If we paid a premium for 25 years for a sure and steady wheat supply, and, at the end, we were faced with a war anything like approaching what is being waged at the moment, we would consider we had come out of it very cheaply at the price we would have paid. The amendment put down by Senator Byrne appeals to me very strongly. It is not so very long since we were debating this subject before, and the arguments for compulsion were then fully stated.
In the case of the small farmer there is little need for compulsion. There is little need to compel him to till generally, or to produce wheat specifically. It may be, notwithstanding the appeals that have been made and the energy that was put into the campaign to bring home to the agricultural community as a whole the urgency of providing in full for our wheat supplies, that we may be short when this harvest comes to be reaped. I hope we will not, but I would say this, that I join with other Senators in appealing to the Minister to go into the matter immediately, and to consider whether he should not seek even far more drastic powers than he has at the moment to compel certain types of landholders in this country to do their proper share during this crisis.
It is worth while noting that in certain parts of the country there is a very strong tillage tradition, while in other parts of the country there is little or no such tradition. For instance, I think of the people in the west of Ireland, placed on the inferior lands. I think of the people in some of the Ulster counties, who are in the same position, and I can recall the energy they put into their work and the extent to which they go in for tillage. I recall with a good deal of pride the success with which those people have ridden whatever storms beset their industry in recent years. I also think then of other holders, small holders in a way, in other parts of the country, and notice the lack of tillage tradition there; I notice the slowness with which they are prepared to take the advice that has been tendered to them. I wonder is there any reason for it? I often wonder whether the small men of the west and of other parts of the country who were driven off good lands, to Hell or to Connaught, are not, when all is said and done, in all truth the more really representative of the old Irish agriculturists. I think the influence of the large estate holders seems to have affected very strongly many of the men among whom those estates have been divided. I am not finding fault with them. They came into a tradition hundreds of years old, and it is very hard to break a tradition, but it is interesting to note that, where there are bad lands, you have no difficulty in the matter of getting the people to till or even to change over to something new, whereas, where the lands are good, there is considerable difficulty in getting them to do so. It seems to me that the influence of the landlord is still to be felt in various parts of the country.
That is all I have to say about the motion specifically, but there were a few further points made in the course of the debate to which I should like to refer. For instance, I should like to compliment Senator McGee on stating as he did his approval of the work of the agricultural instructors. That is what I would expect from a man of his experience and breadth of vision. He mentioned the advisability of articles in the newspapers regarding developments in agriculture, and I agree with that. I should like to see a stronger bias being shown in our newspapers towards agriculture, but at the same time I do not think we should overlook the fact that in the Press—that is to say in the Irish Press in particular—from time to time very good accounts have been given of particular farms and of the methods adopted to get good results. Articles appear, to my own knowledge, every week in the Irish Press and in the Irish Independent relating to agriculture. Again, there appears every year from each county committee of agriculture, an annual report which contains a first-hand account supplied by their agricultural instructors of the experiments they carry out and of their results. I wonder to what extent these annual reports are circulated and to what extent they are studied by the agricultural community. Anyway, I want to say that I thoroughly agree with the suggestion of Senator McGee that we should go in more and more for the publication of reports and accounts, such as he mentioned, in the daily Press as well as in the weekly Press and in periodicals. That is a very important matter, if we are to develop as quickly, as surely and as safely as we can a tradition which it now seems we all believe to be desirable.
He mentioned also a very important matter, and I think Senator Baxter underlined it for him. That was the advisability of an insurance scheme for crops. I remember I was not very long here when a Bill was introduced—I think Senator Counihan had a good deal to do with it—the object of which was to provide an insurance scheme for stock in certain circumstances, and I then expressed the hope that it might be the forerunner of a series of important insurance schemes to cover agricultural activities generally. We should consider it, but I think that the man who really might set the ball rolling would be Senator McGee himself, because I think I am right in saying that he is a man with considerable experience in insurance matters. Between himself and men like Senator O'Callaghan and those connected with the Beet Growers' Association, a scheme might be formulated and put up to the Minister, as Senator Counihan and his friends did in regard to the particular matter in which they were interested. I think if they did that there would be no very great difficulty in our getting an insurance scheme applicable to crops and, I believe, to other departments of agricultural endeavour.
