When I was speaking on this Bill yesterday, I referred to the circular that the Local Government and Public Health Department addressed to all county councils. That circular, if I may read it, is dated 1st February, 1940, and is as follows:—
"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to state that in view of the necessity for promoting increased tillage every county council should consider the adoption of a scheme for the supply on loan terms of seed potatoes, oat seeds, barley seeds and fertilisers in the coming season to occupiers or cultivators of land who cannot procure supplies out of their own resources.
"On the adoption of a scheme by the council steps should be taken to give adequate publicity to the facilities available. A form of public notice together with form authorising and undertaking to pay were enclosed with circular letter No. 31/39 of 15th March, 1939. It should be noted that it will be open to councils to arrange for the supply of fertilisers as well as seeds. Where arrangements are made for the supply of fertilisers the model forms can be suitably adapted.
"If the county council prefer to proceed by way of guarantee to approved seed merchants of the whole or a specified proportion of the price it would be open to them to give such guarantees.
"A Bill to validate any action taken by the county council in accordance with these instructions will be introduced by the Government."
I presume this is the Bill. The Minister, when moving the Second Reading of this Bill yesterday, gave us the total amount of money either guaranteed or lent, and the value of the seeds sold to farmers last year, at about £6,000 or £7,000. By this morning's post I had letters from farmers in different parts of the country and they all agree on one thing, that a similar scheme to this, as worked in their counties, is useless. In County Dublin last year we would not work the scheme. I have a letter from a County Wexford farmer, which I received this morning. He says that the scheme is useless for Wexford. The scheme that this Bill will set up and that the Minister visualises is the only help he is going to give to agriculture. If this is all he can prescribe for agriculture, then this year will be as bad as last year. Let us remember that last year there was no war-time emergency such as we have now. I suppose the Minister is aware that in different parts of the country last year land was ploughed but not sown. My correspondent in Wexford says that the same thing will happen this year.
If the scheme is to be of the same proportions, extent, and scope as the one the Department of Local Government visualised for last year, then I can say that we in the County Dublin will have nothing to do with it. It seems to be begotten in the mind of the Ministry that this is some substitute for outdoor relief for down and out farmers. That is not the sort of aid that agriculture wants at this time, or that we in the county council visualise as an aid for agriculture in the County Dublin. We visualise a supply of money to meet a situation that world conditions have created for us in this year. It is quite possible, and highly probable, that by the end of this year all human and animal life in this country will have to be sustained out of food produced here. What are we doing to produce that food? That is the problem that I put to the Ministry. Before we come to discuss the Estimate for Agriculture, I would like to know from the Minister if that is the situation that he visualises, and if it is for the purpose of meeting that situation that he has introduced this measure. If this Bill is intended as a kind of out-door relief measure to help down and out farmers, then one can say that the Government have done nothing, except arbitrarily to make an order under the Emergency Powers Act, given to them by this House, directing all owners of land in the country to till a proportion of that land, without at all taking into account the impoverishment of the agricultural industry, the want on the part of farmers of liquid capital, the want of the wherewithal to till as much as they tilled last year, much less giving them facilities to till twice as much as last year.
I am afraid that if the Government do not waken up to the position, and if the submarine warfare succeeds against shipping, as it looks to have a fair chance of succeeding, then this country is going to be up against a terrible situation. It will be threatened with a famine for food to sustain human and animal life and all because the Government have not surveyed the situation properly and provided adequate means of meeting it. So far as I know, no steps have been taken to provide capital for agriculture unless we are to understand that this Bill has been introduced for that purpose. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply he will give the House some indication as regards the scope of this measure and what he intends it for. Because of the lack of information I think there is not much use in debating it any longer. I confess that I do not know what its real objective is.