But we are all giving our views for what they are worth and everybody's opinions should be listened to, irrespective of whether he has any financial experience or not. All should try to pool their ideas in an effort to improve the financial situation. It is something I should like to do myself. On the rare occasions on which we can debate Government policy and steal the thunder of the other House by capturing the newspaper headlines, it is right that we should do our best to help the Minister for Finance in his and the Government's very serious predicament.
We know that the Budget is a very unpopular one. Any Minister for Finance who imposes taxation immediately becomes unpopular, whether he imposes it on luxury or on essential goods. People will have to buy one type or another of those goods and, in doing so, will have to pay higher prices. The blame will always be put on the Minister for Finance. There was no choice for the Minister. When he floated a loan it was not a success. There were various reasons given for that. One section say that there was no confidence in the Government or in the Department of Finance, and another section say that the money was not available in the country.
In a small country such as this, with a small population, it is pretty difficult for people, irrespective of how much they have, to find something like £20,000,000 in savings every year. Our potential and our wealth is not great enough to do that and our agricultural and industrial output is not sufficient to enable the ordinary citizens to bring together that amount of money and have it withdrawn from circulation, even though it may find its way back again through Government projects and works. However, with the failure of the two last national loans, the Minister for Finance had no option but to balance his Budget, which meant, of course, extra taxation, and to put extra taxation on a country and people already overtaxed, and on whom, as the ex-Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, said, taxation had reached its very maximum. We know ourselves, and the Minister knows, that taxation was high enough without any more. Still, in order to keep the services of the country going, taxation had to be found somewhere.
Personally, while I do not like to see it going on, I feel that it was better to impose it where it has been imposed, on such things as tobacco and cigarettes, disagreeable and unpopular as it may be, than on foodstuffs of any description, because while foodstuffs are essential—we cannot do without our bread and butter—even though we may find it very hard, we could do without cigarettes and tobacco, if we have to make a choice. While taxation on things like that is unpopular, it was one of the few steps the Minister could take.
While agreeing that taxation had to be imposed, I must say that it is the duty of the Government to see that the money so obtained from taxation is not wasted foolishly or squandered in a haphazard manner. With all due respect to the present Government, there are quite a few things about which I find myself in agreement with a man with much more experience than I have in financial affairs, Senator O'Brien, that some of the projects that are being carried out should be left over for better times. For instance, money—I do not know how much, but quite a substantial sum—is being expended on runways for Army jet planes and ideas of that sort. I think that anybody with common sense must realise that instead of spending over £500,000 on projects like that, for the few jet planes we are capable of purchasing, that money would be much more valuable if it were devoted to housing, small as it might be for that purpose, or to something of that nature.
Many people think that only essential schemes should be carried out when there is deterioration in public finances as there is at the present time, and that non-essentials should be left over for better days. Each local authority and each member of it seems to have only one idea in mind, that is to outbid one another in popularity in the amount of work they can get done in their own localities. Housing schemes at all times are essential, but other schemes like water and sewerage schemes are not nearly as essential, and are creating a huge bill for every local authority in Ireland. All these things have to be financed from the Central Fund. We see the figures given here by Senator Hickey, that on 31st of March, 1938, the total borrowings for the local authorities were £27,771,000, the interest being £1,850,000. In March, 1955, the total borrowings were £104,900,000 and the interest, £6,135,000.
We are going very deeply with regard to local authorities, in spending money unnecessarily. Take the smallest little village where there may not be half a dozen houses, and there is no likelihood of half a dozen houses more raising their heads, applying to the local authorities through their local councillor for a water and sewerage scheme. A scheme is prepared by architects, who always err, if they err, on the side of plentifulness, and a scheme is submitted. I know of one case in Mayo where the cost per head to the people living in the town was something in the region of £304. That is an extraordinary thing.
These are matters that county councils go ahead with, and from the central authority a certain amount of help must come in the way of repayment of loan, and so on. The Minister would be quite justified, if he were seeking any reduction in Government extravagance, if he were to take a run around the county councils and the different local authorities and explain to the members: "I do not want you to shelve these things for good and for all, but to leave them in a state of abeyance,"—which is a very popular word over the past few years here with regard to different policies that are being put before the people—"and leave them over for a few years until we get over the hurdle of finance before us at the present time."
