We have so accustomed ourselves over the years to watch the growth of the Appropriation Bill that we have come to the point that we cannot pretend to be surprised, no matter how large the demand made by the Minister for Finance. However, when we come to the question of how that money is to be spent, there is an obligation on the Members of the House to express their views on the value the country is getting for the money. We had the practice in this House some years ago whereby Members were enabled to give notification of the particular aspects of Government policy they desired to discuss, and Ministers were made available to the House to give replies. As we all know, it is a very difficult matter to discuss Government policy on the Appropriation Bill. Every Department of State has money provided for it in this Bill, and we are entitled to examine what is being done in each Department. It is not a simple matter for any Member to jump across from one to another, from agriculture to health, to local government, to external affairs, and so on.
In that sense, the debate on Government policy here is definitely restricted and, perhaps, to a certain extent, to the detriment of the House and the country. I am saying that by way of comment because many Members of the House have wide experience in many fields. There are members of the agricultural and industrial communities here and many Members have experience of health and local government. What they have to say and what they think about the situation in the country at the moment ought to be of interest to any Minister for Finance.
In the first place, I want to make a few remarks in regard to our agricultural industry. This is an opportunity for the Seanad to review what we have done in the past and to look to the future. I have no desire to be unduly critical. After all, perhaps the only people who ever succeed in bringing about reformation in any field are the people who are critical of what is being done or what is not being done. The comment I have to make is that I do not know quite what we are after. I just do not know what the policy is. I get the feeling it is rather a policy of standstill and hesitation, not knowing whether we are to march straight along the road or go to the right or the left.
The country cannot afford that. The Minister cannot permit such an attitude of mind to be cultivated here. We can cultivate that attitude of mind by a policy of just doing nothing or remaining as we were. We know the difficulties in the dairying industry to-day. Those of us engaged in it are bound to be hesitant about what we will do in the future. There is no clear vision and no leadership. There is no pointing out what we are to do. There is no feeling of confidence amongst our farmers and governmentally we are not getting a lead.
That is a great defect. If people are in a difficulty in an industry, if they cannot see the light themselves and if their own leaders cannot see the light, in so far as the Government can aid them, it is their responsibility to do so. Milk prices were reduced because of the world situation in regard to butter. That has created an attitude of mind on the part of the dairy farming community where there is hesitancy, doubt and fear about the future. That is not good for progress. This country cannot afford to rest on its oars or sit still. We must go ahead all the time and get more out of our factories, our fields and our cows.
I have said in the past, and I repeat here to-day, that I do not think we have anything like enough cows in the country. We do not know the view of the Department of Agriculture on that point. If they have a view, we do not know it; it has not been expressed. My judgment is that we ought to set our faces towards increasing the number of cattle in the country—cows and dairy cattle. Whether or not we will process the milk into human food products, whether we will produce more live stock or eventually beef and dead stock, that is the aim we ought to have.
That ought to be tackled immediately because, concurrently with that, there must be a development in regard to grassland farming in the country. We are glad to see that development taking place all over the country, not to the extent we would like, but to the extent that we grow more and better grasses. It is much more popular to grow good grass now than it was 20 years ago. It was not the thing we wanted to cultivate at all then. We can only turn that grass into good money when we have beasts to eat it. All that must go hand in hand. Unless the Minister for Agriculture gives a lead in this matter—a stronger and more direct lead than has been given—the farmers are disposed to be hesitant. Many of them rest on their oars because they do not know whether to turn to the right or the left.
The country is in a sort of doldrums about wheat. This is not a problem about which I propose to talk a great deal to-day. In years gone by, I expressed my view. I think the Minister present was Minister for Agriculture at the time and I am sure he will recall what I said. I am not going back to the records and I do not want to weary the House with that sort of story.
The point I always tried to emphasise, in the early years, in regard to wheat-growing was that at best it meant 300,000 or 400,000 acres of land and that, as there were 10,000,000 or 11,000,000 arable acres, it was not what mattered with the wheat that was the most important point but obviously what mattered with the rest. The propagandists were too effective from the point of view of their own wellbeing—from the point of view of Party policy—but were too effective, also, from the country's point of view. We now have a sort of crisis about wheat which is affecting the people's capacity to concentrate on the remainder of the arable acres in the country.
