When the timely intervention of the clock cut short this debate some time in the Dark Ages I had remarked that the members of the Executive Council, with one or two exceptions, had very little knowledge or experience of agriculture. It was written once of a well-known and notable Irish politician, who had settled across the Channel, that he sometimes saw this country on the map of the world. I have no doubt that some Ministers, in the course of their duties, see fields now and again on the ordnance map, but, honestly, I would not entrust them with the management of Mrs. Wigg's cabbage patch. I am sure that most of them could not tell me, or could not distinguish between bonnckeeon and mackanthau how, and that they surely could not differentiate between praiseach bhuidhe and starters. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but they lay down rules and regulations with an assurance that would put Liebeg, Baldwin and Wibberly into the halfpenny place. I am inclined to think that the Executive Council, possibly under the influence of the Minister for Agriculture, who is a medicine man, are adopting towards the farmer a system of treatment which was in high favour with physicians. It was called the antiphlogistic treatment. It consisted of purging, starving and bleeding. I remember reading the diary of an old Italian leech in which he notes: "I treated Ludovicus for 12 days, during which time I consistently starved, bled and purged him, and still the fellow died." A most ungrateful and most unappreciative patient. In the same way the Government has cleaned the pockets of the farmer. They have bled him white; they have put him on starvation diet, and still he is grumbling and grousing and growling. The only answer of the Government is: "Away with him; away with him; crucify him on the cross of economic folly."
I am very sorry that the House is to-night without the stately presence of Deputy Hugo Flinn. On the last occasion he solemnly told Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney that he was elected not as a prophet, but as a Deputy. Having delivered himself of this great message to humanity, he proceeded forthwith to predict the immediate death and dissolution of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and he consigned them to an unglorious grave, unwept, unhonoured and unsung, unhouseled, disappointed and unaneled. In the course of his speech he used on several occasions the phrase, "A nation's ransom." Oh, the blessed word "Mesopotamia." He evidently has a copyright of that expression. More than once I heard him use it in Cork. It is evidently clinging on to him. It is like asthma. He tries to get it off his chest, but he cannot. As he is not here, I shall part with him with this remark:
In all his humours, whether grave or mellow,
He is such a touchy, testy clever fellow;
There's so much skill and so much spleen about him,
There is no living with him or without him.
I should like to add by way of prayer, "May perpetual lime-light shine upon him."
Then there was brought into action to assail Deputy O'Donovan one of the Government "Long-Toms." I refer to my colleague and my friend, Deputy Tom Hales. Deputy Anthony described his speech as high falutin'. Deputy Dillon would probably call it "ballyhoo" and I have no doubt that the ex-Mayor of New York, Mr. James Walker, would call it "boloney." I call it poetry. Deputy Hales is a dreamer. He lives in a past that was never present, and he is thinking of a future that never will be past. He was very much exercised by some unknown person who was laying the axe at the root of some mysterious tree. I have been thinking since what the tree was. I wonder could it be the tree whose forbidden fruit brought death into the world and all our woes; or was it the dreaded Upas tree; or was it one of those trees of liberty that flourished so mightily during the French Revolution amid red flags, red caps, the Carmagnole, Ca Ira, and Fouquier Tinville justice and all these things? But after deep consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the fact is that the Deputy is up a gum tree, that he is too proud to climb down, and that he is afraid somebody may cut it from under him. The spirit of prophecy being in the air the Deputy caught the prevailing infection and forecasted that we should win the economic war. I hope that events will justify his forecast. I do hope that when we emerge triumphantly from the struggle we shall not be in the position of the litigant who won a Chancery action and thereby lost all his property. I beg the House to approach this motion of Deputy O'Donovan's in a spirit of sweet reasonableness, to put aside passion and politics and prejudice, and to face up to facts and realities. Some people will say that the country was never better off. Of the man who says that I can only say in the words of the Gospel that "the truth is not in him." The country blooms a garden and a grave, but I am afraid that, as regards a large part of it, it is mainly a grave as far as agriculture is concerned. I am against the policy of dole and dope of bread and circuses. I consider that bounties on exports are vicious, but in a national crisis and in the emergency which has now arisen, it is necessary, in my humble opinion, if you want to save the key industry of this country to take measures which in ordinary circumstances would not be justified. I think it is up to this House to do everything in reason to help the farmers to tide over their present difficulties. Can anybody gainsay that the farming population at the present time is deplorably badly off? The other day the respected Chairman of the Dublin County Council pointed out how badly off they were. They refused even to strike a rate. The same story comes from every part of the country. There must be some foundation for a story which is so widespread, and which is coming from every single district throughout the whole of the Free State. The farmers of West Cork are about as hard working and as thrifty and as honest a lot of people as can be found in any country throughout the world. They have always honoured their bonds; up to this they have paid their annuities regularly; they have always paid their rates, but at the present time it is a well-known fact that they are in such a position that not only can they not pay their rates and annuities but they cannot even meet their ordinary obligations. As was pointed out here on a previous occasion some of them are afraid to come to town lest they should meet their creditors.