannot carry on this fundamental national industry. We cannot do it even now, if we continue to pay wages which will not show a reasonable comparison with those paid in countries competing with us at the present moment for our supplies of land workers. Outsiders are competing with us for the labour and they are paying more than can be earned here. Therefore, we must raise our price. It is a matter of expediency that we should pay a reasonable wage but also justice demands it. The agricultural worker is a skilled man. It has taken a great many generations to produce an efficient agricultural worker, although we may talk about it being done by quick methods. I was born in a small village in which were many agricultural labourers and I know the pitiable circumstances under which they lived. I learned to have a great regard for the worker and for his knowledge of agriculture, and especially to have a great regard for his wife who has to keep a family clothed and fed by superhuman efforts. I am glad that this motion calls not only for increased wages but improved conditions for agricultural workers. It is absolutely necessary if we are going to make this State what we hope it to be, that we should have the fundamental industry in a sound position. That cannot be done unless the agricultural workers are given a wage that will enable them to provide for themselves, their wives and families.

Mr. O'Dwyer

The part of the country from which I come has a very large proportion of agricultural workers and their condition is extremely miserable, such as was described by Senator Mrs. Concannon. The work of agricultural labourers in the counties to which I refer has become very irregular owing to the decline of the dairy industry. Officially their wages are supposed to be 30/- a week but the actual wage I am sure would be less than £1 per week. Agricultural labourers have large families and their children are underfed and under-nourished. They grow up without proper feeding until they are able to work. It is very difficult to know how they manage to exist. It is especially difficult to know how an agricultural labourer with a large family manages to maintain them. I am convinced that unless something is done to improve their condition and increase their income as a class they cannot survive. We see them emigrating to England every day. One of the greatest problems at the present time is to see how the people can be maintained on the land and especially how the agricultural labourer whose work is most necessary can be kept on the land. One method would be to advance the official rate of wages. I doubt if that would be effective. We must remember that the agricultural labourer is employed not by a large firm or by the State but by a farmer in a small way of business who is scarcely better off, and who finds it difficult to pay labourers out of the produce of his farm. If you raise the fixed minimum wages to a point beyond which the employer can pay you may actually reduce the income of the agricultural labourer and the amount of work he gets.

I was in favour of the Agricultural Wages Act and had I been in the House at the time I am sure I would have supported it enthusiastically but, looking back over the years, I am very doubtful if it has not done more harm than good to agricultural workers. The fixing of the minimum rate of wages has not proved the success it might have been. In a period when there is a slump in agricultural prices it has a tendency to prevent farmers giving employment that they might otherwise give. In a period of good prices, a boom period, it has the effect of keeping wages down because the minimum tends to become the maximum wage. It keeps down the wage which would have been current owing to the law of supply and demand. The position is that the agricultural labourer is undoubtedly not getting a living wage for himself and his family but, by raising the officially fixed rate of wages, it is more than possible that you may bring about an actual reduction in his income as the man who employs him may not be able to pay the increased wage. In any case it should be clear that at the present price of agricultural produce the farmer is not able to pay a living wage to agricultural labourers. That is the crux of the whole situation. I have given the matter careful study and have come to the conclusion that there is no other way out but for the Government to give a direct subsidy in some form to agricultural labourers. I know that that is an easy way of getting out of the difficulty. One alternative would be to raise the fixed wages, but as I have shown that may mean a reduction in the income.

Another alternative would be to increase the price of agricultural produce. It would be better to give the money directly as a subsidy to the agricultural labourers. We must remember there are two sides to this question. If the agricultural labourer is not given employment, not alone will he disappear, but, with his disappearance, work on the land must cease. Production must go down. Not alone will there be a loss for the agricultural labourer, but there will be a loss in production. It is in the interests not only of the labourers and the farmers, but also of the community, that the agricultural labourer should be employed and be encouraged to remain on the land. I see no alternative to a direct subsidy, either in the form of a family allowance or some addition to the actual wages while a man is working. It has been suggested that unemployment assistance should be added to the wages of the agricultural labourer who is at work. Perhaps that might do. Whatever it would cost, it would be well worth it to the community.

