In Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (8th Dáil) – Wednesday, 1 Apr 1936

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following amendment:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy James Dillon).

Mr. Keating

There is one thing that I would specially like to bring before the notice of the Minister and that is the price of bacon pigs. To my mind, there is somebody besides the producer getting a very fine profit out of the pig. One would think that the Government, which is so sympathetic towards the poor man, ought to see that the poor man should be able to get a little bacon at a fair price. A working man going into a shop now is asked 1/1 a lb. for bacon anywhere around the country. That is putting bacon altogether outside his reach. There is another thing I would like to bring before the Minister's notice and that is the 5/1 that is deducted off every pig that is put on the market. Men around the country ask: "Why are we supposed to pay the merchants' expenses?" I hope the Minister will answer that question.

I want to tell the Minister that in the town of Wexford at the present moment there are 50,000 barrels of barley in the lofts of the corn merchants. I hope the Minister will tell us what is to happen that corn. From the information I have got I know that the lofts are filled up to the roof with this barley. Owing to the price at which the meal mixture is sold and, on the other hand, the price the producers receive for their live stock the farmers are not in a position to buy this mixture. The result is they are not feeding their stocks as well as they might or if they were in a position to do so. Perhaps they are feeding them better than they can afford but they are not feeding them to the extent that is required.

To where is this business of the slaughter of calves going to lead? It is a deplorable thing for anyone to go through the county of Wexford where in former days before the advent of this Government the people used import thousands of calves and rear them. These calves were fed on what the farmer produced on his land. To-day the calves are not there. What is to happen in the future? We have a foretaste already of what is going to happen. Our markets are not half stocked. If the Minister for Agriculture will get down to commonsense and tell the people that he has ceased to slaughter calves it will be better for the country. For every 20 calves slaughtered one man is done out of employment.

All this talk by the Fianna Fáil Party about the bullock is codology. It is the bullock that gives employment. The growing of wheat gives employment for three weeks in the year. The growing of bect probably gives three months' employment in the year but what the farmer and labourer want is an article that will give employment the 365 days of the year. That is what is needed if the agricultural labourer and the farmer are to get a living.

During this past season we had men working on the land pulling beet for which the producer got 37/6 per ton. The farmer is not in a position to pay the labourer a living wage at that price. Neither is the labourer in a position to work at the wage the farmer is able to pay him at present. The labourer at present is working under such depressed conditions that he takes off his wet clothes at night and puts them on in the morning.

In the constituency that the Minister and I represent, two or three people have told me that their contract for next year's beet has been cancelled. Is not the 25th March a nice time to tell people that their contract for growing beet is cancelled? They were given that information at a time when their land had been ploughed, manured and ready for the beet crop. In most cases, this is the sort of land that would not suit for corn growing this year because it is too highly manured. What is the alternative now before the farmer? The policy that killed the potato market. It seems now the bullock is gone and so the animal to which the farmer could feed his produce is gone too. Perhaps the Minister would tell us what are those people to do with their lands now? I was told that the reason the beet contracts were cancelled was that these farmers last year grew a little more beet than the quantity for which their contracts provided. That was through no fault of their own. It was because the seed was on their hands. When the inspector came around he said to these men: "You have more land under beet than you contracted for; you are to leave that beet where it is on the ground until I tell you to lift it." These people, seeing that the beet was losing on the ground, fed it to their cattle and because of that their contracts have been cancelled.

It is nearly time that the Minister should get down to commonsense and let the farmer be his own master in his own place. This thing of coercing the people to do what the Government thinks they ought to do belongs to the old days. I remember when the Fianna Fáil Party were seeking power; I was at a good many of their meetings. In those days one would really think from their promises that their advent to office would turn this country into a paradise. It is not a paradise to-day for the farmer, the labourer, the business man or the professional man. It is not a bed of roses for anyone in the countryside. We were told at that time that employment was to be found for all the workers; that taxation was to be reduced by £2,000,000 but what do we see to-day? It is about time that the people should waken up and ask themselves to what is the present policy leading. The back-benchers of the Fianna Fáil Party say that the farmers are all right. I, as a practical farmer, know that they are not all right. Perhaps the back-benchers of the Fianna Fáil Party and I are all right because we are drawing salaries but what about the unfortunate men who are trying to knock a living out of the land? It is surely time for the Government to wake up and settle the economic war. The Government should either get on or get out.

It is very interesting to know what is going to happen these 50,000 barrels of barley held in the stores in Wexford. I hope the Minister will not find the new crop coming round on top of the old crop. If that happens, the Government will have to do this coming harvest what has already been done in wheat countries—that is either to burn the corn or let it rot. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will see his way—I see now he is present in the House—to do something for the unfortunate farmers. The Minister is, I am sure, aware as well as I am because he got notice from these Wexford farmers as to the cancelling of their contracts for beet growing. Now, those farmers in Wexford grew beet when it was an experimental crop. They were growing beet when the Fianna Fáil Party was saying that beet was a white elephant. Since that time the Carlow factory has had three calves, all white elephants I suppose. I do not know what is going to happen the country under the Minister's policy.

Mr. Morrissey

This, I think, is the third day on which we have had this Vote before this House. We got perhaps more speeches than we usually get from members on the Government side of the House on this Estimate. Some of them were very interesting. Deputy Corry led off on the first day last week when the Minister introduced the Estimate and he proceeded to prove to us that Deputy Corry speaking in Dáil Eireann is a very different person to Deputy Corry speaking down the country. Deputy Corry speaking in Leinster House on the price of beet for the farmers speaks with a very different voice to the voice of Martin Corry, T.D., member of the Beet Growers' Association. I am sure that the Minister and the Sugar Company were surprised to read that Deputy Corry was here championing the price which the company had agreed to pay the farmers who grew beet. Those of us who remember some of Deputy Corry's speeches at the meetings of the Beet Growers' Association last year, when the Minister and the Sugar Company had some difficulty in securing agreement with regard to prices, were also rather surprised. The Deputy was emphasising that the price paid for beet grown in this country was very much better than the price paid to the beet growers in Great Britain.

By implication he tried to prove that the price paid in this country was a price that would amply compensate the farmers for growing beet. I never grew beet, but I am living in a part of the country where there is a very great deal of beet grown and I am in fairly close touch with those who grew beet long before the present Government came into power. By discussing this matter with those people I know what they think of the price they are being paid. Deputy Corry told us about a yield of 18 tons to the acre. No person who knows anything about beet returns believes there is anything in the nature of 18 tons to the acre of an average yield. There would not be much more than half that yield, as Deputy Corry should know.

He then went on to compare prices in relation to grain and he referred to the way in which the tillage policy was paying farmers now as compared with a few years ago. He drew the picture of the farmer who in 1926 was getting £6 for an acre of wheat and then he proceeded to tell us something about barley. He said the average yield for barley was a ton to the acre, ten barrels to the acre. Does the Deputy consider that is a handsome reward for the farmer—ten barrels of barley at 14/-? I may mention that every farmer did not get 14/-; many got 12/6, 12/3 and 13/-, the price depending to a large extent on what the barley bushelled. The Deputy apparently wanted to leave the House under the impression that 14/- was the minimum price the farmers received.

Deputy Harris gave us his views on the conditions in agriculture, with particular reference to agricultural labourers. He challenged certain statements made by Deputy Norton about the conditions which obtain in rural Ireland. The Deputy told us of his concern for rural workers, agricultural workers. I am prepared to agree that Deputy Harris is quite sincere in saying all that. I am quite sure the Deputy would like to see agricultural labourers getting a fair return for their labour. He said he was anxious to give as good conditions as possible to agricultural labourers and he always resented the conditions under which farmers and labourers had to work. He seems to be going a rather strange way about giving them good conditions, because the policy he is supporting certainly will not tend to improve their conditions.

The Deputy talked about men getting £1 and 25/- a week and he added that it was impossible in parts of County Kildare to get men to do agricultural work at 25/- a week. I cannot claim to speak with any authority as regards labour conditions in County Kildare, but I find it almost impossible to believe that statement. It does not matter what the statistics may say about wages being only 3/- lower than they were three, four or five years ago, I can prove that there are farm labourers in North Tipperary, where there is tillage, working to-day for as low as 5/- a week.

Mr. M. Ryan

Where?

Mr. Morrissey

I can bring them to the Deputy, if he likes. I can give the Deputy their names. They are within five miles of the town of Nenagh. I will give the Deputy the names of some of them nearer to himself and I declare that they are working for the sum I have mentioned. I will offer the Deputy this challenge, that I will produce men working for these wages.

Mr. E. Rice

Is that with or without board?

Mr. Morrissey

They are working for 5/- a week, with board. I will say there are very few farmers who, under present conditions, can pay £1 a week, even to married men with families, without board. Deputies know that quite well. There is not a Fianna Fáil Deputy, who is himself a farmer or who lives in a rural area, who is not well aware that what I am saying is true. There is not a Fianna Fáil Deputy who is a farmer who does not know quite well that, so far as depending on his farm is concerned, he is worse off than he was five years ago. Deputy Harris went further and he said that wages boards would not get higher wages for the workers. Why does the Deputy say that? What are we to gather from that statement? Is it that the Deputy believes wages boards will not get higher wages for the agricultural labourers because the farmers are not able to pay higher wages? If his statement means anything at all it means that.

The Deputy told us, in conclusion, that he was anxious to raise the worker above the standard of a wage earner, to put him in a better position and get him away altogether from the level of a wage earner. How does he propose to do it? As he says himself, by providing each of these men with four or five or six acres of land. Then the agricultural labourer would be in the happy position that he would be neither a wage earner nor a farmer. That is not going to improve his position. If people living on five, six, seven, eight, or ten acres of land in this country were able to maintain themselves there would be a lot of fairly happy people in this country. We had Deputy Moore comparing the wages in this country with the wages in England. Deputy MacEoin dealt with that last night, and I do not propose to go into it, except to say that the cost of living in England is very considerably lower than it is in this country. I think that will be admitted even by the Minister himself, apart altogether from the fact that the average wage paid in England is much greater than it is in Ireland. Deputy Moore also told us that he was glad to be able to inform the House that there was an upward tendency in agricultural wages, and that there had been a significant increase in the wages of agricultural labourers in several counties in the country within the last few months. When he was asked to give the names of those counties, or any information as to where those increases took place, he informed me that he would be glad to give me that information out in the lobby. I prefer to get the information here in the House where the original statement was made.

