As the Minister for Industry and Commerce will not be available until 7 o'clock, perhaps the Seanad would agree to take now item No. 4, in the name of Senator Baxter.
Agreed.
Artificial Fertilisers and Exports—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that, in the interests of agriculture, immediate action should be taken by the Government to negotiate with the British Government for an adequate supply of artificial fertilisers in exchange for the export of cattle, flax, beer, and spirits.— (Senator Baxter).
When I moved the adjournment of this motion on the last occasion, I had gone far, I thought, to enlighten the Seanad, in so far as it was possible for me to do so, on the necessity for maintaining the fertility of our soil because of the importance to the life of the nation in the future of this very valuable asset. Generally speaking, I am afraid we have not given enough consideration to this problem because the exhaustion of our soil has been so remote from our thoughts in this century that we have never had to give it much thought. From time to time I have seen various statements which, in a way, seem rather difficult to reconcile. For example, I read in the daily Press a statement made by the Taoiseach in Tipperary in which he left us to understand that we could go on and on with our tillage policy, that we had enough fertility to draw upon, and that for ten years anyhow we had not to be very concerned about the loss of this fertility. According to him, there was no cause for worry. At the same time I was impressed by the fact that both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture have adverted to the importance of carrying out our tillage campaign at the present time in those parts of the country where very little tillage has been done in the past, obviously, of course, for the reason that for the period that is immediately in front of us it is from these lands which have fertility stored up in them we have the best hope of getting such crop yields as will give us an abundant supply of food.
I want to reiterate that I am very concerned about this loss of fertility in our soils. I will go this far with the Taoiseach that, for a period, we can go on exhausting that fertility and at the same time provide ourselves with a certain quantity of food, but to the extent that we go on exhausting that fertility, and not replacing it, we are leaving the soil derelict, or partially derelict, and so are reducing our capital assets. The result of that will be that the total crop yields from our soils in the years to come are going to be low. Consequently, our standard of life, no matter what we may do, will be very low indeed. In the post-war period, I do not want to see our farmers, because of low crop yields from poor soils, involved in a considerable amount of capital expenditure in order to rejuvenate the land. I fear that post-war our low yields will be so depressing that our total income will not be anything like adequate to give us, or our labourers, anything approaching a decent standard of life.
With regard to the Taoiseach's statement that we can draw on the fertility of our soil to-day, that can only be done at the expense of impoverishing it and ourselves for the morrow. I feel convinced that in the post-war period the struggle is going to be dreadful indeed, even for people tolerably well equipped to meet it. For that reason, I want to fight as hard as I can to save our capital assets in every respect for the test which confronts us post-war. We are exhausting our soil fertility at a rather rapid rate. As the Minister and all of us know, a great deal of our tillage, even at present as well as in the past, has been carried out on our poorer lands. We have to be continually replacing the fertility in them in order to get a reasonable yield from the crops sown in them. On a previous occasion I put it to the Minister that over a great part of the country last season the yields per acre were so low that it is very doubtful if our total food units were any greater in 1942 than in 1941, despite the fact that the area under tillage in 1942 had been increased. This year we have further increased the area under tillage, and yet I am afraid, because of the poor condition of our soils, that the yields from our crops will not be any greater than they were last year. Indeed, the yields may be even lower than they were last year. That is an unhappy situation. These facts can be proven and ought not to be avoided. This is a national problem that will have to be faced by the people as a whole.
In this year our total live-stock population is not any higher—indeed it may be lower—than it was in 1938. The figure is in or about 4,000,000 head. We have not more farmyard manure this year to put into our land than we had in 1938, although in the latter year we had available something like 200,000 tons of artificial fertilisers. Obviously, a considerable amount of these fertilisers went on grass land. The Minister may be able to give us the gross total of artificial fertilisers which he expects. to have available this year. It is easy to calculate the bulk quantity of fertilisers which we will be able to inject into the soil this year as compared with what went into it in 1938. It is certain, at any rate, that in this year we are going to draw to a greater extent on our soil fertility than we attempted to do in 1938. I do not think the Minister for Agriculture will contest this: That you cannot take two or three grain crops, following a root crop, from the land and expect to have healthy soil conditions. Not only is the fertility of the soil drawn upon by such a process, but the structure of the soil itself is altered. That will have all sorts of consequences. Our yields of grain and roots will fall, and if we are putting land to grass the ability to put meat on cattle and draw milk from cows will be affected by such a policy. The national income of the farming community and the nation will be altered considerably by the lack of health in the soil, as determined by what we draw from it this year as against what we put back. I fear that we are taking much more out of it than we are able to put back.