As I see things, there is a lack of balance of thought, action and direction in regard to agricultural policy. That has to be put right. There ought not to be muddled and confused thinking. This is something which ought to be above Government. Farming policy should not change with changes of Government. In that sense, I think the country is growing up and that some of the political leaders have grown up and are appreciating that errors of thought and errors of policy in the past are now something we need not talk about or analyse unduly. We can accept that there were errors of thought in regard to Government policy and in regard to what was said about live stock in years gone by. We have learned our lesson but let us learn it all round. That is my plea.
I say to the Government as I say to the members of my own Party and to everybody in the country that what you do with 400,000 acres of land, highly productive and well-cultivated, does matter in the country's economy. It may matter a very great deal in certain circumstances, in times of emergency, and so on. Nevertheless, it matters much more what you do with the other 10,000,000 acres. There is too little thought about that. My plea is that there should be more thought and concentration on the policy we should pursue with regard to these acres.
I want to point to this fact. I have said we ought to increase the number of cows in the country and at least bring them up to 2,000,000. There are many reasons which I could advance for that doctrine. The price of store cattle to-day is extraordinarily high. We in this country are benefiting from the fact that the British are paying an enormous subsidy on beef and on the production of live stock generally. The small farmers of this country are benefiting by the £7 and £8 subsidy which is paid across the Border or in Britain for sucking calves. It is fabulous. When you examine it rationally, it does not seem that the economics of it can be sound. However, it is being done and pursued as part of a national policy.
It must also be remembered that, in Britain, they have developed their agriculture and, indeed, have gone far beyond us in their development. A big industrial community has subsidised the agriculturists to the extent of hundreds of millions in the year. Probably two-thirds of the farming income in Britain to-day comes from Government sources. That figure may not be correct but the fact is that it is an enormous amount. Therefore, their output has developed to something like 60 per cent. above the pre-war level. That is influencing our economy and it ought to influence our desire for development. It is definitely having an influence on cattle prices in this country.
To the extent that grassland farming has developed across the water and to the extent that they are not able to supply from their own herds the young animals to eat that grass, the demand must come from across the sea to us. We must be ready to meet it. It may prove to be a tremendous factor in our economy if we face up to it.
At the last sitting of this House, I referred briefly to one of the disabilities under which our farming community—and the nation as a whole— labour at the moment and will labour under in the year immediately ahead unless the problem of the eradication of bovine tuberculosis from our herds now is tackled. I addressed myself briefly to this point on the last sitting day inasmuch as it seemed to me that it could create a difficult problem in regard to our balance of payments in the future. It could, if we have not the animals available for export, and by "available", I mean available from the point of view of health.
Quite frankly, I do not want to make a difficult situation more difficult than it is. However, I have no use at all for the situation in which we find ourselves to-day with the Minister for Agriculture and, indeed, other Ministers, and all of us, if you like, talking about the eradication of T.B. from the herds of Ireland which at the moment, altogether, would be 4,500,000 when we have no veterinary staff dealing with the problem in the country. Whatever the difficulties may be, I urge the Minister for Finance to give every assistance. He can give one a knock but he can also—I will say it for him—be a mollifying influence. I urge him to take this problem in hands at once. Whatever the difficulties may be, whatever difficulties are turning veterinary officers out of the service of the Department into private practice to-day, and leaving me and my likes without a service and without veterinary officers in the county if we want to have our herds put under test by the Department, they must be surmounted for all our sakes and for the sake of the nation.
This is 1958. Next comes 1959 and then 1960. If our herds are not then clear, will somebody tell me what will happen to our small farmers if only half the cattle that should be available are available for export because of health conditions? It is a matter of the gravest importance for us all to-day. It is grave because we have not in our employment a sufficient number of veterinary officers to tackle this task with the energy and knowledge requisite, if we are to do the job in the time left to us.