Mr. M. Hayes

I should not like to see this matter going to a vote without making a few remarks upon it, purely as a townsman, but, nevertheless, as a person with some knowledge of the country who has had certain opportunities of observing agricultural labourers. Usually, when a motion to which there is an amendment is moved, one finds oneself in the position of being for the motion and against the amendment, or for the amendment and against the motion. But in the case of this motion in the name of Senator Foran, and the two amendments tabled to it, I find myself in what, from the Parliamentary point of view, is a rather strange position. I should like to vote for the motion and for each of the amendments. Having voted for all three, I am afraid I should not have accomplished very much to solve what is a very real problem.

I was reared in an atmosphere which was, naturally, sympathetic to the claims of all workers and, particularly, to the claims of agricultural labourers. The information I got, before I had any opportunity of checking it, was that the farmer was a bad man to pay tradesmen and labourers. That was the country-town skilled worker's viewpoint. Like a great many other prejudices and views in which I was reared, I have had an opportunity of studying that opinion theoretically and practically. I found that while these prejudices had, perhaps, a certain basis, they were not absolutely sound. The agricultural labourer, undoubtedly, gets a very raw deal when you consider that he is not a labourer at all in the sense of being unskilled. He is a skilled person. Not only is he skilled in one respect but, very often, he is skilled in many respects and, from that angle, he is extraordinary badly paid. Apart altogether from the question of pay, the agricultural labourer is in a singularly bad position so far as the prospect of improving himself is concerned. His position regarding the education of his children is very much worse than the position of his counterpart even in the country town. I imagine that very few agricultural labourers' sons ever see the inside of a secondary school. If they never see the inside of a secondary school, they get practically no opportunity of raising themselves above the standard of their parents — an opportunity which occurs in abundance in a city like Dublin or in any reasonably-sized country town, in a country town, for instance, where there is a Christian Brothers' school, where education can be got free, from the secondary point of view, by anybody who can, by any manner of means, keep his son away from work.

The farm labourer is necessarily, I think, a very intelligent and a very virile member of the community and it is a great loss to the nation that his children are, in overwhelming majority, prevented from enjoying the benefits of secondary education or getting into any other class than their father's, if they do not emigrate. I should like, therefore, to take any steps which this House could take towards improving the position of the agricultural labourer. As Senator O'Dwyer, himself a farmer, has very properly remarked, apart altogether from the interests of the individual concerned, the preservation of a class of persons working on the land is of vital importance to the development of the country. If we fail to do that we shall, I think, fail to survive as a nation.

On the other hand, taking the amendment in the name of Senator Counihan, I do not want to place an unbearable burden on the farmers. It is no harm to say that the whole tendency, particularly during the last ten years, has been to increase the farmers' costs. We have had industrial expansion which has been very largely at the expense of the farmers. That has tended to increase the farmer's costs without, at the same time, increasing the price he got for his produce. Of the two amendments, I prefer Senator Baxter's. I am confirmed in my view of Senator Baxter's amendment by reading the advertisement of the Agricultural Wages Board. Senator Baxter advocates a technical agricultural costings organisation to determine what agricultural costs are and whether agricultural prices can bear increased costs. I have some intimate personal knowledge of people engaged in dairy farming and I have often heard them argue — they are relations of my own — that milk cannot be produced at the price which is currently paid for it at the creameries. A member of the staff of University College, Cork, has recently conducted a scientific investigation into that matter and he has proved, from the scientific and statistical point of view, that milk in certain areas—areas with which I happen to be familiar myself — costs a penny more to produce than can be obtained for it by way of price. In that situation, it is really difficult to say to a man that he must increase his labourers' wages. If it could be done rapidly — and if certain people were employed, it could be done rapidly — it would be beneficial to ascertain scientifically what costings on a farm are like. That might be beneficial even in a much wider sphere than farming.

I do not profess to be an expert on farm conditions, but I do know something about the appetites of boys and men. I am a man, and I have two boys at home. I do not understand by what process the Agricultural Wages Board came to what seems to me to be a ludicrous conclusion. They allow certain deductions for meals for farm labourers. For agricultural workers of 20 years and upwards, all over the country with the exception of two areas which are set out, they allow 3d. per day for afternoon tea. For agricultural workers under 20 and not under 19 years of age, they allow 2½d. It baffles me that any intelligent people could have sat down and calculated that a man over 20 could be given afternoon tea — I presume that means, in the country, tea, sugar, milk, bread and butter — that is, at all events, what it means in Tipperary, Waterford and Limerick — at a cost of 3d., and that younger men than those of 20 years of age could be given that meal for 2½d. That is baffling, and it certainly shows that Senator Baxter's amendment needs to be considered by the Government.

