I move that the Emergency Powers (No. 12) Order, 1939, be annulled. This motion stands in my name and in the name of Deputy Cogan. Both of us wish it to be understood that the motion was not put down—I have so informed the Minister privately—to oppose the Tillage Order, as such, but to get information about it. This Order proposes to enforce cultivation of 12½ per cent. or one-eighth of the farm. As I read the Order there are a few exceptions more or less on personal grounds, but I do not think the Order circumscribes the extent to which they can apply. The Order does not provide for a percentage of tillage of the arable area of the country, and as I read it the owner of a swamp is bound to till his percentage of that swamp. Obviously that was not the intention, and I would like to hear the Minister on it. This is a very serious Order. I have sympathy with the Minister for Agriculture in the task that is before him and in the reasons that prompted him to make this Order. If due preparation were made by the Minister I think the Order would be justified. There is a war all round this country, naval warfare; we can take it that that war which is only three months old, promises to be a long and bitter struggle, and that as far as sea-warfare is concerned at the moment it is a question of no quarter on either side. Day by day neutrals are getting more and more involved, so that any prudent Minister for agriculture or any prudent Government would have very small sense of their responsibility if they did not provide at least sufficient food in this country for man and beast —to use a country phrase. What did the Minister require? He required to get as much wheat, beet and vegetables for direct human consumption as would sustain the whole population until the following harvest arrives. If there is a margin left over, os much the better. In fact the Minister would want to see the cultivated area that, with a low return, would provide a sufficient quantity of food for man and beast. In addition he would want to increase the production of barley, turnips and mangolds, and so on, for cattle fodder, and to a small extent, some of the latter for human food. The Order does not go into this aspect of the case at all. The Order says till one-eighth of the land, or, at least, one-eighth must be tilled. We can see a position in which that would be complied with over the whole country, and we would have a surplus of some commodities whilst we would have a scarcity of others. I think it is necessary, in order to produce for the nation, to use a bovine expression, a balanced ration for the people, that the Minister should take some steps, difficult I admit they are, to see that a sufficient balanced ration for the nation will be produced during these years while the war is on. Whilst it is easy for the Minister to sit in his office and make this Order, I am sure the Minister's mind was examining its implications.
This country this year is probably unfertile or probably less fertile than it has been during the lifetime of the present generation. It is well known that during the last ten years fertilisers were used sparingly, one might say increasingly sparingly, because of the financial position of the population. I do not want to synchronise that with any Government that was in office. I am speaking of the facts of the case. There is undoubtedly a shortage of fertilisers this year, though we are asked to till one-eighth or 12½ per cent. more than last year. I wonder has the Minister in his calculation worked out mathematically that that one-eighth more, added to the production of last year, will give sufficient quantity of food for man and beast in this current year? If that is the way he has arrived at his one-eighth, I am afraid he miscalculates. We may take it, generally speaking, that the land tilled in response to the ordinary farm economy in times past is more suited for tilling, and that it is the less arable part of a farmer's land will come under this additional tilling. The land that will produce the best crops is that part of the land that the farmer usually tills. But now, in the less suitable part of his land, which under this order he must till, he must use more manure and more fertilisers than he did in years past.
The Minister proposes to have one-eighth more land tilled this year with 25 per cent. less artificial manures available, and even these not certain. I have this afternoon got in touch with my own manure merchant and others, and from all these I have got the same information—that there is only 25 per cent. of last year's supply available to them up to the 31st of this month, and that they are sold out of manures. There is not a bag of artificial manure available in Dublin at present. That is the information I have got from inquiries made this afternoon. As well as that, they do not know what is to happen in the future. Not alone have they not any of these manures, but up to the present they have got no promise of having in future any artificial manures, except potassic super, xxx super phosphate and some basic slag. I asked for muriate of potash, sulphate of ammonia and Semsol, and I was told I could not get them, and that the manure merchants have not been allocated any of them so far. That is a very serious position.
I am not making a political speech. I am endeavouring to make an agricultural speech. I hope the Minister will appreciate that, and take it at its true value. I am not making the point that there is a shortage of all artificial manures, and a dearth of some of the most important ones in order to say that the Government are responsible. I want the Minister to take my points in that spirit. Every progressive farmer who uses fertiliser wants to have it mixed. Every progressive farmer knows the particular mixture that suits particular parts of his land. My information is that we cannot get the component parts of a balanced manure to mix ourselves. We cannot get muriate of potash, or sulphate of ammonia. No one would be more glad than I would be if the Minister is able to tell me that I am wrongly informed on that point.
Assuming that is correct, how does the Minister expect to have an increased return from the land? I am not finding fault with the Minister for requiring an increased return. It is absolutely essential, if we are to survive, that we must have an increased supply of food for man and beast. I am putting it to the Minister that the breaking-up of grass land without fertilisers is not going to increase the yield. If you break up an enormous lot of grass land, you will have more land tilled at greater expense, but with a considerably less average yield. I should like to get an assurance from the Minister on these points as to fertilisers.
There is another very important matter which has had its manifestations in the last few weeks. Farmers generally are probably the most conservative element in the community, but they are the least bellicose element. Whatever the Minister or his colleagues or anybody else may think of the strikes which we have had in the last couple of weeks, they are manifestations of something that is not healthy. I am sure the Minister will agree with me when I say that it was surprising to find farmers taking that step of striking—wisely or unwisely, right or wrong. There is something wrong there. It is a very dangerous thing for the farming community to go on strike. After all, as a class they are the people who own most of the fixed property in the country. They went out on strike and, as follows all strikes, whether those in charge wish it or not, there was a certain amount of violence, and that is associated in the public mind with something that is tried to be put over with violence. I am not concerned with that portion of it. The point I want to impress on the Minister is that it was done and that there must be something wrong that prompted its doing. What is that something? It is very serious for the Minister, considering it was done subsequent to this Tillage Order being made. I do not believe that this Order had anything to do with that strike, or that the strike was a reaction to the Tillage Order.