An Order of such far-reaching importance as this should hardly be left to private members to be brought before the House. This Order not only affects agriculture, which is our principal industry, but it affects the whole economic life of the nation and perhaps sets up precedents that might on flimsy excuses be copied in future. The Order is not only an Order requiring one-sixth of the arable land of the country to be tilled, but it is an Order which empowers the Minister, if there is not a reasonable effort made to till the required percentage by a certain time—I think it is the 14th February—to take possession of the lands and let them or till them. I should also like the Minister, when replying, to be clear on this: as I read the Order, there will be no liability on the Minister, while using the lands, to pay either annuities or rates, and these would accrue as a further burden on the occupier temporarily dispossessed.
The Minister makes exceptions in the Order. I do not find fault with the exceptions, but I do find fault with him for not excepting dairying land. After all the money that has been spent on dairying, after all the attention it has got in our agricultural economy since we got control of that agricultural economy, butter is the one and only agricultural product that has been rationed. On the face of it, it is bad business to require land hitherto devoted to dairying to be broken up for tillage purposes when we find we are sailing so close to the wind that we are in the gale at the moment. There are other exceptions that I think the Minister should have made. In the case of widows and in the case of orphans there are extenuating circumstances which would make exceptions in their case a great necessity. Speaking from memory, I think the British Government in their compulsory Orders during the last war made exceptions in these cases.
Coming to the effect of the Order itself, I want it to be clearly understood that I am not opposed to tillage. I am an advocate of tillage at all times. I believe that the conception of agricultural economy in an independent State like this should be based, as far as possible, on producing all the food necessary for man and beast in this country. I have always held that if we are to survive as a nation we must have a tillage economy. If, when we put that to the test, we find that tillage is not a paying proposition as compared with other forms of agriculture, such as the grazing of cattle purely for export for instance, then I say that there is a problem. It is not a question of which of them pays the better; it is a question of which of them the nation requires. If the nation requires a tillage economy, and if a tillage economy is not a profitable one, then there is the problem: why is it not a profitable economy? That is what we must get down to solve.
Those are my views on the tillage economy and tillage policy. Broadly speaking, I am a supporter of the Government's agricultural policy. In exceptional times like these, when we have to switch on to full production in order to produce 100 per cent. of the food required for man and beast, I agree with compulsion, but I consider that that compulsion should be applied intelligently. It is not sufficient for the Minister, or his officials, to make an order saying: "We have x acres under cultivation this year, and we want an additional acreage under tillage next year to provide our necessaries". Conceivably, we could double the acreage that we had under tillage this year and yet be short of essentials next year. Remember the trouble that you are bringing to the farmers of the country by requiring extra tillage, but it should not be too much for the Ministry to put up a recipe as to the agricultural products that we have been short of this year whereby we would be able to concentrate on the production of those commodities that we fell short of this year for our supply of food for man and beast.
We could, for instance, increase the acreage under tillage this year, as required by the Minister, by tilling the extra amount, the difference between one-sixth and one-eighth—I think it is one-twenty-fourth—of the arable land, by putting that under oats, and that would meet the Minister's Tillage Order, but it would not meet the requirements of the country. We grow about half the amount of wheat we require. Why is there not some inducement held out that will double the acreage under wheat this year? That is the most essential of all produce. If the submarine warfare, which is fiercest around these coasts now, is intensified, or even if it is maintained at its present sinkings, how much foreign wheat will we be able to get into this country at the end of next year? I doubt if we will be able to get any in, and if we have only half our requirements of wheat—and we can never hope to have a better harvest than last year—the inducement thrown out of 2/6 a barrel extra for the wheat grown this year over the price for the wheat grown last year is not a sufficient inducement, particularly as we are short of fertilisers, and particularly as the feeding of livestock is not a very profitable business at the present time.
