In reply to a query put to the Chair, I wish to state that Vote 53 is not being discussed with Vote 52. Therefore, fisheries may not be dealt with on the Vote for Agriculture.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Agriculture (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."— (Deputy Murphy).
When the House was on the point of rising last night, I was endeavouring to show that the agricultural workers were looking forward with very considerable hope to the results of the passage into law of the measure proposing to regulate and standardise agricultural wages. They had been looking forward for a number of years to seeing that hope realised. It was, therefore, a matter of very considerable importance to them, and many people amongst the agricultural workers were optimistic enough to think that, with the passage into law of this measure, most if not all of their economic difficulties would immediately disappear. They were very speedily disillusioned on that point, because very shortly after the Act was passed into law, and before the appointed day which gave effect to it had arrived, they had evidence of the fact that all was not well with the proposals, and the machinery in preparation to give effect to the proposals, to regulate agricultural wages.
In the constitution of the board, I understand that, to some extent, the line formerly set by the British Government in this country in the constitution of wages boards was more or less followed. I think, in spite of certain difficulties that might have arisen, that in the constitution of that board the organised workers of this country should have been taken into consultation and confidence by the Minister. That did not happen, and that was the first indication that things were not entirely well in this whole connection and that hopes that were cherished were not quite so rosy-looking as they had at first appeared. The Minister constituted that board by the method of asking members of committees of agriculture in some cases, or in all cases perhaps, to nominate employers' representatives, and he asked members of this House to make nominations also. Without any specific plan or any definite scheme a board was set up, a board on which it became quite evident in a short time that workers were in a very insignificant minority.
Very much the same practice was followed in the setting up of the subcommittees of that board, or area councils, that function in many parts of the country. I understand that such bodies, the minor committees, met first to discuss the question of a standard wage for agricultural workers. On the standard there was very sharp difference of opinion at various meetings of the area committees; in fact, in some cases no decisions whatever were reached, and the fact that no decisions were reached was conveyed to the Agricultural Wages Board for their consideration. The whole method by which the area committees function, the procedure at meetings of the committees and other things in connection therewith, have left a good deal to be desired.
I understand the minutes of the area committees, and latterly of the Wages Board itself, are not circulated to the members of the board and that, in fact, the board and the area committees really do not, for all practical purposes, exist; that the strong hand and the strong voice and the real power is the individual who is the chairman of the Agricultural Wages Board, who is the Minister's nominee on the board; that, in fact, all the other people are, to a great extent, in a purely ornamental position. The chairman's is the hand that wields the power. The Minister may say that, having appointed this man, he is a perfectly free agent. I venture very respectfully to suggest that is not so.
The chairman of the board has, or had at least, very close political associations with the Minister. He is paid a very substantial salary. His qualifications for the position, perhaps, are indisputable—I understand he is a farmer—but at least he is the nominee of the Minister, and everything that we can ascertain, as to the whole procedure and method of standardising or fixing agricultural wages in this country, goes to show that the chairman of the board is the mouthpiece of the Minister. The voice might be the voice of Jacob, but the hand is the hand of Esau. The voice in this case might be that of Mr. O'Leary, but the hand be that of the Minister for Agriculture. Consequently, in relation to this wage of 24/- a week, I think that the Minister for Agriculture must accept the major portion of the blame.
This wage of 24/- a week, that was originally fixed by the board, seems to have a knack of always cropping up in the matter State employment. Over a number of years, in connection with public works or works of that kind, this unhappy figure of 24/- seems to crop up again and again and again. To the dismay of the agricultural workers, it issued again solemnly from the Agricultural Wages Board, or, rather, from the chairman of the board who, in the absence of a decision on the matter, took the responsibility on himself of fixing this wage. I understand that there were prolonged deliberations with regard to the value of perquisites and that, again, the chairman's ruling on matters of this kind resulted in the final decision. I understand, too, that there were wholesale applications for exemptions made to the board. Now, I want to be strictly fair in this matter, so far as I can, but I understand that far too many applications of the kind received favourable consideration. That, however, is one point that I am not quite sure about, and if I have overstated the case in any way with regard to exemptions, I should be very glad to be corrected and, in the proper time, to correct myself.
The announcement of the fixing of the 24/- wage for a 54-hour week created widespread discontent amongst the agricultural workers. It was obvious that it would, and the agitation of agricultural workers in this connection has gone on since. That agitation was manifested at meetings of the area committees, and certain members of the area or subsidiary committees of the Agricultural Wages Board were very vocal—certainly, outside the meetings of the area committees, and presumably at the meetings of the area committees—but they were very effectually silenced. They hold office for 12 months, and when that time expired the members of the area committees, who had taken up a hostile view to the fixing of 24/- a week as a rate of agricultural wages, were relieved of their responsibilities on their board, and more accommodating people were found and placed on the board. Now, I do not want to dwell on this matter at any length; it is an old story, but it is a rather sordid and shabby story, and a story with which I should regret to see the Minister for Agriculture, who is certainly a very charming and courteous Minister to meet, and a very courteous opponent in this House—I should regret to see him, as I say, associated with that transaction in any way. It was a very unworthy transaction and I think that perhaps the most merciful view to take of the matter is not to dwell on it unduly in this House this evening, having regard to the fact that it has been happening over a considerable time and that it is a matter about which, perhaps, it would be best to say nothing further.
