I do not know whether it will be regarded as appropriate or not to enter into a discussion on general Government policy and conditions on this Vote on Account, but there are things one would like to say. Of course, I am concerned mainly with the problem of agriculture and agricultural production, and the Minister can plead, as he has generally been able to plead effectively, that that is a subject with which some other Minister could deal with more competence. There are, however, aspects of our agricultural policy that do not come strictly within the purview of any particular Minister, but fall rather on the Cabinet as a whole to decide. It may be that the Minister and his colleagues are satisfied with the condition of our agricultural industry and with our agricultural output. Perhaps that is not true, and that Ministers are not satisfied. I do not think that they could possibly be satisfied, or that the country could be satisfied with the output of our agricultural industry, or with the whole approach towards making conditions better either for those engaged in agriculture or for the country generally. There was a very long discussion on this subject in the Dáil, and a very interesting survey resulted. Figures were given from various sides, but I am not now going to deal with them at length. Generally, it appears to me as if Ministers considered that the output in agriculture had increased. That is something that I do not accept, as any close examination of the facts would not bear it out. It is true that figures could be produced to indicate that, from the point of view of the money values put on output, the position had improved. When these values were being put on production I do not know what comparison was made with the decreased purchasing power of the £ during the last four or five years, or whether the measure taken is anything like an accurate measure of the real value of our output in 1938-39, or 1936-37.
We have figures for 1936-37 which show a very considerable increase in the cash value of agricultural output but I do not think they are a true reflex of the actual position. It is quite clear to me that you are taking conditions when we have raised the price of wheat within a certain period by a considerable number of shillings per barrel and when we have increased the cash value of other commodities, but whether we have any evidence to satisfy ourselves that we have a total increased yield from our fields is something about which I am very sceptical indeed. If the Ministry as a whole are satisfied to accept these figures as a true reflex of the position in agriculture, I think it would be very unfortunate that we should accept it as the real position. As I see the situation, we have actually fewer people employed on the land. The numbers are decreasing. It may be that some farmers are working much harder, but there is a limit to what any one man can do, and I am not satisfied that the fewer people on the land are actually competent to increase the quantity of physical goods available from the land.
There is no doubt about it that the machines on the land are running down, and we are not able to replace them. We need not talk about capital resources. It is all right to have capital if you can buy the things you need. The trouble is that you cannot buy them. But, apart from the fact that we have fewer people employed on the land, and fewer and poorer machines to work with, there is also the other factor that the fertility available in our fields is much less than that in any pre-war year. The Minister, perhaps, has a rough idea that in the present season we are having made available something like 40,000 tons of artificial manures, whereas we used from 200,000 to 240,000 tons in a pre-war year. We know, too, that the quantity of farmyard manure has certainly not increased, because the number of live animals on our farms has gone down. We have, then, a situation in which there are fewer people to work on the land, poorer machines and no addition to the number, and a lower fertility in areas under production. In a situation like that, I do not think anybody—and I do not mind who he is—who knows anything about the combination of essentials required to get yields from soil, can be satisfied that the quantity of physical goods has increased, or bears any reasonable comparison to the apparent increase in the cash value which the Minister for Agriculture gave in the Dáil last week, as apparently over £70,000,000 in round figures. I suggest to the Minister that the situation needs examination, and not in any superficial way at all.
I am convinced, and have been convinced for a long time, and I have lost no opportunity of saying it, that the situation requires examination and reorganisation in a fashion we have not attempted up to the present. We have not the animals to-day which we ought to have. The Minister for Agriculture, and perhaps the Minister for Finance, would say we would have the animals if we had the food. I believe we have the land to have the food for the animals, if we had the men to work the land and the fertility which the land requires, and if, in addition, we improve the land in the way we ought to improve it. We have schemes here which are being assisted by this Vote. One is the land improvement scheme— a very good scheme, so far as it goes. I do not know, for instance, under that scheme why we should impose a limitation on the improvement of the land as we are doing. If it can be argued that we cannot produce any more until we secure more land, then the obvious thing to do is to see why we cannot get more land available for cultivation.
We have 12,000,000 arable acres in a total area of 17,000,000 acres. I have no idea what proportion of the 5,000,000 acres might be, or could be, made available for cultivation. Perhaps it may well be that in the area of 12,000,000 acres, we have a considerable number of acres that cannot be regarded as in a condition to give us either good tillage crops, or fair value, from the point of view of producing grass. Obviously, the right thing to do is to see what we can do to bring all this land into a proper state of cultivation—improve it in whatever way we can improve it, and, instead of letting our labourers leave the country because we say we have nothing for them to do, keep them at home and get them placed on the land under this land improvement scheme. You have conditions in connection with that scheme whereby no man, no matter who he is, can get a Government grant unless he can satisfy the people in the offices and answer all sorts of questions as to the proportion of his income which he is getting from his land, and all that sort of thing. If, for instance, a man has a little bit of a shop in the country, and if he may happen to have a considerable area of land, some of which is very poor land: if he wants to improve that land, he is not eligible for the grant, and the result is that much of the land that ought to be improved and assisted through this Government scheme, and which ought to be brought into a proper condition for cultivation, is going to waste.