It is nearly too late to remedy the wheat position now, and I do not think it was fair of the Minister or of the Government not to have brought this matter before the House in September so that the sowing of winter wheat, starting in October, could be regulated, and I see no obstacle to our having 600,000 acres of wheat this coming year if the matter were taken up seriously and taken up in time and a fair price offered for it. I am not saying that 37/6 a barrel for a limited supply of wheat is not a good inducement to grow, but remember that, as we increase our area under wheat, we are trespassing on land that is not as good wheat land as that which is growing wheat, and our average yield will go down and the price will have to go up to make the operation remunerative. Now, we are asked to grow extra crops. We will grow them. The farmer never failed to do his duty in this country. No matter how the appeal was made or what the manner of service, he always came up to it and he will come up to this, but while the agricultural position was forgotten we, Deputies, have been asked to go around the country to recruiting meetings for the Local Security Force, A.R.P., and so on—all good national works in their own way—but when you come back to consider the position, as we will have to look at it in this coming year, the first and most important local and national security force for this country in this coming year, and in the years ahead, will be the ploughmen of this nation. You can have 200,000 or 300,000 of the youth of this country marching to stirring tunes. There will be more glitter and show about it than about the fellow who is muck up to his neck producing the food that will keep those men walking and keep this nation independent of the submarine or any other warfare. No attention, however, was given to him, and if the farmer does not produce the exact surplus that is required, the fault is not with him but with the Government that did not give him proper direction when it made its appeal to him.
I do not want to indulge in politics, but we grow those crops. Have we a market? Have we a price? We have been considering the burying of hundreds and thousands of pounds in bogholes for a few hours this evening in this House. That money, extracted out of this agriculture to which you are now making this appeal to save the country, is being buried in bogholes, as I say, and in other ways equally as mad and insane as the burying of the money in bogholes. Agriculture in this country has been depressed from 1922 and 1923 up to the present time: first, by the deflation money policy of Britain which depressed the prices of agriculture; secondly, by the general depression in agriculture the world over; and, thirdly, by agriculture, and agriculture alone, having to pay the cost of the economic war. During those three scourges of Irish agriculture, agriculture went into debt to the tune of millions. It is still in debt. Is there any relief for that indebtedness of agriculture when you call upon it now to make a supreme effort to save the nation in the hour of danger? No relief whatever has been offered, and I should like to ask the Minister, when he is replying, to explain why relief is not offered and, if there is money to bury in bogholes, why is there not money to relieve agriculture? We will grow the stuff all right. You need not worry about that. The farmers will produce all the food necessary for man and beast in this country, but will they get a price for it?
We have at least 100,000 people idle. They cannot buy the food we produce unless we first of all give them money to pay for it. We must give them the money, and if we do, we have to pay for it in taxation. How is a farmer going to produce under these circumstances? We have in this House a Government, an Opposition and a Labour Party, and all practically agreed on the motion that has just passed about having an inquiry of some kind about unemployment. The Labour Party wanted it definitely, and the Government hushed it off for the present, but all Parties agreed upon an inquiry into the unemployment problem. If there is an unemployment problem so grave as to require a commission of inquiry, and if farmers are asked to produce more wheat, potatoes, sugar and the necessaries directly used for human food for which we have a market here, we must also produce animal foodstuffs in our farming economy. Our market for these, speaking nationally, would be our livestock. I should like to know from the Minister if he could mention any livestock outside dairy cows that will be a remunerative market for the animal food that we produce. Oats are selling at 12/- a barrel. The average yield, according to Government sources is something like 11 or perhaps 12 barrels to the acre. The minimum standard wage in County Dublin, and in the greater part of my constituency, would be £93 or £94 a year. It would take 12 acres of land to pay the wages of one man. It was not a princely wage at any time. Even at that low figure, will the Minister tell us what animals could be fed at 12/- a barrel and be remunerative?
Agriculture has been depressed for three or four causes, yet farmers are called upon to produce more and to change their economy. They want credit. What credit facilities does the Government offer? None. I cannot understand why responsible Deputies look askance at anyone standing up and saying what should have been said 18 years ago, that the British control our banking system. Why are farmers here not assured of the banking accommodation necessary to increase production? They are assured of it in Britain. The note issue here is not greater than it was before the war. The note issue in Britain is £100,000,000 more than before the war, and it is kept circulating by the volume of extra credit given. Here we want credit to produce more and we will pay for it. Has the Minister offered any credit facilities? No. It is all very well for the Minister to bring in an order and warn us of what is going to happen if by February 14th we have not made arrangements for increased tillage. If he carries out the order to the letter, he can take up land and work it and not pay annuities or rates on it. These are to be let accrue as a debt on the already overburdened owner of a farm, and when he gets it back after the emergency he will find himself owing more rates and annuities. I do not know how county councils will carry on if that happens to any extent.