Perhaps the Deputy would allow me to intervene for a moment? Of course, I do not accuse the Deputy of saying anything in which he does not believe, but I should like to assure him that there is absolutely no foundation for that statement. There was no person relieved from any of the committees unless complaints were made to me in the meantime to the effect that he was not an agricultural labourer. Every such complaint was submitted to the inspector, under the Department, for the area. I can guarantee—and I can show the files to the Deputy if he wishes me to do so—that in every case it was on the advice of the Inspector of the Department.
Well, I am very glad that the Minister said that, and, if I have been unconsciously unfair in making this suggestion that I have already made publicly on a number of occasions, I should be very sorry to have done so.
I did not accuse the Deputy of making the statement except in good faith.
Well, I am glad to know that, and I should be very glad to have any further information from the Minister in this matter. As a result of this agitation, to which I have been referring, a new situation arose some time ago, and at a meeting of the Agricultural Wages Board, or as a result of a meeting of the Board, a wage of 27/- a week was fixed for agricultural workers. I do not know what took place at the meeting of the board where that decision was reached, but I should be very much surprised if that were a unanimous decision of the board; and, again, I think there is ground for suggesting that this wage of 27/- a week, that was fixed recently, is the decision of the power on that board, the chairman of the board. Let us try to examine the value of this 27/- to the agricultural labourer and his family. He gets a nominal increase of 3/-, from the rate of 24/- that was originally fixed. That is an increase of 12½ per cent. on the wages originally fixed. Now let us see what the other side of the story reveals. The other side of the story dealing with the value of perquisites goes to show that this increase of 3/- is to a considerable extent offset by the increase in the value of the perquisites which are taken into account if he is receiving perquisites in the way of food or other things from his employer. The value of food in the case of potatoes has been increased from 1/11 to 2/1, or an increase of nearly 9 per cent., and the rent of land let for the planting of potatoes, under the terms originally fixed, has been increased by about 20 per cent.
Now, here are some figures that, I hope, will bring home this matter in fairly clear and definite terms to the House. The wage is 27/- a week for a married man. He gets his food in his employer's house, exclusive of his breakfast and exclusive of his Sunday meals. He does not work on Sundays. His dinner for six days per week will cost him 5/- at 10d. per meal; his afternoon tea for six days at 2d. per meal will cost him 1/-; his supper for six days at 6½d. will cost 3/3, making a total deduction of 9/3 from his wage of 27/- leaving him with 17/9. Out of that 17/9 he has to maintain himself and his family. I am assuming that the agricultural worker we have in mind is a man with a wife and three children. He has to provide for them over the whole week out of this 17/9, and, in addition, he has to provide out of that sum the cost of his own breakfast each morning, and of all his meals on Sunday. I think that this estimate will be regarded as fair, because the value of the meals is fixed at something like the same rate as that which applies to his employer. I think that the estimate is a conservative one because, in the case of certain commodities, the workman cannot purchase them in the same quantity, nor are they as easily accessible to him as they are to his employer. In my opinion the estimate ought to be higher.
The figures are as follows, and I ask Deputies to remember that the amount that this workman has to cover everything is 17/9. The cost of his food on Sundays, and of his breakfast on the other six days of the week, is 3/9½ Sunday dinner, 10d.; Sunday tea, 2d.; supper, 6½d., making a total of 5/4. So that as regards the worker himself, with the 9/3 already referred to deducted from his wages, you have to consider him bearing this additional deduction of 5/4, which is necessary in order that he may sustain himself over the seven days of the week. These two figures give a total deduction of 14/7 from his wages, so that his wife and three children are left with 12/5. Now, let us try and arrive at what it will cost his wife for her meals during the week.
I think that the figure I propose to give will not be held to be based on any sort of an exaggerated calculation. This is the allowance made to a farmer in respect of the cost of food given to a boy of 18 in his employment —1/9 per day or 12/3 per week. If we take half that amount as the basis of our calculation for the three children, we get the figure of 18/5, making the gross total of 30/8. But there are other things to be added. The rent for a person in that position would be about 2/6. Perhaps that may be a little too high, so we shall take the figure of 2/-, the rent of the average labourer's cottage that is now being built or that has been built in recent years. The figure for fuel and light is 3/-; the cost of clothing and other things required for a home, that I need not enumerate, I take to be 4/-, making in all 9/- which, when added to the 30/8 gives you something like 40/-.
I ask Deputies to remember that the people who require this amount, after deductions have been made in respect of the food of the wage-earner, have only got 12/5 to meet that 40/-. That shows immediately, I think, the very unsatisfactory, the very unhappy and the very degrading position in which the workers employed in our principal industry, as it is so often referred to, find themselves. Very frequently we grow eloquent in this country about our main industry. We talk with pride of it, and I should say that applies to all sections of our people and to all parties, but while the workers in it are in the condition that I have described, I think we must be filled with feelings of humiliation. While you have such a condition of slavery, I do not see how we can afford to talk in terms of pride of our principal industry. It can easily be shown that the wages they receive could not, in any possible circumstances, provide themselves, their wives and families with a decent measure of support and maintenance.
