Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (8th Dáil) – Thursday, 2 Apr 1936

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

Debate resumed on the following amendment:—

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

Mr. McGovern rose.

An Ceann Comhairle

Perhaps the Deputy would wait until we see whether the Minister wishes to resume.

While the House is waiting for the Minister, I should like to know where we stand in this matter. Some Deputies who desired to speak on this Vote last night gave up their right to do so in order to give the Minister the opportunity to conclude on the Estimate, but the Minister did not conclude as arranged.

Mr. Minch

Are we to understand that the Minister is to conclude now?

An Ceann Comhairle

An agreement was, I understand, come to yesterday. While the Chair takes cognisance of such agreements it has no power to enforce them against the wishes of the House, or even of objecting Deputies. It seems to me that the terms of the agreement were not carried out. In order to give effect to this agreement certain Deputies did forego their right to speak. Consequently, when the Minister has concluded, I shall be prepared to hear Deputies who have not already participated in the debate. May I remind the House, while not wishing for a moment to interfere in any way with the debate, that the time spent on this Estimate has already exceeded by 65 per cent. the average time given to that Vote. Deputies might bear that in mind.

General Mulcahy

You have said that you are not disposed to allow Deputies who have already spoken to intervene again. I do not want to discuss that question generally, but Deputy McGilligan purposely cut short his contribution to the debate last night to allow the Minister to conclude. If Deputy McGilligan wishes to continue his speech, I think it would be unfair to exclude him, in the same way as it would be unfair to exclude a person who had not intervened. On the question of time, we are discussing an Estimate which has a vital bearing not only on the agricultural life of the country but, as Ministers have admitted, on the industrial development of the country. If agricultural interests are not properly safeguarded, whatever industrial development there is will be destroyed. I submit, therefore, that the question of time ought not to enter into your consideration of the matter if the debate is properly directed to the Estimate. The question of time, in these circumstances, is of no consideration.

An Ceann Comhairle

I specifically requested the House not to take amiss my reference to the subject of the duration of this debate; my purpose was to give information to the House.

Mr. Donnelly

If Deputy McGilligan is to be allowed to continue his speech, which to all intents and purposes he finished last night, will the same rule apply to other Deputies who have spoken?

Mr. McGilligan

Certainly.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a matter for consideration. So far, the Chair has agreed to call on Deputies who have not participated in the debate, the other question not being decided.

Mr. MacEntee

It is obvious that Deputy McGilligan only wants to waste time.

Mr. McGilligan

The trouble with the Minister for Finance is that he cannot understand the difference between making a speech and wasting time. He judges everybody by himself.

Mr. McGovern

I am reluctant to intervene in this debate. This question of agriculture is discussed from day to day, from month to month and from year to year. It is like a serial story, and it is a sorry story from beginning to end. I would rather not intervene at all but I am here as representative of a county which depends entirely on agriculture. For that matter, agriculture is the industry on which the State depends. That is my excuse for intervening in this debate against my own inclination. It is very difficult for any farmer-Deputy who comes into this House to control his indignation at the indifference of the Minister for Agriculture on the agricultural question and to the advocacy of the Opposition. The Minister, in his speech last night, was very critical of the Opposition in general and of Deputy Dillon in particular because the speeches made were not according to his wishes. Members of the Opposition did not speak of the Minister's pet schemes. They spoke rather in a general way. That is, of course, a compliment to the practicability of the Opposition. They are practical men and they address themselves to the main point—that is the market. What is the object of production if you have not a market? The Minister complained because the Opposition continue to tell him to settle the economic war and give the farmers back their market. That was the burden of the Minister's complaint against the Opposition. To what else would they turn their attention? I can see no object in agricultural production unless you have a market for the produce. I see no object in producing anything unless you have a market for it. The Minister has given some evidence, notwithstanding his resentment at this line of argument, that he has been impressed because, although it was the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party to treat the British market with contempt, they have altered that policy and are creeping back, as Senator Blythe said, by inches. They are creeping in by the back door. Why have they not the moral courage to walk in by the front door and get their place in the market? Why do they not meet the British Ministers and settle this dispute? Since they have agreed to facilitate the British in collecting these annuities off the farmer, there is no reason why they should not go across like men, settle this whole economic dispute and provide a market for our agricultural production. Then Deputies could settle down to discuss the details of the Estimate and the various schemes.

It is ridiculous to suggest that any Deputy can seriously consider the details of an industry that is being ruined. Everybody is aware that that is what is happening. What details are we to go into? I notice by one of the first items in the Estimate that there is an increase in expenditure on salaries. Agriculture is being carried out with typewriters from the office. That will not increase agricultural production. That will not remedy the difficulties of the farmers. What the farmers really want is a market for their produce and then, let them have encouragement and assistance. The Department always did its work well but I do not think it was necessary to increase the number of officials. The less interference with agriculture or anything else the better. What farmers really want is to be left alone. They were always able to make their industry pay and if they got a chance, were given a certain amount of independence and such assistance as they might call for form the Department of Agriculture, they would be satisfied. By controlling every activity, by limiting the market for their produce, by imposing fresh restrictions from day to day, every activity connected with agriculture is rendered more difficult and farmers do not know where they stand. I notice that there is a small increase of £100 in connection with the purchase of bulls other than dairy bulls. I should like to know what the Minister intends to do with these bulls other than dairy bulls. What does he propose to do with these beef bulls, since it is the policy of Fianna Fáil to kill the production of beef cattle? Time and again, we have been told that that is their policy. Why are they paying these big prices for bulls, other than dairy bulls, since it is their policy to kill calves other than dairy calves?

These are question that I hope the Minister will answer. The policy of killing the calves has reduced the stock of this country to deplorable conditions. At the present time there is a shortage of cattle. There is in the country a number of old cows that cannot be sold at any price and all the inferior cattle are lying on the farmers' hands because there is no market for them, and they have to keep them over. It is not now that the people are really feeling the loss. It will be in the years to come that they will realise it. Our stock is being depreciated to such an extent that it will take a long time to repair the damage that has been done in the last two or three years. The whole policy in regard to live stock needs to be reviewed. I can see no object in buying these beef bulls unless the policy of the Government changes, and unless it is the policy to encourage the people to rear the calves.

I noticed yesterday that the Minister denied a statement made here by Deputy Belton to the effect that there was such a thing here as £3 a head for calves before the economic war. At the time that Deputy Belton made that statement I intervened to say that the price of calves at that time was as high as £5, and I repeat that statement here now. I know that calves in County Cavan were bought at £5 each and that in the Counties of Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath, the price of calves of the Hereford and Aberdeen breeds was £5 normally, and that £5 10s. was not unknown. That was in 1930 and 1931, and I am prepared to give proof of this to the Minister if he wants proof. A price of £4 and £4 10s. was the common thing for calves of that description, and that is very far from £3.

Mr. Brennan

We all paid it.

Mr. McGovern

That price must be taken in conjunction with the fact that the calves were the greater part of the dairying industry in County Cavan. With the present prices of milk that industry is not a paying proposition. In Northern Ireland they have gone into this question and they have found out that anything under 5d. a gallon will not pay the farmer. As a result of the findings of that inquiry, they have fixed the price at 5d. a gallon, and at 6d. a gallon in the winter. I think, as a matter of fact, that the Minister for Agriculture here has admitted that it would take 5d. a gallon to pay for the cost of production. If that is so, even with the benefit of the calf at the normal price, what is the position of the dairy farmer now and what is the position with regard to the dairying part of farming—perhaps the most prosperous part at the present time, if we can use the word "prosperity" in describing agricultural conditions at all? We all know that there is no such thing, but at least the dairying part of agriculture is not quite as badly off as other branches of agriculture. If 5d. a gallon, plus the value of the calf, is only sufficient to pay the farmer for dairying, how is he going to carry on when the average price of milk from the creameries is 4d. —that is, 1d. under the cost of production— and when he is losing one half of the benefit to be derived from the dairying industry by throwing away the calf? That is something that the Minister must face up to sooner or later. There is no use in talking about his pet schemes of wheat and beet and tobacco. Deputies on that side of the House spent hours talking about tobacco. What does tobacco really mean to the average farmer in this country? How many acres would supply the tobacco needs of this country?

Mr. Belton

10,000 acres would cover the whole lot.

Mr. McGovern

A Deputy says 10,000 acres would be sufficient. Very well, let us put it at the highest estimate of what would be required to supply all the tobacco needs of this country. That would be 10,000 acres. I believe that 190,000 acres of wheat was produced last year here. Supposing, however, we grow all our own wheat, I take it that that would mean that about 600,000 acres would produce all the wheat we want in this country. I am not going into these questions in any great detail, because I know very little about them. I know something about wheat, but I know nothing about tobacco and very little about beet, because these crops are not grown in my part of the country.

These matters have been dealt with already by Deputies who understand them and, therefore, there is no necessity for me to go into points that I do not profess to understand. However, I am going to deal with one aspect of the matter, and that is this: Supposing we do grow all the tobacco, wheat and beet that this country can absorb—that is, that we have a market for—what effect would that have with regard to the land generally? Would it not only apply to some 700,000 acres of land—considerably less than 1,000,000 acres? Yet the fact confronts us that we have about 16,000,000 acres of land here and, therefore, what use is going to be made of the other 15,000,000 acres? I want the Minister to look at the whole subject of agriculture from that point of view. I want him to remember that he is not a Minister for market gardening, but for agriculture. There is no use in these schemes that more properly belong to a market gardening ministry, since we have no such ministry here. We need to look at the broad facts. How is the average farmer going to pay his various charges if he does not make use of the land? He must produce something on the land or otherwise it is not going to pay. Those who have considered the beet scheme and the wheat scheme have generally come to the conclusion that there is no profit in these schemes, and some have gone so far as to say that slave conditions obtain in the production of beet. The production of wheat, we are told, diminishes the fertility of the land to an enormous extent unless it is grown in conjunction with the cattle trade. Accordingly, there is not a fortune in these particular items, and the best that these crops can do is to pay their own way. If the land is put under these crops, all the farmer can hope to do is to be able to make them pay their own way, apart from the general farming expenses. That is about all that can be expected. No matter what a farmer may get for his crops that does not affect the question for which the main portion of the land is to be used. Unless we have a market for that produce the bulk of the land is going to loss. It is not merely the surplus that is affected— that is another aspect. It is the surplus produce that determines the prices of the whole produce of the land. Nobody can deny that fact. The surplus produce has been reduced, in the price of cattle, by 40, 50 and 60 per cent., and in some cases 100 per cent. I could give instances of such reduction in prices, and could challenge contradiction on the matter. If the return from the surplus produce is reduced, as it has been, on an average of 40 and 50 per cent., then, the whole value of agricultural produce is reduced to that extent because the surplus determines the price of the whole thing. And while the return to farmers and agriculturists generally has been reduced in the process of selling their goods to the extent of 40 or 50 per cent. I know, from practical experience, that everything the farmer has to buy, and everything the agricultural labourer has to buy from the manufacturer has gone up by 30 or 40 per cent. in price.

The Deputy should not repeat the charge.

Mr. McGovern

I resent very much this charge against the farmers of being dishonest. It has been often made and I resent it very much and the farmers resent it. The charge should not be made. Our farmers are the most honest in the world. There are no more honest people in this country than the farmers. It is bad enough to injure them, but to add insult to injury is something that is very hard to bear. It is very trying upon the patience of Deputies who know what the farmers are and who always stand up for them and are not ashamed to stand up for them. The farmers are absolutely honest and always pay their debts.

We were dealing with the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I want to give one instance. It may be that that corporation are giving as much money as ever they gave and it may be that they are giving more. But, what relation has that to the needs of the agricultural community now for money? There is ten times as much money wanted now as there used to be when the farmers were comparatively prosperous. They were never very prosperous, but when they were comparatively prosperous very few of them wanted to go to the Agricultural Credit Corporation to borrow money. Now they are all in need of money.

Mr. Donnelly

Why was that institution started?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

Mr. McGovern

In one particular instance I interested myself to get a loan for a small farmer. He purchased a piece of land six or seven years ago and raised £500 from a bank with two securities. He has reduced his debt to the bank to £60. He had a brother who got married and he wanted his own money. He was one of the securities and the bank refused to give the brother his money until he paid the balance, although the same bank gave £500 five years ago. That is an instance of the credit that the poor farmer has now in the bank. The bank that gave him £500 a few years ago would not give him £60 now without two securities. The man got insulted and asked me to call to the Agricultural Credit Corporation to see if they would lend him the money. He wanted £80 because he had some other little things to meet. I did my best to get £80 for him, but I only got £60 with the same securities. So that instead of a farmer being able to raise £500, he is now reduced to the position of being only able to raise £60.

Mr. Jordan

Having a brother who got married.

Mr. McGovern

The brother was only one of the securities. He only went security for one-third. That is a very big change. I can understand that the Agricultural Credit Corporation are perhaps lending as much money as formerly, but taking every case in relation to its needs they are not lending 10 per cent. of what is required, because every farmer who was in need of money formerly was able to get a loan for a reasonable amount and he had a reasonable prospect of repaying it. At the present time there is no prospect of repaying until the conditions change. I would be very slow to recommend any farmer to any bank or anywhere else to repay any money under present conditions.

The whole question of agriculture can be summed up in the value of our exports in the year 1934, say, as compared with 1931. Between these two years the value of our exports was reduced by £18,000,000. The value of agricultural produce, live stock, and live-stock products exported accounted for £27,000,000 in 1931, and in 1934 it was reduced to £13,000,000. That is a very wide margin and represented some of the losses the agricultural community have suffered, although we are told they are prosperous. That only represented some of the losses, because one-half of the produce was sold at home, so that the real dead loss was £26,000,000. There were some thousands of pounds saved by the restriction on imports, but thousands do not balance against millions. The Minister for Agriculture seems to have no sense of proportion. He regards thousands just as he regards millions. If he keeps £1,000 at home he is prepared to lose £1,000,000 that would come in from the sale of produce to other countries.

The Minister started out by belittling the British market and concentrating upon alternative markets. Since 1934, however, he has changed his opinion somewhat, and that is all to the good. He learned that the alternative markets were no use—that they did not compensate for the loss of the British market. In fact, in 1934, instead of increasing, the value of these alternative markets was reduced by some hundreds of thousands. To nearly all countries, other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there was a reduction in the value of exports shipped. But, since 1934, when the Minister recognised his mistake, there has been a change for the better I admit, and that was because he went back towards the British market and made a coal-cattle pact and renewed it this year. That was a step in the right direction.

We all welcomed the first coal-cattle pact and were not very critical about it, though we might have made good capital out of it from a Party point of view. We did not take advantage of that. In my own county, I asked people to say nothing about it, but to encourage the Government to go on because it was a step in the right direction. However, when the second coal-cattle pact was entered into we did not like the idea at all because that simply meant the stabilising of present conditions. The first coal-cattle pact led us to hope that it was the beginning of the end, and that the next thing we would hear in a few months' time was a settlement of all the outstanding differences, and a restoration of their markets to the farmers. That, unfortunately, did not take place, and here again we are presented with another coal-cattle pact, an agreement between the Executive Council and the British Government to collect these moneys from the farmers—these dishonest farmers—and an effort by this honest Government of ours to make them pay their annuities three times over. They made this agreement behind the backs of the farmers, and without consulting them, putting the burden of these payments upon them and making them bear a loss on what they sell at home amounting to so much more. Then this honest Government comes along and collects these annuities again. If the farmers do not pay this burden a third time, after all their losses, the farmers are dishonest.

The Minister is a very honest Minister for Agriculture. He is the most honest Minister in the world, but he has to deal with dishonest people; but the day of reckoning is not far away. The farmers have found it out, and those of them who voted for Fianna Fáil know now what Fianna Fáil promises and the Fianna Fáil plan mean. If the Minister would not insult the farmers, this Vote could be discussed with more patience, but it is very hard to be patient when Ministers get up, one after another, and insult people who are the mainstay of this State, the people who are paying the Ministers' salaries and keeping everybody in this House and in all Departments of State going. They are dishonest. What the Government want is a bit of moral courage. They know now that they must get back to the British market and must settle differences. They are doing it, but they are doing it by inches, simply because they have not got the moral courage to acknowledge that they have made a mistake, and, in order to save their own faces, they are letting agriculture go hang.

I have referred to milk production. The Minister tells us what the Government have done to help the milk industry. I admit that he is a hardworking Minister and he is doing the best he can, according to his lights, but his lights are all wrong in regard to agriculture. Milk production, as I have shown, is not paying its way and it certainly cannot make up for the losses in other branches of agriculture. The Minister boasted of what he has done for the pig industry, and I notice that there is an increase in the Vote in respect of bacon marketing, but there is nothing to be grateful for in regard to this change in the pig industry. In the Northern counties we have been in great difficulty because the type of pig produced there is a type which certain curers do not want. The curers now want to dictate to the farmers of Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal and Leitrim what sort of pig they are to keep. The farmers there have been accustomed to feeding this Ulster pig, and no matter who dictates to them, they are not prepared to give up that Ulster pig so long as they can find people who are prepared to buy it. There are people prepared to buy it, and there are curers prepared to cure it.

Deputy Haslett dealt with this the other evening. He told the Minister that there are curers who are prepared to cure the Ulster pig, and to dispose of it, if the Minister gives them an export quota. I think that is a fair proposition for dealing with that pig, and it is better than dictating to the farmers what they should or should not feed. Those farmers understand their own business; they could always make their industry pay, and they were able to pay their way. They are first amongst the farmers of the country in the payment of their debts, and the payment of more than their debts, because they are not under any moral obligation to pay some of the charges which they have to meet. Nevertheless, they pay them, because they like to live within the law. They are industrious people, and they know the class of pig that suits them. They are small farmers, and they do not want to be looking at pigs they buy for 12 months; they want to feed them off and get the best results for the expenditure of their money and time, because they want the bit of money when it becomes due. They know the Ulster pig suits their trade, and they cannot afford to run 40 or 50 pigs and let them out on grass. They feed them in the house, and feed them well. It is a good thriving pig and there is no question about there being a market for the fat pig. There is, if the Minister will give a quota to the curers who are prepared to cure this pig.

I understand that the Minister is prepared to do that, because Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches complimented Deputy Haslett when he told the Minister to do these things. Deputy Haslett also told the Minister —and was complimented for it by Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches —that he was like wax in the hands of the other Ministers; that he let the other Ministers away with it every time; that he let down the farmers whom he was supposed to stand up for and help, and let the industry be crushed under the other Ministers, and he was complimented for it by his colleagues. I hope the Minister, instead of insulting the farmers in future and telling them how dishonest they are, will stand up for them and see that agriculture gets its rights. I should like to see him standing up for it as the Minister for Industry and Commerce stands up for his industries. Whatever we may think of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, one must give him credit for the way in which he stands up for his own industries.

There are a number of other matters, but I do not think it is worth while to discuss matters of detail. Until the main matter is settled, that is, the provision of a market for agricultural produce, what is the use of going into detail? It has been argued from the benches opposite that the farmers are prosperous, that they have turned the corner and that agriculture is paying. Some time ago I brought forward a motion with Deputy O'Donovan and we challenged the Minister to prove that agriculture is paying. He had not the courage to take up that challenge, and to try a few average farms throughout the country. With all his schemes, and with all his increases in staffs of officials, he has not got the courage to try the experiment and demonstrate to the farmer that agriculture is paying.

——using it as a proof to convince the people on this side of the House that his policy is a good one. That is all I am asking the Minister to do.

Mr. M. Ryan

I would like to avail of this opportunity to refute some of the allegations that have been made during the course of this debate by Deputies from my county. Deputy Curran, in the course of his remarks, referred to the terrible conditions at present confronting the creamery industry in Tipperary. I am associated with the working of creameries in that county, and I can say, and must say in all fairness, that the past year has been better than some of the previous years at least. Deputy Curran also referred to the difficulties the farmers have in securing credit from the creameries or from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I happen to be secretary of a creamery society in my own part of the country, and within the last couple of weeks I received a communication from the Agricultural Credit Corporation asking me as secretary to place before the members of my society the facilities that are at present being made available by them for credit for the farmers. These are available at low rates of interest, and there are other facilities. Speaking from the point of view of credit for farmers generally, I am very doubtful if the statements to which we have been listening from the Opposition for the past couple of days will be very helpful in securing credit facilities for the agricultural section of the community. Deputy Morrissey, another Deputy from my county, made the glaring statement that agricultural wages in North Tipperary were as low as 5/- a week. There is no truth whatever in that statement. I believe if the Deputy increased his estimate by 100 per cent. he would be much nearer to the facts. I should say that the Deputy mentioned the figure of 5/- a week with board. I also mean with board, and if he increased his estimate to 10/- a week with board he would be nearer to the facts.

