I move:—
That Dáil Eireann is of opinion that a grant from the Exchequer averaging £3 per annum should be paid on every acre of land under tillage in order to promote increased and efficient food production, and to enable the produce to reach the consumer at a reasonable price; and requests the Government to introduce legislation accordingly.
In a motion of the importance and far-reaching nature of the one which is before the House now, I feel that Deputies are entitled and have reason to expect a fair and frank explanation of the effect which it is likely to have on agricultural policy and of the manner in which it is to be financed and administered. I propose to give the House as briefly as possible, such an explanation. I expect Deputies to receive this motion in the spirit in which it is offered and to give it careful consideration and that it will not be treated in the manner in which another motion sponsored by this Party was treated. I hope that old and experienced Deputies will not lose their tempers and their heads as they did on the occasion on which that motion was before the House.
The purpose of this motion is permanently to expand the volume of agricultural production. One of the most tragic features of the economic life of this country is that, in spite of all the legislation which has been passed to deal with agriculture, in spite of all the agricultural schemes which have been introduced from year to year, in spite of the efforts which have been made by the Department of Agriculture, under the British régime and our own native Government, there has been a steady decline in the volume of production and in the number of people engaged in work on the land. That decline has been progressive down through the years. There has been, first of all, a decline in the acreage under tillage. We find that, in 1851, in this country, there were 3,500,000 acres under tillage; in 1870 there were 2,750,000; in 1921, 1,800,000; in 1931, 1,400,000; in 1938, 1,498,000.
Heretofore, before the establishment of this Government and of our native institutions, it was customary for the mighty orators of the Parliamentary Party and for the resolute young leaders of the revolutionary movement of Sinn Féin, to attribute all the evils of this country to British rule. Yet we find to-day, after 20 years of native Government, that there has been no really definite improvement in agricultural conditions, no substantial increase in the acreage under tillage up to the outbreak of war, and a real decline in the total volume of production. We who are promoting this motion hold that, if the volume of agricultural production is to be increased, there must be a permanent expansion of the acreage under tillage.
We assert that, notwithstanding the many theories which may be advocated in regard to improved methods of grassland management and more modern and official methods of seeding and improving grass lands. Tillage is essential in order to provide the main requirements of the human population. It is essential, even in the post-war period, that the human population should have produced in this country the greater part, if not all, of their requirements in food. It is also essential, if we are to have a secure system of agriculture, that our live stock should depend mainly upon the food produced within this country. We cannot produce sufficient food, both for human consumption and for the upkeep of the animal population, unless we have a fairly extensive area under tillage. Improved grassland may provide an increased amount of food units for the upkeep of sheep and cattle, but for human food, for the winter feeding of live stock and for the pig and poultry industries, tillage is absolutely essential.
A good deal has been published recently in the Press in regard to the advantages which Denmark enjoys over this country in the matter of food production. Comparisons between Denmark and Éire have been made to our disadvantage. The very learned paper read by Dr. Beddy has focussed attention on this matter. That paper has been used by various people for various purposes, just as the Scriptures are so used. Some people have tried to read into it an indictment of the farmers. I read into it an indictment of Governmental policy, as pursued not only by the present Government, but by their predecessors, and also by their predecessors—the British régime. Up to the outbreak of war, the policy was —except for the period of the last war —to allow the area under tillage to be governed by the law of chance. It was assumed that it should be left to the farmer to produce from his farm whatever he thought best. That is quite right, but there is also a duty on the Government to see that it pays the farmer best to do what is in the best interests of the community. It would be a remarkable coincidence if the interests of the individual farmer coincided with the interests of the community. The reason why tillage declined in this country was because the farmer found from practical experience that he could make a greater profit by utilising his land mainly for pasture and reducing tillage to the minimum. Now, it may be said that the farmer should have been more patriotic, that he should have put the interests of the community before his own interests; but the farmer, just the same as any other business man who puts the interests of the community before his own interests, invariably winds up by finding himself a burden on the community, inasmuch as he becomes a bankrupt, and has to be maintained at the public expense. Every practical man who owns land must endeavour to work that land so as to reap the higher profit. There are people who will contend that, at all times and in all cases, there was a higher profit to be derived from tillage than from permanent pasture. If that were true, it would be as much as to suggest that the owners of land in this country were imbeciles: that they adopted a policy which did not pay them. I do not think that suggestion could be sustained. The average farmer is a shrewd, practical man.