Mr. Counihan

The fact is that they get the meal for nothing.

Mr. M. Hayes

Somebody pays for it. That this should be published at public expense is fantastic. I have no costings organisation of my own, but I am perfectly certain that my evening meal of tea costs less than the evening meal of a boy of 18½ years at home. If it does not, I have been deceived for some time past. If he were an agricultural labourer, heaven knows how much he would eat. For a man of 20 years of age, 7½d. is allowed for supper, but if the individual is only 19, the amount is only 7d., whereas it is clear to anybody who ever sat in a farmer's house — I have had a fair number of meals in farmers' houses and in farm labourers' houses — that a man of 35, 40 or 45 years of age will eat less instead of more than a boy of 19 years of age. Surely, even from the military point of view, is it not one of the things in connection with conscription that is against armies of young people: that while boys of 18 to 21 are good fighters, nobody could feed them? They simply cannot be fed.

Mr. Baxter

They are always empty.

Mr. Hayes

Yes, indeed, always empty. I must plead ignorance of this board, but it seems to me that these costings cannot have been arrived at on any scientific basis. It seems that they are against the law of commonsense and experience, that they are a very sound argument for Senator Baxter's amendment. I feel that the discussion here is useful, but I doubt if we are going to get very much further by passing the motion or even by passing the amendment. Certainly, as far as one's information is concerned there can be no doubt that one of the most urgent of our problems is the provision of an adequate wage. I am more concerned with wages than I am about the conditions of farm labourers. I do not think that town conditions, trade union conditions for example, are quite applicable, but I say that they do not get at the present time a fair return for the amount of skill they have and the amount of work that they do by contrast with the wages paid often only a few hundred yards away from them over the town border. For that reason I propose to take what is rather a strange decision, to vote for the amendment and to vote for the motion whether amended or not.

Mr. Quirke

I am afraid Senator Foran is going to be terribly disappointed. He will be in the position of the man who threw his coat into the ring and then would not fight. I hope he is not going to divide the House on this but if he insists on dividing the House I certainly will disappoint him and vote for his motion.

Mr. Foran

That is a promise.

Mr. Quirke

It should be clear to Senator Foran that he is pushing an open door in this matter. If the matter was brought up at the last sitting, and if a division was taken a different position would arise. Since this motion was tabled what Senator Foran wants to be done has been done and I cannot see any necessity for pushing an open door. Maybe Senator Foran wants something far in excess of what is being done. Maybe he wants to urge that the thing should have gone much further. If that is so we will probably have Senator Counihan, on behalf of the farming community, getting up to say that the farmers could not go any further and then Senator Baxter would have to produce his costing organisation.

I have been hearing about costings in connection with farming and I have heard figures quoted here and other places for a number of years. I think anybody who will get down to the actual facts of the matter, who will take the trouble of going down to examine the cases of good farmers — I am not talking about isolated cases — but if they asked these farmers how much would it cost you to produce an acre of mangolds or turnips or how much to feed so many men, they would be told that they could not go into that. A farmer and a very prominent member of this House told me that he had gone into this costings business, but after three months had to give it up. He added: "If I do not give it up I will be in the asylum, and I would rather be in the poorhouse any day than in the asylum." So he did give up the costings idea. It is just as foolish for Senator Foran to be pushing the open door as it was for Senator Cummins to say the other day that the agricultural workers here are the worst paid in the world. A statement like that is ridiculous and it takes any good there is out of an otherwise reasonable speech.