Mr. Belton

That is not very much to shout about.

Mr. Ryan

No, and we are not shouting about it. The Deputy mentioned some of the difficulties such as an increasing population, stoppage of emigration and things like that. I would like to know from Deputy Morrissey, or from any other Deputy, what he considers would be the duty of any Government faced with such adverse conditions. Like the great body of our people, I believe that there is no other course open to any Government to enable them to deal with such a situation except the policy that has been preached and practised by the Fianna Fáil Government to-day. Other Deputies spoke of the general conditions of agriculture in the country, and they appealed for an opportunity to get back to the splendid conditions which prevailed in the country before the Fianna Fáil Government came into office. I think anybody who knows the farmers and who knew the conditions that prevailed then, cannot convince anybody, and cannot convince me, that the agriculturists were satisfied with the conditions that prevailed that time. If they were, I wonder why was this Credit Corporation, about which we hear so much, established at all? I wonder why was it necessary to remit annuities due over three years as was done when Fianna Fáil came into office? I wonder why was it necessary to have other sums that were due three years previously funded over a number of years?

Mr. Belton

Who did that?

Mr. Ryan

The Fianna Fáil Government.

A Deputy

They had to do it.

Mr. Belton

Why?

Mr. Corry

Because your Party had the farmers ruined.

Mr. Ryan

The people generally, I think, know what all this hot air means. They know the amount of consideration they got from the previous Government, and they know and can see for themselves what is being done for them at the present time. The people also know the adverse conditions with which agriculture all over the world is faced. I can speak for the general body of the farmers in my county when I say that they highly appreciate what is being done for them. They place very little hope in the wild statements that we hear from the Opposition. They know quite well, of course, that the Opposition are only just availing of the opportunity to make as much Party or political capital as they possibly can out of any adversities that may confront the farming population. We have heard much about the slaughter of calves. I believe some of the Deputies opposite went so far as to say that it was unlucky. I do not believe, from my own knowledge of the country and my own experience, that there was such a widespread slaughter of calves at all.

Mr. McGovern

Only 221,000 last year.

Mr. Ryan

The facilities made available and the money made available were availed of largely to compensate the farmers for mortality in calves. I do not think anybody can deny that. In the same way, in their eagerness to paint a picture in doleful colours, I believe some of them referred to the slaughter of cows. Everybody knows that under the legislation dealing with the slaughter of calves or anything else there was no obligation on anybody to slaughter. The same applies to the cows. I believe the facilities made available for all farmers, whereby they will get 50/- for uneconomic cows, are undoubtedly a great boon to them. It is time that those animals were removed from the herd. Formerly they went for a few shillings.

In reply to some interruption a while ago, I said I did not claim that conditions were as good as we would like to have them. I do not believe anybody on this side of the House claims that; but I do claim that conditions are improving. I happen to come from a mountainous part of County Tipperary where, so far as that county is concerned, conditions are at their worst. I can say that even in that district conditions are improving. I would like to join in the appeal made by other speakers for further facilities for farmers in mountainous districts. A great deal has been done for them by various Government Departments in the way of housing and minor relief schemes, and moneys have been provided by the Department of Agriculture by way of subsidy for a lime scheme, thereby making lime available for the people in those districts at cheap rates. Lime is a great essential in those districts. I would urge the Minister to increase that subsidy. By so doing he will be conferring a great benefit on those people. I feel it is unfair for Deputies like Deputy Morrissey to avail of this opportunity to slander his own native county. His statement, I am sure, will not be appreciated by his fellow-countymen when they read it, and I feel called upon at this stage flatly to contradict it.

Mrs. Concannon

I would like to put a point of view which has not yet been put, the point of view of the women of Ireland. In the balanced agricultural economy which is our objective, everybody who gives any thought to the subject will recognise that the women of Ireland have a large part to play. For this reason it seems to me that in this important Estimate, important from the point of view of the number of speakers who have participated and the weight of those speakers, there are no more important items than those modestly tucked away under sub-heads F (1) (f) and F (2), in which provision is made in order to prepare some of the women of Ireland to play their part adequately. The sums involved are not very great if contrasted with other items in the Estimate; they total about £15,000. In the case of the Munster Institute, Cork, the sum involved is about £6,000 and there is a little over £9,000 in respect of 12 schools of rural domestic economy. The total sum represents about 2½ per cent. of the Vote. It is a very modest sum, but I think all sides of the House will agree that no expenditure which we vote these days —or oppose these days—will give such a splendid return to the country.

We have heard very often in this House, especially within the last few days, that the farmer is at the base of the prosperity of the country. I quite agree with that, but I want to say something that is still truer, and that is that the farmer's wife is at the base of the farmer's prosperity and, therefore, the more money that we spend and the more wisely we spend it on the education of future farmers' wives, the better will be the results. I remember when I was young reading the words of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. He quoted a wise man as saying that if he were permitted to make the ballads of a country, he cared not who might make its laws. In the same way I feel that the Minister for Agriculture, if he provides well for the education of the women of the country and enables them to play their part in the realm of rural domestic economy, need not be so worried about other things.

It is regrettable that, during the course of the discussion on this Estimate, Deputies did not stress this particular aspect. I must say that we in Galway are very fortunate. We have three of these rural domestic economy schools and, therefore, I can speak with the authority of first-hand knowledge of the magnificent work that is being done there. If there are any Deputies interested in this subject, I advise them to go to the Spring Show and visit that section of it where the butter-making contests are in progress. These contests invariably attract large numbers. Here our girls give a good account of themselves. In all that heartening and attractive panorama at Ballsbridge, I venture to say there is no more heartening or attractive sight than a good-looking Irish girl, alert, trim and efficient, making good-looking Irish butter. I think that any of the bachelor Deputies in this House if they went there could not avoid having dents made in their hearts—and here I speak with some kindly thoughts of prominent members of my own Party. The only criticism that I have to make about the rural domestic economy schools, which I think are of extreme importance, is that they are too few. According to the Estimate there are only 12 of them. If I had my way that number would be multiplied tenfold.

Everybody has his or her own way of solving Ireland's ills. My method would be to make these rural domestic economy schools general, spread them all through the country and make a course of six months compulsory on all Irish girls before they would be allowed to marry. Then we could look forward cheerfully to the future of the country. I would like the Minister to consider seriously the establishment of one of these schools of rural domestic economy in the Aran Islands. It would, of course, have an Irish-speaking personnel and the instruction would be given in Irish. It should not be so much like a school as an ideal country house. It should have its big kitchen with a big turf fire. The girls would be shown how to cook properly. Then there would be the garden with its bee-hives. The girls would get instruction in the proper methods of poultry-rearing and dairying. We could go into details of the scheme if it were decided to establish the school. Such a school as I suggest would have a particular advantage. Even from a material point of view among the best things that the Aran islanders still have is their store of Irish undefiled. If the girls attending the school are taught to make their homes attractive it will evidently render very pleasant the stay of those who will sojourn there when they go to learn Irish. Besides, it would train girls for occupations in other parts of Ireland as hospital or children's nurses, domestic helps, and so on. For this reason I recommend to the Minister to give earnest consideration to the project of establishing at least one of those schools in the Aran Islands.

Mr. Cosgrave

During the course of this debate many comparisons have been made between the policy that has been pursued during the last few years and the policy that was in operation here for a considerable number of years previously. If we were to listen to many more speeches from the far side I fear that the number of speeches on this side would be extended. The last speaker, whom we seldom hear and whom I should like to congratulate upon the speech she has just made, opened up a new avenue of exploration of the estimates. I quite agree with all that she has said about the importance of those schemes; about the Minister's interest in them; about the support which the Fianna Fáil Party is giving to them, and about their necessity in the country generally, but having had the industry to go through the estimates for the last few years one is struck by the Minister's lack of support of those institutions as evidenced in the Estimate before us to-day. Take the very one which Deputy Mrs. Concannon has just mentioned—Athenry. It may surprise her to know that the sum provided in the estimates for 1932-3, as recorded at page 254 of the estimates published in that year, amounted to £7,597. The corresponding item appearing in this Estimate for that institution—I should like to say how much I appreciate the work that is being done there—is £5,637. In going through the list of those institutions one finds that there is the same proportion of deductions in the moneys that are provided in this year's Estimate as compared with the amounts provided in 1932-3. As recorded at page 206 of the estimates for 1932-3 the total for agricultural schools and farms was £30,999. The total for agricultural schools and farms this year is £29,904. I congratulate the Deputy upon having selected that particular item for praising the Minister in his administration.

Last night, the Minister anticipated some observations that I intended to make on this Estimate. We are to consider this Estimate not in the light of the history of the last four or five years, but in the light of the history of the last 14 or 15 years. We are to consider it in the light of the Minister's problem, the problem that he has to deal with and solve, the problem that the country has to face whether they agree with the Minister or his policy or not. What do we find? References have been made here to the increase that has taken place in the sums of money which have been paid in salaries in this Estimate. But the charges that have been made against the Minister are altogether too modest. Those who have dealt with that particular phase of this Estimate have confined themselves to sub-head A. Under sub-head A there is a sum of £63,000 over and above what was spent on that item in 1932-3. The number of officials is more than doubled; so that the administration of this Department, which has less to show for production throughout the country, has to be done by over twice the number of officials at an additional cost of £63,000 to the people. There is, however, a much more remarkable figure than that. The number of officials employed in 1936-7, taking the whole Estimate, amounts to 2,071, and the corresponding figure in 1922-3 was 1,168, so that the Minister has over 900 extra officials to help him with regard to the problem he has got to solve in this country. On going through those estimates one is faced with a large increase in the personnel of the Department of Agriculture, and with a certain number of deductions in so far as the constructive work of the Department is concerned.

Take the items under sub-head N 4, and compare them with the corresponding items in 1922-3. The sums advanced for the purchase of stallions in 1922-3 amounted to £1,500; the figure for this year is £750. In 1922-3 there was provided for premium bulls £14,000; the present figure is £7,500. Let us pass on to another matter which has been referred to by several Deputies—the necessity for getting rid of what they called uneconomic cows. There is another type of cow which it is more important to get rid of, and that is cows affected with tuberculosis. The sum provided for this year is £500 less than that provided five years ago. A short time ago we had a discussion here in this House on the necessity and advisability of getting rid of cows affected with tuberculosis. The number is very small, but it is a matter that ought to engage the most careful attention of the Department; they cannot be got rid of with too much rapidity. We find that the sum provided for that purpose is reduced by one-twelfth of the sum provided five years ago. Similarly with regard to improvement of live stock. The sum provided for that purpose under sub-head G (3) is £5 short of £8,000 while the sum provided five years ago was £8,595. I am taking just one item that is mentioned here, that is stock pigs. The amount provided five years ago was £500, while the figure for this year is £300. If we are to believe all that has been said by the Minister or by his Department about the advisability of getting rid of what is called the Ulster pig, where is the evidence of the sincerity behind that plea recorded in this Estimate? Deputy Haslett here the other day made a very good case for the Ulster pig. It may be put in a few sentences: "We are able to sell that pig in the British market; we have a market for it; we can get a good price for it. Why interfere with us?"

He had examples, which were corroborated by other members of the House, of the difficulties placed in the way of those in the Northern counties in sending animals down the country, but the Minister contradicted them. What one person says, the Minister is in a position to say is not so. That sort of thing does not appeal to me. Take the next item, sub-head G (2) —Improvement of Milk Production. £27,000 was provided five years ago and £22,500 this year. Then there was the item referred to by Deputy Corry, the advisability of having dairy bulls throughout the country. When the Minister complains of attacks made on the administration of this Department we want to know what he is doing in respect of the really constructive work that ought to distinguish his administration. The Estimate is costing, probably, twice as much in salaries as it was five years ago. So far as the Minister is providing for constructive work—such as providing for the right type of animal, and getting rid of animals that could easily be got rid of—the money is less. The question of money should not stop us getting rid of such animals, yet we have less money provided for that. So far as the educational work referred to by Deputy Mrs. Concannon is concerned, the figures have gone down from £30,000 to £24,000.

I cannot join with other members of the Fianna Fáil Party in congratulating the Minister on the work evidenced during these five years. One of the last speakers in this debate was from County Tipperary and he denied that certain statements made by Deputies on this side were true. What are the facts in connection with Tipperary? Since 1931 there are 490 less labourers employed in that county. The difference between the number employed in 1934 and 1931 is 209 on the wrong side. The Deputy said there was an improvement down there. From what one can see, there is room for improvement. It is a county that has done well from the Minister's policy, having 10,000 acres under wheat and nearly 7,000 acres of beet, yet that work can be done with 409 less labourers than were employed in 1931. Goldsmith was not far wrong when he said:—

"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

The labourers of Tipperary deserve better consideration than that, both from the Minister and from the Deputy who spoke on behalf of that county this evening.

Reference has been made in the course of the debate to the Agricultural Credit Corporation. A statement of that body showed that it is still functioning. They ought to know enough about banking to tell us what is the nature of these functions. Someone asked what the Agricultural Credit Corporation was for. Surely, it was not pure innocence of knowledge that prompted that question. The idea underlying that question was this: that the events of the last ten years, during which the previous Administration was in office, were such that a lending body had to be set up. May I tell the Deputy, for his information, that he ought to learn a little about finance before asking the question. In the first place, normal banking and banks proper are not suitable institutions for dealing with an industry like agriculture. Banks deal with what are called short-term loans. Agriculturists usually want loans for a much longer period than banks are prepared to grant them. We should have heard the nature of the advances made by the Agricultural Credit Corporation since the beginning of the year; whether they were made to people who were really short of money and could not get it, or lent to agriculturists with a view to developing their business. There was no information on that point; but we got a picture of the situation in a statement of the bank or of an official of the bank, and also a statement in the Government newspaper. While the bank says that it had lent thousands of pounds, the Government newspaper goes a step further and says thousands of pounds weekly. If the Deputy wants to know who are the farmers who have been refused loans by the Agricultural Credit Corporation, he could be accommodated with that information.

We were also told that during the previous Administration £50,000,000 were sent to Great Britain—to be exact, £45,000,000 at the most. What has this Government sent? Very close on £18,000,000, and the man who, when this dispute started, would make the recommendation that it could be settled for £20,000,000 would be tarred and feathered. Yet that amount is gone now. We have no credit for it and it is more difficult to sell our goods. As Deputy Mrs. Concannon referred to the importance of women in this dispute, their importance has been discounted by a reduction in the number of poultry in the country—a catastrophic reduction. Knowing all the nonsense that is going on, and seeing the fruits of it, are we asked, in any degree of sincerity at all, to take into consideration the fact that the Minister cannot get out of the position he is in and that he must make good in it, when every year we see the situation going from bad to worse? In a county like Tipperary, in which £16,000 or £17,000 is spent on subsidised crops, the number of labourers employed has gone down by 209 in a single year. Are the farmers in Tipperary so indifferent to labour that they would withdraw employment from that number of labourers? That is not alleged by anyone. Yet the facts are there. If that be the position in regard to Tipperary why should not the same position prevail in other counties? What really is the position at the present time? It is this, that the Government is standing in the way of the farmers' prosperity; that Government policy is responsible for the loss, privation, suffering, and mental disorder in certain cases and the grave in others, of people engaged in agriculture, because of the difficulties placed in their way.

When we hear on the radio, and when we read in the newspapers, that up to 40/- per cwt. can be got for first-class beef in Great Britain, and when the price here at the most is 25/- per cwt., is it any wonder that there would be annoyance on the part of agriculture or that Deputies would be inclined to lose their tempers in such a situation? What is preventing the farmers here from getting 40/- per cwt. for their cattle but the policy of the Government—this left-handed policy of paying the annuities without pretending that they are doing so, and practically inviting the Government of Great Britain to examine their left pockets while they are looking in the right-hand pockets. The British are getting every penny of the disputed moneys. No one knows that better than the Ministry. The agreement the Ministry made the other day was with the knowledge and connivance that the British were getting these moneys, and if any other proof is required, this Estimate shows that they could not be more expensively collected.

Take the item dealing with the Pigs and Bacon Boards. It will be found that they are costing £13,000 or £14,000, while at the other end of the book of Estimates will be found £16,000 in appropriations. Where is that to come from? That is a blister upon the pig production of this country. At prices at present available for pigs is it reasonable to expect producers to keep up a Government Department at their expense? There is another huge sum down again for institutions at Roscrea and Waterford. Are these places for the normal business of this country or only for dealing with the situation with which we are confronted? The Minister warned us he would scarcely be in a position to discuss these items, and that he expected Deputies to help him in connection with the business he has to do, and that is, to fight the economic war, while he knows from the day that he entered on it he has lost it. The situation is such that it is beyond the wit of man to understand the mentality of those responsible for this agricultural policy and the dispute between the two countries. It is very reminiscent of what occurred on the Continent between France and Germany as far back as 1870, a dispute which has cursed Europe for 60 or 70 years, and which must be settled some time sooner or later. So it is with this problem. Can there be a more expensive way, as far as this country is concerned, of carrying on this dispute than that in which we are engaged at the present moment? I do not believe there can. The sooner the Minister realises that the sooner the work of his Department can be carried out, the sooner attention can be paid to speeches such as that made by Deputy Mrs. Concannon, and the sooner we can go in for a real effort towards producing conditions that will make for employment in the country, and that will ensure for our people a happy and contented living in their own country.

Mr. Kehoe

I had hoped that after the oasis into which we were led by Deputy Mrs. Concannon possibly the debate would have resumed a rather placid level. I am sorry to say that the tirade, masquerading as statesmanship to which we were treated by the last Deputy who spoke has, to a certain extent, removed the good impression made by Deputy Mrs. Concannon's speech. If one cared to adopt the tu quoque argument, one might further remove that good impression, but I shall forego that temptation. Deputy Mrs. Concannon spoke of the necessity of starting a school, technical or otherwise, in the island of Aran. Perhaps I might venture to remind her that such a school, judging by her description of conditions there, had better be started in the Isle of Innisfree. The economic war has stalked across the stage once more. I can say with perfect truth that it will be a very bad day for the Opposition when it is over. What in the name of goodness will they do when the economic war is finished? As I said before, like Othello their occupation will be gone. They will have no further opportunities for launching tirades on the country, tirades to which nobody pays any attention, tirades which emanate from a blend of rancour or resentment. We are told that we should try to settle this problem as other countries are trying to settle their problems; that we are confronted with a problem that confronts other nations. No doubt other nations have done their best to settle their problems, and if their united intellects have failed to settle these problems in the course of many years, we cannot be said to be lacking in grey matter if in the short time at our disposal we have failed to settle our problems. Now, if I may introduce a personal touch, I do not often indulge in personalities in this House. That is the only claim I can make. Yesterday when this debate was initiated attention was called to a lecture which had been given by the Minister for Agriculture in County Wexford. The lecture was on self-sufficiency, an excellent subject one would think, excellent in theory and excellent in practice, if it were carried into practice, certainly not a subject to be jeered or gibed at by any member of the Opposition, an ideal to be aimed at, an ideal which formed the lode star of the late Arthur Griffith in his day, and an ideal which his successors on the opposite benches are leaving behind them to-day. One Deputy attempted to compliment me and incidentally misquoted me. What I said on that occasion was that this Government had done more to make Ireland self-sufficient than any Government since the days of Brian Boru. The Deputy fastened on the words “Brian Boru,” but I simply quoted the time of Brian Boru as an epoch and I dated my argument from that. Deputy Mulcahy said something about Brian Boru.

General Mulcahy

What I said was that Fianna Fáil claimed to be a first cousin of his.

Mr. Donnelly

Second cousins.

Mr. O'Neill

Once removed.