As well as that, the average citizen, who heretofore did not take any great interest in the affairs of the State other than to go about his work and to draw his week's pay, or to do his week's work on the farm and wait for whatever money was to come in, can see when he examines the last census report that the population of this country is 60,000 or 65,000 less, and, at the same time, we have 4,000 officials more. Any man or woman with any sense or intelligence must come to only one conclusion, that this country has become top heavy with officialdom, whether that officialdom is concentrated here in the central offices in Dublin or distributed throughout the local authorities all over Ireland. We have heard a slight effort to argue that many of the officials were there, because of expansion of the land project and of forestry. There is no doubt whatever that these schemes have expanded really well, but, despite that, the amount of employment they are giving does not necessitate an increase in the number of administrative officials by something in the region of 4,000, when there is a decrease in population of over 60,000 people. The figures are there as plain to be seen by the average man in the street as by any member of this House or of Dáil Éireann, the Minister or anyone in his Department.
If the Minister is serious about trying to bring about a saving in the present crisis, he will have every cooperation and help from the people, but if he persists in allowing things to carry on, with people piled on in nonproductive employment, and expects people who are in productive employment to keep that extra load on their backs, I can assure him that he is making a very great mistake. I did notice that in the Dáil the Minister for Finance pointed out that he would make an effort to reorganise the administration of the Civil Service. I hope sincerely that he will do this, because it is well overdue, and it is well time that some more easily applied series of laws or Civil Service administration should be introduced, if it is possible. If it is not possible, he must admit his failure.
Then, to go right from the top down to the very bottom, and taking the chance of being very unpopular in the county I come from and in other counties, there is what is called unemployment assistance—a nice new name given to what was termed, in the old days, the dole. That, all over the country, is being blackguarded in the most blackguardly manner by people who are in receipt of it. We know there are genuine recipients of unemployment assistance. We know there are people who offer themselves for work and cannot get it and who, through no fault of their own, have to avail of unemployment assistance. They would willingly, if they got work, leave down their unemployment assistance cards and take up their spades and shovels, and go into employment at 24 hours' notice, or even at 12 hours' notice. They are that type.
However, there is another section of the community in the county and province I come from who do not want work, who are not anxious to work, but who are anxious to be paid for their idleness. By a series of clever manoeuvres, insurance stamps, and so forth, as well as being the owners of small holdings of land which are registered in the names of their fathers or grandfathers, they succeed in evading any queries by the social welfare officers and manage to qualify themselves for anything from £1 to £3 a week unemployment assistance. That may happen even though, at the same time, the county council, building contractors, the land project people or any of the Government projects may genuinely be seeking men. I can assure this House that that type of individual exists in County Mayo. They cannot find time to go out and work on Government schemes, but still they can find time to go out one day every week and draw their unemployment assistance, or "the dole," as it was formerly called. I should like the Minister for Finance to make a very strict examination, both at the top and at the bottom, in this connection. I assure him he will be able to find plenty of places in which he can save money and still not hurt anybody, either at the top or at the bottom, who is a deserving or a justifiable case.
While not knowing a lot about the balance of payments, we all know that when we are buying more than we are selling, there is something wrong. If that happens even in the smallest home, then things are not running well. As the old woman said: "When your outlay exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall." That is what is happening in this country at present. Our upkeep, seemingly, will be our downfall. There are things which we must import. There are machinery of all types, oil, and the necessary things to make the machines work. This country is becoming mechanised in every type of work, but it is an advantage. We have labour-saving devices not so much to get rid of labour as to make the work easier and men can tend the machines to do the work rather than have to do it themselves. The amount of machinery manufactured here is very small and, of necessity, we must have these imports. The non-essential commodities whose importation the Minister tried to curb by the imposition of levies some time ago can wait and need not be bought, if the people so decide. However, we must produce and sell more, and, if we do not, we shall be on the rocks. That is definitely a financial system that even the smallest schoolboy understands as well as the best financier.