The purpose of my motion is to urge upon the Minister that action must be taken by him and by the Government. We have no evidence yet that such action has been taken. I am not saying that the Minister has been idle or that, as between his Department and some Department of the British Government, efforts have not been made to obtain quantities of fertilisers. Whatever has been done, however, has not been effective to the extent desirable and requisite. If the Minister asked to see his opposite number in Britain, or the head of the Department there whose responsibility it is to distribute artificial fertilisers, in order to discuss with him the whole effect of the shortage on our life here and on the supplies of food available for export from this country, I believe he would be met. I believe that half an hour's talk between a Minister of this State and a Minister of the British Parliament would bring us at once thousands of tons of artificial fertilisers. That would have a profound influence on the psychological approach of our farmers to the task which confronts them and on our yields of crops this year and in the years to come.
Britain has nothing to spare.
Senator Sir John Keane may have information which I have not. Apparently, he has the view that Britain has nothing to spare. I know something about the conditions in the Six Counties. I know that farmers there have been offered quantities of sulphate of ammonia, at £10 a ton, and I know the price that some of the farmers here would offer and pay for a ton of fertilisers if they could get it. I do not know what is or is not available from Britain, but if I were approaching this, even from the British point of view, I would say that Britain is very hard pressed for food at present. I suggest that she will be pressed much harder in the next 12 months. There were days during the last war when she was not very far from surrender, because of the shortage of supplies.
We have traded with Britain in the past and, as a farmer, I want to continue that trade, and to continue trading with people anywhere with whom it is advantageous to do so. These are our neighbours. They have things which we require and which we cannot produce for ourselves. On the other hand, we have goods which they took from us in the past, not out of love for us, as they took them when their tyranny was at its highest, but because they got good value for the money. I do not think we are under any obligation to them now, or that we have been in the past, nor do I desire that we should be under any obligation in the future. It is to Britain's advantage, as well as to our advantage, that there should be the greatest total trade possible between the two islands. I want this trade to be advantageous to us primarily. A bag of sulphate of ammonia in the Twenty-Six Counties in 1943 can do about 100 per cent. more than the same bag of sulphate of ammonia will do in Britain. From that point of view of providing a surplus of food here, which can be made available for sale to the people of the Six Counties or of Britain, much more can be done by supplying these artificial fertilisers to us than by retaining very considerable quantities in Britain itself.
If the people in Britain look out on life with the understanding eyes of men who want to provide their own people with the greatest possible quantity of food in the two or three difficult years ahead, they must realise that no soil anywhere is capable of being exploited in the same fashion, and with the same capital expenditure on fertilisers, as our soil is. I know the terrific drive there is in Britain to till greater areas. I know that, for this tillage, it is essential that artificial fertilisers be made available. I am quite convinced that there could be made available, out of what is going to be applied in Britain, such a quantity of nitrogenous manures like sulphate of ammonia, as would considerably improve the yield from our fields in the coming 12 months. I do not know whether such a point of view has been put to Britain or not, nor how the Minister feels about putting that point of view. He may take the line that we can "do without," but I am not satisfied that we can, though I know we can drag along in a rather limping sort of way. The Minister may have no desire to put pressure on Britain to give us supplies which she says she requires for herself and about which there is no great anxiety on her side to part with.
What pressure can be put?
I would like Senator Sir John Keane and the House to consider this from my point of view as a farmer. We are sending certain quantities of food-stuffs—the produce of our soil—out of the country. I have the disadvantage of not knowing the figures for our cattle exports. Each beast is the product of Irish land, from the day the calf is born until it is sent over as a three-year-old bullock or a seven or eight-year-old cow. Our breweries and distilleries are getting grain, and quantities of the product of that grain are being exported. In addition, I have pointed out that we are definitely encouraging the production of flax in a way in which the potato crop, essential as it is to our own life here, is not being encouraged. I have not put down an acre of flax. I prefer to grow crops which I can either use at home or sell to someone else to be used at home. But if I proposed to grow an acre of flax, I could go in and buy 1 cwt. of potash. The whole of last year's crop covered 18,000 acres, which probably yielded 3,000 or 3,500 tons; I do not know what the yield was, but all of that went out of the country. Encouragement of the growth of flax seems to be part of the Government's policy. For what purpose? It is not for consumption within the State. I am not putting our Ministers down as a lot of very stupid people who have not some reason for that encouragement. I feel that they must be getting something out of it. I do not know.