Mr. Kehoe

I see nothing derogatory in being a cousin of Brian Boru. I think the interruption was rather irrelevant, but not being a practised debater I cannot insist on that. I was quoted as having said that the present Government had done more to make the country self-sufficient than Brian Boru. I do not mind being misquoted by some Deputies, but I do not like to be misunderstood by a man so capable of appreciating literary allusions as Deputy James Burke. Deputy McGovern spoke about beef bulls, etc., and Deputy Cosgrave marvelled at the reduction in numbers of such bulls. On the one hand, Deputy McGovern says that the Department, with all its works and pomps, should be scrapped and wiped out of existence; that there is no necessity for it. On the other hand, the leader—or is he their leader?—they may have swopped as they have done a dozen times before—seems to indicate that we should spend more money on bulls and prize stock of every description. Which statement is to be taken as an expression of the Party's policy, and who shall judge? Not I.

As far as the production of beef bulls is concerned, and the necessity therefor, I would remind Deputy McGovern that strangely enough it might be necessary to produce beef bulls in order to improve the quality of our dairy cattle. I think it is a recognised axiom amongst cattle breeders at the present day that the introduction of a certain number of beef bulls is necessary to improve the qualities of our dairy cattle. It is even suggested that the quality of our dairy cattle is deteriorating because of the practice of constantly using dairy bulls. I take it that the Department is fully aware of the requirements in that matter. Much play has been made about the price of calves during this régime and the last régime, and about the slaughter of calves. After all, we must remember, as has been pointed out here frequently, that we are not compelling farmers to slaughter their calves or sows. The farmer has a free choice in the matter. As far as the price of calves is concerned, there have been ups and downs in the price of other animals as well as calves. In the closing days of Deputy Cosgrave's reign the price of pigs went to an abnormally low level. I recollect pigs being sold at 5/6 each at three months old. I think that cannot be denied by any reputable member of the House. They went as low as 25/- or 22/- per cwt., and there was then no economic war with Britain. There was then nothing in that way that could conceivably affect the price of pigs. Nevertheless, the price fell to a very low level, but we heard nothing about the price of pigs in those days. There was no economic war then or no dispute with Britain, personal or otherwise, trotted across the stage. These falls are peculiar to no country in the world.

One would think that certain farmers were the sole repository of agricultural wisdom in this country when one hears West Cork talking. West Cork locutus est causa finita est. This is not the only country where agricultural prices are at a low level and where the farming community are going through a lean time. People talk of boards and regulations and of the way in which the Irish farmers are handicapped by such regulations. How far is that true? Those sitting on the opposite benches, who take refuge in the pabulum which comes across the water, must realise that the farmers in England are crying out daily against the rigorous restrictions which are imposed upon them by boards and everything else of that kind. They are crying out for more tariffs; they are crying out to have the quotas lessened and the effective tariffs against other countries increased, even against their own Dominions. In fact, they are regulated from the cradle to the grave. In agricultural England, for the past ten years, they have cheese boards, bacon boards, pig boards, beet boards, milk boards— more boards than would make a platform for Fine Gael; and yet, forsooth, we are asked to believe that this is the only country which is board-ridden and down-trodden when it comes to agriculture. I say that is a rotten, futile and provocative postulate. It is characteristic of the rodent criticism that emanates from the opposite benches, criticism which undermines and consists of tirades and tornadoes of abuse at the men who have occupied these benches during the past four years. We have gone in for a policy of self-sufficiency. I think it is the only sound policy should any cataclysm come upon the country; should this country be so unhappy and unfortunate as to become involved, even slightly involved, in the maelstrom of war which is threatening to engulf Europe. We think it is only right that it should be prepared for that by a policy of self-sufficiency. The Government have prepared for that by their beet schemes and their wheat schemes, and if they have erred they have erred nobly. I venture to say that they deserve the admiration of every thinking man, instead of the rodent criticism which is characteristic of the Opposition.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thought the Deputy said he would avoid personalities.

Mr. Kehoe

If I have been led into personalities I regret it. By their "Oh's" and their wailings the Deputies opposite have, I fear, led me away by their bad example for which, Sir, I ask your pardon and theirs.

Mr. Everett

We have heard from some of our friends on the right of the great wages that are paid to agricultural labourers. We were delighted to learn that agricultural workers in Kildare and Leix in regular employment are getting something like 25/- and 30/- a week. Unfortunately, in the constituency that I represent the people are not able to take advantage of either the Minister's wheat scheme or his beet scheme. The result is that the labourers in that county are not receiving more than £1 or 22/6 a week. The latter would be about the maximum figure on a few estates. We are criticising this Estimate because the Government have done nothing to set up an agricultural wages board. Our opposition to the Estimate on that ground is not to be taken as meaning that we are in disagreement with the Government in the fight they are making to retain the land annuities. Deputy McGilligan said that Deputy Davin had made the statement that he would be in favour of making a token payment to England. That was Deputy Davin's own personal view. Personally, I object to one penny going as a token payment or otherwise to England. The Labour Party to-day, as heretofore, stand unitedly and solidly behind the Government in their determination to bring this fight to a successful issue.

Our criticism of the Government is based on this, that some of the soldiers engaged in that fight are not being treated as soldiers in the fight should be treated. The soldiers that I refer to are the agricultural labourers. We claim that they are not being paid a just wage. Notwithstanding what Deputy Kehoe has said about all the boards that we have, the Government have done nothing so far to set up an agricultural wages board, which would ensure the payment of a guaranteed wage to the agricultural labourers in the same way as the farmer is getting a guaranteed price for his crops.

An Ceann Comhairle

Would not that require legislation?

Mr. Everett

The point that I want to bring out is that our objection to the Estimate is not on the grounds that some Deputies have stated. They wanted to represent that we were wavering in our determination to help the Government to carry on the fight with England over the payment of the land annuities. I want to tell the Minister that if he is willing to do something for the men engaged in this fight by setting up a wages board, we are prepared to support the Government in the fight they are carrying on. He knows the conditions in the constituency that I represent. He is a resident there himself, and he must know that the wages of farm labourers are becoming steadily worse. We are not putting forward this claim for a wages board by way of opposition to the Government. We know that a certain amount of money is being saved this year in connection with the bounties. We think that some of it should be made available, by means of grants, for public bodies to assist them to employ more men and to pay a higher rate of wages to those already employed.

Deputy Harris talked about the division of land. In the constituency I represent, the only knowledge that we have of the Land Commission is in connection with their activities collecting the annuities. The Land Commission are not dividing any land in my part of the country. They have refused to interfere with some of the big ranches and big estates in the County Wicklow.

I observe that provision is being made in the Estimate for £22,000 to improve the milk supply of the country. I wonder why, in view of the fact that an inspector from another Government Department has reported that skim milk is quite good enough for dying patients in hospital. I would ask the Minister to look into that inspector's report and see if he agrees with it. If he does, then I imagine that this £22,000 could be devoted to some other purpose in connection with agriculture. Of course, I do not agree with the inspector's report, but that is what we got in the County Wicklow.

I want to assure Deputy Donnelly that we are quite sincere in our determination to support the Government in the fight they are carrying on. While that is so, we are not prepared to sit here silent, or to give a silent vote, in support of a Government that would allow some of its Ministers to treat public bodies with contempt. We are entitled to criticise it, and if some of those who are supporting the Government are not familiar with rural conditions, we feel it our duty to remind the Government of what those conditions are. The Government are carrying on a big fight with another country, but we want to remind them that the farm labourer is an important member in that struggle. He is worthy of the help that we are seeking to get for him. We hope that the Government will see its way to set up a wages board, and thus help to provide the agricultural labourer with a decent livelihood. Let us have guaranteed wages as well as guaranteed prices. If the Government make such a provision, then they can be assured of the united support of the farming community in the county that I come from, united support which I believe will help to bring the fight that they are engaged in to a successful issue.

Mr. Minch

Deputy Everett used some very strong threats recently. One of the things I read that he said was that he was going to break up the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Everett

I never gave expression to any such threat. I was criticising certain Ministers and if a pressman reports me as saying something different from what I did say, that is not my fault. When I feel that there is a need to do so, I will criticise Ministers whether I am in the Labour Party or out of it.

Mr. Minch

This Vote has been very widely discussed. Live stock, milk, butter, eggs, poultry, bacon marketing boards, calves and a hundred and one other items have been dealt with, some of which had very little bearing on the Vote. One important portion of this Estimate has not been referred to in my presence—that is, grain. We have, of course, heard references to wheat, but the problem which is facing the Minister is in respect of oats and, to a lesser extent, barley. We have heard that production of cattle and live stock is a necessary adjunct to and goes hand in hand with increased tillage. Members of the House will bear me out when I say that if one goes from Waterford up to Kildare one sees the whole country almost red along the Barrow valley. Since the wheat scheme has more or less broken down, due to the impossibility of the weather in winter and to the impossibility of getting seed wheat in the early spring, the Department of Agriculture are faced with this problem of oats and barley. In both crops, at the present time, there is a surplus. The attempts of the Department to meet the situation by the admixture scheme we have heard attacked and defended. I do not intend to refer to that question, but I hold that one of the reasons why spring sowing broke down was due to the impossibility of getting seed wheat through the ports, particularly Dublin port. I should like the Labour Party to take a keen interest in getting the dockers to carry out their duty properly here in Dublin. Wheat was brought in and slung into the old warehouses. It seems to me that the gangers, or gaffers, have not the slightest control, or do not exercise the slightest control, as regards the way these things are treated. I feel I am justified in bringing that to the notice of the Government. Officials down there did not seem to understand that a great crisis had arisen, with the result that it took a fortnight, and sometimes three weeks, to get a licence to bring in seed wheat and meet the terrific scarcity in the intensive tillage area from which I come, and outside it.

Throughout the length and breadth of the land, there will be tremendous areas tilled this year, for which some other crop than wheat will have to be found. I am against Government interference and officialism, but I think the time is coming when control will have to be exercised over oats and barley to see that no more is sown than the country can consume. That will have to be done if there is ever to be a chance of the producer obtaining a proper price. Last year, 618,000 acres of oats were sown. To a large extent, it was unsaleable. Messrs. Guinness took a large amount of barley off the hands of factors, yet the barley problem is one which the Government are not able to solve. Oats being a cereal which can be fed to human beings as well as to animals, I suggest that it should be, more or less, controlled. That done, I imagine that an economic price would ultimately accrue to the farmer for that cereal, without the admixture scheme. There were 138,000 acres under barley last year. What happened? Although there were 7,000 acres less under production than the year before, the yield per acre brought about an increased surplus of nearly 200,000 barrels. These problems are facing the Government and if barley and oats are going to be substituted for wheat owing to the bad winter, the Government will be faced with a tremendous problem. The problem should be considered at an early date. There is a big, unconsumed surplus in the hands of factors which will probably be carried into next year's yield. If that be so, an acute grain crisis will arise and we shall have to face a situation which we, who are interested in grain production, find insoluble at the moment. The Department is doing all it can, but the position will be worse unless some grain plan is brought into existence.

I understand that there is a possibility of a special Bill being introduced to deal with barley and oats. The sooner that Bill comes before the country the better, so that those interested—and judging by the acreage there are many—will know how they stand and that the factors will, on their part, know what they will have to face. Reference was made to agricultural wages. I am one of those who like to speak frankly. I do not believe in speaking in the terms Deputy Norton spoke about wage-slashing and wage-cutting. That was no more than a political speech. There was no sincerity in it. If there had been sincerity in it, some constructive proposal would have been made. Over and over again, we hear these fine speeches and catch cries, but never is there a constructive detail. Why could not Deputy Norton have taken up the question of the sugar industry? That is a national industry, with four enormous factories, catering for nearly 60,000 acres. The wages of the unskilled workers in those factories are four times the wages that the agricultural labourer gets. Surely some arrangement could be made, on the basis possibly of acreage for working these farms, whereby they could share in some of the good wages which are being paid to the beet workers in the factories. That alone would help in some respect his own constituency—the south of it, at all events—and also the constituency whose suffrages he will probably be claiming in the next election, County Carlow. I say, however, that all this talk and all these long speeches are only for the purpose of vote catching. There is no sincerity behind them and no sincere effort is being made to remedy the state of affairs. Therefore, I say that it is time that these crocodile tears were dried up. There is another matter to which I should like to call the Minister's attention. A lot of grain was lost last year by reason of the tremendous shortage of threshing machines in this country. Up and down the country last harvest farmers waited for weeks upon weeks until many a time the grain in the stooks went wrong because they could not get it threshed, and the wheat and oats and barley had to be set aside for animal feeding purposes. That affected the amount of grain for distilling and brewing purposes, and oats could not be bought at all. The Minister should keep that matter in mind. We heard something also about the Agricultural Credit Corporation. That body can do a lot more than merely advancing money for land. They can advance it for the purchase of machinery, and would do a lot of good by advancing it for such purposes particularly in connection with the last point I have made.

Mr. Keyes

Judging by the length of the debate on this Estimate, the importance of the agricultural industry in this country is not being lost sight of and is taking its full place in the ordinary affairs of the State. Of course, the debate would not have been concluded properly without Deputy Minch making his contribution to the alleged hypocrisy of the Labour Party. However, in that respect, he is only singing the song of a lot of members on both sides of the House whenever any effort is made by the Deputies on this bench to bring about an amelioration of the conditions of the workers. The monopoly of that kind of thing is left to the Fine Gael Benches and, in some instances, the Fianna Fáil Benches. Everything that is said from these benches here is deliberately warped and twisted by the politicians of the big Parties, but this Party will still persist in stating that, when discussing the Agricultural Estimate, the discussion should embrace agriculture in all its moods and tenses. There are people here interested in wheat and in grain generally, as the previous Deputy has mentioned. Others are interested in milk and various other forms of agriculture, but the principal interest of the Deputies on these benches here is the provision of decent wages and decent conditions for the agricultural workers, and we have continually cried out—not alone to-day or yesterday, but to previous Governments as well as the Fianna Fáil Government—that a fair crack of the whip should be given all round and that the agricultural workers should be paid decent wages.

We have got very little sympathy in our efforts at any time. Let us cast our minds back to the Fine Gael treatment of agricultural workers or of workers in other forms of industry in this country. We have even been taunted by some of the Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches, who have said that it is amazing on our part to attempt to support the referring back of this Estimate. It has been pointed out by Deputy Everett already that it is no pleasure to us to obstruct the necessary business of the country, but we believe we are perfectly entitled to do so as a protest against the present conditions of the agricultural workers. The Minister and other Deputies who spoke in this discussion have failed to deny that no decent effort has been made to bring the wages and conditions of the workers up to a reasonable standard.

Deputy Donnelly spoke of the Labour Party riding their horses. Deputy Donnelly will get a chance of displaying his equestrian experience himself. He poses as an advocate of the farmers and even boasts that, when young, he worked on a farm himself and for very small remuneration. Well, he will have an opportunity of saying on what side he stands. Does he stand for allowing the continuance of the shocking conditions, which he admits exist, and which he did not attempt to deny in his very voluble speech, in which he said nothing, on the Estimate under discussion? He sidetracked all the issues that mattered but he did not attempt to deny that the policy of the Labour Party on the question of agricultural wages is a good policy. Many of the Deputies who talk so much about their sympathy have never lifted a finger to try to improve the position of the agricultural worker. We are here representing these men, who are men of no property and who have nothing to sell except their labour, and we would be betraying the interests of the people who sent us here to represent them if we did not use our voices and our votes to call the Government's attention, in the most effective way at our disposal, to the fact that, until they see their way to meet us in a reasonable attempt to better the conditions of these workers, we shall oppose them, and that, just as they have given subsidies for the production of various commodities on the farms, they should also take steps to subsidise the most interesting part of the agricultural industry—the human element —the non-property people, the agricultural workers.

As Deputy Everett has said, our attitude in this matter ought not to be twisted or diverted into anything but what its intention is. This is not the first time for us to vote against this Government and other Governments in defence of the rights of the workers. It will be remembered by Deputies, whose minds might be forgetful if they want to be forgetful, that on a Forestry Vote last year we found it necessary to oppose the Government as we could not stand for a wage of 22/- a week, and we forced the Government to a majority of two. We are prepared to force them to a majority of two or a majority of one, on this matter also, if they cannot see their way to meet us reasonably.

Mr. Finlay

But you would not like to beat them.

Mr. Keyes

We are prepared to beat them, or to beat any other Government, in defence of what we believe to be right—not merely by way of destructive criticism, or from a desire to obstruct what we believe is a sound and a good policy, but because we believe its benefits ought to be extended to the people who matter in the agricultural industry and because we believe that they should get a fair share both of the prosperity of the farmers in prosperous time and of the difficulties during the period of transition. We recognise the difficulties of the farmers. We also recognise what the Government has done to try to meet the difficulties of the farmers, but we say that they have not given equally fair treatment to the agricultural labourers. That can be found, in all its moods and tenses, all through the Government policy. The workers are victimised by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who told them that there was sufficient work in the agricultural fields to justify an Employment Period Order, and who then, without waiting to see the effects of his first Employment Period Order, comes along and inflicts another one on them. The Minister comes along, blithely, and tells us there is plenty of work, let them go and find it. In issuing that Order he floods the agricultural market with labourers from the urban areas who go out to seek work which should be done by the agricultural workers. These things are being done. Other people are clamouring for protection for the various branches of agriculture but they have nothing to say about the condition of the agricultural labourers.

I agree with Deputy Everett that when the Minister is concluding this discussion he should tell us in what respect he thinks our demands are unreasonable. Let him show how he has done what he is entitled to do, and how far the Department of Industry and Commerce have given to this matter the consideration it is entitled to get. If the Minister cannot hold out to us an assurance that our demands will be met, and if he cannot give us an assurance that he will concede demands and the rights of the agricultural labourers, then we will show him that we will vote against this Estimate and vote in favour of having it referred back for reconsideration. We fling back the taunt of hypocrisy made against us by several Deputies in this House. We are as honest, on these benches, as Deputies of the Fine Gael or the Fianna Fáil Parties. We are influenced only by one consideration and that is casting our votes in the interests of the people we represent here.

Mr. Finlay

I wish to make a few remarks upon this Agricultural Estimate. As a matter of fact, there is very little left for anyone to say after the speeches made during the last few days while this matter was under discussion. But having been reared in the agricultural industry, I find it difficult to listen patiently to many people, who know nothing about agriculture, talking about it and taking up time on the subject. I was reared on agriculture. I get my bread and butter from it, and so did my ancestors before me, and I feel it my duty now to make some remarks upon this Vote. At the present time, the Fianna Fáil Party have put us agriculturists into a very awkward position. They have pushed us to manage our farms, and to work them in a way that we were not in the habit of working them.

There are two problems that every farmer has to face up to at present. One of these is the growing of beet and wheat and the other is the ordinary kind of farming we were used to. As a matter of fact the growing of beet is nothing new to me. I grew beet years and years ago, for the Carlow factory, when the Carlow factory was supposed to be a white elephant. It was described as a white elephant by Fianna Fáil speakers and propagandists during recent elections. The first Carlow beet factory was not a white elephant, but was a factory that paid the farmers well in those days. When the Carlow factory came into existence, and up to 1931, it was paying a price for beet with 15.5 sugar content, of 54/- a ton, and for every point over that 2/6, bringing the price to £3 4s. per ton. I have got that money myself from the Carlow factory.

We have now built three more factories. We have now four factories, and it is supposed to be the main industry for this country to grow beet at 37/6 a ton with 17.5 sugar content. If that is the case, and if beet grown now is to get only 37/6 per ton, why, I ask, did the people who were making £3 4s. a ton, formerly, cancel their contract? Any number of farmers cancelled their contracts when they were getting £3 4s. a ton from the Carlow factory, and the reason for that was this: There was another commodity, namely, live stock, which the farmer was producing which was paying better and so the live-stock trade was killed and ruined by the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government. I am a grower of beet and I shall give the Minister some figures as to what it costs to grow an acre of beet. The figures are as follows:—Rent and rates, 3/-; manure, £3; beet seeds, £1; thinning, 30/-; pulling, £2; ploughing and setting, £3; delivery from farm to factory, of ten tons of beet at 7/- per ton, £3 10/-. These figures make up £15 10/-. The total received from the factory last year, for ten tons of beet at 37/6 a ton, was £18 10/-. The outlay was £15 10/-, leaving a profit to the farmer of £3 per acre. That is the profit the farmer is getting out of this great industry. I pass now from beet to wheat which I also grow.

