I shall deal with the Agricultural Credit Corporation in my own way. This is a problem that concerns the whole country. For a long time we have been experimenting with political agricultural policies. It is time we got away from those because the land has never responded to a political agricultural policy. It is time we gave nature a chance again. Nature will respond if it is given a chance. I hope that the Minister will do something along that line and it is the duty and responsibility of all of us here to guide and assist him by giving our opinions and our advice frankly. Our opinions should be based on reason and good judgment so that they may be of benefit to the Minister in formulating his decisions.
It is easy enough to call for increased productivity and increased exports. But there is a corollary to that call. If I get better grass crops, where formerly I fed two beasts, I shall have to feed three beasts in the future. Have I the credit or the capital to provide myself with those animals? Assuming that I have the credit or the capital I must go on from there. I must go on to a situation where these animals will be fed and carried on my farm for 12 months in the year. With proper nutrients in the soil I believe that it is possible to do much more on the grass lands of this country and possible to carry three beasts where hitherto we have only carried two. I am satisfied that can be done. But we must go on from there. One of the greatest disabilities that grass land farming labours under to-day is lack of housing for cattle in the winter. The better the grass lands are, the less capable they are in most instances to carry cattle throughout the winter without having the cattle housed. In my opinion, the policy is entirely wrong. It is uneconomic from the point of view of feeding the stock. One does not get the return for the food provided. It takes months out of every year to make up for the destruction caused by cattle during the winter months on grass lands. That brings me back to the immense housing problem that faces the live stock industry in this country in the future. I was listening to a radio talk the other night given by Mr. McGuckian. I am sure many of the Senators are familiar with his name. He is a North of Ireland farmer who knows a great deal about his subject. I have frequently discussed agriculture with him. His views are very illuminating and I think we could do with more talks and discussions of that kind by experienced people here to help us to decide the road upon which we are to travel.
I am quite convinced that our whole programme of increased production can be made possible only by a vast expenditure of money which up to the present apparently none of us has visualised. When Dr. Henry Kennedy talked about £200,000,000 being requisite to capitalise Irish agriculture, he was calculating on the basis of £20 per acre for 10,000,000 acres. I doubt if even that would be sufficient under present circumstances but I am quite convinced that all that expenditure is requisite if Irish farming is to progress. Anyone who studies conditions in Denmark, who sees the economy they have built up there and who will trouble to acquaint himself with the expenditure by way of capital investment which the Danes have incurred, will realise that that was all essential to the progress of Danish agriculture. Yet we are expected to compete with them with worn-out tools, worn-out houses and worn-out land. The degree to which our land has been worn out during the war is something which farmers have not yet attempted to measure. I have repeatedly addressed myself to that aspect of our farming economy. It would be very interesting to hear what the expert whom the Minister has engaged to study the question has got to say about it. I am quite satisfied about it myself long ago and I am quite convinced that agriculture can only be built up by a very considerable expenditure of capital.
I do not think the capital necessary for that can be provided altogether by way of subsidy, as Senator Professor O'Brien suggested last night. It is true that if we are going to invest capital in agriculture, or if credit is to be secured, credit can only be secured when the farmer can give evidence that his production is profitable. When a businessman is going into a bank to obtain credit, he will probably produce something by way of a balance sheet which will show his expenditure and his costings as against his potential income. The farmer must be in a position to do exactly the same. The farmer should know at the beginning of the year what price he is likely to get for all his products. I say for all his products. If it be grain, the price of the grain may have to be determined by the price of the stock fed on that grain. There should be security for the farmer in the way of a guaranteed price for all his products that would put him into the position of going into a bank and saying: "I have so many acres under tillage; here are the guaranteed prices; here is the gross income; here are the outgoings. What can I get?" That must be part of our agricultural policy. If we get so far as that, it will be easier to get credit. It may very well be that even when we get guaranteed prices, in order to continue his task of feeding the nation and providing exports, it may be necessary to assist him by way of subsidy. That is something which will have to be studied. Perhaps in that respect Senator O'Brien is correct. But at present it is essential that the farmer should have security for the price of his crops. Then he becomes credit-worthy.
How are these credits to be provided? When you get to that stage, he can go anywhere, either to the bank or to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, whether he needs credit for building out-houses, the drainage of his soil, the mechanisation of his farm or whatever else he may need. He has then really got something tangible to offer and he will be provided with credit. That is the first step, in my opinion, to give him security along that line, and then credit will be an easier problem. Though I recognise that a difference of 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. may make it very difficult for a farmer whose income and whose margin of profit is low, if he has got security of price and high yields, then 1 per cent. in interest may not make any great difference to him. That is the first decision that has got to be taken.
With regard to the statement that any man who is credit-worthy can always get a loan, there are many views about credit-worthiness. Senator Quirke challenges me as to what my experience was in my years with the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I found there, even amongst those who were directors, differences as to the credit-worthiness of particular farmers. There is always that difference of opinion as to whether a man would be able to repay a loan or not, but it is not going to be so difficult if the man has got security of price. You will have solved a great deal of your problems when that stage is reached.
There is an aspect of this question to which I have addressed myself before and which will have to be faced by the Minister and by the country. It is all right when we get security of prices for the credit-worthy man. He will find credit, but what about the others? The possibilities of progress in Irish agriculture are dependent not alone on credit-worthy people but also on the productivity of the land in the hands of those who are not credit-worthy. There are thousands and thousands of such people in the country. I do not know whether they have grown greater or less in number in the last few years, but definitely, after the First Great War, disaster overcame thousands of farmers. Some of them were never able to reconstitute their economy. I went myself on a deputation to the Banks Standing Committee in 1926 or 1927, representing thousands of these people. I do not know what happened. Many of them were not able to rebuild their economy and their numbers were added to very considerably during the economic war. I do not know what the situation is now.