We wonder if, with the different industries which we have, we can produce more and, if we can, we wonder if we can have a market abroad for our surplus manufactures. I have no doubt that our industries are doing their best to produce for export and I have no doubt that production for export is the aim of most industrialists. We come back, however, to the fact that agricultural production is the only thing from which we can ever hope to get any increased income from abroad. To raise agricultural production has been the aim and object of every Government we have had since we got freedom for this part of the country, but whether or not we have succeeded it is very hard to know. We give fair play all round. We admit that the present Minister for Agriculture, by his effort to make productive 1,000,000 acres of land through the land project which has been in operation over the past five odd years, has done a great thing so far as increasing production is concerned. However, last year, we had extraordinarily high prices for store cattle, fat cattle and live stock of all descriptions and then there was a huge drop this year when cattle are down by as much as £2 and £3 per cwt. That has had a serious effect on the farmers' economy. We would want a great deal more cattle in order to realise the figure for our exports which we got for exported cattle last year.
There is only one way to increase production and that is to increase the output of every acre and to increase the amount of money that can be got from every acre. If an acre is capable of producing only £10 worth of goods per year, as Senator Walsh has said, where are the small farmers whose acreages are small and how can they ever be of any assistance to the State when they are merely eking out a meagre or a beggarly existence? If production can be doubled, trebled or quadrupled, it will have the valuable result of raising the standard of living not alone of the farming community concerned but of the State.
We farmers know that the production of store cattle is the lowest form per acre, whether per statute acre or per Irish acre, which will pay the farmer. Next in lowness to store cattle comes the rearing of sheep. Next to that is tillage. However, the dairying industry—the production of milk from the land and the dairy cows—gives more per acre than anything else. We may have a very heavy crop of wheat or barley and we may get a good price for it—wheat in particular, for which the price is guaranteed—but the price is not guaranteed for potatoes, oats, or any other root crops. We must realise that, if farmers want to produce more per acre, dairying is the industry which will give highest results, particularly from live stock, at the same time giving this country more cows.
The slogan of "one more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough" is very good indeed if the people are encouraged to produce more cows, sows, and so on, by firm and guaranteed prices. At the moment, there are only two agricultural products in respect of which we have guaranteed prices—grade A bacon and milk. There is a price of 235/- per cwt. for grade A bacon and a price of 1/6 per gallon for 3.5 butter fat tested milk. These two things work hand in hand. Pigs cannot be produced profitably at less than 235/- per cwt. for grade A bacon when one takes into consideration the fact that grade A pigs can drop as low as 50 per cent. of the actual amount produced and that, instead of 235/-, a farmer may get only 200/- or 185/-, as the case may be, unless the raw material for producing bacon is of the cheapest possible price.
The Minister for Agriculture said the farmers should try to have for the foundation of cheap foodstuffs barley which they can grow at home and skim milk which they can also have as a by-product of their milk when the creameries have been supplied. These are two essential commodities that the farmer should try to produce. He would then be able to send bacon to the market which would be profitable to himself, which would help our export trade and which would generally raise the standard of living of everybody all round. The question then arises: If every farmer, or if the big majority of farmers, decided to go into the dairying business, what would be the position?
Already we have a surplus of milk. For the local milk suppliers in Dublin City, Cork and the other cities, there is a surplus of milk. The intake to the creameries has increased. If the small farmers in the West set out to increase the output per acre by intensive dairying and pig production, a very serious problem will be added to those already facing the Government. Butter has to be subsidised. It takes 20 pints of milk to make one lb. of butter and 20 pints, on the 3.5 test, cost 3/9 and a lb. of butter can be purchased over the shop counter for 3/9. The amount of the subsidy to the butter industry would be very considerably increased.
Suppose we reach the stage at which we can export butter, we will be exporting subsidised butter and, in the words of the Minister for Agriculture, we will be paying the English to eat our butter. Whether that is wise policy or not, I do not know. I have debated this matter over the past few months with intelligent people and I have met people who argued that, no matter to what extent we increase exports, even though they have to be subsidised, it is a paying proposition and rewards the farmer by giving a satisfactory price for his product, that he will then be more fit to meet the taxation demanded and to contribute to the Exchequer, that there will be less grousing and that we will be increasing the export of a commodity for which there is a ready market at a certain price. I do not know.