Mr. Jordan

On a point of explanation, would it not be fair for the Deputy to say what he gets for his beet pulp?

Mr. Finlay

I leave that to the Deputy. I am not going to cross the Jordan.

Mr. Jordan

You are going into the Dead Sea.

Mr. Finlay

I leave that to you anyway. As a matter of fact I would say wheat, in certain circumstances, would be a paying crop. It is what I might call a chancey crop. For instance, if you do not get weather suitable it is a very doubtful crop. It is not since the present Government came into power that I am growing wheat. I sowed wheat 15 or 20 years ago, and sometimes got a very good return. I got 20 barrels to the acre, 20 years ago. But I also sowed crops of wheat that I had to plough into the ground afterwards because, owing to the inclemency of the weather, the seed rotted in the ground. It is all right if the weather is favourable and the crop is a success, but some years it is very hard to grow wheat. An acre of spring wheat takes much more seed—28 to 30 stone—than an acre of winter wheat. To sow an acre of spring wheat would cost £3 10s. for seed and that would surely break the heart in an acre of wheat. Then again the straw is not as useful to the farmer as the straw from barley or oats. I have considered all these matters and I know every item of this business, and I claim to know what to do and how to do it on a farm. As far as farming is concerned, I expect I know as much about it as any Deputy.

We were told by Fianna Fáil that when they got into power we would have a big increase in tillage—something like 1,500,000 acres extra. I should like to see tillage increased, but it was an exaggeration on the part of Fianna Fáil to say that they could increase tillage by 1,500,000 acres. As a matter of fact, the tillage at present, without the live-stock trade, is one of the biggest failures in this country, because tillage cannot get on without live stock. If he has not farmyard manure I would not advise any person to till land. If you till lea land without putting in farmyard manure it may look well when ploughed. It will grow a crop and you will get some return for it. But when a crop of wheat is taken off that land, the stubble land would not be worth the rates and taxes. The person having that land should set it and get somebody else to manure it. The man is doing a good day's work for himself if he gives it away for the rates and taxes.

That is what that wheat does to land. I have had experience of it. I am in favour of tillage. I have tilled all my life. At present 40 per cent. of my land is under tillage, and I have always tilled that much. I have always stall-fed cattle and often had as many as 35 or 40 in the year, and they were paying me. I used to grow from eight to 12 acres of turnips. I could farm then and my land paid me, because I had farmyard manure which put a heart into my land, so that my land was able to give a good return. Let no one think that artificial manure is going to keep the heart in any land. It is like a person taking a half of whiskey or a half of rum. It may elevate him for the time being, but the effect is not lasting. Artificial manure is no use.

With all the promises that we got about extra tillage the tillage policy has been a failure. We have about 190,000 acres extra of tillage at present, but it costs about £2,000,000 to subsidise that extra tillage. There is a subsidy for beet and a subsidy for wheat. Who is paying these subsidies? Is it not the consumer? As a grower, I personally may be getting something out of the subsidies. I am subsidised for growing these crops. But what about the man who has hilly land on which he cannot grow beet or wheat? He has to pay me for growing these crops. What about the man in the labourer's cottage who has to pay from 8d. to 10d. more each week for flour, and a 1/- more for a half stone of sugar than he should pay? These are the men who are supporting me—the poor man on the side of the hill and on the side of the road. The farmer is paid for the crop, but the man who is able to grow no crop is the man who is supporting the farmer. One part of the community is carrying the other part on its back. I shall not stress this further, because it has been debated over and over again. Even my friend Deputy Donnelly yesterday could not allow agriculture to go without giving his views upon it. Of course, he represents an agricultural constituency at present, but he knows nothing about agriculture. That is not paying him much of a tribute. I like to hear a man speak about agriculture or any other subject that he has some interest in or that he knows something about.

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy Mulcahy, for instance, or Deputy McGilligan.

Mr. Finlay

Then, as to horse breeding. We had a commission inquiring into that matter and they approved of the Irish draught horse. They are probably right in that to a certain extent, because if we want to produce good hunters or high-class horses, we will have to go back to what we call the half-bred horse, or the Irish draught horse. The Irish draught horse will do a certain amount of farm work with the plough and the harrow, etc., but when it comes to heavy work, the Irish draught horse is not capable of it. At present we have many people down the country, especially small farmers, crying out for the heavy horse—the Shire or some other heavy draught horse. I do not blame them, because they sell young horses at one and a half or two and a half years' old. As a matter of fact, if they have not heavy horses, the shippers will not buy from them, because they want the heavy, hairy horses. Apart from that, I certainly would advocate the introduction of the Shire horse into Leix. I understand they have Shire horses in Offaly, but I would ask the Minister to develop the production of Shire horses in Leix.

Mr. Anthony

The Minister for Agriculture last night, in defending the policy of his Department, suggested that there was no increase in the cost of living since the present Government took office. I should like to ask the Minister if he can deny that the cost of various commodities used in the ordinary working-class home has gone up considerably—such commodities as soap, tea, sugar, butter, margarine, and other commodities in general use in working-class homes. If the Minister wants any confirmation of my statement as against his he can easily get it in the returns published from month to month. The official returns published from time to time are not always correct, but in the main they are generally true. For a certain brand of tea sold in multiple shops in this country and across Channel, the price here is from 4d. to 6d. per lb. more than cross-Channel; jam is from a 1d. to 3d. a lb. more; cheese is 3d. per lb. more; candles, 2d. per lb more; household soap in 1 lb. bars, 3d. per lb. bar more; granulated sugar, manufactured in our own country, which we have heard so much about, 1¾d. to 2d. per lb. more in this country than across the Border or across Channel; and butter from 5d. to 6d. per lb. more. Yet the Government spokesmen tell us that the cost of living has not gone up.

To a certain extent, I blame the Labour Party for assisting them along this line of increasing the cost of living for the working-class people. I would remind the Minister, as proof of that, if proof were needed, although he will, perhaps, not accept it, that in Cork City during the last couple of weeks a demand for increased wages was made on behalf of a number of workmen who were members of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. These labourers in the employment of the Cork Corporation, claimed and justly claimed, that the cost of living had increased so much since 1928 that their wages should be increased by 10/- a week. Luckily, and perhaps happily, for all concerned, due to the good offices of the representative of the Department of Industry and Commerce, as well as to the sweet reasonableness of the aldermen and of the representatives of the union concerned, a settlement was arrived at which involved an increase of 3/6 per week in the wages of these corporation workmen. Surely, that ought to be evidence enough to the Minister that in his statement—I will not say it was a misstatement—that the cost of living in this country had not gone up, he was under a misapprehension.

I am glad to see that the Labour Party, like the proverbial worm, has turned, and that they are not going to support whole-hog a policy which has resulted, not alone in the practical destruction of our main industry, but in the impoverishment of thousands upon thousands of our fellow-countrymen in this State. I am glad also to see the Labour Party at one with me when I say the cost of living has gone up because we see evidence of that here on the Order Paper. The Labour Party has on the Order Paper a motion which inter alia says that during the last two years—and I put some emphasis on these words — the retail prices of commodities normally used in working-class homes have been raised substantially. I agree with the Labour Party in that, and I am very glad to see that they have come round to that view. Personally, I have been preaching that for the last two years, and I got no support from the Labour Party. I am very glad that they have put down this motion now, and I hope they are sincere in it. I believe they are. I believe also that Deputy Everett who spoke on behalf of the Party was sincere, and I do hope they will keep up the pressure in the interests of the working-class people of this country, and will see to it that our main industry is not penalised to the extent to which it is penalised, because the Labour Party must recognise, as I recognise, that by reason of the penalisation of our main industry, poverty and misery have descended upon the working-class people.

I want to say one more word before I finish. I want to suggest to the Minister—I do not want to use the word warn—that something should be done to bring about a change in this policy with regard to the increasing number of officials. The continued increase in the number of officials, not alone in his Department, but throughout the whole of the Civil Service, is causing a good deal of uneasiness in the country. I can well remember the time when the Minister was in Opposition and when a campaign was conducted against the then Cosgrave Government throughout the country, in which the slogan was "the horde of officials above in Dublin who are battening on the people." Heavens above, they have almost doubled now. If the present number of officials were in Government offices during the Cosgrave régime I wonder what would Deputies on the opposite side say?

They occupied columns and columns of the newspapers in those days in displaying the salaries of officials, from the men who had only £100 or £200 a year to the men with £1,000 a year. That was their cry—"Ministers with their thousands a year rolling around in expensive motor-cars." We had all this kind of bunk, and it was nothing else but bunk at the time. What do Ministers think of their own Government? They may say that this expenditure is justified, but surely they do not intend to continue to batten on the people much longer, or, at any rate, to establish a permanent Civil Service which is costing the country many thousands of pounds more per annum. That will go on for many years, because once these civil servants are established they are going to remain in their positions for the remainder of their natural lives.

Mr. O'Leary

Listening to the Deputy from Limerick, who has just spoken, and to Deputy Everett from Wicklow, one would imagine that they were serious when resenting the charge made against them of being hypocrites. I must say that, as a rule, I have very little sympathy with the Minister for Agriculture, but the one and only occasion on which I do feel sympathy for him is when the Deputies on the Labour Benches criticise him for a policy for which they are just as responsible as he is himself. I shall come to the subject of wages and the unemployment that exists in the country later on. It also struck me when Deputy Kehoe was speaking a few moments ago, and when I saw the light way in which he was treating the serious subject under consideration— the fact that, as a result of Government policy, the great bulk of the agricultural population of this country is in a position in which they are unable to meet their demands—that it was very serious to see Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches so amused by his light manner of treating the subject. I wish that when I went to a fair down the country I could see as many smiles on the faces of the farmers as I saw on the faces of the Fianna Fáil Deputies.

Deputy O'Reilly told us that the farmers in County Meath were able to pay their rates and annuities, and that the late Government did nothing to improve the breed of cattle during the ten years they held office. Did anybody ever hear such nonsense coming from the lips of any responsible Deputy? Everybody knows that the late Government made themselves unpopular because they embarked on a policy of trying to improve the breed of cattle in this country. We had Fianna Fáil Deputies in Opposition criticising them with regard to bull inspections up and down the country, but the people in the Government at that time, as Deputy Cosgrave always said, did what they thought was best for the country, and not what was popular. That is the attitude we adopt to-day in Opposition, and if there were no other Deputy to express the opinions I am expressing here and have expressed here on several occasions, I would continue to express them.

Deputy O'Reilly comes from a county which is one of the richest counties in the Free State. What about the people I and a great many other Deputies represent? He says they are able to pay their rates and annuities. The people in Meath—and I have said this here previously—went in for dry cattle in the past.

When the economic war started the people who had advanced stores and fat cattle on their hands got a very bad shot, but I would say that what they lost then they got back in the double afterwards. These people were able to go down to the country to the people who reared store cattle and they were able to buy these stores at any price they wished to offer for them. I challenge any farmer Deputy on the Government benches to stand up here and contradict that statement. Is it not a fact that three-year old cattle were bought by graziers in Kerry at 25/- to 30/- or 35/- each? Is it any wonder then that Deputy Seán Flynn who comes from Kerry told us yesterday that the farmers there are in a bad way? What is the Deputy doing and what does he intend to do to better the condition of these farmers? Does the Deputy think that those agricultural schemes of the Minister are going to create any great change in the condition of these people? Surely he does not.

We are now told that there is a scarcity of stores in the country. There was a time when the Fianna Fáil Party during the elections told us that the British market was gone. Many honest people in the country believed them. I know people, friends of my own, who told me that they believed them when they said that if the economic war were settled we could not find a market in England for our cattle. Yesterday, the Minister for Agriculture, speaking on this Estimate, blew that cry sky-high. The Minister said "we disposed of more cattle in 1935 than were ever disposed of in any one year by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. We got more cattle into Great Britain under our present quotas in 1935 than the Cumann na nGaedheal Government ever had cattle to send." I ask the Minister this—was that good business? Deputy Donnelly told us that Deputy Cosgrave gave £50,000,000 to Great Britain. I expect he meant that in the ten years these £50,000,000 were paid to Great Britain.

Mr. Donnelly

Sure.

Mr. O'Leary

That meant £5,000,000 a year. Will Deputy Donnelly contradict me when I state that as a result of the coal-cattle pact if Fianna Fáil remains ten years in office—

Mr. Donnelly

We will be 20 years in office.

Mr. O'Leary

—under the conditions in the coal-cattle pact the Fianna Fáil Government will have paid Great Britain £50,000,000? Is it not a fact that in addition to those £5,000,000 a year that are being collected under the coal-cattle pact, the farmers of this country to-day have to pay the President and this Government the sum of £2,100,000 a year for half the annuities? That would mean that in the course of ten years this Fianna Fáil Government would have forced the farmers to pay nearly £25,000,000 in addition to the £50,000,000 that Deputy Cosgrave's Government is supposed to have paid Great Britain? These are hard facts. I am not prepared to come in here and make any statement over which I am not able to stand. The Minister, speaking last night, said that he listened to eight speeches by the Opposition and that they did not make a single point that had not been made over and over again in the last few years. Their cry, he said, was: give us back our markets. Very well, that is our policy. If the people of this country send us back to power it is going to be our policy—to get back the markets which as a result of the Fianna Fáil policy have been lost to the people of this country. The people want the markets and they want a Government that will improve and extend them. Is it not a fact, as has been stated by several Deputies, that at the last general election the appeal that Fianna Fáil made to the people was: "Give us a majority over all Parties and England will be coming on her knees to settle with us"? Does not that in itself show the importance of settling the economic war?

The Minister said that some time ago he advised Deputy Cosgrave to ask the Deputies on his side 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. He went on to say then that in response to that, the Opposition made no suggestion. They did. The Minister said he had done things so perfectly that there was not the slightest criticism from the other side. He claimed that the Government was doing everything to the best advantage. I wonder what will the people of Wexford think of that? What will the people who live by the land think of that statement of the Minister's that the Government are doing everything to help the farmers? I have not met any people who think so. I have met people who supported the Government at the general election and they have admitted to me that they were carried away by promises. These people are only waiting for an opportunity to get their own back off the Government. The Minister, in the course of his speech, said that he appealed to Opposition Deputies on many occasions to leave the honest, hardworking farmers alone and to let them go on paying their way. I suspect the Minister took those very words from the speeches made by Deputy Hogan when he was Minister for Agriculture, when the Fianna Fáil Deputies were criticising the Government policy. I remember on one occasion hearing Deputy Hogan saying to those Deputies: "For goodness sake leave the farmers alone, they know their own business." That is just the position, the farmers do know their own business and no Minister, no Deputy on the Government benches could teach them their work.

We are accused of being politicians. When speaking here we are not speaking as politicians. We have always put our country before any other interests and God forbid that the day would come when I would come here and give utterance to views in which I did not believe. I have an interest in the country; I have an interest in agriculture and I have an interest in business. I have my own experience at the fair in my own village last fair day. That fair was the most deplorable ever held there. The general experience of the shopkeepers and others in the past was that when people had a few pounds they were inclined to spend them in the town or village, but the position is now different. They now put their hands in their pockets and close their fists on any little money that they get. They want this money in the endeavour to try to meet the increased demands made on them as a result of the Government policy.

The Minister told us that the labourers had not suffered as a result of the economic war. Does the Minister think that anybody believes that statement? The official statistics issued by the Minister for Industry and Commerce show that in the course of the last four years the wages of the agricultural labourers have been reduced by 4/- a week. A Labour Deputy said that labour was up against the late Government as they are standing up against this Government. Is it not a fact that the working-classes were better off under the late Government than they are to-day? We had some talk here about the cost of living and Deputy Anthony dealt with that matter. Senator Blythe when Minister for Finance put a duty of ½d. a lb. on sugar and the President himself calculated that on the average family this would represent a tax of 17/6 a year. If sugar is now costing 1½d. or 2d. in taxation, will it not mean three or four times 17/6 a year on each family? That is all the result of the policy of this Government.

And what are the people getting for all these taxes? They are getting some temporary employment. Recently the Minister for Local Government and Public Health said that the Government were giving allowances to farmers who gave permanent employment to their workmen. He said they were doing that because the tendency was to give temporary employment. Well, wheat is going to give temporary employment, and very little of that. I remember well the late Dr. Hennessy —God rest his soul—when he was representing South Dublin in this House saying that when the 1st April came the farmer put his wheat on the land. It stayed there for six months until it was reaped. In a favourable season the farmer came along with his machinery and reaped it in one or two days. That is all the employment it gave. I have experience myself of corn-growing. It gives very little employment really if you get a favourable season. But if you get an unfavourable season, where are you? Last year I had 22 acres under oats and I had a yield of 290 barrels. I would have lost most of that crop if there had been an unfavourable season. Fianna Fáil Deputies, when advocating wheat growing in the time of the late Government, laughed when told that the seasons were not favourable to wheat growing in this country. Have not these Deputies experience of the unfavourable nature of the season this year? Is it not a fact that up and down the country the farmers have failed this year to put in their wheat? They are now making an effort to put in Spring wheat. At the present moment I find it hard myself to plough tillage land. This is because the weather has been so wet in recent months.

What has all this wheat-growing policy done for the country? I was in a provision shop some time ago and I saw a labourer's wife paying 2/- or 2/4 for a stone of flour. I said that that lady had to pay from 6d. to 8d. a stone extra for that flour. I wonder would the Labour Party be able to tell us how many stones of flour are required to feed a family of six, a father, mother and four kids? It would be interesting to make a calculation as to the increased cost put on that family as a result of the combined Labour and Government policy. It might be well to find out what is on the other side to balance it. Is it not a fact that the wages of these people have been reduced? Yesterday the Minister for Agriculture said that Deputy Dillon must be talking through his hat, although he had not got a hat, when he spoke of a reduction from 28/- to 15/-. Deputy Dillon merely spoke the truth. When he was talking here last week, Deputy Norton said (Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 61, No. 1, col. 493):

"The manager of the employment exchange in Ennis directed a number of workers to proceed to an agricultural holding two miles from the town, there to engage in the work of topping beet for farmers. They were required to walk the two miles from the town to the farm, to work for 11 hours per day and walk the two miles back, and the munificent wage they were to receive for that work was 9/- per week. Some of those people could have got 12/6 per week in the form of unemployment assistance benefit.

Mr. Belton: And there are 83 factories in Clare!

Mr. Norton: The men refused to work 11 hours per day for 9/- per week. The employer, realising that the job had to be done, and that the workers would not work for 9/- per week, increased the rate of wages to 2/- per day for an 11-hour day.

Mr. O'Leary: Did they get their board with that?"

That shows that I want to be quite fair to the Government. I do not want to put anyone in a false position.

"Mr. Norton: They might have got a can of tea in the middle of the day. They went out in the morning, worked all day and went home in the evening.

Mr. Belton: Why spoil a good case by asking a question like that?

Mr. O'Leary: I wanted to help him."

I wanted to be honest. The debate went on:

"Mr. Norton: Five of the persons who were sent to this particular farm declined to work for 2/- per day for a day of 11 hours. They went back to the manager of the employment exchange and told him so. The manager of the exchange said that if they did not work for 2/- a day for a day of 11 hours he would have to suspend them from the receipt of unemployment assistance benefit. Here was a classical example of men being expected to engage in the laborious work of topping beet for 2/- per day when they could have got more in unemployment assistance benefit at the employment exchange. That is not the only instance of the conditions of agricultural workers. Some time ago it was reported in the Dublin daily Press that a member of a local authority stated that the persons working in his district—the district of Tullow, in the County Carlow—could not earn more in wages than from 10/- to 12/- per week, and the statement was not controverted by anybody. Again we recently had an example in the Roscommon District Court in an action to recover arrears of wages. The plaintiff was a farm labourer, and he stated that he had been employed at a wage of 8/- per week. The defendant farmer swore that the rate agreed upon was not 8/- per week, but 5/- per week. A full report of that case can be found in the Roscommon Herald. We had another instance at Rathfarnham, where an action was instituted in the District Court for the recovery of a balance of wages due. The plaintiff in that instance swore that he had agreed to milk cows and do general work for a dairy proprietress for a wage of 5/- per week, and his board.”