Then we had my friend Deputy Davin, who started off by taking Deputy Donnelly to task for the attack which Deputy Donnelly had made on the Labour Party. He proceeded to enlighten Deputy Donnelly and the House as to the relationship between the Labour Party and the Government. The Deputy spoke very emphatically on this point, and said that the Labour Party had committed itself to backing the Government's political programme, but did not back the Government in its wage-cutting policy or in its financial or economic policy in some respects. In other words the Deputy said that he himself and his colleagues are committed absolutely to support the Government in their political programme, and then he went on to wash his hands completely of the results which have flown from putting that particular programme into operation. The Deputy cannot, I think, have it that way. Either the Deputy supports the Government or he does not. The Deputy knows quite clearly that the Government's political programme— and in particular the principal parts of their programme—is responsible almost wholly for the low rate of wages paid not only in the rural parts to agricultural workers but to other workers as well. He knows it is responsible not only for the low rate of wages but for the increased cost of living which they have to try to meet on those low wages. The Deputy said he was not particular as to how the wages increase he was asking for was to be brought about. I think that is a statement which would prove very useful, but in any case having told us that they were committed to backing the political programme of the Government he proceeded immediately to disassociate himself and the Party from one very important aspect of that political programme. He told us he did not believe that this dispute with Great Britain could be settled otherwise than by direct negotiation, and that he did not believe there was any hope whatever of what he called "this tribunal of saints and scholars" which some people were so full of—I presume he meant the President—ever settling the dispute. He went further; he threw overboard altogether the principle he previously said he supported, when he stated that he was prepared to make a total payment to Great Britain. In that way, as I said, he was giving away the whole principle of the case.

That is not an unfair summary of Deputy Davin's speech, and I do not bring it up here for the purpose of trying to score off Deputy Davin or any member of the Labour Party, good, bad or indifferent; perhaps in this matter we are very close together. But I do say that it is not only the farmers who are suffering, and must suffer so long as this dispute is allowed to continue, but the agricultural labourers must suffer, and unfortunately in my opinion the workers of this country will suffer more and suffer much longer and will take much longer to recover from the effects of this dispute than either the farmers or any other section of the community. To the extent that Deputy Davin's statement regarding his belief as to how this dispute can be brought to an end expresses the view of the Labour Party, I personally welcome it, because I think it shows that the Party is facing up to the actual facts in the matter, and are not allowing themselves to be blinded by any particular political prejudice. The sum and substance of the whole thing is that agricultural workers are not only on low wages—lower wages than perhaps they have been on for a great number of years; in some cases lower than they have been on at any time since before the Great War—but there are many agricultural workers who have no wages at all because they are unemployed. Not only have they no wages but, by the order of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, they are now going to be deprived of even the unemployment assistance which they were to get.

Deputy Moore also told us that the reason why agricultural wages were so much higher under the previous Government than they are under the present Government was because there were then so many thousands of agricultural labourers emigrating from this country; in other words that labour was so scarce in the country under the previous Government that the farmers, in order to get labour, had to pay much higher wages than they have to pay to-day. It seems to me that that argument cuts very much across what we heard from the Minister for Industry and Commerce and some of his colleagues when they told us that there are far less unemployed to-day than before they came into office. They cannot have it both ways. Then we had the question of emigration again raised by Deputy Moore, and I think by Deputy Victory afterwards. They talked about 25,000 people emigrating to America under the previous Government. That is rather clever propaganda because, of course, the implication there is that the Fianna Fáil Government has stopped emigration. They do not exactly say that President de Valera brought in an Act of Parliament which kept everybody in the country, but they imply that. I think I would be as much entitled to say that if the American Government were as anxious to get the best of our brains and brawn now as they were, say, ten years ago, I am afraid the annual figure would be much higher than 25,000. I doubt if any Deputy on the opposite benches could deny that.

We know that in the restricted field available there is a good deal of emigration. That is a thing that no one is proud of and that no one likes to see. Deputies ought to face up to the fact that our boys and girls are not emigrating to Great Britain, or to any other country for the love of these countries, but because they are not able to get a decent living at home. That was always the reason why our people emigrated, and it is the reason they are emigrating to-day. These are the facts, whether we like them or not, and on a matter of such major importance as this Estimate, affecting not only the farming community but the country as a whole, we ought to face up to the facts. We are not going to improve the position of agriculture or of the unemployed by shutting our eyes to facts. Wages are low. Many workers are getting no wages because there is no employment as the farmers cannot afford to pay. Another aspect of this question is that many farmers whose sons and daughters cannot now emigrate are able to carry on with the help of their families and do not require paid labour. We know also that those employed in agriculture are not employed the whole time; that there is a good deal of what might be called casual employment. Not only is there a shrinkage in the numbers employed on the land, but far fewer persons are employed in the other work of any consequence in rural areas, that is, road making. Anyone who has a knowledge of local conditions knows that that is a fact. It is not a matter to make any political capital out of. It is a pity, but it is a fact we must face.

I want to wind up by giving my opinion for what it is worth, and saying that as long as the present policy continues there is no hope whatever of making any inroads on our huge number of unemployed, nor is there any hope of getting, side by side with permanent employment, decent wages for workers in rural areas. Farmers must be given money before they can part with it. I want to emphasise a fact that many Deputies ignore, that the wheat and beet schemes, assuming that they are all that the Government claims for them, touch only a few counties, and only parts of certain counties. There are areas in every county in which there is intensive wheat and beet cultivation, where farmers, owing to the nature of their land, cannot grow wheat or beet, and are absolutely dependent on live stock. There are other counties where they cannot grow wheat or beet in a commercial way. Deputies on all sides know these facts better than I do, because many of them are active working farmers, and are in close touch with the agricultural position. I am trying to put my views before the House as I gathered them from close association with both farmers and workers. In my opinion the first essential towards the absorption of the unemployed, and the getting of a better standard of living for workers and farmers is a settlement of the economic war.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

I only heard portion of Deputy Morrissey's speech, but I think I heard him making the same speech four or five years ago. There was not then of course an economic war yet he prescribed some other remedy, but I forget what it was. Now of course he states that termination of the economic war will heal all our problems. One would infer that we were not aware of the position that exists. We are all well aware of it, and every effort is being made under difficult conditions to solve our problems. The Deputy stated that people were going to look for work in England. Possibly that is the case, but there they have the same problem with agricultural workers as we have, with this difference, that here we definitely guarantee something to them, while in England they have adopted the same principle of unemployment insurance as was adopted here for industrial workers. They would not do that in England if everything was so rosy there. One would imagine, after listening to all the speeches that were made here for the last two days, that the position across the water was a sort of El Dorado; that they have no unemployment difficulties there. That is not the case, and the sooner it is realised the better for everybody. There is general world depression, and there is depression more in the live stock trade than in any trade, or in any other product of the land.

Anyone who reads the reports of the proceedings in the British House of Commons knows that each week the very same question crops up as to how they are going to benefit their farmers and create more employment. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney confirmed last night a statement he made some weeks ago in County Mayo. He crystallised the policy of his Party by advising the people to buy all the calves they could get, and he said that if his Party was returned to power they would guarantee profitable prices. That would be very simple if he was in a position to help the British Government to impose a tariff of say 1d per lb. on Argentine meat. It is quite possible that may happen. It is expected by many people that it will happen within the next month. It is expected that that accounts for the rather firmer prices being given for the suitable stock we have at present.

Young stock of the right quality are now making from 25/- to 30/- each more than they made last year. That increase is not due to the recent coal-cattle pact, but is caused in England by the expectation of feeders there that there will be a levy of 1d. per lb. on meat imported from the Argentine and perhaps other places. It does not appear likely that any tariff will be imposed on Australian frozen meat, which forms a very considerable quantity of British supplies, because it will be noticed that the Australian Government refused point blank to lower their industrial tariffs on British goods so that the British policy towards the Australian Government is very much like ours. We must face up to that question because the British Government may very likely indicate that unless we reduce or remove the tariffs here on their industrial products, they will not reduce in part or entirely the tariffs on our live stock. If we had more good cattle we could sell them at the present time. There is any amount of cattle in the fairs but only about 30 per cent. of them are saleable. That is the difficulty Deputies on the opposite benches who criticise the Government should remember, that they were in office for ten years and did not make the slightest effort to improve the quality of our cattle.

Mr. O'Leary

We have the best bull in the country anyway.

Mr. O'Reilly

I do not dispute that fact. I am very glad of it.

Mr. O'Leary

We broke the record.

Mr. O'Reilly

I do not dispute that, but we have not as good stock as we should have. We certainly have not as good stock as we had in the country and the fault of that lies to a large extent on the late Government. What they held was the most important part of our industry—and they still hold it to-day— was possibly the most neglected part. It is only now that any suitable method has been adopted to standardise and improve the quality of the cattle in this country. I am not making these statements purely for political purposes. These are the facts. Whether people engaged in the cattle trade belong to the United Ireland Party or to Fianna Fáil, they will all tell you the same thing. If our predecessors had had more wisdom, if they had looked after their business better we, to-day, would have possibly quite a large number of suitable cattle to sell. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney last night attributed the shortage entirely to the slaughter of calves. As I understand the matter, if a man can get more than 12/6 for his calf he need not slaughter it. I think that is the case; it is a matter of leaving him the choice. If he believes there is anything in the animal and that he is going to get more than 12/6 for him, he is certainly not going to slaughter him. I take it that the class of calves that are being slaughtered are regarded as not being a desirable class to have, mainly again because of the carelessness and neglect of the late Government.

Of course I admit the same situation prevails in Wales and to a large extent in the North of Ireland. It must have been the bad old tradition; there was no attention given to live stock as a whole. I admit, of course, that there was quite a lot of attention given to the production of high-class bulls and I notice that at the shows they are magnificiently turned out. Sometimes, of course, the turn-out is a little deceptive but in general the breeding of bulls is all right. There was, however, very little attention paid to the other end. The result was that we had to turn quite a lot of cows into bone meal and other sorts of meal. In other words, we had to get them out of the way. I think, as far as live stock breeding is concerned, no greater service than that could be rendered. There was no greater misfortune for the small farmer than to have these uneconomic cows producing calves which, in recent years and even during the period of the late Government, were sold in Meath, Westmeath and Longford for 10/- each. It is no wonder these people are glad to accept 12/6 per head for such calves. As far as I know, there is no compulsion on them to accept it, if they think they can make more out of them. The fault lies with the want of attention on the part of the late Government to that particular industry, which we were told by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was the only hope we had. There was no effort made to standardise the industry.