If we want to improve all the land in the country, why have these provisions and conditions at all? In my opinion, Government policy on this matter ought to be to go out and improve every acre of land in the country that is capable of improvement. No matter who owns the land, it is there; and if it requires improvement, it is in the interests of the nation that each individual who owns the land at the moment, no matter who he is, ought to be encouraged to improve it. I think that, on the whole, the farmer will improve his land if reasonable repayment or compensation can be obtained by him for the labour spent upon it. I think, accordingly, that with regard to our land improvement scheme the Government should put it on a much broader basis altogether and remove all the restrictions that you have imposed with regard to money incomes on land, or the way of life of individuals, or anything like that. The Government should go out definitely with the intention of improving all our land, as they have done in Britain. Do not bother about asking all sorts of questions, which are sometimes not easy to answer, and the net result of which is to leave the land there unimproved. I say that if we want to get more land under cultivation, and if it is not available in the present area of arable land, let us go out and bend all our energies towards improving any land that is capable of improvement. We would be spending money well by bringing every possible acre of land into a state where it could be cultivated.
Now, that is an aspect of our problem that, I think, the Ministry ought to take notice of. Even in my own county I know of quite a number of instances where men wanted to improve their land, and wanted to get the facilities of the Government grant from which they saw their neighbours benefiting, and who, for one reason or another, have not been able to do it. I think that restrictions like these are a hardship and are definitely standing in the way of the carrying out of a sound Government policy that is, generally, going to be beneficial.
Whatever the Ministry may think about it, or however satisfied they may be about the cash value they have put upon the output of agriculture for 1941-42, I think that the net result of our policy up to date is that the number of live stock in the country is falling. Our live stock are getting fewer and fewer, day after day, and month after month. I believe that that is a very dangerous situation, but it is obvious to all of us attending fairs and markets that that situation is coming about, and that the speed at which it is happening is being greatly accelerated. Let us not disregard these facts; they are fundamental to our whole land policy in the future. I myself believe this—that it is not enough for the Government to say, with regard to the maintenance of certain branches of our live-stock industry—our pig industry, for instance —that we cannot have an increase in the pig population unless the farmers can produce more food, and just leave it at that. I believe that the farmers can produce more food, and that they will till more acres if they get the labour to do it, and if they are paid the money for doing the job. I want to see Government policy shaped in such a fashion as will encourage increased production of the foods that are essential for live stock as well as for human beings, but a consideration must be that such a price will be paid to the farmer-producer as will enable him to employ men to do that work.
Within a certain limited period, we have lost over 100,000 of our young people. We have not enough of various types of food for the people here at home to eat, and we could have had them. Mind you, 50,000 men in a year could produce a very considerable quantity of extra food, both of butter and of bacon, and, before these men left the country, there should have been a better diagnosis of the position as it would have been if it had been possible for these men to be employed in the fields of Ireland. This is a matter that concerns our people and the nation generally, and it has a tremendous bearing upon our whole future, because beyond doubt we have got to look at this fact—that we have a situation here where we cannot buy in this country the goods that could be produced by our people if they were working in the fields here at home. Men and women go across to England and get money for the services they render there. They send that money back to their relatives at home, and when these people go out into the market to buy a rasher of bacon or a pound of butter, these commodities are not there. If these people had been kept in Ireland, not alone would they be able to provide a rasher of bacon or a pound of butter to supply the needs of their own families, but they would be able to provide a sufficient quantity of that type of goods for the rest of the community as well.
I am not going to dwell at greater length on this situation, but I am satisfied that our policy at present does not reveal that deeper examination of the possibilities of our own land, and the ability of our own people harnessed to the soil, which is requisite for the circumstances of our times and, above all, of our future. I think we should take a much broader view of the whole position. If we are not getting enough out of our own land to provide for our human population and also our live stock up to the extent that is necessary, and indeed up to the extent that is necessary for us to have a surplus for export, then I say that we should ask ourselves: What can we do to improve our land? What can we do to make it more productive? Can we employ our people on it? Can we hold the people, who are now leaving the country, on the land, and improve it so that it may increase its productivity for all of us, and, following on from that, what is necessary to be done in order to achieve this end?
I am not satisfied. I fear that the figures which we have been given may make the Minister and his colleagues, and a great many others, altogether too complacent, because I believe that while, apparently, the cash value of the products that are credited to the land, including the turf from the bogs, has increased, the physical amount of goods being made available from the land is actually declining. I think that that is a very unsatisfactory situation, and I believe that that situation will continue progressively and that it will go on disimproving unless we show more courage and take a broader view than we have been taking up to the present. The Minister for Finance, I think, myself, is probably in a position to make a bigger contribution towards changing this policy than anybody else in the Government. I do not intend to go into the unsatisfactory procedure of permitting the youth of the country to go out of it to work in another country, and to send back here money to buy goods which are not available. A situation like that should not be permitted to continue, because the services of those people are required here to provide for our own community the absolute essentials of life.