I heard a story the other day which throws a bit of light on this particular subject, and if I wanted to take a certain line of argument I could open up a considerable debate. An inspector of the Agricultural Wages Board is supposed to have gone into a farmer's house and got into conversation with the first man he met. "Are you the boss of this place?" he asked, and the farmer replied: "Yes, I am the boss." The inspector then asked: "Who have you working here with you?" and took out a book. The farmer replied: "I have that man you met at the gate." The inspector asked: "What does he do?" The farmer replied: "He milks four or five cows at night, does ploughing when it has to be done, and when the weather lets him do it." The inspector took down all particulars and noted down the wages paid. He then asked: "Have you anybody else employed?" and the farmer said: "Yes, I have another fellow too," and told the inspector a big long rigmarole of a story about what this other fellow did. "Have you anybody else in the place?" asked the inspector. "No, nobody else in the place," said the farmer. "Are you sure you have nobody else?" the inspector asked. "Well, yes," said the farmer, "there is a fool of a fellow, but he does not get any wages.""No wages at all?" said the inspector, thinking he had discovered something great. "Well," said the farmer, "he gets a cut of tobacco at the end of the week when it was fairly plentiful and he gets his three meals." The inspector said: "I will want to see that man right away," and the farmer, pointing to himself, said: "Here he is." Senator Counihan could put up an argument like that, that the boss, the farmer himself, was the worst paid man on the farm.

The general opinion is that something more should be done for agricultural workers. On this side of the House we believed that it should be done and it has been done. In my opinion there is no use in pushing an open door unless we can find something by which these workers' conditions can be improved. If anyone can put up a scheme for that we will be all one on it. We are all interested in stopping the flight from the land, in stopping emigration, and in stopping the backbone of the country, so to speak, from going away. But I do not see any object in dividing on a matter of this kind. Senator Counihan suggests that it is desirable that a small expert committee be appointed to consider and report as to what steps, if any, can be taken to increase wages payable to agricultural workers, and to improve their conditions of employment without placing an unbearable burden on the farmers. I say that that committee has been set up, that it has decided that so-and-so should be done, and that it has been done. In connection with the costings organisation it can be taken that the Agricultural Wages Board is a costings organisation and that it has been devised by practical men, accountants and so forth.

Sitting suspended at 6 p.m., and resumed at 7 p.m.

Professor Magennis

Listening attentively, as I always do from this back bench, to the demands and claims that are made on behalf of various sections of the community, I realise that there is one piece of legislation that must be introduced, and that is a Bill to give everybody everything. Nothing short of that will be satisfactory. Now, here at any rate, in these motions seeking to ameliorate the lot of the agricultural worker, we have claims that, to my mind, cannot be treated facetiously or derided, because they belong to the proper organisation of the national industry. This purports to be, and in a large measure is, a vocational Second House, and one function of vocational organisation is to have, on something like mediæval lines, industry representing both employers and employed — everyone whose life interest, as well as the interest of the nation at large, is bound up with the industry. We have here in this House admirable representatives of agriculture. Surely, instead of proposing external committees, committees of this type or that type, the purpose of the Seanad's creation should be fulfilled by what I would call in academic language the faculty of agriculture in this House getting busy on the problem and proposing a solution. That is one objection that I have to what is, in many respects, a motion which I think is impossible for anyone not to approve:

"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that it is essential to increase substantially wages payable to agricultural workers."

It seems to me that it is too obvious to need argument in favour of it. I deliberately read the essence of the motion. By itself, as it stands on the Order Paper, it reads:—

"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion, complementary to the announcement of increased minimum prices for certain agricultural products," etc.

That seems to me to imply that it is out of the increased remuneration of the farmer-employer that the increase in wages is to come for the agricultural worker employed, and something of that is in a later proposition. I do not see that these two things are quite so intimately connected as they would be made to appear in the wording of the motion because, irrespective of what prices are to be given for agricultural produce, the social problem, the moral problem, remains. It is there all the time, that whoever is asked to devote his life's energy to a certain industry has to find, out of that work, the wherewithal to keep him on a decent human standard of living. I think that is an incontestable proposition, is a simpler proposition. I do not advocate the increase on any such grounds as that we have increased the price to be given for wheat. I support the proposition, apart from any such increase.

In the amendments we are asked to delete certain words. I find no difficulty in refusing to delete the words, and instead, adding the words of the amendment. For instance, I find that these two things could be read together with perfect compatibility:

"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that it is essential to increase substantially the wages payable to agricultural workers, and to effect a reasonable amelioration of their conditions of employment;"

the next is the amendment — ignore the directions to delete words, and read on:

"And it is desirable that a small expert committee be appointed to consider and report as to what steps, if any, can be taken to increase the wages payable to agricultural workers, and improve the conditions of employment."