One of the handicaps to agriculture, both here and in England, which arose during the last 20 years and which developed in intensity after the war, was the fact that new countries with a very small population started to produce commodities such as grain, beef and other agricultural produce. These countries had not very much of a tradition in that way but they started on the most up-to-date lines. These countries succeeded in standardising their produce. Having a very small population, they consumed only a very small quantity of the commodities they produced and the result was that a considerable proportion of their production was dumped on our markets, seriously injuring the farmer-producer in this country. Not alone had it that effect but it left consumers in this country accustomed to a very highly graded commodity. Part of the depression that exists here is due to the inability of our farmers to avail of these markets because they are not able to standardise and commercialise their commodities. One can take ordinary fruit as an instance. It may be considered a very small item but still it is an important side issue. There is every opportunity here to develop the production of that commodity. I believe that the value of apples and plums imported last year amounted to a good deal over £200,000. That is not an inconsiderable item. This fruit had to be purchased abroad even though the market here is protected.

I am informed by those connected with the trade that the principal reason why Irish fruit was not acceptable is that it is not graded or standardised. No proper method is adopted in marketing it. I noticed during the Spring in Dublin immense quantities of cut flowers coming in—tulips and other classes of flowers. Very large sums are sent across to Holland and Belgium for these commodities. We are unable to oust these people from the market, even though a tariff is imposed on such commodities. What is the reason for that? The reason is that agriculture was completely neglected, because the Minister in the late Government devoted all his attention, and ineffectually at that, to the live stock industry. He did not visualise the time when this country might have a bigger population, the time when the people would have to use their land more intensively than in those days. There was no effort made to educate the people or to induce them to produce standardised commodities or to standardise the different products of the country.

We heard a great deal of talk about the live-stock industry. Picture the position of the live stock industry during the winter months when we are producing stall-feds, stall-feds that are produced under very careful conditions, properly and comfortably housed, cattle that may be kept in from the end of November. They are put into a wagon, which perhaps may be described as clean, to be taken to market. There is an engine attached, which is driven fairly well, although there may be an occasional bump. They are taken out at Liffey Bank Junction and unloaded there, and they are driven to the shed in which they are accommodated for the night. The next morning, any time after 5 or 6 o'clock, they are taken and tied to the railings by a rope. They are tied by the horns, and if they have not horns they are tied by the neck. There they stand on a cold winter's day until they are sold. Anybody looking at that kind of thing going on would not believe that the late Government or any Government has an interest in that industry. What are those other countries that are competing against us and against the British farmer doing to solve this problem? They have standardised their commodities. They have guaranteed them free from disease, and they have got a market. There is not a penny difference in the price obtained for Scotch sides and the price obtained for meat from the Argentine.

Mr. Brodrick

Tell us what the present Government are doing for the farmer?

Mr. O'Reilly

I told you what the present Government is doing.

Mr. Brodrick

You have not said a word about them at all.

Mr. O'Reilly

The present Government is looking at the fundamental thing. We should remember that the market that we are looking to with such confidence has considerable difficulties of its own. If tariffs are not imposed on foreign beef, then those who produce for that market will not be able to continue to pay the high prices they have been paying for store cattle. As I say, they are paying those high prices because they believe their Government will give them protection. If we were to place our dependence on that market it would, I submit, be a slender hope to go on. I think that our Minister is very wise in making every effort to develop other lines for our agriculturists.

Those who study the debates that take place in the House of Commons will see reported the statements of farmer representatives in that assembly advocating wheat-growing, statements about the calamitous prices offered in that country for oats and about the poor type of store cattle that they have. Statements of a similar kind are made in the North of Ireland. All that arises from this, that not alone has the British Government neglected its agricultural industry, but the Government that succeeded the British Government here did the very same thing. We do not propose to do that and we are not doing it. Every effort has been made here to take away from the farmer what we believe to be uneconomic, to give him the opportunity of producing all that he can, and to enable him to avail himself of the market that exists at home.

Take, for example, the question of milk. As a people, we consume about half a glass of milk per head of the population. If instead we consumed a glass of milk per day, we would possibly require another 120,000 cows to provide milk to meet that consumption, cows giving at least 800 gallons each per annum. That has not been done, and why? Because there has been absolute neglect of the production of milk. Recently the Minister for Local Government and Public Health had to introduce a measure to ensure that our people would be supplied with milk free from disease. Some people have described that measure as drastic. It should perhaps be made a lot more drastic to ensure that all milk was absolutely free of disease. The Minister's measure was the first effort to be made to bring about that reform. It deals with the most important branch of the agricultural industry.

When on this question of milk I would ask Deputies to reflect on the system of milk distribution in the City of Dublin that we inherited. No effort whatever had been made previously to improve that system. I believe that the measure introduced by the Minister for Local Government will, in time, help to do away with a good many of the abuses that exist at the present time. For instance, there is no law at the present time to prevent boys and girls from going up to the market in Dublin and milking overstocked cows. That milk is hawked about the city and there is nothing to prevent those boys and girls from selling it. There is no control either of the milk supplies coming into Dublin City. It is proposed to regularise that by means of legislation and to guarantee to the people that the milk they are supplied with is sound. In the case of the milk producers, I understand it is proposed to introduce legislation to give them some form of protection.

The Minister for Agriculture, when introducing his Estimate, indicated the progress that had been made in putting the policy of his Department into effect. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs did the same in connection with his Department. The returns at the end of the financial year, published to-day, indicate the progress made by the Government as a whole. All these things are an indication of the progress that the country is beginning to make. I have observed that we do not hear so often now the doleful expressions that we used to hear from the benches opposite: that just around the corner misfortune was awaiting us. Even the Irish Times to-day, while not agreeing with everything that the financial returns reveal, admitted that the income tax returns were perfectly correct.

An Ceann Comhairle

Farmers' income tax?

Mr. O'Reilly

Some of it may have been. We all believe that the prosperity of the agricultural industry is fundamental to the success of the country as a whole. The returns to which I have referred indicate that the agricultural situation is improving. As regards employment, I am not going to deal with it generally. I propose to deal with it so far as it relates to agriculture. It is quite true that in the County Meath the division of a lot of land there absorbed quite a number of people, so that at the moment you have not more than one or two parishes in which you have any number of unemployed. In fact, in many parishes it is quite impossible to get workmen at the present time. That may be due to the action of the Land Commission in dividing up so much land in the county. That, at any rate, is the position in the County Meath. I know that there are other counties which are in a worse plight. There is not any employment in them. I admit that the farmers in the hilly districts are hard hit. I would like if the Minister for Agriculture would consider the problem that is there, and see whether he could not do something to relieve it. We in the County Meath can grow wheat and oats, and when we grow oats we can get a good price for it, but it is the farmers in the hilly districts who must pay it. I am not going to say that the farmers did not have a bad time. As a farmer myself, I know that although their difficulties were severe and their hardships great they stood up to all that. I say, furthermore, that suppose it is our misfortune to have to meet further hardships, these men are still prepared to stand up to them. One thing that surprised me more than anything else was that there were so many farmers in 1931 who had a little laid by which enabled them to carry on. At the time I did not think there would be so many in that position.

Last night we had Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and Deputy MacEoin talking about the activities of the sheriffs. Ever since we came into the Dáil in 1927 we have had that sort of thing going on all over Meath, and in every other county. Pressure was being put on the Land Commission to collect the land annuities. The position had not improved by the time this Government took over control. In fact, it was worse than it had been. It is quite possible that we would not have got into power but for the fact that the position was getting much worse. Therefore, it could not be expected that this Government would in three or four years be able to improve what was really a very bad position. But, as I have said already, if agriculture is the fundamental industry of this country, then the financial accounts published to-day clearly indicate that the position of the agricultural industry has improved and is at last becoming hopeful. When we took over there was no hope, and many farmer-supporters of the opposite Party voted for us because there was no hope.

Mr. O'Leary

They have learned sense since.

Mr. O'Reilly

We taught them quite a lot, and showed them means and ways of carrying on and of fighting their battle, because, for the last three years, they did fight their battle. In the county which is supposed to be hardest hit—County Meath—the rate collection is up to the normal standard, and the land annuities are also paid up to the normal figure. There is no more owing in land annuities than there was in 1931. We gave new hope and new courage to the people, and they have accepted the position. When the Minister made his introductory speech here, he disclosed many facts which were not palatable to the members of the Opposition. I watched some of their faces and, to my surprise, their faces dropped. They got a disappointment. That is not as it should be. Everyone of us should be glad to see the country improving.

Mr. Holohan

Do you really believe that what you are saying is true?

Mr. O'Leary

You would imagine from his face that he did.

Mr. Brennan

There was quite a lot of justification for Deputy O'Reilly keeping away as far as he possibly could from the Estimate. I have heard Deputy O'Reilly speaking here on a number of occasions and sometimes he gave indications of common sense. Not even once to-night did he get within miles of common sense. It is a pity that Deputy O'Reilly does not give some consideration to the conditions that prevail in this country. Apparently, he gives attention to the conditions that prevail in Britain. He appears to be a very close student of conditions in Britain. If he takes my advice, he will leave Britain alone. They are well able to look after themselves and, when Deputy O'Reilly's Party endeavoured to make pacts with them, the British came off winners every time. There is no necessity to tell us of the conditions in Britain. It is with the conditions in this country that we are concerned and that Deputy O'Reilly ought to be concerned. In what appeared to be a rather innocuous talk, Deputy O'Reilly to-night libelled Irish cattle and Irish stock—a thing he ought to be very careful not to do and a thing which no man in Ireland, England, or any other country can do with any justification. We have the best live stock in the world. They are able to take first place in any market in the world and to hold it. It is not for Deputy O'Reilly to come in here and say that, because of neglect by the previous Government, which did more for live stock than any Government in the world did in the same period, 30 per cent. of our live stock are not saleable. That is a libel which Deputy O'Reilly should be ashamed to utter. After experience of the Live Stock Breeding Act he comes in and says that the late Government made not the slightest effort to improve live stock. Later, of course, he contradicted himself, when he endeavoured in a roundabout way to say that, in his opinion, the production of bulbs and things of that sort was of more importance than the production of live stock and that the late Minister for Agriculture could not devote time to these things because he had to give all his attention to live stock. That is the type of thinking in which members on the opposite side indulge. Deputy O'Reilly is a farmer and comes from farming stock, and that is what he gives us across the floor of the House on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. He is so poor a student of the conditions in this country that he told us that when his Party came into power they had to get rid of the old cows so as to improve the standard of the cattle. It is a pity the Deputy had not a consultation with the Minister for Industry and Commerce before that Minister made a fool of himself over the number of cows in the country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce boasted in this House and outside it that there were 101,000 more cows in the country to-day than there were in 1931. He is right in that.