This wage of 27/- a week is in respect of a 54-hour week. I calculate that it would take a worker 19 out of the 54 hours to earn sufficient to pay for his food, and that if he has broken time he may easily find himself at the end of the week in debt to his employer for that food. Together with the main and basic argument that a gross injustice has been and is being perpetrated on the agricultural workers of this country and on their dependents, there is, of course, the other very important argument, that living costs in the country have increased. Apart from the nominal increase, which has been largely offset by an increase since in the value of perquisites, an increase which by the way indicates clearly an official admission that the cost of living has increased, there is the question of the living costs for the people whom the worker has to maintain at home. The International Labour Office at Geneva has issued very interesting figures regarding food and living costs in various parts of the world. The figures that I propose to quote are based on calculations made from the figures supplied by the International Labour Office in October, 1937, which is not a very far distant date.
The item taken into consideration is a basket of provisions required for the maintenance of an ordinary household. It will be seen from what I have to say that the basket of provisions cannot be said to include any expensive luxuries. This basket of provisions would cost in New York 35/-; in Dublin, 8/6; in Johannesburg, 8/2; in Budapest, 8/1; in Paris, 8/-; in Vienna, 7/7; in Wellington, 7/6; in Berne, 7/6; in London, 7/5; in Melbourne, 7/5; in Montreal, 7/-; in Stockholm, 6/9; in Copenhagen, 5/7, and in Warsaw, 4/9. Let us see how agricultural workers are treated in some of the countries I have mentioned, where food and living costs are considerably lower than in our own country. Some time after a wage of 24/- was fixed in this country for agricultural workers, the British Agricultural Wages Board fixed minimum rates varying from 34/- a week to 41/-in Lancashire for a 48-hour week. The newly-established Wages Board in Scotland fixed minimum rates varying from 34/- to 40/- for a 48/-hour week. In New Zealand—a country that was almost entirely unpeopled up to 100 years ago and a country much more recent in its historical development than our own, which cannot boast of the ancient traditions associated with this country—they give us a remarkable example of how much more humanely they regard the needs of agricultural workers than we do. The rate of pay for agricultural workers in New Zealand is 62/6 per week, with 28 days' holiday in the year. That represents an increase of the standard formerly fixed of 17/6 per week. The entirely inadequate wage paid to agricultural workers in this country is a great reflection on all of us. It is a great reflection on the industry with which these workers are associated, and it is in most unfavourable contrast with the place we accord this industry when talking about it here.
I said last night that I realised that there were difficulties and that we, on this side of the House, could not and would not ignore the difficulties with which agriculturists have to contend. We believe they should receive assistance, encouragement and co-operation. Co-operation would be very willingly extended from this quarter of the House to enable them to better their position and to get for the products of their labour a price which would not be subject to fluctuations, variations or uncertainty. These constitute the source of many of their difficulties. Their difficulties were very considerably accentuated in the last few years, but that chapter is now happily ended and one can refer to it now without any suggestion that one's words are injurious to the interests of the country. The present period should be regarded as one for taking measures to help the agriculturists to get on their feet and to recover from the difficulties they have encountered. It should be a period of reconstruction of agriculture. The restocking of the lands and many other matters will occur as useful measures to people in this House more familiar with the needs of agriculture than some of us can claim to be. In that reconstruction, a situation is bound to arise, if there is the necessary drive behind it, by which the agriculturist and agricultural labourer will be assured of a better and a happier place in the life of the country than they enjoy at present. That matter can be discussed on other occasions but, lest my statement should be regarded as purely negative or one-sided, I think it right to make reference to it now.
Reverting to the family budget of the worker, apart altogether from the considerations I have mentioned, the hard and grinding facts surrounding the efforts of the worker's wife to sustain the people in the home and to maintain some standard of living there must have been very obvious to anybody who has tried to understand it. It must have been obvious to the chairman and members of the board, and to the Minister responsible for appointing the chairman. The figures I propose to quote show the difference in prices of certain commodities between this country and Great Britain. They are based on statistics issued by the International Labour Office in October, 1937. The price of bacon is 9 per cent. higher here than in England, flour 10 per cent., eggs 19 per cent., bread 22 per cent., sugar 22.8 per cent., coal 28.7 per cent., tea 47.8 per cent., and rice 80 per cent. It is true that beef, mutton, pork, butter, and milk are cheaper, but tea, coal, sugar, bread and flour are commodities that cannot be done without in the working person's home. The figures I have mentioned reveal the urgent need for abandoning this policy of neglecting the agricultural worker or, at best, giving him something which merely enables him to eke out a miserable existence. It is an undisputed fact that many agricultural workers could not possibly carry on and rear their families were it not for the efforts of their wives. The wife of an agricultural labourer is generally a most industrious person. Up to some time ago she was able to show her talent for supplementing the little income of the home by devoting her time to the keeping of a certain number of poultry, but the decline in poultry kept in this country is a most alarming one, and, in my experience of several months dealing with applicants for unemployment assistance and going into little worldly goods they possess, I have, time and again, come across cases where the poultry possessed by the wife of the labourer amounted to only three or four hens. It may be, as the Minister said last night, that disease amongst poultry is largely responsible for that. I do not want to argue that now. Very probably the cost of feeding has a good deal to do with it, but whatever has caused this state of affairs, the fact is that the poultry are not there, and I mention the matter in order to emphasise that the opportunities which the wife of an agricultural labourer had for doing something to supplement the small wages of her husband have very largely disappeared.