I have already indicated what, to my mind, that small expert committee to be appointed should consist of. The personnel, obviously, should be the Senators of this House who are here in the name of, and on behalf of, the industry of agriculture. They are the people who are fittest; they are our experts. That is why they are here. Even the further amendment of Senator Baxter I can find room for — I mean in the technical sense of not finding it to be something to be a substitute, but something to add to the original.

Now, when we go into detail, I regard the first part as merely expressing a desire to improve the lot of the worker, but indicating in no degree the steps that have to be taken. The amendment of Senator Counihan does suggest a first step, namely, to have the matter gone into by an expert inquiry. I have taken the liberty of suggesting that he and others of the faculty of agriculture in the House should be that body. My difficulty in the matter of ameliorating conditions of employment is: by whom is the amelioration to be provided? Either it is by the employer or by the community at large — the State. Which is intended? I read the innuendo of the words as implying that the increase was to come from the supposed increase the farmer was receiving, but I am not personally convinced that the farmer is getting an increase. The fixed price has been increased, but that was on representation, and, as I take it, on the case made, that it was necessary to have an adequate and just price in face of the conditions imposed upon the producer of wheat in the emergency period, which is now. Therefore I cannot see that there is an element in the remuneration of the wheat grower out of which to draw the remuneration of the worker. Yet I contend with those who proposed the motion and the amendment, in the following motion: "That the imperative duty of persons in regard to the national industry is that men shall not be hired to work in it and receive inadequate, unjust remuneration."

I think it is a fundamental national duty that the national industry should be made to conform with the declarations of the Constitution. We invoke the Holy Ghost, we declare that by the inspiration and aid of Jesus Christ, we have succeeded in setting up this State, declared it to be free, sovereign and an independent State, and if we mean those things, surely we mean to live up to them. That is the test of sincerity. It cannot be defended that labourers should be asked to live as human beings and rear and train human beings — their families — and make them good citizens, if the return for their work is simply what is set out in that agricultural wages finding. I regard that, with all respect to the well-intentioned men who produced it, as a ridiculous travesty for solving the problem. As to the idea that the position of the agricultural worker could be improved by getting 33/- a week — with a deduction of 3d. if he gets his tea — it is hard to believe that serious men sitting down to the solution of a serious problem could be so inconsiderate as to give that to the public as a verdict. I hope I am not being offensive or unappreciative of the way this committee did its work. They were probably doing their best. I have more faith in my colleagues here representing agriculture. I think they could do very much better, and I look with confidence to this motion being passed with the addendum of Senator Counihan, interpreting it only in the way I interpreted it, namely, that the select body should be a body from the agricultural section of this House.

Senator Baxter's amendment, viewed favourably — I mean the best interpretation being put on it — goes to the root of the matter, but I make that reservation in my description of it, because from one angle it is susceptible of a very sinister interpretation. I had better get that out of my way first. It says:—

"to delete all the words after the word ‘workers', and read, ‘provided it has been determined by a technical agricultural costings organisation that such agricultural prices can bear increased costs'."

That might appear to some as meaning that if they were not able to bear increased costs, then there is nothing doing. If we read it like that, I think I am correct in calling it sinister.

The proviso means that we must remain inert, and do nothing in respect of this great pressing problem, if the body of experts report that the inquiry shows that agricultural prices cannot bear increased costs. Surely, if agricultural prices cannot bear increased costs then agricultural prices must be adjusted. Who is willing to eat bread or vegetables with the full knowledge that they are his because men have slaved and toiled in the fields for inadequate wages? What is that but setting up again, under a thin disguise, serfdom? Are we to pay high salaries to civil servants and officials and defend that on the ground that they are worth them? I hold that they are worth them and that it is our duty to pay them. On the same reasoning, it is our duty to pay an adequate price for the stuff that is provided for us to eat. It is, therefore, not a question of economics; it is a question really of morality, of service, and of common decency. It is a question of common decency that men be paid what justice and equity demand. We cannot plead an emergency. If we are unable to pay for what we get, we must learn to do without it and suffer the disadvantages accordingly. We have no right to exact a sacrifice from the needs of others. I take it that Senator Baxter had no intention of putting in the implication I have read out of it. It can be read out of it, but I believe that it was not in his mind.