Let us see how far Deputy O'Reilly is right in what he said. Although we have 101,000 more cows, we have half a million fewer cattle under one year old. What is the cause of that? The cause is obvious and is known to every farmer. Deputy O'Reilly may have deliberately blinded himself to it. On no farm on which cows are kept are there not a couple of sterile, old cows that cannot be sold. I have here a leaflet published by the Department of Agriculture, which gives the price of fat cows at the present time. Taking the same Department's leaflet for 1931, I find that fat cows are to-day worth £6, whereas in 1931 they were worth from £15 to £18. And, of course, Deputy O'Reilly thinks that these old cows have been got rid of. The Deputy told us about stall-feds being taken up in trains. Does the Deputy contemplate taking them up in aeroplanes? If he does not, how does he expect to take them up to the Dublin market or to get them to the British or any other markets? He says we are not able to keep our place on that market because our goods are not standardised. What is Fianna Fáil doing to standardise our goods so far as agriculture is concerned? He says the policy of Fianna Fáil is to take away what is uneconomic for the farmer. But Fianna Fáil is making the farmer do what is uneconomic for the nation. Deputy O'Reilly knows as well as I do that if agriculture is the main industry of the country—and it is—it must be able to live out of its own production without subsidy. I do not say that you might not occasionally have to subsidise a branch of agriculture or of any other industry. That is occasionally necessary, but what branch of agriculture is paying to-day that is not subsidised out of the public purse? None.

Mr. Donnelly

It is the same in England.

Mr. Brennan

Do not trouble about England. Keep your eyes off England and on this country. Deputy O'Reilly has his eyes on England too. It will not do him a bit of good. This Estimate is only in keeping with the practice of Fianna Fáil, which came in here to cut down expenses and economise. When agricultural products and prices generally, including agricultural wages, have dropped considerably, and while our exports have dropped from £18,000,000 to £6,000,000—by £12,000,000 —in three years, we find that the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture, that is responsible for certain agricultural activities in this country, has gone up since 1933 from £119,000 to £180,000, and that the number of officials employed in the Department of Agriculture has more than doubled in that time.

Of course, I think that the predecessors of the present Government were very bad politicians in comparison with the present gentlemen who occupy that office, because the previous Government endeavoured, so far as they possibly could, to run the various departments economically. They did not take on more officials than were required, and they did not pay more money than was required to be paid. Fianna Fáil, however, have a different outlook, and we have a very good example of the outlook of Fianna Fáil in this matter that we are discussing here. Apparently Fianna Fáil realises that every new appointee is a new organiser for Fianna Fáil, and consequently, in the various public departments—take any of them you like—the personnel of their officials has gone up and up and up. The officials in the Department of Agriculture have gone up from 331 in 1933 to 698 to-day, according to the official Estimate, and the expenditure has gone up from £119,000 to £180,000. The extraordinary thing about it is that, while all that has happened, the farmers' income has dropped by such an amount. The Minister for Agriculture, who is present here, publishes monthly sheets showing the various prices of stock and the Minister for Industry and Commerce publishes another volume and shows us that the average price per head of our stock has dropped from about £19 in 1931 to £11 at the present time. Of course, there is this much to be said about it: that once the present Government had embarked upon the insane economic war, as they call it— an economic war in which there are no sufferers and no casualties except on one side, and as far as we are concerned there is no war going on because we have surrendered and given in——

Mr. Donnelly

The Deputy is wrong.

Mr. Brennan

Well, if I am wrong, what are we doing in the way of fighting England in this matter of the so-called economic war? Will Deputy Donnelly answer that question? If he does, I shall be glad to give him all the time he wants.

Mr. Donnelly

The Deputy said that the casualties were all on one side.

Mr. Brennan

Yes, I did say that.

Mr. McGilligan

What does Deputy Donnelly say?

Mr. Donnelly

What about the Welsh miners? Were they not casualties?

Mr. Brennan

And are we not putting them back to work?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes, and paying their wages.

Mr. Donnelly

And are not the people on the other side taking more of our cattle?

Mr. Brennan

Mr. Brennan

One thing has come out of this discussion, and that is that the scales are falling from the eyes of some people. Deputy Davin was amazed yesterday; he gave expression to one truth at any rate. He said that Deputy Norton was opposing this Vote and that he should have opposed the whole Fianna Fáil policy with regard to agricultural labourers. I agree. I think it was stupid that the Labour Party did not see where the Fianna Fáil Party was leading them. Now we have the Labour Party enquiring into the position of the agricultural labourers in this country.

There is only one way to solve the agricultural labour question, and that is to put the farmers in the way of being able to pay a proper rate of wage. Everyone knows that. Deputy Davin has to come a long way yet before he gets a proper grip of the position. He said last night that he wanted to know why some of the millions paid to the farmers in bounties and subsidies did not find its way into the pockets of the labourers. He wanted to know why some arrangement was not made by the Minister for Agriculture to see that more of the millions that went into the farmers' pockets, by way of these subsidies and bounties, did not pass into the pockets of the labourers. One would imagine there was no economic war so far as prices are concerned. Deputy Davin knows and everyone knows, that the reason bounties were given to the farmers was to give them something for their time in the matter of production. Whatever little relief the bounties give them they are still at a loss. One would imagine, listening to Deputy Davin, that the farmers were getting something extra, and that out of that they should pay the agricultural labourers a decent wage. It is all very well for Deputy Davin and the Labour Party to accuse the Minister for Agriculture for neglecting agricultural labourers' wages, and that he should at least have set up a wages board. But it is well to warn the Labour Party that if the Minister for Agriculture or anybody else set up a wages board and that that board fixed a wage, without regard to the farmers' income, the effect would be disastrous to agricultural labourers because they could not be paid that wage. They could not be employed at all, and they could not be paid a standard rate of wage unless the position of agriculture is improved.

One thing that Deputy Davin stated shows that there is some semblance of commonsense at last coming into the minds of the Labour allies of the Government. So far as the economic war is concerned Deputy Davin is quite prepared to sit down and consider it. He is even quite prepared to make a token payment and, mind you, as we are paying the annuities in the way the President says we are paying them, it would be much better and easier to pay them in the ordinary way. We would at least have this advantage that the price of live stock here would not be depressed to the extent it is in the payment of the annuities as they are at present paid, because at the present time the British price makes the price here. The Minister for Agriculture told us that recently, and because there was a certain relaxation of the price so far as the British were concerned that meant the depression of prices here. The same applies to prices in Spain and elsewhere so that we are paying annuities to everybody.

Deputy Davin did not agree with Deputy O'Leary or Deputy Bennett that the Minister for Agriculture had done something practical for the dairying industry. Deputy Corry on various occasions tried to point out that because of the steps taken by the Government in regard to the creamery industry the price of milk was raised considerably. But if the farmers engaged in dairying could get the same price for their cows as they were getting before the economic war they would not be in need of any subsidies or else they could do with a lot less in the way of subsidies. I would like if Deputy Donnelly would take the case of a farmer with 30 cows to-day, and work out what loss that farmer is at year after year when he has to replenish his stock and when he can only get £5 or £6 a piece for beasts to be sent to Roscrea but for which formerly he could have got £15 or £20 apiece. It would take quite a big subsidy to recoup him for that loss.

The discussion of this Estimate has been remarkable for this, that all those who spoke, I will not say in favour of the Estimate, but against the Opposition, because nobody spoke in favour of the Estimate—they all kept as far as they possibly could from the Estimate—showed an amount of inconsistency. But one speech rather amused me and that was the speech of Deputy Jordan of Galway. Deputy Brodrick spoke against the adoption of the Estimate and that appeared to annoy Deputy Jordan to such an extent that he drew the attention of the House to the inconsistency of Deputy Brodrick who, two weeks ago, asked the Minister for God's sake to continue the subsidy for seed potatoes, and now opposed the Agricultural Estimate. Is not that an extraordinary suggestion?

We had a more remarkable speech from Deputy Victory. Deputy MacEoin, speaking from this side of the House, pointed out very forcibly the condition of the farmers in his constituency and gave some illustrations of the conditions to which the farmers had been driven by the present policy of Fianna Fáil. Deputy Victory complimented Deputy MacEoin on the speech he had made and said he was glad to hear Deputy MacEoin speak as he did, and did not find the least fault with it. Deputy MacEoin—it was the first time I heard it, although I believe it was stated in this House before and in other places—burst the bubble of Fianna Fáil so far as the no-rates and no-annuities campaign is concerned when he told the House, and Deputy Victory or anybody else did not contradict him, that when the Minister for Local Government asked the Longford County Council whether the members had or had not paid their rates and annuities, and when the Fine Gael members said they wanted to know that, the matter was inquired into and it was found that the only people who had not paid their rates and annuities were five Fianna Fáil members of the Council.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Minister for Agriculture responsible for the rates?

Mr. Brennan

He is responsible, I take it, for the conditions which Deputy MacEoin referred to last night and which Deputy Victory agreed with, which drove these five Fianna Fáil county councillors into the position that they could not pay their rates.

Mr. McGilligan

That is being decent to them.

Mr. Brennan

That is being decent to them. Certainly we ought not to hear any more about the no-rates or the no-annuities campaign. A similar state of affairs was revealed in Tipperary—not a single Fine Gael member was in arrears, but there were four or five Fianna Fáil members in arrears.

Deputy Moore made a statement last night which I think was most unjustifiable, and I think it was the first time it was ever made by a Fianna Fáil Deputy or by a Labour Deputy or anybody in this House. He was referring to the wages paid to agricultural labourers, and he said: "We all know that there was a fall in wages some time ago, a political fall." Does Deputy Moore or anybody else believe that, because a farmer had certain political views, he cut down the wages of his labourer who had different views? The allegation was made at one time that the services of certain labourers, were dispensed with because they had different views from their employers, but it was never stated until last night that people were retained in the service of employers and that their wages were cut down, and that that was responsible for the lower wages at present. Deputy Moore said: "We have killed that campaign now, and wages are coming back again to where they were." That is dishonest.

In introducing this Estimate the Minister for Agriculture informed the House, perhaps in a roundabout way, that at present we were not filling our fat cattle quota, and that possibly there might be reactions later on. After making that statement he went on to tell us that, notwithstanding that, it is possible we might have to restrict production of cattle in this country. Further on he told us that the slaughter of calves was still in operation. I cannot follow that type of reasoning. If the Minister tells us that we are not able to fill the cattle quota, as in effect he has told us, he certainly ought to give up his policy of slaughtering calves, and he ought not to tell the people that they may possibly have to restrict the production of cattle.