It seems clear to me that the Minister will not have to pay out by way of subsidy anything like the amount which he has budgeted for towards maintaining the price of our bacon exports to Britain. It looks at the moment as if, bacon prices having risen there, he will have a surplus in hands. I would urge on the Minister that, rather than take back that amount by way of Appropriations-in-Aid, or whatever you like to call it, into the Exchequer, it ought to be utilised to assist in sustaining life in other branches of the agricultural industry which are to-day in dire straits.
I refer especially to the poultry industry. There, we have a branch of our agriculture which in days gone by was worth millions to our country. It is just barely living now. Nobody knows what its future will be. If there is to be a future for it, it must be kept alive in the interregnum. If the Minister is not prepared to help directly, I would urge him that, if savings accrue as a result of the price at present secured in Britain for our bacon, the funds ought to be made available for sustaining the poultry industry.
With regard to our cattle, I was present at a gathering at the Spring Show when a representative of one of the dairy breeds from England was speaking to one of the herds societies here. He said, in effect: "We are up against two problems in Britain. If we import from the Argentine we run the risk of importing foot and mouth disease. If we import from Ireland, will we import T.B.?" He asked: "Which will we choose?" Let us ponder on those words. That is the choice they will have to make for the future. If we get our cattle herds clear and free, it could very well be that the attitude of the British farmer, if his raw materials are to be available to him from this country, would be to close down on foreign imports of meat to a very considerable extent.
I should like now to go on to another topic which is somewhat removed from what I have been speaking about but is yet linked up with it. We will all have noticed that a considerable number of views have been expressed with vigour, emphasis and understanding on the importance of having more trade representatives in British cities. We all know that there are many who criticise the moneys we spend on our representatives abroad and there are some who would have us contract or close down our embassies and consulates abroad. I do not know quite what is in their minds, but I do not belong to that group. I am all for this little island making its presence felt in the world. Heaven knows, we had a paper wall in front of us for too many centuries, and if we spend a little bit more than we can wisely spend, that is understandable and is something for which we do not have to apologise.
It is our responsibility to the past, and our obligation to the future, to be represented among the people abroad, who know of Ireland and respect the opinions of the people of Ireland, who have a great admiration for many of our achievements and perhaps value our worth and place a higher estimate on our competence than sometimes we are prepared to do ourselves.
We are spending a fair amount of money on our representatives abroad and I think they do us credit, on the whole. I think they are worthy of the nation and it is only fitting that that should be said. In Britain, and I say this from my own experience and judgment, there is room for improvement in regard to the number of representatives in the larger cities. There are possibilities of trade development there which we must tackle and which we ought to tackle, and there are other possibilities as well. Hundreds of thousands of people have left this country over the years and recently we heard a figure mentioned of something over 57,000 Irish men and women who procured national health insurance cards in Britain last year.
These people are still a portion of the capital assets of the Irish nation and they ought not be neglected. Unfortunately, we know that many of them, far too many, are unequipped for the life into which they are catapulted in English cities. Too many of them are uninformed and have not got fully developed characters. Indeed, cities anywhere in the world are not the most suitable places for the development of young people who come from another land. In England, there are hundreds of thousands of our race, and if we had representatives in these cities who would act in part as trade representatives and as well as rallying centres for the young Irish men and women, it would be extremely helpful.
These men would be a sort of magnet and would attract the best of our people in these centres and build up a sort of community existence which, in turn, would draw in from the outer fringes those who are inclined to drift away from their traditions of nationhood, their religious traditions and their traditions of home life, as they know it here. Such a step could achieve an immense amount of good for our people in Britain and for Britain as a whole. I feel that that is a point of view that should receive consideration.
We know that to-day the Catholic Church is sending missionaries to Britain to speak to the young people of our Faith, to keep them on the road which they trod when they were here, but it should not be left to the Church alone. These people belong to the Irish nation; they are our brothers and sisters, and our sons and daughters; and I believe that if they were handled as they should be, they would be of immense strength to the Irish nation and to Britain itself. They would have great possibilities of providing informed opinion and thought in Britain. They could educate the millions of people in Britain who are ignorant in regard to this island, and let them know what our people are like.