As this is the only opportunity that comes to the House during the year of referring to the operations of the Agricultural Wages Board, I want to say that the responsibility they have for following along this low rate of wages, which seems to be inseparably associated with Government Departments, is a very serious one. The position in the rural areas is extremely bad. School managers point to the fact that the attendance of children at schools is diminishing very rapidly. There are various reasons given, but the main reason is the economic necessity in the rural areas, and the fact that people are unwilling to accept obligations that might mean living in a state of abject and continuous poverty. The rural areas show very definitely and reflect very truly, in my opinion, the present lamentable and regrettable state of the agricultural industry, represented not alone, as I said last night, by the very alarming decline in many directions, but by the poverty of those people who, by a strange irony, are the workers in the main industry. Surely that is a very contradictory state of affairs and one that ought to be regarded as most urgent and compelling from the point of view of finding a satisfactory solution. Other countries have had a much higher conception of the value of the services of their agricultural workers, and while I grant that, in many ways perhaps, we have had special difficulties, I think it will yet be one of the most difficult things to explain, when the records of 15 years of native Government and 15 years of deliberations by an Irish Parliament come to be examined, that, during that time, no reasonable step, and, in fact, no step at all, was taken to improve the position of agricultural labourers.
Many other speakers will discuss this Estimate, not so much from different points of view as from a special and intimate knowledge of certain branches of the work of the Department controlled by the Minister. I propose, therefore, to pass on from this question of agricultural labourers and to bring this statement to a conclusion after referring to two or three other matters. The decay is not peculiar to the rural areas alone, and those of us who live in the small towns and villages know that the decay is spreading like a paralysing plague into the small towns. The small towns and villages are becoming deserted, and the business formerly very actively carried on from one end of the week to the other, but, in particular, on certain days of the week, is entirely disappearing. Various reasons are given for that condition of things, and I think that some of the arguments advanced as reasons for that decay are entirely fallacious. It has been suggested frequently throughout the country that it is the result of the visits of hawkers who, as it were, come along and prey on the inhabitants like vultures, devour all they can of the local trade, and then clear off. I think that is entirely wrong, and, similarly, I have no sympathy whatever with this clamour, which seems to me to be the result of failing to give any consideration to the matter, for taxes on what are described as travelling shops. There is a delightful vagueness about the description "travelling shops". I know that in a number of cases these travelling shops are just the vehicles used by local shopkeepers to reach the rural areas and reach the trade that does not come easily to their doors. There are very many reasons for it, but surely we are not so bankrupt of intelligence, or of willingness to give consideration and thought to this problem, as merely to think that because people come to the markets one day during the week, sell odds and ends on the market square in accordance with the policy that has been carried on for many years, for as long as the oldest man here remembers——
That matter was discussed on one of the financial resolutions and indeed I do not see what responsibility the Minister for Agriculture has in the matter.
I was just coming to that. I hope to be able to convince you, Sir, that the Minister for Agriculture has a very special responsibility in this matter. My suggestion is that the decay in the towns at present is largely the result of the failure of the Minister for Agriculture to take steps to protect the reasonable interests of the people in the towns in a certain way. The fact is that the Minister has very largely subsidised the real offenders against the traders of the towns, because this Estimate contains very substantial provision for the creamery industry. I know that pratically all the towns I know of in West Cork are deserted to-day because they have been ringed around by co-operative creameries which have gone into business and have taken away from the people in the towns the business they formerly enjoyed. I do not object to reasonable competition. I think it is inevitable that it is going to be the basis that will decide trade in this or in any other country in our time, or in the future, but the fact is that the competition in this case is not exactly on equal terms. A farmer supplying his milk to a creamery may not be bound in writing to trade with the concern, but, in fact, he is expected to do so and, in reality, the position becomes one in which his commodities are exchanged for the commodities he can get there.
I hold no special brief for traders in the towns. In a great measure their views on purely political matters would be very different from mine, but I think that, just like the agricultural workers, the people of this country as a whole have got very generous support from the town dwellers. At every stage of the agitation for the betterment of the people of the country, and in a particular measure, the betterment of the farmers of the country, in the struggle to give them the possession of their own homes, which is one of the most remarkable and laudable reforms that have taken place in the history of this country, the town workers bore a very substantial portion of the burden. To-day it is the fashion to regard them as outcasts. There can be no doubt about the fact that the philosophy of certain people in this country is, as they say, that we ought to make grass grow outside the shopkeepers' doors.
I think the Minister must realise that there is a limit to this position. There is a limit beyond which it is not fair to thrust those people. There is no objection whatever to creameries as such. There is no objection to creameries trading in the agricultural requirements of their customers, but there is an objection to their taking over all the business and putting out of existence people who have on the whole been pretty useful citizens, people who in regard to employment and matters of that kind may not always be 100 per cent. excellent, but who on the whole represent a useful and decent type amongst the citizens of the country. I ask the Minister to consider this matter. I am not suggesting that he should take any vindictive action. I am not suggesting that the matter ought to be pursued in any vengeful or agressive way, but there ought to be some method by which there will be recognition of the rights of the rural population, in the matter of their agricultural industry, to combine for their own purposes, with some line of demarcation, so that the people to whom I have referred to-night— without any special brief from themselves or any special request that this matter should be discussed—will not be put completely out of business. I will leave the matter there. The Minister knows fairly well the extent of this problem. It may not be peculiar to all parts of this country, but certainly it is peculiar to the constituency I represent. I sincerely hope that the Minister may be able within a reasonable time to make an announcement which will give some assurance to the town population that they are not going to be completely and finally exterminated. I hope they will be assured of some reasonable co-operation all round in pursuing their very peaceful and harmless way, trying to live in circumstances and in times which are not for many of them extremely favourable.