The root of the whole problem — viewed, first of all, as an economic problem — is to discover what is wrong with agriculture, what is wrong with the working of the land, that makes it impossible, apparently, from what Senator Quirke said, to get the farmers to keep books and conduct their industry with commonsense and with the same amount of attention and care as the city shopkeeper or the city manufacturer gives to his employment. There must be something radically wrong and, naturally, as a teacher, my mind turns to the explanation that most people find for what has gone wrong in the State — that there is something faulty in the education both of the farmer and of the labourer. That requires more consideration. In other words, a reorganisation of society on a proper basis of social justice is really necessary. While such an inquiry as that would be going on, things would be going from worse to still worse. Therefore, the immediate "inch before the saw" is, "What is to be done now?" Just as we said, in the earlier part of to-day's sitting, that we took a step anyhow to making a better system of national health insurance, admitting that it was not what it ought to be or all that we would like it to be, similarly we can take the first step here and now, and that is to have the agricultural representatives of this House devise a scheme and make recommendations to the Government of the State. There are others more competent to speak about that than I.

Mr. Foran

I will briefly run over what I consider the most outstanding speeches in the discussion. They came from the very opposites—Professor Johnston and Senator O'Dwyer. They seem to have very much the same mentality on this matter. Both of them argued that minimum wage was maximum wage and that minimum wage would destroy the farmer and the labourer. Surely, if we recognise agricultural labourers as humans, we must recognise that they have rights, and then is it too much to ask that they have a statutory wage and that they can sue the employer and make him pay? Surely that is a fundamental right which should be conceded to the agricultural labourer, to establish his right by law to a certain minimum wage.

As to its becoming a maximum wage, the same thing has been said time and again regarding the trade union wage, that it was a maximum wage. It is no such thing. If a farmer has a good season and feels that his financial position would allow it, there is no obligation on him to confine himself to the bare minimum wage laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board. The motion asks for a substantial increase in the wages of agricultural labourers — a substantial increase — and, apparently, every Senator who has taken part in the discussion agrees that there is room for a substantial increase. The farmers have, undoubtedly, got a substantial increase for their produce — in beet, oats, wheat and so on. The farmer has been fairly well catered for in the way of fixed prices, so it is not unreasonable to ask that the man who helps him to produce should have a reasonable standard wage.

Mr. Counihan

Has he not got it now?

Mr. Foran

No, he has not. No one can claim that a man getting 34/- a week to rear a family is getting a reasonable Christian wage. Nobody would defend such a wage, notwithstanding the fact that reference has been made here to the provision of tea in the afternoon at a certain rate. I can understand that, though, perhaps, people in higher stations cannot understand it. If the farmer gives his workers something over and above a minimum rate, and the workers agree on that, it is not unreasonable to expect the farmer to be paid. It is not a usual custom to provide afternoon tea for agricultural labourers— everybody knows that—but even in that extreme case the Agricultural Wages Board has made provision for it. It has been argued by Senator Johnston that the farmer cannot afford to pay. He was very careful to take the 1938-39 figure in order to prove his case.

Mr. Counihan

In 1940 it was worse.

Mr. Foran

I do not know what the price was for a barrel of wheat in 1938 or 1939. It will be 50/- the next time. I know it has been substantially increased.

Mr. Baxter

It will take us a good while to reap it. We have to sow it yet.

Mr. Foran

On the 1938-39 figure, will anyone deny that a very substantial increase has been given for agricultural produce?

Mr. Healy

What are they getting for eggs?

Mr. Foran

They are getting £7 to £10.

Professor Johnston

Would I be in order in telling the Senator that the gross agricultural output for 1939-40 was 60.8 millions and the gross output for 1938-39 was nearly 61 millions.

Mr. Foran

You are not going to side track me by that. Surely it is reasonable to calculate that the increased prices that have been granted in the last two years have very substantially improved that figure.

Professor Johnston

What about decreased yields?

Mr. Foran

That is another matter. Senator Johnston goes further. He would turn this country into a number of enormous farms run on commercial lines.