I am not discussing it. Then what are we going to do with the turf? The farmers are entitled to know where they stand in this respect. It is like blind man's buff. That is the type of agricultural policy for which Fianna Fáil stands. They are chasing one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. It is all blind man's buff. If Fianna Fáil or anybody else thinks that the main industry of the country, namely agriculture, can exist by subsidisation and that the country can exist on that type of farming, they are making the biggest mistake they ever made in their life. It is illogical and absurd. I should like the Minister for Agriculture to take advantage, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce advised Deputies on this side of the House recently, of the figures published with regard to agriculture. I should like him to pay particular attention to the imports of artificial manure and the manufacture of artificial manure in this country and see in what way the land is being utilised at the present time.

If anybody thinks that the land of Ireland has an inexhaustible supply of plant food, he is making the biggest mistake he ever made in his life. There is no man here of average age who has had anything to do with land who does not know the amount of manure that has been put into the land of Ireland during the last 30 or 40 years to make it what it is to-day. I got the figures with regard to manure imports and the manufacture of manure in this country. They are appalling, and the Minister, in addition to that, says that we ought to have less live stock. What is going to happen to the land of this country? We must get away from the idea that agriculture can be maintained for all time by subsidisation. It cannot be done. There is only one way in which agricultural wages can be paid and that is by making agriculture prosperous, by putting it in a position in which it can pay wages, by giving it a profit. There is no use in endeavouring, as Deputy Moore endeavoured last night, to make comparison between agricultural wages paid in this country and in England, because the cost of living in this country is quite different. Is it any wonder it is different? The people who saw the Exchequer returns in to-day's paper, and saw that £10,000,000 were got from tariffs alone, must realise what a burden the plain man in this country has to carry on his back in addition to the economic war. Tariff burdens to the extent of £10,000,000 he has got to carry.

There is only one basis for agriculture in this country and that is the basis of live stock and live-stock products. They constitute the basis of prosperity in this country, and, not alone that, but the basis of tillage in this country. You cannot have tillage without live stock. You cannot maintain the soil of this country without manure. You cannot do it with artificial manure except to a limited extent. The Fianna Fáil Party and the Government appear to think that what is more important than a prosperous agricultural community is that the faces of Fianna Fáil must be saved. They must save their political faces. We have got to drop that sooner or later.

There is another matter which was referred to in the Minister's speech and which has become a kind of catch-cry or byword all over the country to-day—the activity displayed by the Government in regard to catching the warble-fly. Of course, as I said in the beginning, it is good politics. We have hundreds of Fianna Fáil organisers catching the warble fly all over the country, but the tragedy of it is that the local rates and the Exchequer must pay for the joke. The benefit, as the Minister has pointed out, may be a couple of shillings per hide, whereas at the present time a beast carries a load of £4 5s. 0d., the British penal tariff, and there is nothing at all about it. As a small farmer said to me down in Roscommon recently, this thing about the warble fly beats anything Fianna Fáil has done yet. Just imagine, those people do not want cattle at all; they say: "You ought not to have cattle; they are not patriotic; but, if you have them, it does not matter whether they are in good condition or not, there must be no holes in the hide. You must mind the hides, anyway."

The position we are in to-day is one in which Fianna Fáil is chasing the pennies and losing the pounds. Another joke about the warble fly is that an official of the Department of Agriculture explained to the Roscommon County Council that we are merely endeavouring to keep step with the British Ministry of Agriculture. Is it not terribly slavish for Deputy Donnelly and the people who stand with him to have an official from the Department of Agriculture stating that, notwithstanding the fact that we are at war with England—there is an international conflict going on—we must keep step with the British Ministry and catch this warble fly. And the whole idea of it is to save the hide. I certainly should like to see the warble fly caught, but if I were in Deputy Donnelly's shoes I should be ashamed of my life for two reasons: because I was chasing the warble fly to improve my beast by 2s. and, at the same time, making him carry a load of £4 5s. which I was either afraid or ashamed to get rid of.

The whole position is deplorable and I am afraid there is no use in trying to make any impression on Fianna Fáil. They will possibly go on pursuing their present policy until this country is unable to get back, but I would remind Fianna Fáil again that the lands of this country have not an inexhaustible supply of plant food. They must be manured and there is no use in the Minister or Senator Connolly dividing land and endeavouring to have families reared on it unless that land is kept in such a condition that it will be able to bear fruit. Let us talk common sense and let us get away from politics. Let Fianna Fáil get down to the basic fundamentals of agriculture. If they do, they will realise that the policy they are pursuing to-day is pure humbug.

Mr. John Flynn

Deputy Brennan makes a very unfair contrast when he tries to suggest that the cost of services as at present administered is greatly in excess of what it was during the previous regime. He has taken very good care to avoid taking into consideration the cost of the various schemes which have been initiated and which are in progress throughout the country. He stated that in order to cut down expenditure the late Government cut down salaries and several other items of expenditure. I should like to remind Deputy Brennan that in one phase of the agricultural administration, namely the Dairy Disposals Board, while the late Government were in office, the administrative cost of the service was questionable. The purchase of the proprietary creameries during the period of the Cosgrave Administration was a very questionable arrangement. I do say that the prices paid under that scheme by the board were very much open to question.

An Ceann Comhairle

It may not be questioned now; we are dealing with the present Administration.

Mr. Flynn

I am trying to draw a fair contrast which Deputy Brennan carefully avoided. The Deputy tried to show that by the cutting down of expenditure they were able to have a better system and to provide a cheaper administration. On another occasion Deputy Belton tried to prove that special facilities in regard to the exceptional levy had been afforded to the Kerry cattle area. I should like to point out to Deputy Belton and to other Deputies that Kerry did not get that concession. It was provided for in the Stabilisation of Prices Act that the Kerry cattle area would get that exemption, but it did not come about. I do not blame the Minister or the Department for that, because in the operations of the Stabilisation of Prices Act the system worked out satisfactorily. In other words, prices found their own level, and the Minister and the Department were not called upon to give the benefit of the levy provided for in that Act. At the same time I should like to say that if concessions are to be given to farmers, the farmers in that particular area are entitled to them.

I have noticed that the representatives of the Creameries' Association have approached the Minister and asked him to give a guaranteed price of 120/- per cwt. for butter. I am of the opinion that the creameries have been fairly well catered for by the Department already. There are several areas, such as the area I represent, where home butter-making is carried on to a very great extent. I submit that such areas would be more entitled to concessions than the areas represented by the people who approached him from the Creamery Managers' Association or the representatives of the creameries. I want to say that I am not in any way finding fault with the creameries or with the creamery managers for trying to get the best possible concessions from the Minister. But I do hold that these poor, undeveloped areas where there are no creameries operating and where the people certainly are hard hit are more entitled to concessions. The small farmers of the mountainy side of the county from which I come are more entitled to concessions than those in the richer areas. If any move is being made in that direction, if the Minister can see his way by some adjustment, or if there are any funds available whereby the farmers can be assisted, I would appeal to him to give the farmers of my constituency that assistance.

There is another point to which I wish to refer. I notice that instead of there being an increase, there is actually a decrease in the amount allowed for schemes in the congested areas. I say that is not very satisfactory or very encouraging. Take our County of Kerry, one of the poorest counties in Ireland. In order to avail of the different schemes and to inaugurate a lime subsidy scheme for the county, the Kerry County Council struck an increased rate. I submit that instead of there being a decrease in the amount available for expending on these schemes in the congested areas there should be an increase. If you take the position in a poor county like Kerry, where the people are trying to do their utmost to avail of the various schemes, you will see how the matter works out. The beet and the wheat schemes are not suitable for most of that area. For that reason there should be some encouragement given to them by increasing the amounts provided for other schemes.

At the same time, I must say that no one realises better than I do and better than the people I represent what the Minister has done and is trying to do for agriculture. In very trying and difficult periods he has done everything possible to find beneficial schemes for the people of Kerry and similar areas. The point has been made by several Opposition Deputies that we are afraid to admit that the farmers are hard hit. We never denied that——

Mr. Holohan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Flynn

In fact we know that the farmers in our county have been hard hit, but they have stood up to it and they will always stand up to it. I do say that if the economic war were settled to-morrow, the farmers in our county and in other parts of the country should never be forgotten for the fight they put up in this economic war. The farmers and the farmers' sons always fought when needed. This catch-cry that we hear so much about of knuckling down to England and being beaten to the ropes and all that kind of thing will never work with the farmers of this country, because there is something more than a material side to this fight. No matter how hard hit they are, the farmers will stand up to it. I say that when they are making such a great fight in adverse circumstances everything should be done for them by the Department of Agriculture and the Minister in the way of assisting them. I again wish to say that our people appreciate what is being done for them. We hope that if there is any possibility of inaugurating further schemes for the areas I have mentioned the Minister and the Department will avail of that possibility.

Mr. O'Donovan

It is hard for some of us, like myself, who have grown grey on the land, and who have watched the growth of the development of the usefulness of the Department of Agriculture over a long number of years, to find that the usefulness of that Department has gone since the advent of the Fianna Fáil Government to office. Let us go back to 1927-28 when the Department of Agriculture was a useful body giving very valuable service to the State. The Department Estimate that year was £527,150. I would like Deputies to compare that with the very much increased Estimate for 1936-37. If I had my way I would go further than the motion on the Order Paper suggests, slightly further; instead of moving that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, I would be inclined to move that the Department be scrapped as a whole. I would be inclined to press a motion of that sort were it not that I know that Fianna Fáil will soon be leaving office and the usefulness of the Department will again make itself felt. It is an extraordinary thing to find that, making a comparison between 1928 and the present time, the cost of the Department of Agriculture has been practically doubled.

I have read in the Official Report speeches made by the Minister and Deputies of his Party and they have stressed the advantages of growing wheat and beet. They have talked in thousands and probably millions and emphasised the advantages that wheat and beet are conferring on the State. Will they tell us the cost of production of wheat and beet and let us know what amount the farmer has after his wheat and beet have been harvested? I have before me a report presented to the Cork County Committee of Agriculture in which is given the estimated cost of producing an acre of wheat. It is for the year 1934 and I do not think that there has been any change since then; I believe the cost of production would be about the same and the average yield would be about the same. According to this report, it works out at a total cost of £7 17s. 6d. a statute acre. It gives the average return for that year at seven barrels to the acre and I do not think the average yield has increased since. The price that year was fixed at 16/6, with a bounty of 7/- per barrel. The return is given at £9 9s. 6d. per acre, the cost of production was £7 17s. 6d. and that left £1 12s. 6d. of a net return.