I am sorry that I have offered very few suggestions of any value to the Minister. We are in a competitive market with regard to cattle and beef. I have here an editorial from the Irish Independent of Wednesday, January 11th, 1956, headed “The Happy Farmers”. It relates to the United States of America and says:—
"President Eisenhower has at last tackled the problem of the surplus stocks of farm produce that have been built up in the United States. The problem has to be faced some time, but it is courageous to do so in an election year. Moreover, the President proposes to use policies that were ridiculed by the Republicans when used by Roosevelt in the years of the New Deal.
The stocks have piled up as the result of highly favourable guaranteed prices paid for commodities such as wheat, cotton and dairy products. In future, the President suggests, the farmers will be paid for not producing these things. The point is, as the cynic will notice, that the farmers will be paid one way or the other—either for producing or for not producing. From now on a new institution, the Soil Bank, will pay them the value of the produce of the land that they take out of cultivation. If this appears curious, it should be remembered that just 20 years ago the farmers were paid so much per head for every pig that they did not rear. Further a new Conservation Reserve will take land out of cultivation and afforest it."
Consider the United States, with its great wealth, paying farmers to get rid of the surplus stocks they have built up, not to produce more. It makes us realise that there are vast stocks piled up in the United States. That is a matter that we in Ireland will have to consider. We are feeling the effects already of the imports of Argentine meat into England and the dumping of American foodstuffs all over the Continent where we might be able to get an output for some of our surplus cattle. We used to have a market for the heavy and rougher type of cattle on the Continent. When the United States decide to dump foodstuffs all over the world, farmers here will get a taste of what that means.
Farmers cannot be expected to produce, unless they are paid. The farming community cannot be expected to produce one more cow and one more sow, unless they are paid to do so. While farmers have great respect for the guaranteed price of 235/- a cwt. live weight for grade A pigs, they have much more respect for the ministerial Order allowing live pigs to be exported. There would be no 260/- per cwt. paid by factories at the present time for pigs and bacon but for the effort to try to break once and for all the powers given to exporters to allow live pigs out of the country.
There are many problems confronting the country and the Minister. The very popular Minister for Finance has become slightly unpopular all over the country. I believe his intentions are for the general good. I will support the present Budget, even though it is unpopular. If the Minister had introduced a Budget reducing taxation, reducing the tax on cigarettes, beer and petrol, we on this side of the House would be shouting about the great part we had played in instructing and advising the Minister for Finance. When he is forced to bring in an unpopular Budget, I will stand by his shoulder just as I would have if he had brought in a popular Budget.
The relations between labour and employers could be better. Nobody likes to see the chase of wages after prices. I was glad to learn that a deputation of trade union leaders interviewed members of the Government recently. That is a good thing. Whether in agriculture or in industry, I should like labour to give of its best for one year at least. Even though everything may not be as satisfactory as the workers would like it to be and even though they feel that a demand for increased wages would be justified, they should realise that their employers are in a difficult position also. If there could be better and happier relations between employers and employees, between organised labour and organised employers, a great deal could be achieved.
Increased agricultural production would help a great deal, but increased agricultural production will come with guaranteed prices. It is no great encouragement to agriculturists that the Milk Costings Commission has not produced its report, although it has been sitting for four years. Four years have elapsed and 44 different promises have been made that the report will be available at such and such a time. The members of the Creamery Suppliers' Association will be quite content to get this report, whether it is good, bad or indifferent, in order to find out the cost of producing milk. It does not redound to the commission's credit that they have taken four years and are still not in a position to supply it. I do not know whether that is due to downright stubbornness on their part. I can assure the Minister that if there is any more of that type of work and if the farming community are at the same time asked to bend their backs any more, they certainly will not do it. They are now wise to the fact that if they produce half as much, they will come out as well in the long run, even though to do so would be the worst possible thing for the nation's economy. If the farming community are given guarantees, they will produce. I have listened to the financial experts and those who are not financial experts and it seems to me that it is left to the farming community to take us out of the rut we are in at the present time.