Now, Sir, your ruling has precluded any reference to the question of fisheries. That will be dealt with at a later stage and under a separate heading. I want to make just a few other references to matters which may not be altogether inappropriate here, and one of them is this question of land reclamation. Small grants are being made available to small farmers in certain areas for the purpose of land reclamation. That is an extremely laudable and useful work, and is an activity on the part of the Minister's Department which is worthy of a great deal of praise, the only difficulty being that the areas are entirely too restricted. The schemes apparently follow on the lines of the old Congested Districts Board administration, and some other areas. I suggest to the Minister that there should be a much more generous application of this principle of giving grants for reclamation work. Let us take the case of the small farmers of this country who are in receipt of unemployment assistance. A number of them —in fact, all of them—who come within a certain category get unemployment assistance at a certain period of the year, and they are then expected to find work elsewhere. The Minister must know that that work is not available. They are just small farmers in name. They have a little holding of a few pounds valuation, and for the greater part of the year, with the exception of perhaps two or three weeks, they are available for labour anywhere or everywhere. I suggest that many of them have on their own little holdings an opportunity of doing this particular kind of work, and that it would be a very considerable relief to them. I consider that grants for small drainage work would be a welcome alternative to the system of loans given by the Agricultural Credit Corporation or the Office of Public Works, at high rates of interest, and after long, painful and exhaustive inquiries.
I ask the Minister to give further consideration to this matter. I am not mentioning it with any desire to criticise, but rather to express my approval of the lines already taken by his Department, and to plead for an extension of that improvement in the light of the needs of the small farmers and the labourers who, to some extent, might share in the employment that would result from schemes of this kind.
There is one other matter to which I would like to refer and that is the allotment scheme, also carried out by the Department or under the auspices of the Department and by local authorities and other organisations. I should like to see it extended to the smaller villages and towns which have not local authorities for the purpose of taking charge of the scheme. I know that certain charitable organisations and societies have in some places taken on hands schemes of this kind and carried them through, but if the boards of health in the various counties were given power to acquire land for the purposes of this scheme, I think very useful results would follow. I have tried, Sir, in this statement to temper my objection to and condemnation of the policy of the Minister's Department in certain matters with the deserving word of support and praise which is their due in regard to other matters. In the main, Sir, the Minister must be, if he looks at this matter calmly, in a rather unhappy state of mind with regard to the agricultural industry as a whole. Our thousands of poverty-stricken agricultural labourers are a standing indictment. There may be many factors in the whole position outside the Minister's control, but we have to examine the position as we find it and to a very considerable extent fix on the head of the Department the responsibility for the unhappy position of agriculture in this country. I feel that in the matters I have mentioned in the decay of our rural population, and in the steady and devastating decline that has overtaken the towns, a case has been made for further consideration of this Estimate, and consequently I move the motion standing in my name.
Quite recently an Agreement was made between this country and Great Britain. It was felt that that Agreement was made by our representatives very largely in the interest of agriculture. We felt that in making that Agreement there was a recognition by the Government that agriculture was the main industry of the country, and that because of the penalties being inflicted upon agricultural produce, Ministers, particularly the Minister for Agriculture, were very anxious to end that dispute. We were, consequently, all very glad when the dispute was ended. But any person who considers what this country has lost during the last six years, and who had an opportunity of listening to the Minister last night, must be very sorely disappointed indeed. During the last six years this country has been robbed and plundered. While our total trade with Great Britain went down from £60,000,000 to £40,000,000, we find Australia boasting of its trade having gone up by £28,000,000. We find New Zealand, Canada and Australia also boasting of the increase in their trade with Great Britain.
Now, when we are back on level terms with them, what are the suggestions of the Minister or the Government to the farming community in order that we might get back to somewhere near where they found us? There has not been a solitary suggestion that the agricultural community should take any steps whatever so that they would be in a position to compete and beat their competitors on the market which we have now got back. Instead of that, we have had what amazed me, a resurrection by the Minister of the evil-smelling episode of the slaughter of the calves.
I do not know why the Minister likes to go back on that evil-smelling episode, but he dug into it last night up to his neck. Why he went on the defence so early I am at a loss to know if it was not this—that the main industry of the country is entitled to serious consideration, that there are big problems to be faced, and that the Minister is not prepared to face them. The Minister wanted to avoid them. He drew a red herring across the trail. All the Minister can say will not convince anybody of anything but the downright stupidity of the people who followed that course at that time. The Minister endeavoured to give figures to show the necessity of following that course at that time and, as a matter of fact, the advantage it was to the people of the country. Of course, the figures would not compare even with the published Government figures if we were to make any comparison of what might be called the peak slaughter year and the aged cattle of to-day. There is no excuse that the Minister or anybody can offer for that which would be accepted by any sane person.