Professor Johnston

On a point of fact I said nothing of the kind. I said that I wanted farms of all sizes, big, small and medium. I did not say I wanted the whole country turned into large farms.

Mr. Foran

I think the Senator advocated large farms with modern machinery to exploit them. Unless I am greatly mistaken that was the Senator's line of reasoning.

Professor Johnston

I said I would like to see more of them, certainly.

Mr. Foran

And the Senator said we should develop a high sense of accountancy in addition to that. Senator Baxter helps him out by advocating costings. I do not know any Department of State that would more welcome book-keeping among the farmers than the Revenue Department. I am sure that they would be glad to know that the farmers were getting bookkeepers. The revenue would be substantially increased. Certainly the income-tax people would have a much easier job. Perhaps it is due to intelligent anticipation that the universities have so many farmers' sons. They may be in training for these new accountancy positions in agriculture. You do not get many labourers' sons going into the universities.

Mr. Counihan

Oh, yes, they can get in by the county council scholarships.

Mr. Foran

Any farmer's son can get in if he has money enough.

Mr. Quirke

There is no hindrance to anyone getting in. Anyone can get in if he has enough money.

Mr. Baxter

He has to do his matriculation.

A Senator

If the labourer's son has enough money cannot he go in?

Mr. Foran

How can he have the money when his father's wage is only 30/- a week? How in God's name can he have money?

Mr. Baxter

Give the Senator a chance. He always plays fair himself.

Mr. Foran

I do not want to take too much time in dealing with this matter, but I will come back to realities.

Professor Johnston

And about time.

Mr. Foran

When I was dealing with the Senator I was not dealing with realities. I think it is strange that the university which could produce Oliver Goldsmith could produce Senator Johnston. I was reading The Deserted Village some time ago, and I think it is a long cry from Senator Johnston to Oliver Goldsmith. What is the reason for this motion? This country is in an emergency. What is the greatest need of the moment?

Professor Magennis

To keep its head is the most immediate need.

Mr. Foran

Well now just imagine that from a professor—an empty stomach supporting a head.

Professor Johnston

If there were fewer empty heads there would be fewer empty stomachs.

Mr. Foran

We want all the food we can produce. The labourer is as necessary in that production as the farmer. In order to get co-operation and to get production it is very necessary that the agricultural labourer should have a reasonable standard of living. That is what is asked in this motion and I sincerely hope that the House will pass it unanimously.

Mr. Counihan

May I ask the indulgence of the House to say in regard to the motion in my name and the name of other Senators that we do not propose to move it now because there is no Minister available? We hope that it will come up early at the next sitting of the House after Easter.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

It will be the first business after any Bills there may be. Is amendment No. 1 being pressed?

Mr. Counihan

I intend to withdraw my amendment, but might I explain why I am withdrawing it? Since the motion was put down in the name of Senator Foran and the other Labour Senators the Agricultural Wages Board has sat and decided what the agricultural wage should be. Senator Foran's representatives were on that board.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator should not comment.

Mr. Counihan

I am not making a comment, but I want to explain that the necessity for the amendment is obviated. With regard to Senator Baxter's amendment——

Leas-Chathaoirleach

That has nothing to do with the point. The Senator is not entitled to refer further to Senator Baxter's amendment.

Mr. Counihan

I wanted to say that the necessity for it does not exist nor for the motion.

Amendment No. 1, by leave, withdrawn.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is amendment No. 2 being pressed?

Mr. Baxter

Yes.

Mr. Quirke

I appeal to Senator Baxter to withdraw the amendment because it cannot serve any useful purpose. The only thing it does is to cast a reflection on the board by suggesting that they are not capable of deciding the costings of farming and are not capable of saying whether the farming industry can stand increased wages.

Professor Magennis

Is the Agricultural Wages Board such a sacrosanct body that we cannot question its decisions?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

We have had plenty of time to discuss the question. If the amendment is being pressed it will have to be put.

Mr. Baxter

I did not put down the amendment out of disrespect to the Agricultural Wages Board, but if I had not put it down the recent decision of the board and the method by which they arrived at it would have incited me to table an amendment. People who are capable of sitting at a table and telling us we could give labourers tea at 2½d. do not know what they are talking about. Expert advice was wanted there.

Amendment No. 2 put and declared negatived.

Main motion put and declared carried.