Perhaps Senator Quirke, had he remained in the House, would have been able to give us some idea of the number of refusals by the Agricultural Credit Corporation in recent years, but many of these people had reached the stage when they had ceased to look to anybody for a loan because it was quite impossible to get it. Many of these people are living on the best land in the country but they have no capital to provide machinery or stock, or to develop the productive capacity of the soil. What is going to be done about these people? In my judgment that situation must be faced. I do not think the country can afford to wash its hands of responsibility for the low productivity of thousands and thousands of acres to-day in the hands of people who cannot find credit anywhere. In my day on the Agricultural Credit Corporation, we had on more than one occasion discussions about setting up some kind of organisation or some branch within the Corporation itself that would assist these farmers, if credit was made available, to reconstitute their farms, by technical advice or by whatever assistance or supervision the Corporation could provide. In my opinion that problem should be measured because it still exists. I have no knowledge of the dimensions of it now. I am satisfied it is there and that some organisation—not anything as great as the T.V.A. in America —ought to be created for the purpose of providing the capital and of giving the technical assistance that would enable these people, through better management and industry, to reconstitute their economy. I am convinced that that is a major problem in Irish agriculture. We talk about our 10,000,000 arable acres of land. At one time we may have had 10,000,000 and perhaps even 12,000,000 arable acres of land but I wonder how many of these acres are to-day in a condition to give maximum yields of any crops. I think that if an effort were made to measure the capital that has to go into the land of this country in order to get maximum yields we should all be staggered. It is a situation which we cannot avoid.
Senator Quirke addressed himself at very great length to statements by the Minister for Agriculture in regard to mechanisation. I have heard the Minister express a view on that subject somewhere or other. I suppose it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a common practice of the Opposition, when the Minister makes a statement, to extend it, to twist it, to turn it upside down, and to do whatever they can to make it appear an exaggerated statement in the circumstances. I do not know if Senator Quirke is serious when he talks about bringing us back in this country completely to the horse. I do not think he can be. I do not think it would be advisable to preach that doctrine. Equally so, I am quite satisfied that it would be foolish for anyone to suggest, and I do not know that anybody has suggested it, that we should completely abandon the horse in this country. Quite obviously we do not intend to do so. It would not suit our economy to do so and, no matter how much anybody might advise it, our farmers would not agree to it. However, there is no doubt whatever that if we want full yields from our farms, at low cost—and that is a factor—we shall have to utilise machines.
I do not know what Senator Quirke thinks about the utilisation of milking machines in our dairy farms. I think that unless our farmers are prepared to spend £100 or whatever the price of the machine may be, dairy farming in this country will decline. It was declining considerably all during the years of the war and now there are probably fewer people working in the Irish dairying industry than ever before. The problem to-day is to find people willing to milk. The only alternative is, therefore, to invest capital and employ machines in that industry.
A great deal of work was done in our tillage fields during the war, and since, with machines, work which could not have been done had we not got the machines. Senator Quirke talked about what the horse can do. Undoubtedly horses can do a job of work very well. This year, when I was getting my tillage done, I arranged with the man who was doing it for me that part of the work would be done with horses because I know that such work is done better by horses than by a tractor. At the same time let us not be foolish. The world is marching on in this respect. Much more tillage is being done with fewer men and we shall have to do likewise because the men are not available. The men are turning to other ways of earning a livelihood. In such a situation very considerable capital will be required for the purchase of the necessary machinery. However, I should like to sound a note of warning. I should not like to rush to extremes in mechanisation because it would not be very long until saturation point would be reached. If our agriculture is to take the slant which the Minister expects it will take and which many of us believe it will take, to a certain extent anyhow, the machines we require are those which will enable us to do grass farming better than it has been done in the past. These machines are quite different from the machines which are required for the dairying industry.
I agree that it would be very unwise to rush into considerable capital expenditure for the purchase of machines abroad which might, after a short while, become out-of-date. Neverthless, machinery is essential. We require machines such as those which are in use in Great Britain and elsewhere for the making of all kinds of drains. We require the newer type of machine—something similar to that which the Minister has been able to get for the beet industry. That type of machine was utilised very extensively in Germany before the last war. It can wash and cook ten tons of potatoes for ensiling for animal feeding.
The problem of the extension and of the utilisation of credit must be considered very closely in relation to our future needs—taking into consideration the slant which our agriculture will take as a result of the encouragement which the Minister is giving for the production of better grass.
I feel that in putting down this motion Senator Burke has provided an opportunity for discussing a problem which is of very considerable importance to the future of agriculture. Our industry as a whole is run down to a degree which it is almost impossible for us to measure. Judged by modern standards, standards which any of us can confirm exist in some of the progressive continental countries such as Sweden and Denmark, the capital which we shall have to put into our agriculture in order to raise it to the level of production which exists in these progressive continental countries is really immense. I believe that no matter what the Minister or others may think about it, we shall have to face the formation of an organisation which will make it possible for Irish farmers to feel, in the first place, that there will be security for them when they invest capital; and, in the second place, that when they want to borrow there will be a responsive organisation which will understand their needs and provide them with the credit which will enable them to enter into a scheme of full production in a way that will make possible a progress in Irish agriculture such as we have not experienced heretofore.