I gave figures recently in the Dáil in regard to an acre that would be now devoted to wheat and I compared them with what could be made out of that same acre if used in another way. I proved that an acre of ground could feed four cattle and if we were allowed to get the price that prevails in the English market to-day, if our cattle had not to take £4 5s. 0d. on their horns when going over to England, that acre would leave £16 to the farmer. I would like, instead of trotting out figures here in thousands and millions, if the Minister would get his instructors, who have really given useful service, to go into the cost of production of wheat, beet, tobacco and the other schemes that the Government have tried to put into operation since they came into office, and if they can prove that those schemes are more advantageous to the farmer than the system under which we worked heretofore, then I shall be satisfied. I hold that the system that was established here many years ago and that our people found from experience was an advantageous one for themselves and the State, the system on which they were able to support themselves and their families in decent conditions and that enabled them to educate their children and put a little by for the rainy day, the system that our fathers and grandfathers found was a sound system, should not have been touched. It was very unwise to change over from that system, and the Government should first have ascertained if their schemes were going to be a success.

No useful purpose would be served now by talking about the economic war, but if we did not have the economic war I venture to think the country would be very much better off to-day. Deputy O'Reilly and other Deputies always have their eye on England. They are like the West Cork "Eagle" when it had its eye on Russia in other days. Deputy O'Reilly and others have their eye on England; they decry everything English. They tell us that the English market is gone but, bad and all as it may be from their viewpoint, it is as good now as it ever was within the last ten years. Unfortunately, our cattle have to carry £4 5s. on their horns in order to get in there. I mentioned the work of the agricultural instructors, and I repeat that they did useful work but, notwithstanding the experiments they have carried out, and are carrying out—manurial experiments—we have no new manures. We are applying the same manures to the different crops. All farmers know what manures to apply to the different crops.

Sub-head M. (1) refers to Miscellaneous Work, and I see that we have under that heading an inspector, a superintending costings officer and six costings officers. It might be well if the instructors, even at this late hour, could be got to call on different farmers and find out from them what it costs to produce the new crops the Department have suggested to replace our old system of farming. That would be a step in the right direction and we would know where we are. I would like to refer to the sub-head dealing with the improvement of flax growing. We have beet and wheat and probably, under present conditions, they may be attractive crops to the farmers who can grow them. The farmers who are growing them have an advantage over the people to whom Deputy Flynn referred, the people in Co. Kerry, and the people whom I represent in West Cork. They cannot grow wheat or beet. Those who can have the advantage of a guaranteed price for their crops, and they have also the advantage that they are not paying anything towards the annuities and the other moneys that are going to England because they are not rearing cattle for export. In my constituency and in the county Deputy Flynn represents, different conditions prevail. The Deputy says the people in his constituency are poor; he acknowledges they are poor and very few Fianna Fáil Deputies acknowledge such a thing—Deputy Flynn is honest.

We had this Flax Bill which got its first reading here I think in the first week of December, and we had it circulated on the 1st of April. I wonder if it is a fools' day prank of the Minister to introduce it, because of all the Bills I ever read it is the most vague. There is no information as to what is to be done with the flax produced, or no guarantee so far given to any prospective growers of flax. Perhaps the Minister, in his winding up statement, may give us some information about it. There is another matter of some importance to which I should like to refer, and that is cow testing. I think there is a slight reduction in the Estimate for the improvement of milk production. If there is one thing which would be any asset at all to the farmer down the country it is an improvement in milk production. He handles the price of milk every month. He has to wait for the price of beet and he has to wait for the price of wheat until the end of 12 months, but he gets his milk cheque every month. Experience has told us that you can feed the cows and increase the milk yield by 100 or 200 or 300 or more gallons per cow in the course of a few years. If that could be done, thereby increasing the milk cheques for the poor people who have nothing else to live on, it would be a step in the right direction. Instead of seeing £22,000 for the improvement of milk production I should like to see £44,000 or more.

I should like to refer also to the report of the Commission of Inquiry into horse breeding. I know only one or two of the members personally, but I wonder if any of them ever harnessed a pair of horses to a plough. I am sure they are all interested in bloodstock and the production of hunters, but they recommend the Irish draught horse. For some reason which I do not know they recommend that the heavy horse—they do not mention whether it is the Clydesdale or the Shire—might be useful in counties such as Monaghan, Offaly, Kildare, or Kerry. That is a matter which we have been advocating here year after year, even before this Government came into office. The Cork County Committee of Agriculture I think on one occasion asked for a Clydesdale stallion or two to be registered and licensed in the West Cork area. Of course they could be brought in by men who are willing to pay the money out of their own pockets, but there is no hope, I suppose, of their getting a loan from the Department. I may be wrong in that, but I think there is not. There is a general demand for them in the different areas in West Cork, where they want heavy horses to pull the loads from different places. Those people know what they are talking about. Their wants should be supplied because they know the requirements of their districts. Time and again they asked to have a Clydesdale stallion or two sent into the West Cork area. I hope that the Minister will now favourably consider the matter. There are Clydesdale stallions within a ten-mile radius of Cork City, but that is no good to the farmer who lives 60, 70 or 80 miles away in West Cork, and cannot afford to send his mare to such a stallion.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is the excessive cost to the farmers, and especially to the pig producers, of the admixture scheme. I think it cannot be stressed too strongly that the small pig producer is a thing of the past. The pig was considered to be the poor man's friend. The poor man has no friend now, because on account of the commercialised system we have at the moment he cannot afford to compete with the big men. The cost of producing a pig is beyond his means, with the result that he is left without a pig. The West Cork farmers feel that they have a great grievance with regard to this admixture. At the lowest calculation it is costing an extra 15/- to produce a pig on account of the admixture system, whilst the system that we had established, and our fathers before us, was to feed what was capable of consumption on the farm— potatoes, wheat, oats and barley—and sell the surplus. If we were given an opportunity of absorbing the surplus that we have for sale, and confining it to the county, it would be a benefit to the West Cork farmer. At the moment he is selling his surplus, and in addition he is compelled to pay for the farmer members of the Grain-growers' Association who are fortunate enough to get this admixture scheme carried through. He afterwards has to sell his produce in competition with those who can produce a pig at a cost of 15/- less. I do not think there is any change in the situation since the report of the Grain Inquiry Tribunal was issued. They said that:

"The admixture proposals do not possess the advantages claimed for them by their advocates. We are satisfied that a mixed meal composed of 85 per cent. of maize and 15 per cent of home-grown grain could not be produced at the cost of maize meal."

I suppose that report has been read by every Deputy in the House, and I need not go into it any further. As far as I can remember, the evidence given before this tribunal was to the effect that about 70 per cent. of the maize imported into this country came through the port of Cork. The bulk of that 70 per cent. of maize was fed in Munster, and I take it that the greater portion of that was fed in Cork. They have 50 per cent. of the oats or some mixture in it now and they have to take it from Athy or some place up in this part of the country, pay for transport to Cork, and for mixing by millers, and then try to compete in the markets against those who have the advantage of maize and cheap feeding. That is unfair. I wonder where the grain growers would find themselves if Cork pig feeders went out of production for a year. The Minister would then find a good deal of surplus corn on hands. It would be fair and equitable to let each county consume home-produced corn and to mix it with maize or other feeding. If each county did that it would be a step in the right direction. I suppose there is no good suggesting these things to the Minister, and very little good suggesting anything to improve conditions until the Government comes back to sanity and ends the economic war.

Give us back normal conditions and the markets that were advantageous to us. No matter what Fianna Fáil says these markets are there still, and they are as good as they were for the last 20 or 30 years. I suppose the Minister for Agriculture like his Government is not going to do that, and that the poor unfortunate farmers will have to struggle along under the present frightful conditions. A good deal has been said about the wages of agricultural labourers. They are the most hard-working people in this State, with the longest hours and the heaviest kind of work. They have to be out in the wet and the cold, in hail, rain and snow, because cows have to be milked, calves have to be fed, fowl have to be fed, and work has to be done on the farm early and late. The agricultural workers were never paid for their work. Whatever farmers were able to pay them in the past, they have nothing to pay them now. It is a shame that agricultural labourers should not be able to get a decent wage, and it is also a shame that farmers are not able to make a decent wage, because both are amongst the most hard-working people in the community. It is time that Fianna Fáil recognised that agriculture is our main industry. Agriculture and agricultural economy as we knew it is dead. The Labour Party have a motion on the Order Paper dealing with the wages of agricultural labourers. They are at last showing that they are wise. Were it not for the support that they gave to the Fianna Fáil Government farmers would now be able to pay their wage-earners better. If there is one Party responsible for the present position of agriculture it is the Labour Party.

Mr. J.M. Burke

Before I begin a few remarks that I wish to address to the House, let me wish all members, including myself, many happy returns of this, our feast day. I hope that such members as will be here this day 12 months will have learned the wisdom and prudence of saying what they have to say in fewer words and in the shortest time. I did not intend to plunge into the abysmal and dismal and unfathomable depths of the beet, wheat, peat, meat, or cheat policy of the Government. The Peter Pan who is now in charge of the Department of Agriculture is doing his best to serve the Irish farmers in his own childish way, but I doubt if he has succeeded in doing so. We were told that his policy was going to turn this country into a regular Golconda. What actually has happened, and it may be said in a few words, is raised cost of living, a lower standard of living, and farmers' sons and agricultural labourers fleeing this country because they cannot find a decent livelihood in it. I have no objection to the Minister's beet and wheat policy so far as it is applicable to certain districts, but, as Deputy Flynn said a few moments ago, there are parts of the rural areas where it is absolutely ruinous. I know some parts of West Cork where the farmers are hard-working, industrious, intelligent, and wish to make an honest living and to pay all their debts, but very little of the land is cultivable. The most of it could be described as cúilíní, nooks between rocks where they carry manure on their backs and till with a griffaun. How could these poor people be expected to make any kind of a living out of such crops, if it is impossible to grow them? Their only means of livelihood are live stock, poultry, and eggs. The live-stock trade has been killed by the policy of the present Government. An ancient Roman writer said that the grass of Ireland was so rich and so nourishing that it almost burst the cattle. Is it not a disgrace to get rid of that national asset now? Deputy Donnelly had the audacity to get up here and talk about farming. Deputy Donnelly has not as much land as would sod a lark. He would not know a white turnip from a yellow globe, and while laughter is on his lips shame is written on his brow. The Minister for Agriculture talked recently in a lecture about self-sufficiency. That is a very good phrase. Self-sufficiency is a very excellent thing if it could be achieved. Deputy Kehoe followed the Minister and said that Ireland was never so well governed since the time of Brian Boru. Did the Deputy ever read any book on Irish history or does he really know anything about Irish history? Does he know that the followers of Brian Boru were mercilessly attacked on their way home from the Battle of Clontarf?