Looking at it from the point of view of Britain, and especially from the point of view of the industrial community in the Six Counties, I think it would be very greatly to their advantage if more thousands of acres were put under the production of flax here. In any case, there are definite commodities which our land produces and which we are sending away. What I am pointing out to the House, and especially in reply to Senator Sir John Keane's interruptions, is that we are getting nothing in return to put back into the fields from which those crops have been taken and exported. That is not fair to the land, and will be detrimental to the national interests. I think we should state our claim by saying to Britain: "We are sending you certain commodities, the produce of our soil, and in return we should get from you certain other commodities to put back into those fields." We had to burn the soil in the old days; I have seen fields that had to be burned. This policy of drawing away from the soil and not putting anything back is not very far removed from that. I do not know whether or not that is an answer to Senator Sir John Keane.
Has the Senator examined our trade figures? I understand that last year we imported more than we exported. I want to be put right on that point.
There are certain disadvantages in members of the House talking about this matter of trade balances, because there are difficulties in obtaining the figures. My reply to Senator Sir John Keane is that I do not mind how many millions of an adverse trade balance there was—that used to be unwisely deplored in the old days—because the main fact is that millions of pounds' worth of goods were taken from our soil and sent out of the country, and no million pounds' worth of goods were given to us in return to be put back into the soil. That is what I deplore. Now is the time to stake our claim. I feel I would be lacking in my duty as a member of this House and as a member of the farming community if I did not call attention to those matters. We have apparently been doing something in the way of bartering or exchanging. I have got the impression that, in the matter of agricultural machinery, we have been doing something like importing certain quantities of raw material against the export of a certain percentage of the finished article. The Minister can tell us about that. I feel that there is a basis to go upon, but even if there were never a basis to go upon we should not continue a policy of drawing from the productivity of our land year after year, expecting to supply our own community with enough food, leaving a surplus for Britain, and putting nothing back into the soil.
I know it will be argued that the British have not got the commodities to send us. I think that all depends on what the British attitude is. It is quite astonishing what the British can do in the way of concessions when they want to do it. I think they ought to be convinced that the people over here are thinking about those things, and thinking about them very seriously. I do not want to be taken as arraigning the Minister, because such and such a thing has not been done. On the other hand, I do not want Senator Sir John Keane, or somebody from some other part of the House, to tell me that everything possible has been done, and that I am only making trouble by raising this sort of an issue at a time like this. I do not want to make any trouble for anybody, but I do not want to see in this country the continuance of conditions which will make very great trouble for all of us in the days that lie ahead. I think the Minister should be glad to find that people are prepared to stand up in this House and tell him that he ought to go to the British and say to them that if they want to get certain articles which we have produced and sold to them in the past, and which we are competent to produce in greater quantities in the future if we get a chance, they will have to give us commodities which we have not been given in the last year or two to the extent to which they were requisite to that production. My attitude about our trade with Britain is perfectly clear. I want our trade to continue, but I want our farmers to feel that they will be put in a position to give, in the future, products of the type which we were accustomed to market in Britain in the past.
The question that many of our farmers, in fact most of them, will put is: what are we going to do for artificial manures? These are not forthcoming and I have no hesitation in saying that I feel it is the responsibility of the Minister or of the Government not to entrust to any lesser person than a Minister of this State the obligation of going to Britain and putting to the British Minister what our position is over here. I think the Minister's position would be considerably strengthened if he were pressed and pushed from behind by the farming community of this country who are declaiming continuously that we are extracting from our land far too much and that if the people in Britain want exports to continue and want greater yields from our fields, there are things with which they must supply us which we cannot find for ourselves. In adopting that attitude the Minister would be voicing the opinion of nine-tenths of the farmers. I am not going into the question of whether or not, in order to obtain supplies of artificial fertilisers, we may have to draw upon our sterling assets. I think we could put them to worse use but I am really very anxious to know what the British approach to this whole question is. If the British take up a non-possumus attitude, I am quite prepared to say: "I do not like it, I think it is not good for your health or ours and it is a bad portent for the future."