Candidly, I would not take workers at that wage. I believe in giving a man a decent wage and seeing that he gives a fair return for it. Deputy Norton adds:

"He alleged, however, that after six weeks he was paid only 3/-, and the court accepted his statement."

It must be true when the court accepted it. Then he goes on:

"About 12 months ago I caused inquiries to be made in 17 counties from reliable persons, in order to ascertain what were the prevailing rates of wages in respect of agricultural workers."

Of course it is the business of the Leader of the Labour Party to find out the conditions of the working classes. I think it is only right that I should read the Deputy's speech.

"I received replies from those 17 counties, and in only two instances, one in Offaly and the other in County Dublin, did I get evidence that a rate of wages in excess of 20/- per week was being paid. In October of last year the Minister did not know of the circumstances described by Deputy Davin, but the information I received in the matter was that in County Wexford agricultural workers were working for as low as 14/- a week; that in Kerry they were working for rates of wages from 12/- to 18/- per week; in Westmeath from 10/- to 12/- a week; in County Cork, from 15/- to 18/- per week; in Galway and Roscommon, from 15/- to 18/-; in Tipperary, from 15/- to 20/-; in Waterford, from 12/- to 18/-; in Meath, from 12/6 to 16/-; and in Sligo, from 10/- to 15/-."

Mr. Donnelly

What about Offaly? You skipped that very quickly.

Mr. O'Leary

I am not skipping anything. I am reading from the Official Report.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Donnelly objected to Deputy O'Leary reading the Official Report once, and now he wants him to go back on it a second time.

Mr. O'Leary

I now come to the question of pig-feeding. The Minister and myself discussed it across the House here during the course of his statement. The Minister explained that there was a difference of 14/- per cwt. between the different grades of pigs in this country. Some time ago the Chairman of the Pigs Marketing Board made a statement in which he said that his policy was to do away with fairs in this country. Doing away with fairs meant that you are doing away with competition and driving the shippers out of business. The Minister cannot very well deny—I have it from the dealers— that the heavy pigs which are put down here as being the lowest grade are worth practically the same price in the British market as the very best grade here. To illustrate the position in which the curers of this country are put, and to show the monopoly that is being given to them, I have here a statement sent to a farmer with regard to seven pigs which he sent to a certain curer in Cork. Four of those pigs were put down as class 1—that is, weighing from 1 cwt. and 14lbs. to 1 cwt. 2 qrs. and 3 lbs. That lbs. figure was 7, but they made it 3. Class 2 covered pigs weighing from 1 cwt. 2 qrs. and 4 lbs. to 1 cwt. and 3 qrs.; while class 3 covered pigs under 1 cwt. and 14 lbs. and pigs over 1 cwt. and 3 qrs., those being deemed to be unsuitable. I wonder what would the people of this country do with those unsuitable pigs if we had that market which we were told in the past was gone for ever. Just to give the House an idea of the monopoly which those curers have as a result of the Government policy, I may say that four of those pigs were paid for at the rate of 59/- per cwt.; two were paid for at the rate of 56/- per cwt., and one at the rate of 47/- per cwt. This last one was in the third class, and the weight was under 1 cwt. and 14lbs. But the pig weighed 1 cwt. and 15 lbs., and as a result of being 1 lb. overweight the unfortunate farmer had to submit to a loss of 12/- on that pig. When I asked the Minister to look into that position he denied that he had any right to interfere with the Pigs Marketing Board. I also asked him to insist on the maintenance of our fairs and markets, because they are a means of creating competition with the bacon curers. I hope the Minister will see that the Pigs Marketing Board will not interfere with these markets. I want now to deal with calves, because the Minister practically told me that I was a liar. Of course, he told me in a refined way. This is a report of what took place:—

"Dr. Ryan: Deputy O'Leary says he got £3 or more for dropped calves before the economic war.

Mr. O'Leary: Certainly, and your own supporters are in a position to prove it.

Mr. Belton: Let the Minister speak. This is the best dope he can get.

Dr. Ryan: It is the best yet.

Mr. O'Leary: It is quite true.

Dr. Ryan: Anyhow it shows what certain Deputies will descend to. They are prepared to say anything, and they have no regard for the truth."

I want to tell the Minister that I have regard for the truth; I have always had regard for it. I never made a statement that I was not prepared to stand over, and I will never have to go back to the people to apologise for any promise I made them. The price of dropped calves sold by me in 1930 varied from £3 15s. 0d. to £3 2s. 6d., and in 1931 prices varied from £2 15s. 0d. to £3 0s. 0d., £3 5s. 0d., £3 10s. 0d., £3 15s. 0d. and £4 15s. 0d. If the Minister denies that I got that price for dropped calves at that period he can have the list I have here investigated. I am sorry that I passed away from the pig question, because I want to show the burden that has been put on people who keep pigs and who cannot produce food for them. Senator Toal gave me the prices of pure Indian meal in Belfast as £4 17s. 6d. to £5 2s. 6d. a ton. The price of the admixture in Ballyvourney is £1 a sack, or £8 a ton. I was told by a shopkeeper that some people would not take the admixture at any price. To show the value that the people in County Cork set on pure Indian meal, I must refer to the policy of the Minister regarding that meal for human consumption. Some time ago he made a regulation that pure Indian meal should be made up in paper bags containing 3½ lbs. As it was found that people were buying that meal and paying 2/- or 3/- a stone more for it than for the admixture, the pure Indian meal had then to be put into 1 lb. paper packets. What has been the result? A dealer told me that he got 5 cwt. of the Indian meal one evening and that it was all gone the next morning. The people are continuing to buy the Indian meal. The Minister will have to reduce the quantity if he wants to prevent them continuing to buy it in preference to the admixture.

As I stated on previous occasions, an organisation was started in my district, which is in the Gaeltacht, to try to get the Government to relieve them from the hardships from which they suffer, owing to the policy imposed on them by the admixture scheme. In that part of the country the people practically carry on to a great extent by buying a bag of feeding stuff. To-day their cattle are thin and in a great many cases shadows, because they cannot afford to buy feeding stuffs at present prices. I think it is dishonest for any Government to impose such hardships on the people. On one occasion the Minister for Agriculture stated that it took 6 cwt. of meal to fatten a pig. If Deputy Corry cannot follow this I will give the figures. A difference of 2/6 per cwt. on 6 cwt. of feeding stuff makes 15/-, and that is the disadvantage which people in this part of the country are at, compared with prices paid in the Six Counties, on every pig produced. After all, the pig industry was one of the biggest in Ireland. The Minister spoke recently about self-sufficiency. What is self-sufficiency? Is it the policy of the Government that we are to produce nothing more than is required here? I do not agree with that policy. Assuming that the Government achieve the goal they are aiming at, and that the population could consume all the food that is produced, how would the people live, or what industry would they have? The more people we have the more employment we want to create. Anything else is nonsense and is about washed out. The sooner the Government comes down to brass tacks and recognises facts the better for themselves and for all of us.

One of Deputy Corry's statements was that a market had been found for 175,000 tons of barley and oats. What was the position last year? The Minister denied that he went to Messrs. Guinness, but someone must have asked that firm to take up the surplus barley. The Minister also stated that the number of live pigs for export had gone down. Is it any wonder the number is gone down when there is such a tax on those who produce pigs? If farmers could get a profit of 15/- on every pig they produce they would be all millionaires. I remember hearing farmers discuss pig feeding in my shop, and the opinion they expressed was that they would feed pigs in order to have the manure. The Minister complained last night that he was being misquoted. He said that Deputy O'Sullivan had misquoted him. I refer him to a statement made by him at a certain farmers' organisation in Dublin, where he said:

"Anyone who said that the number of cattle in the country should be reduced is either a fool or a knave, because you wanted the surplus cattle to consume your surplus grain."

Another statement made by him on March 15th, 1934, Dáil Debates, Vol. 51, col. 5103, was:

"Deputy Holohan raised the point that we were advocating more tillage and less cattle. That is quite true. Deputy Holohan said that that policy will not work. It will work of course."

I want to show that Deputy O'Sullivan did not misquote the Minister. Deputy Donnelly said that there was a hunger for land, and he wanted to know why, if agriculture was as depressed as we thought, people were still looking for land. Wise heads are looking for land because they recognise that the present Government will not be in office for all time. The people are going to see that a Party will be put in power that will get them markets for the produce of their land. There have been sneers at our Party because we promised, if returned at the next election, to raise a reconstruction loan of £3,000,000 at 3 per cent. If present conditions continue, I believe it will be absolutely unnecessary for any Party that is in power to raise a reconstruction loan because the people will be "down and out." They are not in a position to buy seeds in a great many cases. It is no pleasure to me to have to say that. I would much prefer to be in a position to say that the country is prosperous. It does not make any difference to me what Party is in power if the country is not prosperous. I have said that over and over again and I am prepared to stand over it.

Reference has been made to our policy on the subject of the wages of agricultural labourers. Our policy certainly is to try and find work for labourers in this country instead of giving them doles and subsidies. I think I have put the situation pretty clearly before the House. Of course, the Minister will say that it is repetition and that it has been said here in this House on several occasions before. I have told the Minister on a previous occasion that that is what we are here for. We are here to put the position in the country before the House, and I can assure the Minister we shall continue to do so. When the Government were in opposition here they advocated a certain policy, a dishonest policy because they have not fulfilled their promises. The day that we fail to fulfil our promises in this Party I am going to dissociate myself from it. Deputies on the Government Benches went up and down the country promising the people a reduction of taxation and many other things. What is the position to day? Taxation was never so high in this country. When people come to me to apologise for having voted for Fianna Fáil Deputies there are tears in their eyes. Really, it is an unfortunate position, but I think the day is coming—you pretty well escaped it last night——

Mr. Donnelly

Escaped what?

Mr. O'Leary

The road. The day is coming when the people in this country will teach you a lesson. After all, they are not so simple. You have deceived them twice already, but when the next election comes you will not deceive them.

Mr. Corish

For the past two or three days Deputies here have referred to what they call the changed attitude of the Labour Party. As far as the Labour Party is concerned, there has been no change at all. We have always reserved to ourselves the right to speak and vote against the Government in any action affecting the people we represent. There is no change as far as we are concerned. We have told the Government on different occasions that we are prepared to support them in major political issues. Our attitude has not altered in so far as that is concerned. The Deputy who has just sat down, after quoting certain things Deputy Norton said in the course of his speech last week, made a very significant statement. He said he does not usually sympathise with the Minister for Agriculture, but he does sympathise with him now. He made that statement immediately subsequent to his criticism of Deputy Norton, who had called attention to the bad wages paid in rural districts. Are we to consider that is a reflection of the mind of the Deputy in so far as his treatment of agricultural labourers is concerned? We are entitled to draw that inference from it.

Mr. Corry

Do you know what his organisation did?

Mr. Corish

I do. Deputy Moore referred to County Wexford and stated that his information was that wages in Wexford were very good. I understand he made use of a quotation purporting to give the wages paid and, if the information given to me was correct, he quoted a figure which would be much higher than the wages at present being paid in that county. There is no question at all that the wages paid there at the present time are an absolute disgrace. I know cases where men were offered work at wages as low as 6/- a week. I know other cases in which they were offered 8/- and 10/- a week, and where they were refused unemployment assistance benefit because of the fact that they refused to accept work under these conditions. I do suggest to the Minister that it would not be out of place for him to intervene when things have gone so low as that in his native county. It is no particular pleasure to us to oppose the Minister's Estimate, but we shall have no hesitation in voting against it unless we get an assurance from him that he is prepared to intervene with a view to securing that decent wages be paid to agricultural labourers, even if that should involve a greater subsidy for agriculture. If that is necessary I believe the Minister should have no hesitation in giving that subsidy. The people who refuse to work under these conditions were refused unemployment assistance and were told that they were not genuinely seeking work.

There is another side to the question of bad agricultural wages. I have a distinct recollection that just immediately prior to the 1932 election and also immediately prior to the 1933 election, some large landowners in my own constituency called their workers before them and told them that if they voted in a certain direction—for Fianna Fáil or Labour—their wages would be decreased. After the Fianna Fáil Government were elected their wages were decreased immediately. I think the Minister knows instances in which that happened. I do not suggest that the farmers are in the position that we would like them to be, but I think in some cases better wages could be paid if the farmers so desired. I suggest to the Minister that the time has arrived when he should interfere on behalf of farm labourers. The farm labourer is called upon to do more work now than in the years past. In the light of the fact that subsidies and bounties are being paid for the furtherance of agriculture, I suggest that it is the Minister's duty to intervene with a view to securing some portion of the subsidies and bounties for the farm labourers. If, after examination, it is found that the farmer is not able to pay a higher wage than he is at present paying, I suggest to the Minister that a larger bounty or subsidy should be given so as to allow agricultural labourers to be paid a wage which will enable them to live as Christians.

Mr. B. Maguire

If the speeches from the Opposition during the last few days were to be taken as sincere, honest expressions of opinion, undoubtedly the condition of the farming community must be extremely bad. One must always allow for a certain amount of exaggeration on the part of an advocate, but in this case the speakers having told us their story, and drawn this picture of the terrible conditions that existed, of bankrupt farmers and hungry people, went on to place the whole responsibility for that condition on the present Government. I have had all my life experience of farming conditions. Apart from that, I and others like me have had an experience of the tradition of what farming conditions were in this country beyond our own memories. It is a well-known fact that farming conditions in this country never afforded anything more than a mere existence and hardly ever an economic existence, gauged by the ordinary standards of a trade union or a commercial undertaking.

Now, I must come to the conclusion that the attempt by the Opposition to hold up the business of the Dáil for the last four days on this question was not honest. The speeches made were not actuated by honest motives. They were part of a deliberate plan to misrepresent the entire situation as it exists in the country, and the condition of our farmers. The Government know perfectly well that the position of our agriculturists is not a good one. Every Deputy in the House knows that. It is admitted generally. But there is this distinctive difference, that the Deputies opposite say that the fault lies with the Government. They make that charge although they know it is a dishonest one to make. They must know quite well that the fault does not lie with the Government. The responsibility for the present condition of agriculture might be traced to many causes, some outside and beyond the control of any Government in this country. Some of those causes are due to world conditions. They have been accentuated by the economic war launched by England against our farmers. The British Government are responsible for that, and not our Government. If the Deputies opposite were really interested in the section of the community that they say they speak for, they would put the responsibility on the right shoulders and not be misrepresenting the situation by charging the Government here with a fault that they are not guilty of.

The cause of the dispute is well known. There is the question of the moneys in dispute, but I submit a more fundamental issue than that is involved. The attack made by England against our agriculturists was really an attack on the claim of this country to achieve her national independence. England selected our agricultural industry for attack because it was in an unsound condition. If it were otherwise she would have defaulted in making the attack. It was because of the lobsidedness of our agricultural system and its consequent weakness that the economic war was declared by England. The loss of the cattle trade is the lament of the Opposition night, noon and morning inside this House and all over the country, but it was the existence of that form of agricultural economy that left us so susceptible to attack when England thought well to make it. The Government here were confronted with meeting that situation. From the national point of view they would have met it anyway. They had put their policy before the country at the last two general elections. They had told the people that their policy was to consolidate the whole economic fabric of the country on a new and a sound foundation. They pointed out the weakness of the then existing position, and said that they would endeavour to alter it.

Mr. MacDermot

Have you succeeded?

Mr. Maguire

We are succeeding. The putting of that policy into operation would in any event have involved changes in our agricultural system, but added to that was the attack made by England upon us. In view of that we were faced with the question: were we going to allow that attack on the national claim of this country to independence to succeed, or were we going to endeavour to fight against it? That is what we are fighting against primarily to-day, and the Deputies opposite during the last four days have occupied the time of the House in deliberately trying to misrepresent the real situation to the country.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is travelling very wide of the Vote.

Mr. Maguire

Very well. The Government's policy is an honest policy, no matter what may be said or thought of it by those who try to misrepresent it. The farmers of the country fully realise that, despite all the speeches that may be made declaring their position to be so hopeless and expressing the desire to be of service to them, the only people who are making a real effort to solve their problems and their difficulties are those who stand behind the policy that is represented by this Estimate.

The Deputies opposite claim that they speak for the farmers of the country. When they say that they know quite well that they are stating what is an untruth. They may be speaking for the minority section of the farmers. The last two elections revealed that the farmers know who their friends are. They know that their friends sit on these benches: that the Government are trying to safeguard for them their national freedom and the right to put their business on a sound basis. Our efforts in that direction may not have succeeded to the extent that we would have wished, but they have succeeded beyond the expectations of perhaps many of us at the time that we started to put our policy into operation. We are convinced that the policy we are operating is producing good results for the community generally. In some respects farmers may be finding it hard to carry on. The cattle trade, of course, has been hit, but the prices for other commodities are satisfactory. Farmers state so. I suggest that it is very unfair to a hardworking important section of this community that the Deputies opposite should continue to misrepresent them as they have been doing—maligning them by declaring that they are a lot of bankrupts and as people who are going around hungry. I am sure that the farmers of the country resent slurs of that kind being cast upon them, especially those with sons and marriageable daughters who are still receiving very good dowries from their parents. I am sure that they are not very well pleased with the statements made by the Deputies opposite, statements made for the purpose of advancing their own shabby political methods. The efforts of those Deputies will not succeed. This Estimate represents an honest effort on the part of the Minister and the Executive Council to solve our problems nationally and economically, and for the first time to put agriculture on a basis of soundness and security, so that all engaged in the industry may, without let or hindrance or the goodwill of any outsider, be able to make a living for themselves in a fairly independent way.

Mr. Wall

The consideration of this Estimate usually gives rise to a good deal of heated discussion. Because of that I am afraid the real seriousness of the agricultural position is inclined to be overlooked. I am glad to say that this year the Estimate has been discussed in a much calmer atmosphere. I hope that, as a consequence, the appeals that have been made to the Minister will evoke some practical results.

The Minister, when speaking last night, appeared to resent the repeated references that were made in the course of the debate to the economic war. I think it is only natural that, as the economic war is really the root of most of the agricultural difficulties at the moment, it should be referred to, and referred to frequently, in the course of a discussion of this kind. The Minister, like some of his colleagues, may believe that the war is over and won. It is two years ago since I heard it stated that the war was won. After a conflict of that kind, it is customary to distribute decorations, but I have not heard of the distribution of any decorations in connection with this conflict. Possibly, they will come. If I may make a suggestion, it is that Deputy Donnelly should get an iron cross for his services. In the case of Deputy Finaly, perhaps a wooden cross would be more suitable and cheaper. More wooden crosses will probably be required because the victims amongst Deputy Finlay's class will be numerous and the wooden cross, if not appreciated by the recipients, can be used to mark their last resting place.

Since this trouble started, one thing has always puzzled me. I cannot understand the position between the two countries. They are at war to the knife. At the same time, they are prepared to collaborate with one another at all times and in all matters except this unfortunate dispute. The war is supposed to have been started because the annuities were retained in this country. At the same time, we find representatives being sent across from this country to Great Britain in order to facilitate the collection of these disputed moneys by the British Government. That appears to have been done for the purpose of getting rid of some of our cattle. We have been frequently told during the past two or three years that the British market has gone—or, at least, that it was dwindling and that, in the future, it would be of very little use to us. The two things do not seem to hang very well. If the British market is going to be useless to us in the future, why worry about it?

Why send people across to England, wasting their time? Why give away something which is really substantial for something which is worthless? Why give away our coal trade, which is a substantial trade, together with a slice of our cement trade and a few other little concessions, for something which, we have been told again and again, is worthless? I do not know how this thing strikes people generally, but I have often thought that if Gilbert and Sullivan were alive to-day they would have a new theme for their genius in this economic war.