Coincident with our losses which are on record, and which show that our total trade with Great Britain dropped from £60,000,000 odd to £40,000,000 odd in that period, we have an increase in this Estimate of practically two-thirds since the Minister took office—an increase of practically £200,000, from £400,000 to £600,000 odd. Could there be any better evidence than that while our main industry was losing to that extent, the Department—which was supposed to be catering for that industry—had increased its administrative costs by practically two-thirds. That is what has happened, nevertheless. There was a feeling when the Agreement was signed that the Government had at last realised that agriculture was the basic industry of the country; that it would have to get not alone support, not alone every market which could be opened to it, but wherever there were any weaknesses it would have to be nourished and brought along and shown the right course in which to go.
Unfortunately for agriculture, when Fianna Fáil got into power the first thing they did was to try to show the agriculturists what was the best thing for them to do. But the agriculturists knew much better than they did. The net result, in any case, was that while we passed Act after Act and put them into operation and increased our administrative costs by two-thirds, our production went down and down and down.
Have we any opportunities now? We have free entry into the British market. I admit that we were clamouring for that for six years. It took six years to educate the Fianna Fáil people. There is no question now of thanking God that that market is gone, of saying that it is a blessing in disguise that it has gone. We are glad of the conversion. But what are we going to do to get any value out of it? Is there anything we can do? There certainly is. But the Minister has either deliberately evaded it because it is too big, or he has not thought of it.
What always struck me as the greatest losses we have met with are the losses which the actual soil of the country has been made to carry. We cannot compute them, but they are there. Let the readers of the Irish Press not be convinced by leading articles which tell us that a schoolboy with the most elementary knowledge of agriculture knows that tillage will improve land. That is about the rottenest agricultural heresy that anybody could preach. That is what I read in “Truth in the News” quite recently. Is it any wonder that we are where we are when the Government organ publishes something like that? I have been a tillage farmer and an advocate of tillage all my life, but if you want to make sure to kill land, kill it with tillage—that is the way to kill it. I agree that you can improve land by tillage, but no one should run away with the idea that if you till land it improves as a result of the tillage. It does not. As a matter of fact, if you neglect land, if you leave it there, if you do not till it or graze it, if you do not do anything with it, you are not killing it, because immediately anybody tries good husbandry on that land they will find plenty of plant food there latent in the soil. In fact, during all these years when the land was neglected it was accumulating there.
What had we in this country for the past five or six years? If any person wants to let his mind run away with the idea that the land of Ireland has an inexhaustible supply of plant food, he had better get that idea out of his head as quickly as he can. There is no such thing in this country except in a few isolated cases where the land is exceptionally rich and where it would take many years to kill it. Much better land than the best land of Ireland has been killed, in Canada, for instance. The soil of this country has, even to my own knowledge—and I am not so very old after all—been improved enormously by manure, by manuring of tillage, but particularly has it been improved by manuring of pastures. What has been the result of the policy pursued by the Government for the last six years? As far as that particular end of their activities is concerned, the figures are here. In the year 1936, as compared with the year 1931, there were 30,000 tons less put out for top-dressing, that is of basic slag and superphosphate. What did that represent? It represented a manurial top-dressing of 60,000 acres. I have here before me the figures relating to the importation and the manufacture of manures in this country and they set out quite clearly what the position is and what the position has been for the last six years, year after year, drop after drop, but, mind you, there was an increase in certain manurial mixtures such as nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia. What is the effect of these on the soil? Do they put any plant food into the soil? They are practically entirely stimulants, which compel the soil to give up what it has. That is the effect they have.
We had a decrease in live stock with a consequent decrease in live-stock droppings. We have had a decrease in stall-feeding with a consequent decrease in farm-yard manure. We had an enormous decrease in that respect in the feeding of oil cake, with a consequent decrease in the value of the manure produced. All that has had its effect on the soil of this country. Now we are supposed to go back into the British market after five years' losses. We are supposed to go back into the British market upon these conditions and to compete with people who have gone ahead in that time. What are our prospects? Does any man tell me that we can get back there to compete with, and best, competitors in the British market unless we attend to the fertility of our land? We have not a shadow of a chance.
There are some people in this House who think that Fianna Fáil has had a tillage policy in this country, that they have gone ahead with it and succeeded with it. They have not done any such thing. Let them take up the figures for tillage in this country, let them find out how many of these acres have had any kind of manure applied to them, which has had a very lasting effect or which is of any good to the soil and they will find where we have arrived. If we are going to take plant food out of the soil, we must put something back. That is going to be the secret of the success of this country. It is either going to stand or fall by that test. Moreover, as far as some of the tillage policy is concerned, I know the manner in which some of the land has been laid back in grass. That is one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, with which we have got to deal in this country. I am sure the Minister for Agriculture, in his various travels up and down to London, to get this Agreement for us, was not blind to the steps taken in Britain to try to get better grass.
I was not a bit impressed by them, I must say, not the slightest bit impressed.
They are doing it, nevertheless.
I was not impressed, and if the Deputy travels the same route he will not be impressed.
Probably I would not be impressed with the evidence of grass. No man was ever impressed by it over that route but, mind you, they are spending a lot of money in trying to get it there.
They have not succeeded.