Dr. Beddy, in commenting upon the low output in this country as compared with Denmark, on the decline in our rural population and in rural production in Ireland, said:
"It is our climatic advantages which primarily are the cause of our relative economic and social disadvantages, since they permit us, though do not compel us, to adopt a system of agriculture which has led to a declining population, to a heavy emigration, to a low agricultural productivity, to restricted activity in agriculture, in industry, in commerce, and in foreign trade, and to a lack of opportunity for profitable domestic investment of our capital resources."
The Irish Times, in commenting on that statement in its issue of January 28th last, said:
"What evidence can be adduced to support that apparently paradoxical conclusion? Does it rest on a balanced and impartial survey of all the facts which are pertinent to the state of agriculture in Denmark and in our Twenty-Six Counties? If so, does it not present a body of problems beside which other questions pertinent to post-war reconstruction shrink into comparative insignificance?"
I think that is a very serious statement. It is made in good faith by a paper which, I think, is advancing steadily in the direction of a realisation of the best interests of this nation. That paper has certainly made considerable progress, and is bidding fair to be more national in its outlook than some of our faded green orthodox nationalists. I welcome that serious approach on the part of the Irish Times to this problem. If we compare agricultural conditions in Denmark with this country, what do we find is the outstanding feature of Danish agriculture as compared with ours? First of all, we find, taking the total output of each 100 or 1,000 acres, that Danish agricultural output is 50 per cent. higher than the output of this State. That may be a conservative estimate, but it is the estimate given by Dr. Beddy. Some people claim that Danish output is more than double ours, but I think, taking everything into consideration, that Dr. Beddy's examination of this question was very careful.
We find, in addition, that Danish national income is 45 per cent. higher than the national income of this country. The population per square mile of Denmark is 224 as against 112 here. The agricultural population of Denmark is 70 per 1,000 acres as against 55 here. If the working agricultural population of this country was to be increased to the Danish standard, and if we were to employ as many on the land of this country as are employed on it in Denmark, there would be 174,000 additional workers employed in our agricultural industry. We talk about the unemployment problem; we talk about the fact that we have 100,000 people unemployed and that we will have a large number coming here in the post-war period. If we could only advance our agriculture to the stage that it has been advanced in Denmark, we could provide additional employment in agriculture alone for 174,000 workers. That is only a small part of the advantages which this country would derive from an expansion in agricultural production.
We know that in Denmark industrial development has progressed by leaps and bounds. That is natural because, where you have a big agricultural population earning a fairly substantial income and consuming a considerable amount of industrial goods, industry is certain to prosper. The retail and wholesale business in Denmark is infinitely greater than here. The number of people employed in all branches of life in Denmark is greater than here, and that is not achieved by imposing upon the Danish agricultural population a low standard of living. As a matter of fact, the standard of living, of the agricultural population in Denmark is considerably higher in many respects than the standard of living of our agricultural population.
We may ask ourselves what is the reason why Denmark enjoys such an advantage over this country, why the output of its agricultural industry is much higher than ours. Many reasons have been advanced by people who have studied this matter. The educational fanatics claim that it is due to the superior education of the Danish farmers and agricultural workers. They may enjoy some advantages over our farmers and agricultural workers in regard to education, but I would not say they enjoy very far-reaching advantages. It has been said that Danish progress is due largely to co-operation. Co-operation may have contributed to a certain extent to the advance which Denmark has made, but it goes only a small distance along the way. If we compare Danish conditions with ours, it will be found that the outstanding feature of Danish agriculture is that they have in that country over 60 per cent. of the land under tillage, whereas here we have less than 15 per cent. It is solely as a result of that difference in agricultural practice as between Denmark and this country that the output of the Danes is so much higher than our agricultural output.