Mr. Donnelly

On a point of order, is the Minister for Agriculture responsible for Brian Boru?

General Mulcahy

The Fianna Fáil Party all talk as if they were first cousins of his.

Mr. Burke

Can self-sufficiency be attained by taxing raw materials which we cannot produce? Will it be attained by the slaughter of calves got from premium bulls which cost immense prices? Why maintain at great expense all these agricultural colleges if we are told that it is foolish to engage in the rearing of live stock? Is it to provide inspectors in this over-inspected country? Is there in the whole world any country in which there are so many inspectors as there are in the Free State? Why, you cannot go around the corner, or put on your pyjamas, without getting a licence from some inspector. It is time that really the Department of Agriculture and the Government faced up to realities and that they should see how their policy is leading the country into ruination, bankruptcy and semi-starvation. The condition of the country must be known to them. There are parts of Ireland in which large farmers are on the verge of ruin. I know a man myself—and if the Minister wants the full particulars I shall give them to him—who has a fairly good farm. He is a hard-working man and has been all his life a hard-working man. He is an abstemious man. He never wastes one half hour in the town or anywhere else. That man to my certain knowledge—and, as I say, I shall give full particulars to the Minister if he desires to have them—has been living on home assistance and Vincent de Paul relief for the last two years. That is only one case of many in the County Cork. I would appeal to the Minister—and I am sure he has a very kind heart and would not like to see anyone in difficulties—that he should consider the condition of these people. Deputy Flynn honestly admits that in Kerry there are many such people. There are many such people in West Cork and I am sure there are many such people in the whole of Ireland. These people deserve the fullest and the most favourable consideration, and the Minister if he can come to their assistance without in any way imperilling his policy, or interfering with the progress, prosperity and advancement of the country, ought to come to their assistance.

Mr. Holohan

I should like to speak for a few moments on this Estimate. I look upon the policy of the Government in connection with agriculture as a policy that was doomed to failure from the beginning. I have spoken here on this Estimate on a few occasions, giving my own experience and the experience of a number of other farmers with whom I come in contact from time to time, and who have discussed with me, speaking confidentially between ourselves, what was going to happen in the near future if the Government insisted on the policy that they have forced on the country. I do not want to make a bitter speech or to say anything personal to the Minister. I know perfectly well, and I could see from the very beginning, that his policy was going to bring ruin and destruction on the agricultural community. Take, for instance, his wheat policy. We have no objection to the growing of wheat or the growing of beet in this country. If anything I support it, but I support it only to the point to which it can be grown to the advantage of the farmer, his family and the people who are working with him on his land. In producing anything from the soil we have, first of all, to take into consideration what we are going to make out of it. How we are going to keep the land in the best condition is another consideration. We have officials and Ministers in this country who tell us that they can make any branch of agriculture pay. Undoubtedly they can by sitting down with pen and pencil and working out their theories to their own satisfaction; but if they had to go out on the land with plough and harrow, if instead of toasting their feet to the fire they had to work on the land in snow and rain, their theories might not work out so well.

We have appealed on several occasions to the Minister to change his policy but it appears to have been of no use. I was glad that Deputy Flynn was honest enough to admit that the farmers in his constituency were depressed. He knows the situation there but at the same time what is the Government doing to relieve this depression? Every Deputy on the Government Benches knows perfectly well that we are going through a state of depression against which we cannot stand up indefinitely. We have families to rear and we have a standard of living, which we are entitled to maintain and we shall fight for that standard of living. The Minister, in telling us to grow beet and wheat, must remember that we want a price for it that will give us something more than the mere cost of production. Further, we cannot grow wheat if we have not manure to fertilise our lands. If we could grow wheat and get 23/- per sack for it it would pay us, if at the same time we could feel sure that the land in six or seven years time will not be in any worse condition as a result of having grown that wheat. Beet, at 37/- per ton, can only be grown at slave wages. The man who has to pay labourers cannot grow beet at 37/- per ton. We are prepared to pay our workers and to keep our workers in employment if we are only put in a position by the Government to pay them. We must be allowed something over the cost of production if we are to continue to do that. The agricultural workers are not getting a fair wage but that is not our fault. We cannot help it. We are not making a wage for ourselves under present conditions and we cannot keep our families in ordinary comfort.

I know that the Minister is handicapped by the Executive Council. I know too that, if he knows anything about farming, he would not continue to pursue the policy he has put before the country unless there is a certain pressure brought to bear upon him. We have the policy of the slaughter of calves which I regarded as unlucky from the beginning. At the same time we have 500,000 less cattle on the land than we should have. If we had that 500,000 cattle, we could still maintain the same number of acres of beet and wheat and even grow these crops with greater success. I maintain that the number of live stock must be kept up to the maximum to ensure the success of agriculture all round. Mixed farming is a far better policy than a whole tillage policy. It gives employment the whole year round, men are just as busy in the months of November and December on a system of farming of that kind as they are in the springtime and harvest. There is a considerable number of people walking unemployed along the roads to-day. Take the number of agricultural workers alone who are prepared to give a fair day's work for a fair day's wages. We know there are others who do not want to work or who never worked and who are drawing the dole. I do not compare the honest working man to persons like that. I have men working at home while I am here and I know that they will give a fair return for their wages although I do not see them from one week to another, and although I give them what in other circumstances, might be considered only a miserable wage. However, were it not for the fact that I have some allowances, I would be quite unable to pay them any wage. I know farmers in my district who used to employ three or four men weekly and who are now unable to pay wages to any labourer. I asked the Minister some time ago that if he was not going to do that he should give the farmers of the country some relief. I put that request to him on several occasions, but he refused to do anything. I asked that some relief should be given as regards the payment of the land annuities while the economic war was going on, but he did nothing. While I say that, I do not want the Minister to think for a moment that I am opposed to the Government for going on with the economic war. What I want to put to the Minister is that we should be compensated for the losses we have sustained during the last three years and more that the Government have been engaged in this economic war. As farmers we cannot afford to be losing one year after another.

I do not want to discuss my own position in the House, but I can truthfully say that I am a very much poorer man now than I was when the Government came into power. I want to tell the truth about the situation, and I do not want to exaggerate. I had to go to the Land Commission to-day on behalf of 12 or 14 farmers to make an appeal that the sheriff would not call on them a second time and take away what stock they have left. Ten or 12 of these men voted for the Government Party and helped to put them in power. The appeal that I am making to the Minister is prompted by the condition to which the farmers of the country have been reduced. This dispute is being carried on solely at our expense. We are made pay the land annuities to England and pay them at home. We are appealing to the Minister to compensate us for the losses that we are sustaining. We are prepared to stand by the Government, and if they can make an agreement with England we will support them. We are not engaged in any agitation against the Government. What we are standing up against is the injustice that is being practised on us as farmers. We are being forced to pay what is not due by us. We have to sell our cattle at a reduced price in England and to sell to the home consumer at the same price. In addition to the £5,000,000 that is being taken from us in the tariffs on what we send into England, we are losing a further £2,000,000 on what we have to sell at home.

In connection with the cattle that are being bought in Kerry and sold to the Waterford factory for canning, I would like to have some particulars from the Minister—the average price paid for them, the cost of transit, the fees and commissions paid to those buying them, and the price received in Waterford. Will the Minister tell me what is the total cost to the State? Deputy O'Reilly to-night said that the late Minister for Agriculture neglected our live-stock industry. I was here when Deputy Hogan was Minister for Agriculture, and I can say that by the legislation he introduced he did his utmost to improve the live-stock industry. He did that work so well that we have as good a breed of cattle as any country in the world. We are proud of our cattle. Deputy O'Reilly said that about 31 per cent. of the cattle offered for sale at a particular fair were so bad that they could not be sold. Well, I can say that we have not cattle of that type in either Kilkenny or Carlow. One would imagine, listening to Deputy O'Reilly, that we were never better off than we are today—that prosperity is ready to greet us around the corner. So far as I can see, there is no prosperity awaiting the farmers around the corner, but rather a position in which they will get more and more into debt. The Minister, in my opinion, should use his influence with the Executive Council to get some relief for the farmers while the economic war is going on.

The growing of beet and wheat is all right. We will grow both as long as we get a price that pays us to do so. There has been some reference to oats and barley. We have been given to understand that the Minister is going to introduce a Bill to deal with both crops. We will welcome that Bill, and I hope the result of it will be to improve prices all round. In connection with the horse-breeding industry, you have a certain number of people in the country well able to look after the end of it that is concerned with thoroughbred sires, race horses and hunters. I urge that some attention be given to the breeding of the ordinary working horse that is required on the land. There is an inclination to breed a type of horse that is a bit too light for that work. The old Irish draught horse is the ideal type. He is a good working horse but sometimes is not heavy enough. Although I never cared much for the Shire or the Clydesdale, I think that you might get a useful type of horse by crossing the Irish draught with the Shire or Clydesdale. I hope the Department will give some attention to that matter.

As Deputies know, I have always been very much opposed to the policy of the Government in connection with the slaughter of calves. I had hoped that I would not see any provision in this year's Estimate for that purpose. I hope, however, that the Minister will curtail expenditure as much as possible in that direction, because I have no doubt that in a few years' time there will be a cattle shortage in this country.

In conclusion, we have no objection to the growing of wheat, but we maintain that the policy of wheat growing should not be carried to the extent of killing the live-stock industry of the country. Why should there be a grudge against the cattle business? The more cattle we have the more feeding will be required and the more employment will be given. A tillage policy is one that is suited for the spring and the harvest, but we want to be able to provide work for our men all the year round. For that reason we are in favour of a system of mixed farming, because we are convinced it is the system that is best suited to the country and is the only system that will bring prosperity to our farmers.

Mr. McGilligan

I am venturing into this debate in what I hope will be a brief way. I am embarrassed at the start by feeling that it is going to be a very timid way. It has been a gloomy business all through. There will be general agreement, I think, on that. I confess that I can see no way of injecting any gaiety into the proceedings on this particular subject. We have had lamentations from every side of the House touching the position of the farmer-producer in the country at the moment. We have had a rather belated but very welcome lamentation from the Labour Benches on the condition to which they have reduced people who look to them for aid when they speak on behalf of agricultural labourers. I view the situation as one of many in this country who is forced, somewhat unwillingly, to subscribe to the subsidisation of agriculture, but more particularly as a person who is fined, and fined heavily, every time he buys at this moment any of the products of this, apparently decaying business. Although, as Deputy Burke said, and said correctly, the whole matter is dismal and the depths to which one has to get in this are somewhat approaching the abysmal, still they can be plumbed and plumbed if we take as our standards one or two simple items.