I have read with very great interest of the steps taken in Germany and other countries with regard to pastures. There is only one type of agriculture that has left a profit in this country, an unsubsidised profit, and that is the rearing of live stock. Nothing else has done it. The basic food of our live stock is pasture. Consequently if we are going to make farming successful, and if Deputy Murphy is ever going to see any return to prosperity by the little towns and villages of the country, it will come out of live stock, and make no mistake about it. Let no man say that the rearing of live stock is inconsistent with tillage. Any man who says that does not know what he is talking about. As a matter of fact, our population is very small, and even if we were to go in for what somebody has styled "bag tillage""bag agriculture"—that is to sell in bags everything we produce—without live stock, the amount of tillage we could sell to our own people would be very small indeed. The only thing that has shown us a profit and the only thing for which we have a market, is live stock. I am convinced that that is what the Minister for Agriculture, whether he be Deputy Dr. Ryan, his successor or whoever he may be, should put his finger upon, if he is going to bring any prosperity to the country. There is no use telling the people to produce something which will not pay them. I remember a statement that was made at one time by the Taoiseach with regard to production, to the effect that they ought to produce for the common good instead of for profit. That may be very good in theory but not in practice. No one ever does that. There is no use trying to get the people to go back to subsistence farming, and nothing else. No one wants to go back to that. Farming and agricultural pursuits should be followed because they bring a higher degree of comfort to the people than any other pursuits.
If we would only deal with the question of agriculture, and continue to deal with it, from the point of view of horse sense, which everybody understands, unless they are suffering from some disability, we would not be where we are to-day. We must get back to first principles; to something that pays. Let us devote our time and attention to that. Supposing that this was an entirely new country on which 2,900,000 souls happened to alight one fine morning, what would be the first thing they would do? They would see to it that they would be fed, by pursuing a calling that would bring them the greatest profit.
Whatever the basis of their existence, they would see to it that the soil was looked to all the time. In this country we cannot afford to let it down, because we depend on the fertility of the soil either for our prosperity or our beggary. If we are to compete with outsiders we must have a better article. How are we to have it? It is not enough that we should breed better animals, or that we should pay more attention to the distribution of good animals throughout the country. It is absolutely essential that we should feed these animals, and feed them properly from the beginning, by seeing that they have a supply of the most nourishing food that can be got, and that is pasturage. I am not pleading at all against tillage.
I thought you were.
No. We have had a period of indiscriminate tillage and the figures prove that we have lost considerably. In that case the fertility of our soil must naturally have gone down very much. Not alone has our production been diminished most alarmingly during the last five years, but beyond any doubt our capacity to produce has diminished. In my opinion that is our greatest loss. When dealing with the pig question last evening the Minister adopted what I consider to be an extraordinary attitude. With the establishment of the Bacon Marketing Board and the Pigs Marketing Board he thought he had set in motion machinery which, to some extent, would ensure pig production all the year round. That has failed miserably. The Minister then went on to say that the pig population varies in cycles over a number of years, going up and going down. That is perfectly true. But the Minister did not tell us that the question was more acute at present.
Not a bit. If it was I would have said so.
Will the Minister, Deputy Corry, or members of the Fianna Fáil Party deny that as far as this Party is concerned it has any influence with the people? According to the Party opposite, this Party has no influence in that way. We have been told that the Government was elected and that we were beaten. Despite that, the Minister believes that we influenced people not to feed pigs; that there was no profit in them. I tell the Minister that the people are not as soft as he thinks. There are more people feeding pigs to-day than those belonging to the Fianna Fáil Party.
In spite of your advice.
In spite of that. Is it not extraordinary that the Fianna Fáil people cannot be got to feed pigs?
They are doing so.
If there is the profit that the Minister believes in pigs, is it not extraordinary that they are not being fed? The farmers of this country are pretty cute and they have always tried to make money. Having survived for the last six years, despite the extraordinary conditions under which they had to exist, they deserve a lot of encouragement.
Yes.
They exist in spite of the Minister and his Party.
And they made money.
Ask Deputy Gorey.
As far as the bacon factories are concerned they are charmed with the position. Now they say they are not getting enough pigs.
Ask the farmers or ask Deputy Gorey.
When Deputy Gorey speaks of profits on bacon he is not referring to the farmers. He is referring to the bacon factories.
Fifty per cent of the farmers.
When I see a factory or a ring of factories delighted with the profits that have been made out of the farmers, I am very suspicious.
Deputy Gorey says the factories are losing.
Do not mind that. Their published accounts did not show that.
Deputy Gorey said that.
If the Minister would pay the same attention on every occasion I would give him some credit.
I would not do that.
I was thinking that.
I am not so foolish.
Is it not extraordinary that the Minister should try to fall back on that as an excuse for not feeding pigs, that Fine Gael prevented the people doing so? Seriously, for the Minister to make a statement like that is appalling.
Your Party should share the blame.
With Fianna Fáil?
No.
With the Pigs Marketing Board?
With world conditions.
But as far as the Pigs Marketing Board is concerned, it is the child of the Minister.
No. I must resent that. If the Deputy wishes to take that attitude I think it is a really mean attitude on the part of the Party opposite, very mean. That Act was put to a Select Committee of all Parties. There was no division. It is an agreed Bill, and now the Party opposite want to disclaim all responsibility. I think that is the meanest thing you could do.
I am very sorry to have rubbed the Minister up the wrong way.
You have. I say it is a mean thing to do. It is an agreed Bill.