There are just two other points on which I should like to dwell for a moment or two. Various Ministers have piloted a number of Bills through the House during this session. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce here on a number of occasions when the Industrial Investment Bill was going through. The policy enshrined in that measure is to attract foreign capital to this country, for its development. Senator McGuire takes exception to the point of view presented to Europeans in regard to conditions of industrial development in this country. Senator McGuire has been a little further than his own townland and can speak with some knowledge on the reactions of Europeans towards declarations like that from this island. I do not know myself if they fit in too well with the kind of statements made on other occasions because it is difficult to harmonise the point of view of one who will speak with pride, and justifiable pride, of the achievements of this island in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, when its missionaries traversed Europe and brought civilisation and Christianity to areas where they were not known, and the point of view of one who rises up to-day and says we are undeveloped.
It is quite true that in ways we are not developed. We are not developed industrially. However, it would be a great mistake to suggest that industrial development was the only sign or mark of a developed people. That would be quite untrue. If it is the type of civilisation which is to be found in industrial cities in Britain that we want to have here, then I think there would be quite a number of people who would not be at all enamoured of that idea. I should like to hear Senator Stanford's opinions on that. It is a good thing, and quite justified, to attempt to get on with the work of development, but it is not at all simple, and we do not seem to be building the foundations we expected and we are certainly not getting the returns after all the words that have been expressed. This matter has been spoken about both in this House and outside it, in the U.S.A., Britain, Germany and practically every country on the Continent, but the fruits have yet to be gathered. The seeds have not yet started to sprout.
I suggest to the Minister that with the orientation in the whole matter of world travel, and the attitude of nation to nation, we should give more attention to making a much greater investment of our share of capital assets in the development of the tourist industry than we have thought of giving up to the present. I believe that there are vast areas in this country—there are areas in my county—which have never been touched by the foot of a tourist. Senator O'Reilly comes from an area not very far from me—some 20, 30 or 40 miles away. There is an area stretching from North Longford, Leitrim and down through the County Cavan to which tourists never dream of going. It is visited by none of those fishermen who catch tons of fish in a week. That area is completely undeveloped. It could be developed out of the resources available to the people in the area.
If some of the hundreds of thousands with which we seek to employ 200 or 300 people in some of our small towns were spent over a vast area, I am convinced it would do a great deal of good and would confer lasting benefits on the country. The benefits would be distributed over wide areas. Business people, the farming community and the country would benefit. It would benefit the country's sense of progress and its concept of what development is would not be perverted by the idea that you have only got to invite foreign technicians in with their money. We cannot wait much longer for the sort of development I suggest. We should turn our thoughts upon ourselves; ascertain the assets available to us and try if we can to provide ourselves with the capital to develop these assets.
There is a Minister in the Cabinet who is a very active and, I would say, an intelligent Minister. He talks a great deal about fisheries and forestry. I will not make any comment on fishery policy, except to say that he is putting very hard work into it and eventually good will come from it. The point I want to make is in reference to the development of our forests. At times, it is difficult to know what exactly is our policy in this connection. The area is up one year and down the next. The Minister has changed the policy somewhat.
A number of years ago, I suggested to a previous Minister that at least some thought should be given to the idea of interesting the small farmers and hillmen in the more remote and hilly areas of the country in afforestation. The people who reside in areas where forests are to be developed should be given a share in the forests by the State. It might be only a small share. I am convinced that the wisest national policy for us to pursue would be to invite those people to become shareholders in the forests.
Although such a policy would not be easy to operate, it would do two things. If you are to have forests and operate them when they are developed, manpower must be available. It would be far sounder economics to have the manpower living reasonably adjacent to the forest. Such a scheme is in operation in Sweden and I think it is in operation in Norway also. Furthermore, if men have shares in the forests, they will have a sense of duty and responsibility in regard to what is their own. They will do their utmost to protect their property against that most disastrous thing of all—the forest fire. They will be interested to see the wanderers and the strangers who might come amongst them and they will be interested to see what they are doing with the property. The development of forests in the more remote parts of this country always provides a problem in regard to fire.
I should like to spend some time discussing problems of health and local government, but I feel that the points I have made are ample for one member of the House. I hope the Minister will give some attention to the suggestions and I hope that the people on the opposite side will not think that I have been too critical of the defects in their agricultural policy.