I was recently speaking to a farmer who is over 60 years of age and who has always been connected with the farming industry. He occupies a small farm of middling-quality land. That man told me that he was never very wealthy, that he always worked fairly hard and was able to meet his liabilities. He said that within the last two years he had come up against difficulties and was in debt now. At his age he pointed out that there was very little prospect of getting out of debt. He told me that heretofore his year-old calves realised about £8, while last year he sold some of them at 35/- and a few of the best at £2. To a small farmer that is a very serious difference, and it is a thing which should not be lost sight of by anyone. It is not necessary to have a knowledge of farming to appreciate the position of that man at the moment. Another farmer, in a substantial way—he farms 100 acres of very good land—told me that he set out with the ambition of establishing a comfortable home for himself and his family and of placing himself in a position to give his family a start in life when the time arrived. He got on reasonably well and was satisfied with his efforts until two years ago. He told me—and I believe he is perfectly right—that he worked as hard as any man in Munster but that he was getting more deeply into debt by degrees. If there is any doubt about the genuineness of these cases, I can give the names. Getting into debt is an unusual experience for the man to whom I refer, and as a consequence he does not care to go into town lest he meet his creditors.

Mr. Corry

He has a blue look-out.

Mr. Wall

Not being a dodger, he does not feel happy when meeting these men because of his inability to discharge his liabilities. I was speaking to a merchant a week ago. His business is almost entirely with farmers and, although he does not do as big a business as some of his local competitors, he does a fair trade. He told me that the position was getting very serious from his point of view, as he found the utmost difficulty in collecting his debts. He said that his local competitors did a much bigger trade than he did, and he felt that if their outstanding debts bore the same ratio to their turnover as his outstanding debts bore to his turnover, he thought they would have to get out of business very soon. He quoted the case of a farmer who came to him recently. This farmer had never dealt with him before, but had always had the reputation of being very well-to-do, and he thought that he was getting a very good customer. This man asked for certain manures and seeds, and he said "Certainly" and told him his terms of credit. The farmer then said: "I have never dealt with you before, but So-and-So with whom I was dealing has now refused to give me credit, and I do not want to tie you down to the offer you have made." The merchant said that he was terribly amazed, but said that in any case he would stand by the offer he made and give him the credit.

Now, some reference was made here yesterday evening to experiments. I think it will be admitted generally that experiments are not alone useful but absolutely necessary. If, however, an experiment is going to deprive an individual of his means of livelihood, that individual cannot be expected to look kindly on that experiment, to say the least of it. After all, the experimenter, like the doctor, does not feel the pain. It is the patient who suffers. Take the case of wheat and beet. I think we can grow perhaps as good beet and wheat in this country as in any other country in the world, but I cannot see the wisdom of trying to convince people that wheat and beet can be substituted for our live-stock trade. You can work them side by side with the live-stock trade and perhaps make them a success in that way. I think it is very futile, however, to imagine that they will stand alone as a substitute for the live-stock trade. In that connection, there is one thing I should like to call attention to. I think that 23/- or 23/6 is paid for wheat in the earlier part of the year, and the farmer who is not in a position to store his wheat, or has to sell to meet urgent demands, has to accept that price. Now, I doubt if that is just, because the man who has facilities for storing his wheat, and who is perhaps in a better financial position, gains very considerably by reason of the fact that he is able to hold the wheat over until the higher price is available. Accordingly, I think that the minimum should be wiped out and that the maximum should be made the general price for wheat. I think that that would be fair to everybody.

Now, take the case of pigs and bacon. I should like to direct the Minister's attention to the system of grading. I think that system is too severe altogether and, in connection with that grading, I should like to quote from a bill of sale which I have before me now. This bill of sale refers to eight pigs. Six of these pigs fell into class 1, and two of them into class 2, but they were subdivided into four sections within these classes. One thing which strikes me as very extraordinary is that one pig, under grade A, class 1, weighing 1 cwt., 1 qr., 22 lbs. was paid for at the rate of 64/- a cwt., while in grade B, class 1, there was a pig of the same weight, and that pig was paid for at the rate of 60/- a cwt. Then a pig in grade C, class 1, weighing 1 cwt., 1 qr., and 25 lbs., was paid for at the rate of 56/- a cwt. That is a difference of 8/- per cwt., which is a serious matter for the producer, between two pigs when the weight only differs by 3 lbs. I think that if the consumers realised that position they would resent it just as much as the farmer resents it, because evidently the curer derives all the benefit in that case, whereas the farmer and the consumer lose very heavily by it. I believe that if one went into a shop and asked for portion of the pig that weighted 1 cwt., 1 qr., 25 lbs., at 56/- a cwt., he would not get it. It is all classed as grade A, class 1, in the store. Then in the case of the two pigs under class 2, one weighing 1 cwt., 2 qrs. and 12 lbs., and the other weighing 1 cwt. 2 qrs. 22 lbs., they were paid for at the rate of 52/- an extraordinary discrepancy in the price of two pigs. I think there is something radically wrong there.

Deputy O'Reilly, speaking here last night, said that there was considerable difficulty in getting agricultural labourers in County Meath. I think that that is becoming fairly general. There are, perhaps, different reasons in different counties for that. For instance, I find, in County Waterford, that a good many of the best workers —the young men—are going away to England. It is very hard to blame them because, unquestionably, agricultural wages are too low. Deputy Corish has referred to that and I am in agreement with him, but after all there must be a cause for this, and in order to remedy the difficulty, you must get at the cause, and the cause is that agriculture has become so depressed, as he says, both through world conditions as well as through the economic war, that the farmer is not in a position to pay a decent wage. I do not stand for the present wage, and I doubt if any man with an interest in the country could stand for it. I think it abominably low, but after all, at least the agricultural labourer is assured of that wage at the end of the week, whereas the farmer, who works just as hard and works alongside the labourer in many cases, has no guarantee that he will get anything at the end of the year, and, as a matter of fact, is very often worse off than the labourer. I know of plenty of farmers' sons who have had to go away. Also, Deputy Flynn said that the smaller farmers in Kerry had suffered but that they were prepared to do so from patriotic motives. I have the utmost sympathy with these men, but I do not think their patriotism should be played on to the extent that it has been played on. If it is a question of patriotism and duty, I believe that every class should step in and bear a fair share of whatever burden may be imposed, and that it should not be thrown on the small farmers of Kerry and elsewhere.

Mr. Jordan

But they will not step in. That is the worst of it.

Mr. Wall

Unquestionably, cattle prices have been affected by world conditions. Neverthless, we should be getting better prices than we are. I do not say that we would be absolutely happy any more than we were before this Government came into power. There were grievances at that time also, because agricultural prices were tending to the low side. I think that every fairminded person will admit that, but the difficulties have become much more acute now, in consequence of the economic war. I have a bill of sale here referring to some cattle, where it shows that five cattle realised £87 5s. 0d. at Glasgow. There were quite a number of items that I do not intend to go through in detail. I will just give the tot. The duty worked out at £4 5s. 0d. per head making a total of £21 5s. 0d. The expenses, lumped together, are slightly under £10. Now if that man got that £21 5s. 0d. additional would it not make a great difference to him?

There are a good many other matters to which I would have liked to refer. There is one matter in connection with that world-wide depression that I must refer to. Assuming its effect here is the same as its effect in other countries, we still have an extraordinary disadvantage. First we had the disadvantage to the extent of the penal duties applied by Britain. We also have the disadvantage in the prices we are paying for our feeding stuffs. There is a difference of £2 10s. 0d. between what we pay for our mixture here, and what the people in Northern Ireland can buy pure maize at. Our mixture will produce a better type of pig, but it will not fatten a pig as well as maize, and the farmer here must suffer. There is another question on which we are at a disadvantage, and that is derating. The farmer in Northern Ireland has complete derating. We were promised it; and Deputy Corry says we got as good. But the farmer should have the choice. Derating was promised and should have been given. Perhaps I am now straying somewhat from the subject before us.

Mr. Corry

What you got was better.

Mr. Wall

That is the Deputy's opinion; I am entitled to mine. The farmer was promised derating and did not get it.

Mr. Roddy

I am sorry Deputy Maguire has left the House, because, in the course of his very brief speech, he made a number of rather extraordinary statements. He said that farming was never anything more than a mere existence. I am quite satisfied his colleague, Deputy Corry, would not agree with that, because I know if farming was only a mere existence Deputy Corry would not remain in the business for five minutes, and I know no other farmer member of the Fianna Fáil Party that would have continued in it. Deputy Maguire, I am sure, was not serious when he made that statement. If he had any doubt that the agricultural position here, up to 1931, was other than what he stated it to be, he need only consult the local bank manager in his own County of Leitrim, or get particulars from the Minister for Finance, of the money the farmers of this country invested in the three first issue of National Loan. But the Deputy, like the rest of his colleagues, steered clear of the Estimate and concentrated entirely upon generalities. He conveyed to me, at all events, that he thought it was my duty, and that of my colleagues, to throw bouquets at the Minister instead of dealing with the Estimate. He said the whole problem was due to the economic war which was forced upon this country by England.

I am not going to deal with the economic war, I am only going to make a brief reference to it. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that England made an attack upon the economic independence of this country, is the Deputy not satisfied that by the manner in which the Government are fighting the economic war they are straining this country? Is any Deputy opposite prepared to say that by making agreements, in the nature of the coal-cattle pact, they are strengthening the economic independence of this country in any respect whatever? Is it not a fact, if agreements of the coal-cattle pact kind continued to be made by this country, that instead of strengthening the economic independence of the country they are weakening it and giving the English a greater stranglehold upon this country than at any time since the Treaty was signed?

The Minister for Agriculture made a characteristic speech last night. This is an Estimate that should be dealt with in a serious manner, but he dealt with it in a semi-jocose fashion. In fact he did not attempt, at all, to face up to any of the main arguments put forward by the Opposition. His speech dealt with a number of side issues that had no bearing upon the policy that underlies his Department. He stated that we disposed of more cattle in 1935 than were ever disposed of, in any one year, during the Cumann na nGaedheal administration. I do not know whether the Minister used the word "disposed" advisedly or not. But thinking over it, it appears to me that he did use the word "disposed" advisedly; because presumably he had in mind, when making that statement, the 200,000 calves slaughtered during the years 1934 and 1935. But even allowing for the 200,000 odd claves slaughtered, his statement is inaccurate. As an actual fact there were two years during the Cumann na nGaedheal administration when the numbers exported — and allowing for the number of calves slaughtered, and allowing for the number of cows slaughtered in the Government institution in Roscrea, in 1935— were greater. In 1924, 9,430,000 cattle were sent out of this country, and in 1930, 8,580,000 cattle were sent out of this country. And the number of cattle sent out is not really the important issue here at all. The main point is the amount of money realised by the sale of these cattle in England.

If we contrast the figures for 1931 with 1935, we will see very clearly the difference in the amount of money realised in the sale of cattle exported to Great Britain. In 1931 approximately £13,000,000 was realised in the sale of cattle exported to Great Britain: whereas in 1935 only £5,500,000, approximately, was realised. That represents a difference of £7,000,000 in the income derived from the sale of our cattle in the British market in these years.

Mr. Corry

Give the figures for 1929.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Roddy

If Deputy Corry has any lingering doubts in his mind as to the accuracy or otherwise of my figures, I will give him the figure for 1930, when the amount realised on the sale of cattle exported to Great Britain was £14.67 millions or £15,000,000, approximately. In 1929 the amount realised was £13.59 millions. In 1928 the sum realised was £13.17 millions, and in 1924 it was £17.27 millions. In 1934 the sum realised from the sale of cattle exported to Great Britain was £4.26 millions. I submit that it is not the number of cattle the Minister sent to the British market, but the amount of money realised that matters, and from the figures I have quoted—which figures have been issued by his own Department, and are contained in the official returns—it will be seen that there was a drop of £7,000,000 in the sale of cattle as between the years 1931 and 1935.

There is another interesting point which is worth while examining also in connection with the Minister's statement, and that is the price realised per head for each of those cattle sold in the British market. In 1931 the average price per head was £16.2. In 1935 the price realised per head on the cattle we sold in the British market was £8.04. In 1930 the price realised per head averaged £17 and in 1929, £17.5. As between 1931 and 1935 there was a drop, approximately, of £7.75 in the price of each beast sold in the British market.

We heard a good deal in the course of this debate about the wages paid to agricultural labourers in England and the wages paid to agricultural labourers in the Irish Free State. The Minister, in the course of his speech last night, seemed to convey the impression that the fall in agricultural wages in Great Britain corresponded exactly with the fall in agricultural wages in the Free State. I do not know from what source or from what returns he obtained these figures. I cannot find any figures which would confirm the Minister's statement. His actual words were: "There was the very same fall in agricultural wages in Great Britain as in the Free State." It would be well to bear in mind that the conditions relating to the employment of agricultural labourers in England are different in many respects from the conditions relating to the employment of agricultural labourers in this country. The wages of agricultural labourers in England are fixed by a wages board. There is no such board in existence in this country. In addition to that the agricultural labourer in England has an eight-hour day, he is entitled to be paid for overtime, and I think gets double time, with special allowances for Sunday work.

There is no comparison at all between the conditions under which agricultural labourers work in England and the conditions under which they work here. The average agricultural wage paid in England at the 31st December, 1934, was 31/1, and the average agricultural wage paid in this country, which is, after all, only a calculation, because there are no reliable data to go upon, would be somewhere between 15/- and 21/- per week. I doubt very much if the average is even as high as that. At all events, contrasting that average wage with the average wage paid to agricultural labourers in England, we have this difference: the average total earnings of agricultural male workers in England amount to 32/7; for horsemen the figure is 36/7, and for stockmen 38/6. That represents a big difference between the earnings of agricultural labourers in England and the earnings of agricultural labourers in this country.

There was a frequent reference also in the course of this discussion to the Government policy of wheat growing, in relation to the production of live stock and live stock products, and especially in relation to the production of beef. In that connection also it is interesting to study certain figures prepared by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in England. It appears that the index figure for wheat, as published in the statistical returns of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Great Britain for the year 1929, was 130; and the index figure for 1934 was 64. That represents, roughly, a drop of 50 per cent. The index figure for fat cattle for the year 1930—I have not the figure for 1929—was 133; and the index figure for the year 1935 was 92. That would roughly represent a reduction of 25 per cent. These figures, I say, are interesting in view of the fact that the farmers in this country are asked, to a certain extent at all events, to abandon the policy of cattle raising for the purpose of taking up the policy of wheat growing.

The conditions relating to the production of wheat and the conditions relating to the production of beef in the Free State are somewhat analogous to the conditions in England. There are no index figures issued by the Department of Agriculture here in relation either to wheat or beef. But, in any event, these figures may be taken as an indication at least of the difference in value between the policy represented by the production of cattle and the policy represented by the production of wheat. We see here that the farmers in this country are asked to embark upon a policy of wheat-growing which, in a period of five years, has represented a drop of 55 per cent., and to abandon the policy of cattle-raising, which only represents a drop in the same period of 25 per cent. These figures, I think, may be taken as somewhat analogous, at all events, to the conditions existing in the Free State in relation to the production of wheat and beef.

The Minister, when introducing the Estimate, made a very brief reference to the butter marketing scheme, and I am sorry that he did not dilate a little more on the working of that scheme. I hope, when he begins the second half of his reply, that he will deal in greater detail with the working of that scheme. I should like to know from him how many creameries have taken up the scheme. The impression I gleaned from conversations I had with members of creamery committees and creamery managers throughout the country was that they were not at all enthusiastic about the scheme, and, in fact, in a recent conversation I had with one of them, he seemed to convey the impression to me that they felt the scheme was not at all satisfactory, and that it would have to be revised if it was going to merit the support of all the creamery committees in the country. However, I am anxious that the Minister would deal more fully with the working of the scheme and would let us know how many creameries have undertaken to operate it and what effect centralised marketing has on the price of butter on the other side. Has it any effect whatever? To what extent has it reduced marketing costs on this side?

I see that the Minister has reduced the grants to the county committees of agriculture in the Estimate this year. I have no recollection that, in his statement introducing this Estimate, he made any reference whatever to the reason which inspired him to make that reduction, but, frankly, as one who knows a little about the work of the county committees of agriculture, I cannot understand why he should this year reduce the grants to these committees. During the last few years these county committees have been asked to undertake a number of new schemes. In fact, they have been forced to undertake some of these schemes by orders issued by the Minister himself, and it appears to me that these committees are doing exceedingly useful work in the country, and that, instead of reducing their finances, it should be the function of the Minister rather to increase their finances and give them an opportunity of embarking on other schemes which would be useful and helpful in the present conditions of agriculture.

I notice also that the Minister has recently issued an order relating to the wages and conditions of employment of secretaries to these county committees. Quite accidentally I came across that order on the file in the Oireachtas Library yesterday, and, frankly, I do not understand what reason the Minister has at this hour of the day to issue such an order, which, to a very large extent, takes the control of the work of the county committees out of the hands of the county committees. It appears to me—I know at least two or three of these secretaries—that they are doing their work remarkably well, and that, after all, if it is the intention of the Minister to whittle away whatever little authority these county committees enjoy at present, it will be very difficult to get men of any standing or any reputation to act on such committees in future. When the order is taken in conjunction with the reduction in the Estimate this year, I am somewhat puzzled to understand the Minister's attitude towards the county committees, and especially I should be anxious to understand his reason for issuing such an order relating to the employment, wages and conditions of the secretaries.

I see that there is a very big increase in the Vote for the improvement of the creamery industry. I assume from that that the Minister is continuing the policy of his predecessor in buying out redundant creameries and carrying out the policy of centralisation in many parts of the country. I should be anxious to hear the Minister dilate at some length on the success of that policy. I was under the impression at one time that it was the intention of the Minister to extend his scheme for the centralisation of creameries to all parts of the country, but, apparently, judging by the very little information we can glean from these Estimates, he is confining his attention to certain parts of the South of Ireland. Is it his intention to carry out the scheme of centralisation in every county where creameries exist, or is he satisfied now, after his experience of the policy of centralisation during the last few years, that such a policy cannot be embarked upon arbitrarily and that there are many local circumstances and local conditions to be taken into consideration? I think it would be a mistake, and a very serious mistake, to force such a scheme on any county where creameries are operating satisfactorily at present, even though there may be redundancy up to a point.

Reference was made to-day to the work of the Agricultural Credit Corporation. The Minister for Finance interjected rather heatedly during the course of Deputy McGovern's speech that last year the credit corporation issued loans on the same scale as in previous years. I understand that that report appeared in to-day's Irish Press. I have not had the privilege of reading that report yet, but I do know from my experience down the country that the credit corporation appears to be somewhat reluctant to give loans at present, even where the security, in my view, at least, and in the view of any normal man, is reasonably satisfactory. It is exceedingly difficult for small farmers at present to get loans from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, even where the security is reasonably good. I understood it was to be the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government to loosen out somewhat the machinery of the Credit Corporation, so that it would be possible for the directors to give loans to people, even where the security was not sufficiently good for, let us say, a bank, but it appears to me that no change whatever has taken place in regard to the granting of loans by the corporation since the Fianna Fáil Party came into power.

It does appear to me, from some recent experience I have had, that they still want almost the same security as a bank would want. In fact, in one particular case that came under my notice, they wanted even a greater security than the local bank asked for before they would agree to advance a loan to a hardworking industrious type of farmer. I must compliment the Agricultural Credit Corporation, however, on the degree of humanity they are exercising in regard to the collection of loans in regard to the payment of the interest and principal on loans advanced some time ago to people who are not in a position to meet them to-day. From my experience of the corporation, they have acted, at least in all the cases which I brought under their notice, in a very sympathetic way. They are apparently fully cognisant of the conditions existing in the country, and they are prepared to meet every case in a reasonable and sympathetic manner, if it is put to them in the proper way. The Estimate has been already exhaustively discussed and I do not think I have anything further to say on it.

Mr. Fagan

I do not think there is much use in any of us telling the Government what the present position of the farmers is, because they do not seem to believe us. It seems to me that it runs off them like water off a duck. Owing to the present policy of the Government, 50 per cent. of the farmers of this country are not solvent. Deputies on the other side say that these are wild statements. I challenge the Minister, or any member of the Government, to find out the financial position of the farmers in any parish in Westmeath, and if 50 per cent. of those farmers are solvent, I will give £5 to the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Mullingar, even though I would find it hard to get money at present. Through no fault of their own, men, who were of independent means three years ago, are now unable to meet their demands. No matter what branch of farming they try, even with the help of their own families, everything they do is done at a loss.