The Minister brought a Bill into this House on which we agreed; let it be so. In any case, such as it is, it has failed to produce the pigs.
But you agreed to the Bill.
That is right; we agreed to the Bill. The Minister holds a brief for the Bill and for the Pigs Marketing Board.
I stated here that I would examine it to see whether we should change it.
But he still holds a brief for it. I understood when that Act was being passed that its purpose was to equalise prices over the year, to some extent, so that it would in some way level up pig supplies. It has not done it.
That was one of the ideas certainly. And we all agreed on that, too.
We did at that time, but we have seen it working for the last three years—two or three years, I think it is. What has been the effect? Mind you, I am going to take my share of the responsibility.
That is good. Go ahead.
Mind you, I am going to take my share of the responsibility, but I am convinced now that it ought to be scrapped, every bit of it, hoof to horn. I do not see any use for it. While the economic war was on, and while we were the subject of quotas from the other side, and when all that trouble of export licences and all that thing was on, there was some excuse for some type of machinery.
Remember we are still subject to all that.
Not to the same extent.
The very same extent.
There was some excuse for it then. What has been the net effect of the operation of the Act? Has it helped pig rearing in this country? Have we had more pigs? No. Have we had a better price?
A much better price.
Deputy Gorey says we had.
Much better.
I am not convinced of that.
The figures can be produced.
Very well; the Minister says the figures can be produced. What figures can be produced?
The weekly average price, published for the last ten years.
That does not get you anywhere.
Well, of course, if you talk about price, it does.
No. The relative value of pigs in 1937 might not be the same as in 1935. After all, a higher price may not be due to the Pigs Marketing Board. Could the Minister point out to us any defence of the Pigs Marketing Board? Could he point out any of its activities which tended in that way, which was responsible for it?
Certainly.
What was it?
By fixing the price.
By fixing the price?
Yes.
Well, it does seem an extraordinary thing, if they took into consideration all the relevant factors in the rearing and feeding of pigs and fixed the price, that they were not able to put the producer in a way that he could continue pig rearing. What did they omit? Apparently, they have done one thing which certainly has been other than beneficial in the counties bordering Northern Ireland. I am referring to the people who were habitually going to market with pork, and the net effect of the Act was to kill those markets. That is true. The people in this particular locality who were accustomed to those markets find themselves at a terrible loss because they find that while they could go out to the markets and come back with their pigs if they did not sell, and go another day to another place, they have now to go to the factories and take what they get.
Does the Deputy say that they could take dead pork back and bring it to other markets?
No, no. I did not say any such thing. They were pigs, they were live pigs.
No; it was dead pork.
They were markets in which everything was exposed for sale.
And they had to sell.
Quite, they had to sell, and somehow or another they appear to be at a dead loss, or at least they appear to have a grievance. I do not know if the Minister recognises the grievance or not. As far as I am concerned, I think they have a grievance. Now, that is just the producer's point of view. What is going to happen in this country if we, the Minister and myself, if you like—let me again shoulder my responsibility—if we are going to allow the operations of the Bacon Marketing Board to form in this country a monopoly of a few firms? What is going to happen? Are we going to allow that? Is there any danger of that happening?
I think there would be a much bigger danger if you drop it.
If we drop it?
Yes, a much bigger danger.
The position appears to be that we have so far prepared the way for it by the introduction and operation of that Act that it cannot be stopped.
Not at all. The Deputy knows that it was going that way long before the Act came in.
Yes, but, in any case, the result of the whole operation has been that we have not got the pigs. There is something wrong. I think the Minister and everybody else in the House will have to seriously consider this thing. The Minister, of course, I admit, has told the people in the House that he is prepared to consider the position. I am very glad of that. I hope the Minister will not have any qualms of conscience in wiping them out completely if he feels that it ought to be done.
Not the slightest.
That is good. That is satisfactory. The people in this country were advised to go into beet production, sugar beet. Notwithstanding the fact that there has been a lot of trouble in this particular matter in the past few years the Minister was ominously silent on it last night. I would like to hear something on it.
I was not silent on it. I said there was no change in the policy.
There does not seem to be much change for anybody out of the same scheme. There does not seem to be any change for the taxpayers or for the beet growers. Some Deputies said in the House the other night that they would welcome a beet factory in their locality. Of course, we all would at a price—at a price. If we are going in for beet growing as we have been going in for it, let us know exactly what we are doing. Let us go in for it with our eyes open. I think I cannot do better than quote here, from a document issued by the directors of Comhlucht Siúicre na hEireann last August, when there was a dispute on with the workers of the factories. This is what they said—"The establishment of the industry has been possible only on certain economic bases and calls for sacrifices from the community in the form of an increased price for sugar, from farmers in the form of a reduced price for the raw material—sugar beet, and from the National Exchequer in the form of a loss of revenue estimated to exceed £1,000,000 per annum, which deficiency in national revenue falls to be met by way of contribution from the taxpayers." These are the words of the directors of Comhlucht Siúicre na hEireann. That appears to be the bee which we are following in this country. I wonder how much honey we are going to get out of that bee at any time. What are the prospects? Are we in this country going to pursue something which is either fundamentally essential and which we cannot do without, or something which will show us a profit? It ought to be one or the other, I move to report progress.
Progress reported. Committee to sit again on Tuesday next.