Suppose we get clean away from all the mixed matters that are coming home to the hearts and bosoms of the various farmer-Deputies and suppose we speak only of three or four simple matters—wheat and beet and, say, milk and butter. I have the feeling that if the debates in this House for the past couple of weeks had been broadcast, same as the speech of President de Valera, a certain churchman, with the enchantment that only distance lends when he views this country, would not find it possible to be even so optimistic as was Deputy MacDermot, who is also somewhat removed from this country and is often much detached in regard to discussions on agriculture.

Let me start off by reminding the Minister and those who support him of what they promised. I have often used the Fianna Fáil Plan, and I suppose people think that it is time it should be given up. To some extent, I agree with them but it has hardly ever been used in regard to agriculture and just what the old Plan was should be announced here to-night.

"Here is what a Fianna Fáil Government will do for you in regard to tillage."

I presume the Minister, as the coming expert in agricultural matters, had his hand in this advertisement.

"When we grow our own requirements of wheat, oats, barley, peas and beans, we will have 1,410,000 acres of additional tillage."

This is all very well as an advertisement in the columns of a newspaper, but somebody thought that out and honestly believed it could be brought about. Somebody put that forward as a plank in the Party programme and they got elected on it.

"The Department of Agriculture has calculated the wages payable on the growing of an acre of wheat at £2 6s. 6d. and on an acre of oats or barely at £2 2s. 0d. On the Department's figures, then, this additional tillage will increase the earnings of agricultural workers and small farmers by £3,130,000."

There is the promise. "Here is what the Fianna Fáil Government will do for you"—we are to grow our own requirements of wheat, oats, barley, peas and beans—they left out beet— and that will mean 1,410,000 acres of additional tillage and £3,130,000 per annum to agricultural workers and small farmers. We have not got our requirements in wheat but we have got a big acreage under beet. Suppose we concentrate on beet and wheat and leave out of consideration all offsets by way of substituted tillage, by way of people dropping out of other crops to get into the subsidised crops.

The increase on wheat and beet between 1931 and this year is represented by about 190,000 acres. That makes a poor comparison with the 1,410,000 acres that were promised. How was that increase achieved? I do not know if the Minister has a figure in mind which he would state and rely upon as the amount paid by way of subsidy per acre for beet and per acre for wheat. I understand, however, that the subsidisation of the beet produced at the moment amounts to about £1? million and that the subsidisation of wheat amounts to something short of £500,000. In any event, between the two crops, the amount is about £2,000,000. We pay £2,000,000 per annum to get 190,000 acres extra under wheat and beet.

How does that come home to the labourer? Permanent employment in agriculture has gone down by 600 persons. Temporary employment is up by about 2,400. Supposing the temporary people work a quarter of the year—I understand that that is an exaggerated estimate, but let us work on it—you equate those 2,400 temporary workers to 600 full-timers. As we have lost 600 full-timers, we have no gain so far as paid agricultural labour is concerned. We have a gain in respect of those who are members of farmers' families and who have registered as being in occupation on the land. They are up by 9,000. Why? Because there is an inducement, not to go on the land but to register as being on it, inasmuch as the agricultural grant is distributed according to returns made as to the members of farmers' families occupied on the land. With a State subsidy of over £2,000,000, we get 190,000 acres under cultivation, leaving aside the offsets and those who have dropped out of other types of cultivation. That is not the end of the story. Wages are down, according to the official statistics, by 3/- a week. If you relate that to the number of agriculturally employed, you find—again assuming that temporary people are employed three months in the year—that the wages of permanent labourers are down by nearly £750,000 and that the wages of those who are temporarily employed on the land are down by £128,000. There is a drop in the purchasing power scattered through the country, through the medium of agricultural work, of £820,000. I do not want to go into a series of detailed calculations to show on what these figures are based. If these figures are accurate, or if they approach accuracy, that is the situation. Perhaps I may sum it up again —in three years we have increased the acreage under beet and wheat by £190,000; we have not got any increase in the number of those who get paid for working on the land but we have increased the number of members of farmers' families who work on the land —for what, we do not know—by about 9,000. It is costing the taxpayer, in some shape or other, £2,000,000 per annum to do that. The purchasing power scattered through the community through the medium of agriculture is down by £820,000. If a director of a company went before his board and made that announcement, as the result of three years' working, we know the vote that would be passed. He would be told that he was heading for bankruptcy, to cut the losses and try to reconstruct the business or get into some other line of activity. These are the two main, subsidised crops, one of which, added to barley, peas and beans, was to give us 1,500,000 extra acres and bring an extra payment of £3,130,000 to workers and small farmers. The advertisement continues— it is almost blasphemous to read this part:—

"The wheat would give us a large surplus of offals to feed extra pigs for human consumption and small wheat to produce extra eggs for the home market."

Can the Minister say what anybody has got to do with extra eggs at the moment except to use them for obvious purposes if Deputy Donnelly or the Minister for Agriculture go out to address a public meeting? That was not the climax of all this. The increased production was, according to the advertisement, to add no less than £11,000,000 to our agricultural output, equivalent to £16 per year for every adult male or female person engaged on the land, whether farmer or labourer. Alberta has nothing on that. These are two subsidised crops. It is by getting one or two things under the microscope and reducing them to their essentials that one gets an idea of the Government's policy.

Mr. Donnelly

Who copied that for your Ard-Fheis programme?

Mr. McGilligan

I shall deal with that later. The man who made this mistake most glaringly is not here, but the Deputy may pass on the education to him second-hand. Milk and butter have been the subject of great acclamation on the part of back benchers. Deputy Corry, I think, in the debate on this matter ventured again into the calculation that the producer of milk was, through Government activity, getting 2d. a gallon extra. I cannot reconcile that figure with the Minister's own figures. According to what the Minister told us, he claimed that as far as milk, or butter through milk, was concerned, it would work out at about ¾d. a gallon. Will the Minister tell me if I am correct in saying that his figures would represent about ¾d. a gallon? Let us assume at any rate that there is ¾d. a gallon extra being paid to producers of milk on what they produce, how is it being paid for?

This is where it hits me, as a consumer, among others. There used to be a calculation that there was about 700,000 cwts. of creamery butter produced in this country, and that half of it was exported and half of it consumed at home. I do not know if the amount consumed at home has gone down. If it has gone down, will the Minister tell us that that was simply due to a distaste for butter or was it due to a decrease in the general standard of living owing to the fact that the people cannot afford to buy butter? However, let us assume that it has not gone down, and that it has kept constant and that there is being consumed 350,000 cwts., and we are paying on that. I make the calculation— and I will guarantee the accuracy of the figures—that 350,000 cwts. is about 40,000,000 pounds in weight of butter. What are we, as consumers, paying extra per pound of butter that we eat in this country? Certainly, it is not less than 5d., and I think that over the last year it has been at least 6d. What is 6d. per pound on 40,000,000 pounds of butter? Let us work that out. It represents £1,000,000 in money. We are paying £1,000,000 in money to enable the farmer—the milk manufacturer—to get ¾d. a gallon. Is that good economics?

We are talking about the annuities. Three mandates were given by the people and still you refuse.

Mr. McGilligan

And the last mandate given was on the basis of the Government's pledge that if returned to power they would settle the economic war. That was the position. Finally, I want to say that Deputy MacDermot talked in this House of Fine Gael accepting the Fianna Fáil policy. A little more industry and appreciation of the facts would make Deputy MacDermot realise that the only change in policy there has been in the last year has not been on the side of Fine Gael, but on the side of Fianna Fáil. The more they go into coal-cattle pacts, the more of these they bring into this House, the more definitely are they turning their back on their own absurd tillage nonsense and going back to dairy farming. That is our policy—it always was.

If the Deputy thinks we are adopting the Fianna Fáil policy because we say we will give a run to wheat, we do that for two reasons. One is that it is not good for any country to have a new economic revolution every time a Government is changed; and the other is that wheat should be given its run on a level with dairy farming. It is only when the two are given a chance together that we can learn by experience which of them the farming community will adopt. Even if it costs an amount of money wastefully spent, it would be a good thing to give the wheat policy a chance of running side by side with the other, and let us see which will win in the end.

Deputy MacDermot said that this country was in a mood for experimentation in 1931. I object to that phrase. I do not mind experiments being conducted at other people's expense. I think that is Deputy MacDermot's point of view. If I were the sort of person who was not allied to this country by any tie, if when things went badly I could step on the mail boat and quit it for good and all, I could easily stand up and beg the Minister for Agriculture to continue experimentation. It is the fact that whatever mess this country is in I have to live through it that gives me responsibility. It is the absence of that which makes Deputy MacDermot so irresponsible as to make a statement like that about experimenting in this country. The country is sick of experimenting. It has had enough of it. The few salient facts that I gave to-night ought to teach any man that the experiments have been a failure so far and that there is no hope of conducting them up to any point of success.

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

We have had three fairly long days of talk on this Estimate and I think that we can hardly describe what might pass as debating on this Estimate as anything better than talk. I have listened to eight speeches from the Front Bench opposite and I do not think that any two of the Deputies made a single point that was not made over and over again in the last few years: "Give us back our markets." What was said by any speaker on the Front Bench opposite could have been said in a few minutes. I often wonder if the economic war was settled what would happen?

Mr. Brennan

Try it.

Dr. Ryan

Would it happen that when I brought in an Estimate there would not be a word from the other side, because they cannot talk about anything except, "Give us back our markets"? I advised Deputy Cosgrave some time ago to instruct his Party to try to exercise their minds a little bit and just imagine that the economic war cannot be settled and see if they could make a suggestion. But evidently they have not the brains to think. You do not want much brains to be able to say, "Give us back our markets; settle the economic war". None of the Deputies opposite, with the exception of Deputy Brodrick and Deputy MacEoin, who made a passing reference to sub-head H, made any suggestion with regard to the Estimates. Deputy Dillon made a speech lasting two hours and Deputy Belton one lasting for three hours, but in these and other long speeches the Estimates were never referred to. It was all this talk about the economic war that we have heard over and over again. It is the easiest thing in the world to make a speech like that, as you have not to think, and Deputies cannot think.

Mr. O'Leary

You will not be finished with it to-night.

Dr. Ryan

Deputies on the other side cannot offer any suggestion for the improvement of agriculture under existing circumstances. As Minister for Agriculture I have done everything so well and so perfectly that there is not the slightest criticism from the other side. Everything is done to the very best advantage.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 1 Apr 1936