The Minister for Agriculture was told on several occasions from this side of the House that his policy was wrong. We have asked for relief for the farmers. We have asked that the annuities would not be collected during the continuance of the economic war, and we have asked for derating. These things were turned down by the Government. The farmers of the country are anxious and willing to meet all their demands if they get a fair crack of the whip, but they are not getting a fair crack of the whip from this Government. When we came in here first as the Farmers' Party I put a motion on the Paper asking the Government to relieve the farmers of the annuities. That was turned down. If the Government had acceded to that request the farmers of the country would be at their backs and the economic war would now be won.

The farmers are in this position, that they are forced to pay £5,000,000 a year to the Government as well as to lose something over £2,000,000 a year on that part of their produce sold in the home market; in addition to that they are paying over £2,000,000 a year annuities. That is £9,000,000 altogether. How can the farmers carry all that load on their backs? If the farmers had been let off paying the annuities and had they been given derating there would be some recompense to them in the matter of the heavy losses on their live stock and farm produce. Notwithstanding what anybody may say or think, we must all admit that agriculture is the very root of the nation's prosperity; in every country in the world agriculture is fostered and cherished. What is the Government of this country doing for it? It has wrecked agriculture and it has wrecked the homes of the farmers in the country. I know several decent men who have been ruined by this economic war. I know of one honest man who has a big farm of land. He employs eight men but these men have to wait weeks for their wages until this farmer takes his cattle around from fair to fair in the endeavour to sell something to raise the money for their wages. A friend told him that he should pay off three of those men. What was his reply? He said: "These men's fathers were here in my father's time; their sons are here now and I have not the heart to sack three of them." That is the position.

The Minister for Agriculture has declared that it is his intention to reduce our live stock to the level which would be required to meet the requirements of the home market. But the Minister has not told us what is to happen our increased tillage. The home market is not able to consume our present agricultural produce. There is more than enough at the present time to meet the needs of our own population. It is hard to find an outside market for the surplus. The best way to get rid of our surplus crops is to feed them to our live stock and so walk these crops off the land in the form of live stock, for which we have an unlimited market at our doors. We are not allowed to avail of that market. I warn the Minister that increased tillage without live stock is but a dream. The present Government is dreaming. It is time they woke up. Live stock and tillage are dependent on each other. Live stock is needed for the consumption of the produce of tillage and it is needed also for the fertilisation of the land.

It is hard at the present time to get away from the tragic fact that, owing to Government policy and the way they have depressed and reduced the farming community, there is not a bank in the Free State to-day that would lend sixpence on the security of a farm, large or small. I defy contradiction of that statement. We have heard just now that the Agricultural Credit Corporation, a Governmental institution, will not lend money to farmers. That is entirely due to Government policy.

Last night I was accused here of interrupting the Minister. But if the Minister could only see the situation as I see it, he would understand why I interrupted. I started farming at the age of 16 years. I was one of a family of 11. My father died when I was 16 years of age and left us a fairly good farm with nothing on it. I was the eldest and I worked hard all my life. All the others got good positions. In 1924 I bought another farm with my hard-earned money. I had cleared off what I owed on that farm, but in the last few years, owing to Government policy, I have got into debt. I never left off work from the time I was 16 years of age. But during the last two years I am not able to pay my way, and I am not able to do for my children what I had expected to do for them. It is hard on me to listen to the Minister speaking as he did yesterday without my interrupting him. I was in the position a few years ago that I was able to work and rear my family decently in such a way as to give them good positions in life. Now I see the time approaching when my family will have to slave all their lives as I did. The Minister, because I interrupted him last night, said I was a coward. I would let no white man say I was a coward, and only for the respect I have for this Assembly I would tell the Minister and the Executive Council what in my heart I think about them.

Mr. Corkery

I was a bit timid about speaking on this Vote until I listened to some of the part-time farmers and to some Deputies who are not even part-time farmers telling us about agriculture. Deputy O'Leary is moved to tears over the slaughter of calves. There is no Deputy in this House who should know better than Deputy O'Leary that in North Cork calves have been slaughtered every year as long as Deputy O'Leary can remember and he is older than I am. In the year before the Government gave a bounty on calf skins, one firm of calf dealers in Macroom slaughtered over 7,500 calves, and there were three or four others in the trade also. That is why I say the slaughter of calves is not by any means a new thing. People are now getting a bounty on calves that are being slaughtered. But these calves would be slaughtered anyway. There may be some extra calves slaughtered because of the bounty, but it is nothing new down in the South of Ireland to slaughter calves.

Deputy O'Leary also spoke about old cows being sent from Cork into Kerry. He said these were sent on to Roscrea. If the Deputy had been in Macroom yesterday he would have seen some of his own supporters, members of the Cow-Testing Association, with large numbers of cows that they purchased from the poorer Fianna Fáil supporters at anything from 7/6 to 12/6 each. These cows were also being sent to Roscrea. Unfortunately the people in whom Deputy O'Leary is so much interested had to sell those cows at a very small price. Somebody is getting the benefit of that as well as the people who get the benefit of the cattle sent into Kerry. Deputy O'Leary is anxious that the people should get maize meal at a cheap price. Deputy Minch is very anxious the people should get a good price for their barley. I think there is enough said about that. There is no doubt that conditions in the poorer districts are very bad.

Mr. O'Leary

Hear, hear.

Mr. Corkery

And they have been bad for ten years. If Deputies on the opposite benches who are farmers let their farms grow weeds for ten years, they would not clear the weeds out in two or three years. Deputy O'Leary gave us a long list of prices he got for calves some years ago. I would like to ask him, and other Deputies, were they able to make farming pay in the years before Fianna Fáil came into office?

Mr. Rogers

We have had a good many statements from Deputies on the Government Benches regarding the prosperity of farmers since Fianna Fáil came into office. The fact of the matter is that the farmers of this country are almost bankrupt because of the Government policy. I am a farmer and I can prove that. I was rather surprised to hear farmers on the Government Benches telling us that the farming community are prosperous. I come from a rich farming country in County Sligo and I am aware that the farmers of that county are almost bankrupt. Some years ago all these men could look their bankers straight in the face and they were in a position to pay 20/- in the £. To-day they are not able to do that. To-day they can scarcely clothe their families owing to the bad prices that they have been getting for stock for the last three years. At the 1933 election the men who now form the Government promised the Irish farmers that they would reduce tax-action, that if they got into power they would halve the land annuities and derate the land. They have halved the land annuities, but look at what the farmers are paying on cattle in order to get them into England. Are they not paying the land annuities three times over? The Government have not yet derated the land.

It is up to the Government to do something to improve the condition of the farmers and of the agricultural labourers, about whom we heard a lot of talk in the course of this debate. These are the parties who are paying the piper; these are the men who helped to build up this country and have kept it going through the years. What consideration is being given by the Government to the young farmers who are living in their parents' homes? What have the Government done for the men who shouldered guns 20 years ago and were responsible for the establishment here in the capital of our country of a native Government? Is there to be any consideration at all for these men who are trying to rear big families? In 1933 the members of the present Government told us what they were going to do for the farmers. They said that the Cosgrave Government had done nothing for the farming community. Under the Cosgrave Government we were getting a good price for our cattle, and for the last three or four years we could not say that. Animals that in 1929 and 1930 fetched £16 to £18 a head would go to-day for £6 or £7.

Reference was made here last night to the wages paid in England to farm labourers. I know a young farmer who had to let his land on the 11 months system about two months ago, travelled to England and there he got work at the rate of 29/- a week. The same man was working in this country at 12/- per week. Why does not the Government stand up for those people? The farmers and the poor agricultural labourers have been put in the frontline trenches. There are many agricultural labourers to-day on the dole, in receipt of home assistance or in receipt of free beef. Is that all this Government can do for them? The Government have done nothing but demoralise good and honest people. I come from a county where the people always lived well and were always prepared to pay their debts. Along by the Ox Mountains in County Sligo you have farmers who in other years lived well on the mountain side. They got a good price for their sheep and cattle; they were able to educate their sons for the Church or the medical profession. To-day they are able to do no such thing. For the last three or four years they got practically nothing for their sheep or cattle, and to-day they are down and out. That is some indication of what the farming community are suffering.

I am surprised at Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches, who should be honest men, telling us that the farmers are thriving. They are not. Deputy Maguire, who comes from the same constituency as I do, Leitrim-Sligo, spoke here about the farming community. He knows well that the farmers of Leitrim and Sligo are not prosperous to-day, because of the Government's policy. Give us an opportunity to get a good price for our produce and we will work. We want the opportunity to get a proper price for our stuff. We are told that the farmers have to work from dawn to dark. They slave from dawn to dark. Is it the object of a native Government to make slaves of the good, honest men and women of this country?

Mr. Daly

When the Minister was speaking last night he said that there was no real criticism from these benches of the working of his Department. I would like to put this aspect of the question to him. The people of the country are paying £665,600 for the working of the Minister's Department. The farmers who grow wheat found that owing to the bad weather before Christmas they were not able to put in the winter seed. That should be well known to the Department by Christmas-time, and I think it was the duty of the Department and of the Minister to see that seed wheat was procured for the farmers. We find the farmers, instead of paying something like 30/- a barrel for their seed wheat, having to pay 45/-. I think that showed great neglect on the part of the Minister and the Department. They were very careful to bring in a Bill to ensure that the seed would be right and proper, but they did not see fit to make sure that the farmers would have the seed wheat when they required it. I hope the Minister will see that in the coming year such a thing will not occur again. The Minister also stated that in all the speeches he heard from the Opposition it was the same old story about the economic war. I hold we can talk on nothing else but the economic war. The working of this and every other Department hinges on conditions resulting from the economic war, and until the economic war is settled, so far as I am concerned, I will talk about nothing else, because it is the cause of all the misfortune in this country. The economic war was brought about by the incompetent policy of the present Government.

A lot has been said about the agricultural workers and the wages they are receiving for the work they do. I hold that you cannot separate the farmers and the workers. They are all agricultural workers. The farmers are not being paid for the work they do, and when they are not being paid how can they pass on to the agricultural workers the money which they should receive? The agricultural workers and the farmers are the hardest working people in this country or in any other country. They are pure slaves from morning until night. They are the first up in the morning, and their work is the last to be finished. The industrial workers in the towns and cities finish their work in the evening, but the farmers' work is never finished.

This evening Deputy Mrs. Concannon was very anxious about the future training of the young farmers' wives of the country. I wonder does Deputy Mrs. Concannon know the conditions under which the farmers' wives in this country are living at the present time? I say, Sir, that they are pure slaves. The farmers' wives and daughters in this country at the present time are pure slaves. Never before had the farmers' wives of this country to work like they have to work at the present time. Never before had the daughters of the farmers to look forward to such a miserable future, due to the policy of the present Government. Ten years ago the farmers' daughters of the country could look forward to the time when their fathers would be able to give them a certain amount of money on their marriage. What have they to look forward to now? They see their fathers and mothers pure slaves. They see them unable to make ends meet. What have they to look forward to? They have only to look forward to taking the boat train for London, or some other place where they can get £30 or £40 a year and have some hope of coming back to this country with a couple of hundred pounds that they could never hope to put together in this country, nor can they have any hope of their parents doing so as long as the present Government and the present policy remain as they are. The agricultural workers were never in such a plight as they are in at the present moment. I know agricultural workers—decent, hard-working men—who are in receipt of 9/- or 10/- a week. They have a house surely—some kind of a house— over their heads. They have a garden, and a pint and a quarter of milk or whatever it is, but they have a wife and five or six children, and I would ask the Minister or any Deputy on those benches to say how a man with a wife and family can exist on 9/- or 10/- a week. The wages of those agricultural workers were surely small enough without burdening them with an additional 4d. per week to provide the widows of this country with pensions.

We have the Labour Party—a Party which for the past three or four years, since this Government came into office, have helped them to carry out their policy of ruin and destruction of the farmers and the agricultural workers of this country. They are very anxious about the agricultural workers now. We did not hear anything about them for the past three years. It is a bit late in the day for the Labour Party to be thinking about the agricultural workers now. But the day will come when the agricultural workers will have a chance of registering their votes again, and I am very full sure that they will remember the activities of the Labour Party during the past three years. However, I think two very helpful things have happened during this debate. This debate was to have concluded last night, and the division was to have been taken, but there was a chance of the Government being beaten. Why? Because the Government are coming to the end of their tether. They had to send out wires all over the country to bring in their Deputies. Their Deputies have a lot to do down the country those times, because the farmers and others down the country are finished with them. They are holding their district and county conventions, and I know for a fact that all over the country the numbers turning up to those conventions are so small that they cannot select officers to carry on.

An Ceann Comhairle

Are those conventions on this Vote?

Mr. Daly

I am sorry, Sir.

General Mulcahy

Yes, Sir, and subsistence for warble fly inspectors!

Mr. Daly

I submit that the end is very near at hand; we have only to hope that it will come soon. We have only to hope that the day is not far off when the farmers and workers of this country will have a chance of bringing back to office a Government who will be responsible to the people and who will bring back prosperity to our country.

Is it not known that cattle could go to Great Britain without having a charge on them of £4 8s. Od.? Is it not known that farmers, prior to the coal-cattle pact, got £6 per head less for every bullock weighing from 10 cwt. to 11 cwt. that they sold than they would have got were it not for the policy pursued by the Minister and the Government? In all seriousness, I say to the Minister who is responsible for this Department that it is a well-recognised code amongst members of the Cabinet, whatever Government is in power, that if the majority of members do not agree with the policy which the Minister thinks it best to pursue, the Minister, for honour's sake alone, resigns. That has happened in England. There was a difference of opinion there between a Minister and the Cabinet within the last few months and the Minister resigned. It seems to me that the Minister still persists in a policy which he knows himself is imposing unnecessary hardships on a section of our people who, because of the manner in which they lived in the past and because of their traditions, do not deserve to have these hardships imposed upon them, namely, the farming community.

When we are told by Fianna Fáil Deputies, like Deputy Maguire, that this whole question of the economic war is a question of our national status, again I say that it is about time we dropped such pure tripe as that. You are not engaged in fighting with England or, if you are fighting with her, you are carrying on the engagement behind the backs of men who are receiving the blows from Britain. No member of the Fianna Fáil Party is receiving these blows; he is receiving his £1 a day. I do not see what fight any of them, from the President down, is making. The only men who are receiving the blows are those suffering from the small prices paid for their cattle. It is all very well for Deputy Maguire and others to talk about fighting Great Britain. You could not fight a tall hat at the present time. You would not even wear one. We want to live and do the best we can for this country. We want no more fighting or dying for it. We want to do the best we can for our farmers. We want the Minister for Agriculture, as the Minister primarily responsible for securing a livelihood for those men, to put an end to this sham, to this nonsensical economic war and to bring about a settlement which will allow of these men receiving a fair recompense for their trouble in raising live stock. You cannot say that you are not accustomed to make agreements. You have done it before. Ministers, it is true, had not the pluck to go over but they sent civil servants over to make these agreements. You can end the economic war if you have the will to do it. If you have not the will and if you still want to fight, I will be game for that fight on one condition, although I am the father of seven. That is: that you do not allow as much as the tail of a bullock, a pig's head, a potato, a lb. of butter, slice of bacon or any part of our agricultural produce to be exported to England. Let it be a fight to a finish and you will have many people behind you—not this sham fight, pretending that you are at war with England and sending over your very best produce at the cheapest price. If you want a fight I will be game for it, but I know from experience that you will put up the white flag very quickly, as you did before. Get down to facts, because I know too much about war.

An Ceann Comhairle

Perhaps the Deputy will get down to the Estimate.

Mr. Coburn

As regards the question of butter, if the British Government said they would take none of our butter, we might be greasing the railway lines with it. Again this is a new way of fighting a war, compelling the working class in this country, the poor agricultural labourers who are paid miserable wages and the tens of thousands living in the slums of Dublin to pay 1/6 per lb. for butter, in order to ensure that the English working man can get the same butter at 10d. and 11d. per lb. That is another funny way of waging a war, that we compel all those people, including old age pensioners who, because of the policy of the Government, only receive 8/- worth of goods for their 10/-, to pay that price for butter so that the British working man may get his butter for 4d. to 6d per lb less. If the Minister could acquire a little of that essential quality, moral courage, and tell other Ministers and the wild men in the Fianna Fáil Party that that nonsense must stop, if he would get down to business and not be acting the fool or the hypocrite, because it is all hypocrisy, there would soon be a change in the situation. At present he is pursuing a dishonest policy. In fact, the Government is taking from thousands of poor people moneys that should not be taken from them. As one who has his ear to the ground, who is mixing constantly with the people—not in high society, but with the man in the street—I may tell you that people are thinking at the moment. I do not want to see the Government defeated too soon. After all, they are only three years in office and it might be well to give them another year or two. But there is a big change, and the people are beginning to complain of your policy, especially that part of it for which the Minister, whose Estimate is before us, is responsible.

Mr. Donnelly

Dundalk should have nothing to complain about.

Mr. Coburn

That is another aspect of the situation. We shall come to that, but not on this Vote. Then we come to the question of the slaughter of calves. It is funny that a person like me, living on the Border, should be very much interested in calves, but I am interested, for this reason. I know that prior to the start of the economic war thousands of calves were bought in the South of Ireland and re-sold in Northern Ireland. The average price paid for these calves ranged from £3 to £3 10s. per head. There was a titter of laughter to-day when Deputy O'Leary read out the prices paid for calves. Deputy O'Leary was quite correct in these prices. These were the prices paid. I do not know whether Deputy Victory ever got such a price or not.

Mr. Victory

You are talking of the peak war price.

Mr. O'Leary

Nonsense.

Mr. Coburn

That was the price paid, and I suppose these men bought anything from 6,000 to 7,000 calves during the season from April to June. They bought them down in Kerry, that great Irish county where the people will not recognise anything except the system under which they get a few pounds for old cows. These great Irishmen down in Kerry who want to fight the economic war——

Mr. S. Flynn

It comes badly from the Deputy to sneer at Kerry.

Mr. Coburn

If they met a real man they would probably run away from him. These calves fetched £3 per head each, but for the past year or two, since Fianna Fáil came into power, the calves were sold for practically nothing. The clever fellows who, of course, knew what was coming off, bought the calves and got 10/- for the skins, but the farmer who reared the calves got nothing. Deputy O'Leary was quite right in saying that thousands of calves were bought in that way. There was no man more welcome in County Kerry than the man from Dundalk town giving £3 10s. for the calves and taking them up to the North. They were then taken across the Border and sold to be turned into stores, being eventually exported to make good beef for John Bull, with whom we are supposed to be at war.

I suggest to the Minister that it is near time that we showed that we are possessed of a little common sense in view of the fact that we are spending £5,000,000 a year on education. The people in a country such as this should be full of common sense. Many of the difficulties that the Minister has to contend with would vanish like snow before the sun if only he would get down to brass tacks, settle up with Great Britain and get us back to the market that we had formerly. The annuities are being paid three and four times over. There is no point in saying that, if we were to settle up with Great Britain, we would be surrendering the national position. At the present time there is no such thing as nationality in this country.

I come now to the question of the wages paid to agricultural labourers. I was glad, more or less, to hear the Labour Party refer to this question. I sympathise somewhat with the Government because I know that in present circumstances it is very difficult to pay wages. The Government cannot accuse me of being over critical, but I can say this in all sincerity, that never have I seen more young men from the rural districts come to my door looking for work than during the past three or six months. I have had conversations with them and have asked them "what wages were you being paid?" I did not do that for any political purpose because I seldom talk politics. The reply I received in nine cases out of ten was this "Do not mention wages; it is not a question of wages, but rather a question of taking what is given to us." Deputy Corish was quite correct when he said that the wages paid averaged from 6/- to 8/- a week. Can any Fianna Fáil Deputy, or even any Deputy on the Opposition Benches, bring to me any number of labourers who are getting a £1 a week for the 52 weeks of the year, or, allowing for the holidays, for 50 weeks of the year? If we could ensure continuity of employment for all our farm labourers at that wage, then I say we would be the richest country in the world, but we are not doing that.

What a nice commentary all this is on the Fianna Fáil plan. The people were told that if returned to power Fianna Fáil would end unemployment. The Minister for Defence went so far as to say that when Fianna Fáil got into power our workmen would become so stout that the doors of the houses would have to be widened to admit them; that they would have good food, the best of living and high wages. Think of the present position and what a commentary it is on the tripe we hear about our Irish culture and the uplifting of the worker. Instead of what we were promised we have doles and free beef.