When you have, as we had the other day, Mr. Claude Wickhart talking about Britain drawing on her reserves of food and an apparent contradiction by the British Prime Minister, which, as far as I was concerned, did not carry any great conviction, I think there is evidence of a somewhat rather grave situation facing the people of Britain in the days ahead. If they are so blind in circumstances like these as to deny to the farms of this country that kind of medicine—if you like that kind of purgative—that would enable the land to give yields far beyond anything that we could expect this year, with the amount of attention we may be able to give it, I wonder what are the possibilities of our entering into trade relations with them in the days ahead? In this matter I am prepared to cast my bread on the waters because I do not think the present position makes sense either for ourselves or for Britain. Unless we can put something into our fields that is not available for us now, the food situation is going to grow more acute and we may be driven to straits which many of us do not like to contemplate.
Despite the statement of the Taoiseach the other day—I do not want to misinterpret or misunderstand him; I am sure the Minister will clarify his statement and will indicate what the situation exactly is—I have the feeling that the Minister and the members of the Ministry are much more optimistic about the condition of our soil fertility than I am. Last year we had a drop in our beet yields. We had, apparently, a drop of over a ton or more per acre. I hope it will be higher this year, but I am seriously concerned about the conditions in my own county and over a very large area of the country in which we have been tilling a very bad class of land, having nothing else to cultivate. We were able to extract only fair crops from this land in the past, when supplies of fertilisers were made available in considerable quantities. I am seriously concerned about the effect on our farming economy of this reduction in the fertility of our soil. I think we have faced up to the position in a very courageous way. I have said in the past, and I repeat it, that I have no desire to put a Minister of State in the position of asking for an opportunity of discussing matters with a British Minister merely to have our Minister turned down. I do not think that that would happen. I do not think that opportunity would be refused. I am quite convinced that he would be received, and that it would be possible on this basis to open discussions which would considerably clarify the whole position for ourselves and for the people of Britain.
Even if the request were to be refused, I should like to know the position because if there is a definitely unfriendly attitude on the part of people on the other side in the conditions of to-day, then they, too, are casting their bread on the waters, and it is perhaps a rather dangerous adventure for them. If the Minister were met with a refusal I would say it would be a sign for the future and perhaps it would galvanise the people of the country into a type of action which in other circumstances we should be sorry to take. It might make us examine the question of whether the economy we had pursued in the past would be the most profitable economy in the future.
I should like to know where we stand. That may be a rather extreme line, but I am not asking the Minister to say that. I am saying it, and I think if other people like me said it, it would be no harm. It would probably be a considerable help. Anyway, the knowledge that there are difficulties in the situation should not make us want to avoid these difficulties, but rather should encourage us to surmount them. Face them as we will, anybody who knows the conditions in the country cannot but dread the consequences of our food campaign policy. It is going to extract so much from so many hundreds of thousands of acres that there is not the remotest chance for a number of years of restoring its former fertility to our soil. As far as I am concerned, I feel I am justified in bringing this matter before the Seanad. I feel that the biggest thing in our food campaign for this year and the years ahead is the question of how we are going to balance the fertility of the soil against the crops which we are extracting from our soil. Unless we are able to balance this in a rational way, the fruits we shall have to garner from our fields in the years to come will be very few and very sour fruits indeed.
I move this motion and I hope the House will support me in my approach to the problem. I approach it as a farmer who feels that the land is our biggest asset, our greatest and strongest reserve, and that unless we are cautious and careful to nurture it, to make it more fertile and keep it in vigorous health, we shall suffer correspondingly in the future. I feel that the Government has a great responsibility in that sense, that inasmuch as you take produce from the land and export it, the land has practically first claim on anything that comes to this country from overseas. Apparently, the policy which is being pursued is that the land is thought of last. We may be getting other things in exchange for the things which go from the land, but I suggest that the land should have the first claim upon anything which comes into the country. We must try to get much more in the way of artificial fertilisers. It would be a good thing to pass this motion. I hope the Minister will not ask Senators to reject it. I think it is time that all of us faced the situation that confronts us with rather more courage than we have been displaying. I believe that if, in the past, we were more courageous in relation to matters of this sort we would have got further.