While farmers may be driven into the position of having to spend extra money on the new economy the Minister is providing nothing for them. If I were to go to the Minister and say: "You require more tillage. I have no capital to till one-sixth of my land. Where will I get capital?" he could not tell me. Surely, if he is asking farmers to make a supreme effort the whole burden of that effort should not be borne by them. Why should not banks and financial houses here be called upon to bear their share of the burden? I do not suggest that they should give grants, but surely they could give credit. What is the security for that credit? It is the increased food, and also the obligation to protect the country. I am quite sure that when the Army Estimates come forward they will be considerably increased. Farming is a service of far more importance than the Army, because it is national service that is now required of agriculture. I am sure the Minister is looking at this question not from the Party point of view, but primarily from the point of view of producing the food necessary for man and beast without calling on any one class to make all the sacrifices. I put it to him that more will be produced by looking at the question in that way. I am sure that is the way he will approach it.
Let him not forget what agriculture has lost owing to deflation, owing to the general depression that prevailed, and by the economic war. I am not going into the rights and wrongs of these things now, or as to whether uncalled for burdens were piled on agriculture from which it has not yet recovered, but if farmers are called upon to bear this further burden, surely they should be accommodated with credit.
A month or two back in the harvest time we had a discussion here about the price of oats. The low price of oats at the season was indissolubly bound up with a shortage of credit. People grew oats. They had surplus oats in the aggregate, and, taking the long view, the Minister might be substantially correct when he said there was no real surplus. There might not be, but if I am pressed to pay a debt now and I have surplus oats, my first consideration is to get cash for it in order to pay that debt, and I cannot afford to take the long view and store that oats until next March in order to get a good price. If the Minister calls upon the farmers to produce, he should devise some machinery which will enable them to hold on to their crops and get a good price for them, instead of the profits of the whole effort going to line the pockets of speculative merchants.
I would call upon the Minister to make an exception in the case of dairying land. I know farms of 50 to 70 acres which have been dairying land for years, if not for generations. There is no fence on those lands. To ask owners to break them up and till a sixth is, in fact, asking the owners or occupiers to put a sixth of the land from growing good grass. They are not tillers: they are dairy people. Dairying is just as profitable to the nation and as essential at the present time as any other form of agriculture.
I know dairy people who come to me and I plough their land for them. They have put in a crop indifferently. It was the best they could do, as they did not know how to till. Their interest is in dairying and it was a punishment to compel them to till without giving any adequate national return. I consider that the land, in the way they were using it, was used—in the circumstances, within and without the emergency—to the best national advantage. I would appeal to the Minister to reconsider that question of dairying. As I said at the beginning, the dairying product of butter is now virtually rationed, if not actually so, in Dublin. Only two-thirds of the supply is now permitted, I understand, by the merchants to the traders. I believe that over the wireless we were informed that the price will be 154/- a cwt. for half-ton orders.
That may be a little digression, but I would like to remind the Minister that there are merchants who are cleverly refusing to supply half-ton orders and making the trader pay 159/- a cwt. I would suggest to the Minister that he, through his organisations handling this matter, see to it that where a trader gives a half-ton order or more and is entitled to it according to the rules and regulations now obtaining, the merchant should not be allowed to refuse that order and should be compelled to supply the butter at the lower price. That is a digression.
The point I was making is that this is the only agricultural product that at the moment it is found necessary to ration. Therefore, it is one of the weakest links in the chain, and I submit that land used for dairying purposes is as well used in the national interest as it could be used at the moment. I am sure the Minister will concede that dairying is a specialised form of agriculture, just as tillage and livestock raising are. As it is so essential, it should get equal consideration. I say that, and I am a tillage farmer, if I know anything about farming; and I press that very much for the Minister's consideration.
It was a great pity that, in this crisis that was coming upon us, and that we all saw coming, we did not take time by the forelock. It was a pity that our Minister for Supplies and Minister for Industry and Commerce, instead of fooling about the bogs, did not get in millions of pounds worth of raw materials necessary for our industries. Why was not £10,000,000 worth of timber brought in, with which we could be building houses now, as we have all the other raw materials necessary?