Senator Sir John Keane made a point which was interesting, and that is that it would be a good thing if we had not exactly State farms but model farms, run by the people themselves throughout the country. Incidentally our aim should be to make every farm a model farm. Some years ago I was anxious to get a first-hand insight into the conditions obtaining in agriculture. I admitted here before that I would not be a good judge of land or of stock, and I took the very necessary precaution of getting help. I almost kidnapped one of our best-known Deputies, a man whose knowledge of stock and of soil and agriculture generally is above question. I made him come along with me. We came across some examples of well-run farms—farms, believe it or not, on which the owners declared they had made money. In one case, where the owner had come into business on the crest of the 1931 crisis and battled through what is now called the economic war, he had cleared himself of his debts, purchased some valuable machinery, and had something to credit over and above.
But I asked: "Do your neighbours come to see how you get on? Do they ask you questions, or do they take any great interest in your methods?" The answer I got was that they did not, they did not seem to mind. Our aim should be to raise the level of every farm to that of a model farm, but I mention this point only in order that Senator Sir John Keane might know that throughout the country there are excellently-run farms and that their influence, generally speaking, is not as great as might be expected.
I listened last night to a severe but unfair attack being made on the Taoiseach and on the Minister for Agriculture. I agree with the very vigorous and proper protest made by Senator O'Callaghan. I am glad that it was he who made the protest because he is a farmer, a man, as I said already, of wide experience and a very practical man. I think that that protest made by Senator O'Callaghan—I am sorry it did not get the publicity to which it was entitled—would be endorsed by every right-thinking Irish farmer. That classification would include every small farmer and a good sprinkling of the bigger men. On the other hand, it may be no harm that these attacks be made on Ministers and be made as vigorously as they are made. It may be that they do a great deal of good. We can remember the attacks hurled at the Taoiseach for a long time. These attacks had the effect of causing people to think. They had the effect of getting people to ask questions and that was just what was wanted. The result is that no man stands higher in the estimation of the Irish people to-day, both for his character and for his capacity as a statesman, than the Taoiseach. The same can be said of the Minister for Supplies. He has had a rough passage, but I doubt if his stock was ever as high as it is to-day. Why? Because these attacks cause the people to inquire more than ever: "Who is this man and what is the implication of these attacks?"
In Belfast the other evening I met some business men, men with a reputation for hard-headiness, and we talked about conditions in this country. I was interested to hear what was practically an echo of a remark I once made myself with regard to the same Minister for Supplies. That was, that his great fault was that he was too good for his job. If he had been less competent, if he had shown less ability in the early days of the war, those responsible for carrying on certain branches of the trade and industry of the country would have realised their own particular responsibilities earlier, and we might have been saved a good deal of what we were let in for. I think that the Minister for Agriculture would be wise to look at the attacks that are hurled against him in much the same way. The more he is attacked, the more people are asking: "Who is this Minister for Agriculture, and to what extent does he deserve these attacks?" The more they ask that, the more they will realise the service that man has rendered and the service he has attempted to render but which was sabotaged during this emergency.
During the debate, I heard a great many inconsistencies. We heard, for instance, the work of the last Government praised and the work of the present Government derided. No man would be more willing to compliment the last Government on what it did and what it attempted to do than I. I realise that the members of that Government did their best according to their lights. I wish they had acted differently but I, certainly, agree that the Minister for Agriculture of the time, Mr. Hogan, put his heart into his job, believed that he was right, and did all that a man could do to carry out his work well in the interests of the Irish people. I do not agree that he was right, but I must give honour where honour is due. But then to tell me that the work of the present Government has been to land this country into difficulty is just a little too much. It means treating us as if we do not see the advantages conferred by the present Government on all sides and as if we could not realise how much better off we might be if the people who charge them with incompetence had not played the part they did and had not acted as saboteurs in the work which they should have been helping and to which they should have bent all the energy they could.
Senator Crosbie made a speech last night and I wonder if he was in earnest or if he realised what he was saying. He suggests that our difficulty to-day in obtaining our full complement of raw materials is proof that nature did not intend that this country should engage in industrial activity, that it was decreed by nature that this country should just be a ranch or a back-garden for another country. I wonder if Senator Crosbie was in earnest. Does Senator Crosbie mean to tell me that it was nature decreed that the great cattle industry of the 17th century should have collapsed as it did? Does Senator Crosbie mean to tell me that it was an act of nature that the infamous ordinances of 1663, 1666 and 1668 should have been passed to cripple and strangle that great industry and throw the people of this country into the direst poverty, Catholic and Protestant alike, rob them of their national wealth and reduce them to the status of beggars? Does Senator Crosbie mean to tell me that it was nature decreed that the woollen industry should have failed, as it failed? This country whose people had been held up as master craftsmen——