I second the motion. During the past two years, we, farmers, have been warning the Government of the results which are likely to accrue through additional tillage on unsuitable land and in places where farmers are not expert at the various tillage processes. I do not for one moment say that the Government have not done a great deal to make good this want of nitrates and, in particular, potash, which are so very necessary from the point of view of land fertility. However much you try, you cannot get sufficient farmyard manure to cope with the increased tillage.
I think that the doctrines we have been preaching for a considerable time are beginning to sink in. Over a period we had very optimistic speeches delivered by Ministers. They spoke of yields of wheat running to so many barrels and they assured us that there would be a plentiful supply. Now, in almost every speech which is delivered by a Minister, and even by the Taoiseach, we get some small indication that the yields they were anticipating are not being realised and that the optimism which Ministers formerly displayed has not been justified. There were some of us who knew all along that there was undue optimism on the part of the Government. You have only to look at the figures to realise that the yields Ministers were expecting from various crops were a very long way beyond the mark.
I think this motion, although I feel it will not help to procure manures in any large quantities, is well timed. It will afford the Minister an opportunity of telling the House if the English, or the people in the North, have got surplus artificial manures, and shipping space to transport these manures here, and, per contra, if we have got agricultural products in excess of our requirements to pay for the artificial manures, and when we have got them, if it can be arranged that these artificial manures will be used in such a way as to increase our production and bring conditions up to the pre-war level.
There was some question just now as to what the actual figures were. I can only give gross figures, taken from the Statistical Abstract for the year 1941. Those figures show that our imports were worth £29,000,000 and our exports £31,000,000. I understand that, in the following year, that balance of £2,000,000 decreased considerably, and we know that at the moment this country is exporting practically nothing except cattle, and possibly a small quantity of flax. Eggs, butter, and other commodities that we used to export have dropped to very small quantities. I think it is due to the want of feeding stuffs, and that again is indirectly due to the want of artificial manures, which would help to increase our yield. I could have put another 30 acres under wheat this year if I could get any sort of artificial manure at a reasonable price.
We have heard a lot of talk about wheat taking less fertility out of the land than any other crop. I suggest that that depends entirely on the land into which the wheat is put. I submit that you cannot generalise in regard to this matter, and these statements rather mislead people and make for a want of confidence. We, farmers, are doing all we possibly can by tying-in cattle, shedding them, to increase our farmyard manure. Our only alternative to farmyard manure at the moment is lime. Until we get an adequate supply of artificial manures, the yields of various crops will not be very satisfactory.
As regards surplus manures in the North, I very much question whether they are there in the quantities indicated by Senator Baxter. I hope they are—I should like to see them there, and I should like to see them brought across the Border. It is quite possible that the British, even with their increased tillage drive, may have surplus manures which they could send us. I feel it is quite possible that there is a surplus which we could get from there.
I should like to hear the Minister telling the House that, so far as dealing with the British is concerned, he and his officials and our representatives on the other side—we have a High Commissioner there, an extremely able fellow, who is in touch with everybody worth while in Great Britain—have done, or are doing, everything possible in order to have goods sent from our side, even in small quantities, in exchange for artificial manures from the other side.
At the same time, although this may not be quite relevant to Senator Baxter's motion, I should like the Minister to say whether, since the introduction of the Appropriation Act last year, any important advance has been made in the process of manufacturing any type of artificials, even low-grade artificials, in this country. Let us go back to the period of the industrial drive. We were then told that every single thing we required would be made in this country. Now, when we come down to brass tacks in regard to this very important requirement, what position do we find? The Minister did explain in a friendly and reasonable way on another occasion that there were difficulties about the qualities of stuff and about certain machines, and we accepted his statement. But one does feel that in a crisis like this something may have been produced in the period since we passed the Appropriation Act—some time in July or August. We hope, even if they have not been able to get very far during the intervening period, that during the remainder of this year something will eventuate in the nature of a low-grade manure at a reasonable price. I look forward to hearing, in the course of this debate, some definite statement arising out of our proposal. I should like the Minister to let us know if everything possible has been done to get whatever surplus of artificial manures the British may have.
Business suspended at 6 p.m., and resumed at 7 p.m.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
It has been arranged to take No. 3 on the Order Paper—Senator Counihan's motion— and then resume on No. 4 on the Order Paper.