As an Irishman, I am more or less ashamed of having to admit many of the things that are taking place in the country at present. I would again impress on the Minister that, before he goes out of office, he ought to make a real effort to settle the differences that exist between this Government and the Government of Great Britain, because as long as this economic war lasts there will be trouble here. Give the farmer back his free market. The Government doles and subsidies are of no use. They are simply giving with one hand and taking back with the other. They remind one very much of the nursery rhyme:

Give a thing and take it back,

God will ask you where is that,

If you say you do not know,

God will send you down below.

Did you make such a statement?

Mr. Coburn

I did, but there was nothing improper in it.

Mr. Dowdall

You cannot have a fight without somebody getting hurt. The people in the fight must suffer.

Mr. Morrissey

A lot has been said here also about agricultural wages, and I think that all figures will prove that they have fallen by more than 3/-, at all events in the last two or three years. In fact, not only have agricultural wages fallen, but employment on the land has decreased to an enormous extent. Deputy Cosgrave in speaking to-day gave an instance of Tipperary where there is a new beet factory, where tillage was increased for beet and wheat, still the amount of agricultural labour employment has decreased by over 400. That is a very bad state of affairs. Looking over the whole of the Twenty-Six Counties I find that 12,000 people have gone off the land in that period. And that is the result of the policy of the Government that was to increase the wealth of the country, that was to increase employment, that was to increase wages, and that was to give the agricultural labourer a better time.

The plight of the agricultural labourer is further seen in the decline of the poultry industry. It is a well known fact that the labourers' wives were the most industrious people in the production of poultry and of eggs. The production of eggs has gone down in value from £2,270,000 in 1931 to £995,000 in 1934. That shows how farm labourers are hit in both ways. The labourer is hit by not being able to get employment and the wife is hit in the decrease in the market in her poultry produce. The only thing that increased in the last four years of the Fianna Fáil administration was an increase in asses. I do not want to make any political capital out of that or to show that it means a breaking up of the Fianna Fáil Party, but there was an increase from 89 in 1932 to 401 in 1934.

We heard a lot of talk about self-sufficiency. But that idea can be carried too far. It is right that the country should develop its own resources so that in times of stress or danger it could fall back upon this for its own benefit. But as I say, that can be carried too far. If farmers took it into their heads not to send supplies to Dublin, and supposing Dublin was left without that market for milk and vegetables, it would find itself in a nasty position. Suppose that shoemakers made boots only for their own children, you would be up against a great difficulty. The wealth of any country consists in the produce it can export, and particularly is that so in the case of an agricultural country more than of any other people on the earth. If Deputies opposite would wake up to that fact and give up all their humbug about fighting for self-sufficiency, and national principle, they would realise that mere politics will not put one shilling into a man's pocket or a bite into a man's mouth, and can in reality have only a bad effect. Does any Deputy opposite think there is any value in such a policy as they are pursuing? I will not call it rainbow chasing, but I would remind Deputies opposite that there is as much nationalism and good national spirit on this side of the House as there is on theirs, but we do not want to pursue a policy which is based entirely on fighting humbug.

Deputy Harris told us that the English market was very shaky, and he went on to mention the dangers of foot and mouth disease, I think it is over 20 years since we had any disturbance of our cattle trade through foot and mouth disease. He was followed by Deputy O'Reilly, who told us that the farmer was suffering because he did not prepare his produce in a proper way for the foreign market. I do not know what he meant by that. Perhaps he has discovered foreign markets that look like the "Isles of Blest"; so far away that they could not be seen. It is a remarkable fact that these Deputies do not seem to realise, what everybody else realises, that we have in the English market one that is inexhaustible for our agricultural produce. The English market, which we are told is so shaky, absorbs about £300,000,000 worth of agricultural produce every year. That means that we could put into that market as much as £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 every year. Surely we could find room in that great market, three or four hours from our shore, for our surplus agricultural produce.

With regard to some of the other industries which are really ancillary to agriculture, we would like to know how they are getting on. Malting fell from £519,000 in 1931 to £381,000 in 1934. We have the greatest brewing industry in the world yet the value there fell from £6,340,000 in 1931 to £5,809,000 in 1934. That was a very big fall. Distilling has been practically wiped out. It has fallen from £175,000 in 1931 to £147,000 in 1934. The export of cattle has fallen in the same period from £18,000,000 to £6,000,000. That is a fall of £12,000,000 per annum in those years.

The export value of our goods per head of the population has fallen from 12.5 in 1931 to 6.1, that is more than 50 per cent. of a reduction in the whole value of the exports per head of the population. I want to criticise all these things. That is the policy we are asked to face up to in these Estimates. That is a policy which is taking all these hundreds of thousands out of the pockets of the taxpayers to maintain it, and it is a policy which is not only not bringing any profit to the people but is impoverishing them, because it is being carried out at such enormous cost. The only thing we have to take the place of all that agricultural produce is the home trade in beet and wheat. But you have to prop these up with subsidies, and the moment you take these subsidies away, wheat and beet will fall down. Trade cannot be subsidised for all time. God has given us a certain kind of economy and a climate favourable to that economy, and you cannot better take advantage of these gifts than by allowing the Irish farmer to develop them by taking advantage of the natural surroundings he possesses.

We were told, a while ago, that there was nothing real about our argument. I think some of the figures I have given are very real. If money has any value as a talking power, these figures ought to talk to some of the people opposite. I think the discussion of agriculture in this country with a Merrion Street mentality is very far from reality. They have no recognition of the real state of affairs in the country. If the Minister for Agriculture wants a little reality as to how his policy is affecting the country I ask him to take a walk with me through some of the towns in the County Cork. I have gone to considerable trouble to find out the real state of affairs in 15 towns in Cork, principally in my own constituency. I have taken 15 towns where the monthly value of cattle and pigs sold at each fair was over £10,000 and that sum has now fallen to a sum of about £500 and certainly not exceeding £1,000. That means that from £8,000 to £10,000 in circulation is lost in these towns. That means a loss of £100,000 per annum to these towns, so that in these 15 towns the loss in circulation to the traders amounts to £1,500,000. It means that the farmers bringing their stock into these towns get £1,500,000 per annum less than they did before, and the traders have lost the trade that would accrue from the circulation of that much money.

It also shows that if there is poverty amongst the working classes in the towns it is because the traders and the distributors of goods have not the wherewithal to keep these people employed. One of the reasons why there has been such an increase in unemployment is the decay of the towns owing to the depression of these fairs. Deputy Kehoe gave us some interesting Latin quotations. He said something about "West Cork locutus est, causa finita est.” If I might quote some further Latin, I would paraphrase the well-known “Delenda est Carthago” and make a present of a slogan to the Minister. There is a competition going on at present for slogans, and if the Minister wants a good slogan to put over his office or Department I would say the most appropriate thing he could have to paste upon his policy and upon its results would be “Delenda est agricultura.”

Minister for Agriculture (Dr. Ryan)

Deputies cannot complain that we have not got sufficient opportunity to discuss this Estimate. I think nearly every Deputy in the House said something, but unfortunately I have to admit that I got very little help from the Opposition as to how I am going to carry on for another year. If the advice to stop the economic war could be adopted, of course I have got that advice often enough from the Opposition. I made a complaint last night that they are not doing sufficient thinking. They ought to think of some other remedy but that, if that remedy is not going to be adopted.

Deputy Minch raised the question of the surplus barley and oats. In introducing the Estimate I said that a Bill is being prepared and will be introduced to deal with that problem, but I should like to say that it is not proposed to control the acreage. He also spoke of the shortage of threshing machines. It was reported to the Department some time ago from some areas that there was a shortage of threshing machines, and I have asked for a report from the different counties on the subject. If what the Deputy says is true we must try to see if a remedy can be found.

In regard to what Deputy O'Neill said, and I think some other Deputies, contradicting figures I gave last night showing that we were disposing of as many cattle or more than Cumann na nGaedheal did in their hey-day, Deputy O'Neill quoted the 1934 figures. I was speaking of the 1935 and of this year's figures, and I still say that we are disposing of as many cattle now per annum as Cumann na nGaedheal did when they were doing so much for cattle in this country.

General Mulcahy

And getting half the price.

Dr. Ryan

I am afraid I will have to ignore interruptions to-night in order to finish my speech. Deputy O'Neill said that the wealth of a nation is its exports. If we go into the theory of political economy, and so on, that may be true or it may not—I have not the time to examine it. I think that at least it would be equally true to say that the drain on a country is its imports if it can produce these particular articles within the country. If the Fianna Fáil Government are attempting to produce things here that up to the time we came into office were imported, we are adding to the wealth of the nation. It is not true to say that there has been no foot-and-mouth disease for over 20 years. As a matter of fact, there was foot-and-mouth disease since I came into this House— in 1928, in fact—and I hope we shall not be troubled with it again.

Deputy O'Neill also said that he made inquiries in 15 towns in his constituency, and found that where a town was getting £12,000 before from a fair it is not getting £500 now. Surely he does not claim that the receipts of the farmers have been reduced by 2,400 per cent.—that is, that they are getting £1 now where they got £24 before. The Deputy must have been looking at these figures through blue glasses.

Deputy Coburn spoke about the Dundalk factory and he has been already answered by Deputy Dowdall. If Messrs. Lunham were doing such a fine business in 1912 and 1913 they obviously must have been running the factory at a loss, because they got rid of it. Deputy Coburn is wrong in saying that anybody compels a factory to export bacon, leaving the home market short of supplies. The only authority that controls the factory with regard to production is the Bacon Board, and the Bacon Board does not take any account of whether the factory exports its bacon or sells it at home. It does take into account the export quota; I mean that if they give that factory its quota, then it goes on and produces, and that is all.

The Deputy says that I am pursuing a policy which is inflicting undue hardship on the farmer. The best judges of that are the farmers and any time we have gone to that tribunal the farmers have stood by us. Of course, I know, and it has been said over and over again here, that in 1932 the Opposition were looking for an opportunity of asking the farmers what they were going to say the next time. When they got that opportunity they made various excuses and looked forward to a further opportunity, which was given to them a few years afterwards at the local elections. Now they are looking for the next opportunity, which will come in time.

Deputy Finlay gave some calculations on the cost of producing beet. His first item was 30/- per acre for rent and rates. Taking the total rent paid and the total rates paid, the average works out at between 5/- and 6/- per acre, so that we need not pursue Deputy Finlay any further in his calculations on the production of beet when he puts down rent and rates at 30/-. Deputy O'Leary said that I ought to insist on the fairs and markets being kept open for pigs. That is not my business. If farmers prefer to send their pigs direct to the factory, and they do better by sending the pigs to the factory, surely we are not going to stop them. I do not see that the traders in the towns can have any great objection to that. If the farmers get more for pigs by sending them direct to the factory, do not the traders get the benefit? We have heard from Opposition speakers that the traders get all the farmer's money and more, because the farmers have not sufficient to give them—in fact, they are going into debt.

Deputy Wall and other speakers said that my introductory speech would imply that the farmers are having a wonderful time. In my introductory speech I pointed out exactly how things stood with regard to butter, cheese, cattle, pigs, poultry, potatoes, wheat, beet—every single thing—and not one single thing I said was contradicted. I gave facts which were not contradicted in any single item. If the facts gave the picture that the farmers are having a wonderful time, then the facts cannot be contradicted. I do not say, however, that they are having a wonderful time. I say the farmers are finding it hard enough to get on. I was reared upon a farm and I know that they always found it hard to get on, very hard, and I suppose they are finding it hard still.

Deputy Roddy wants to know about the butter marketing scheme. He asked how many have joined. All the creameries have joined. He asked has it improved prices, and the answer is "Yes". I said in my opening speech that from the time the marketing scheme came into operation our butter definitely came above the New Zealand price and has held a place above the New Zealand price right through, which was unknown before. We may give them that much credit. They did bring us definitely above the New Zealand price. We have not, perhaps, got the real value of our butter, but we have got nearer to getting the real value, because we do claim that our butter is more valuable than any other butter on the British market. Of course, we must get more experience before we can boast too much about what we are going to do. I hope we will be able to maintain that position.

The Deputy also asked: Has it decreased the cost of marketing? I do not think we can claim that, because the creameries are doing their own marketing so far, except that they are doing it under the direction, as it were, of this marketing committee. It may in time, perhaps, decrease costs, because it may enable the creameries to do their selling without expensive agency fees, and so on, on the other side.

Deputy Roddy read the Estimates wrongly when he said that we had decreased the grants to the county committees. We have not decreased them; we have, as a matter of fact, increased them. The grants to the county committees are much the same as last year. There is a slight increase under the ordinary headings, but there is a big increase under the heading of the cost of distribution of licences, so that the county committees should be slightly better off than they were last year, so far as grants from the Central Fund are concerned. Deputy Roddy also asked about this provision for improvement of the creamery industry. I do not think he understood exactly what that money is being devoted to. It is being devoted to the purchase of the proprietary creameries, some of which still remain, and also to the development of new interests in places where the Dairy Disposals Board has existing creameries, or adding on auxilaries or developing an area of that kind.

The salaries of officers of the county committees were always subject to approval by the Department and by me, under regulations made under the 1931 Agriculture Act. These regulations have been used from time to time and we are not in any way encroaching on the powers of the county committees in what we have done lately. We are only doing what we have done over and over again in laying down regulations with regard to salaries. Deputy Cosgrave talked about the Agricultural Credit Corporation and gave us a little lecture on banking which was very interesting. I do not think that there was very much in it apart from that. He gave us to understand that the Credit Corporation were not doing as much as they ought to do for the agricultural community. I do not want to raise this question because it is entirely irrelevant, but if they are not doing what they ought to do, it is due to the terms on which they were financed in the beginning, because they paid far too much for their money and are, therefore, compelled to lend their money at present at 6 per cent. They have reduced it to 5 per cent. now, but it is extremely difficult to make a concern like that pay on that basis.

Deputy Cosgrave also complained of the reduction in the number of poultry in the country. I answered a question some few weeks ago which gave returns in respect of poultry from 1927 downwards. There has been a continuous reduction since 1927. I have not got the particular returns with me, but I happen to have returns which show that eggs exported in 1929 were valued at £2,970,000. In 1931 the value was £2,060,000. There was a fall at the rate of £450,000 a year from 1929 to 1931. If Cumann na nGaedheal had remained in power and had kept up that sort of progression, we would have no exports at all. We have done a little better than that because we have almost £1,000,000 exports at present, so that we have at least arrested that very strong tendency to reduction that prevailed in the time of Cumann na nGaedheal.

He also complained about the Pigs and Bacon Act as being due to the economic war. It shows what Deputy Cosgrave, who is leader of the Opposition Party and, I believe, a responsible Deputy, who does not make statements without thinking over them, is prepared to say in his prejudice on this matter, because the Pigs and Bacon Act is not at all due to the economic war. They have a Pigs and Bacon Act in Northern Ireland, and there is no economic war there. It is necessary there because of the control brought in in Great Britain, and it became necessary here, too, for many reasons. I have stated the reasons over and over again—that the prices paid here were absurd in many cases, and were changing from day to day, and from factory to factory. We have a position now in which men know at least some time beforehand what they are going to get for their pigs.

Here is a little more about pigs. I was reading the Evening Herald for amusement last night and I came across a little paragraph which says:

"There was a marked improvement in the supply, demand and price at the fortnightly pig fair in Tralee, when 800 pigs and 800 bonhams were on offer, the largest supply for months. Bacon pigs realised up to 64/- per cwt., dead weight, the best price obtained this year. The brisk demand and improved prices are attributed to the fact that pig-buyers representing outside bacon factories required supplies to make up their quotas."

I was a pig producer under Cumann na nGaedheal for a while, and if I had continued to get 64/- I would not have gone out of pigs. I went out of pigs when I got 25/- a cwt. because I thought I could not stick it any longer. Of course I am a pig producer now again because we are getting a fair price.

Deputy Mrs. Concannon complained that we were not devoting enough money towards the training of women in such places as the Munster Institute and in rural domestic economy schools. That is probably correct, and, as a matter of fact, I have been endeavouring for some time to see if we could not get at least an extra school or two going. There are difficulties in that respect, but I think it is possible that it may be extended. It must be remembered, however, that what we give is only a little help to these schools. They pay, to a great extent, for themselves, and we give a grant which helps them to carry on. It is not an indication of the amount of work done by these schools, apart from the Munster Institute. I would also remind Deputies that the Department of Education carries a certain Vote for the purpose of training girls in cookery, laundry work and other things that girls ought to know.

I have a few notes also on other matters about which I wanted to speak. I was speaking last night when the debate adjourned on the question of cattle, and I said that I wanted it to be known, and so have no further dispute about it, that our policy was to furnish the largest possible market for agricultural produce, not only at home but abroad. After I had said that and emphasised it several times, I found even to-day that Deputies came in here with the argument that we were trying to keep tillage going and at the same time to wipe out the cattle trade completely. There is no use in our trying to get to understand one another in that way, if Deputies in order to support their own arguments set out to misrepresent us. If Deputies have their speeches made up and find they must build these speeches on the arguments that we are destroying the cattle trade, it is hard lines on them if you take that prop from underneath them. I gave proofs here in the course of the debate that we had got all the quotas we possibly could, not only in Great Britain, but in several European countries. We have in fact been sneered at by the other side for going to Germany, Belgium, Morocco, Spain and other countries looking for quotas. Surely we would not be doing that if we were setting out to destroy the cattle trade.

Will you find a former supporter of your own Party who pays good wages? I cannot find one in County Dublin. They followed your Party because they thought they would get out of their obligations.

Dr. Ryan

A lot of them did not follow us because of that. The Dublin County Council, for instance, did not get out of its obligations. Some farmers are paying as good a wage as they can pay under present circumstances—we all know that—and some are not paying as good a wage as they could pay.

Mr. Belton

Will the Minister put a figure on a good wage?

Dr. Ryan

Tá

Anthony, Richard.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Bourke, Séamus.
Brennan, Michael.
Broderick, William Joseph.
Brodrick, Seán.
Daly, Patrick.
Davis, Michael.
Davitt, Robert Emmet.
Desmond, William.
Dillon, James M.
Dolan, James Nicholas.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
Fagan, Charles.
Finlay, John.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Haslett, Alexander.
Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
Holohan, Richard.
Keating, John.
Lavery, Cecil.
Lynch, Finian.
MacDermot, Frank.
MacEoin, Seán.
McGilligan, Patrick.
McGovern, Patrick.
McGuire, James Ivan.
Burke, James Michael.
Burke, Patrick.
Byrne, Alired.
Coburn, James.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John Aloysius.
Curran, Richard.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Minch, Sydney B.
Morrisroe, James.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Murphy, James Edward.
Nally, Martin.
O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Reilly, John Joseph.
O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Reidy, James.
Rice, Vincent.
Roddy, Martin.
Rogers, Patrick James.
Rowlette, Robert James.
Thrift, William Edward.
Wall, Nicholas.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Blaney, Neal.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Daniel.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Briscoe, Robert.
Browne, William Frazer.
Clery, Mícheál.
Concannon, Helena.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Corbett, Edmond.
Corish, Richard.
Corkery, Daniel.
Corry, Martin John.
Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
Crowley, Timothy.
Derrig, Thomas.
Doherty, Hugh.
Donnelly, Eamon.
Dowdall, Thomas P.
Everett, James.
Flinn, Hugo V.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Geoghegan, James.
Gibbons, Seán.
Goulding, John.
Hales, Thomas.
Harris, Thomas.
Hayes, Seán.
Houlihan, Patrick.
Jordan, Stephen.
Keely, Séamus P.
Kehoe, Patrick.
Kelly, James Patrick.
Kelly, Thomas.
Keyes, Michael.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, Michael.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick John.
Lynch, James B.
MacEntee, Seán.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moane, Edward.
Moore, Séamus.
Moylan, Seán.
Norton, William.
O'Briain, Donnchadh.
O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
O'Dowd, Patrick.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pattison, James P.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Rice, Edward.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Ryan, Robert.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Victory, James.
Walsh, Richard.
Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.

Question declared lost.

Vote put and declared carried.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, April 3rd.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 2 Apr 1936