It may be asked how is it that the Danish farmers, without any tillage subsidy, without any compulsion, adopted a system of farming which has led to such an extensive system of production. The reason, of course, is that the Danish climate and soil contributed to compel the farmer to adopt that system. There is absolutely no means by which the Danish farmer can carry his stock over the winter unless he cultivates a considerable amount of his land and stores the produce for winter feeding. Here it is possible, and profitable, to adopt an alternative system. Our winters being milder, it is not necessary to till very extensively, to house-feed live stock so extensively, and we have found that in normal years it pays better to utilise the greater portion of the land for permanent pasture and devote only a small portion to tillage. It is obvious, if you want to get the maximum amount of production out of the land, that the plough must be taken over every arable field. That is true no matter whether you adopt the growing of ordinary tillage crops or adopt a system of cultivating grass, which is advocated at the present time. You must have tillage and, since the ordinary economic laws do not tend to encourage the farmer to till, it is necessary for the community to take some action to induce the farmer to till the amount of land necessary in order to get the maximum production out of the soil. I am not advocating that we should increase the area under tillage to the extent that prevails in Denmark. I believe a much lower percentage would suffice for our needs, having regard to the special system of economy which we would find profitable here, and having regard to the more favourable condition of our soil and climate for grass production. But we must have, at least in normal years, one-third of our arable land under tillage. If we achieve that, we shall achieve a very substantial increase in production over a period of years, as a long-term policy.
Let us not confuse the tillage policy during this emergency with a long-term agricultural policy. Tillage as carried out during an emergency—during the last war and during the present war— is not the best system of tillage farming; it is a haphazard, inefficient system, and it must be so since you have the position in which land, which was in the ordinary course used for permanent pasture, and farmers who were adapted and trained to the system of grass farming, have to be adjusted suddenly to tillage. You could not get efficient tillage in one or two years; you must have a long-term policy.
If we agree, and I am sure we all must agree, that an increase in the area under tillage is desirable, then the next question to consider is how that increase is to be brought about. I assume we all agree that we ought not to have the low percentage of tillage that we had in the past 20 years. We have to change that and adopt a more intensive system of farming. The question is: How do we propose to bring about an increase in the area under tillage? Suggestions have been put forward repeatedly in this connection. When the Fine Gael Party, under another name, were in power, they advocated mixed farming; they advocated an increase in tillage, but their method of promoting increased tillage was by repeating the doggerel: "Keep one more cow, keep one more sow, and till one extra acre." That did not achieve very effective results, particularly when the farmers joined in the refrain: "But tell us how we keep the cow when the bailiff comes to take her."
The area under tillage declined very considerably under the Cumann na nGaedheal régime. Then a pro-tillage party came into power that thought to increase tillage by the very radical method of destroying the live-stock industry. They said. "If we destroy the live-stock industry by making it unprofitable for farmers to keep store cattle or fat cattle, and if we subsidise the slaughter of calves, we will force them to till more whether they like it or not." After seven or eight years of that policy of Fianna Fáil, on the eve of the Great War, it was found that the area under tillage was at least 400,000 acres less than what it was when this State was established.
One suggestion for increasing the area under tillage was to continue the methods adopted during the emergency—compulsion. Compulsion may be a good policy in war-time, and it may be possible to carry it through effectively, but in normal times of peace it is a policy that cannot be justified in a democratic country, where the majority of people are engaged on the land. It would not be practical politics. Another suggestion in order to ensure that land would be properly worked was nationalisation. We have that plan very strenuously advocated in Great Britain at present, and there seems to be a great danger that it will be adopted.
The effect would be to convert the independent and enterprising farmer into a servile, streamlined civil servant. I think the House will join with me in shuddering at such a prospect. Nationalisation of land is a policy which would reduce the population to a condition of abject slavery. Land is the most important form of private property in this or in any other country, and its ownership is the greatest bulwark against Socialism, Communism or nationalisation. If a Government were to succeed in the nationalisation of land it would be only a short time until all property, even shirts on the backs of the citizens, would become State property.
Another suggestion frequently put forward in favour of an increase in the area under tillage is the division of land into small holdings. We know that on a small holding there is a greater percentage of tillage than on large holdings, because the family that has to live out of a small holding must put a bigger percentage of land under tillage. Does anybody think that the wholesale breaking up of land, or the wholesale destruction of security of tenure would make for better government or for progress? At present we have two sets of reformers, one set claiming that we will never have any sound economic policy until the land is divided into small sized holdings, while another set of economists claims that we can never make progress until we have all land taken over and divided into large holdings. If these two sets of reformers are set to work upon land settlement here they will in a short time reduce agriculture to a state of chaos. I was going to say "bloody", meaning bloody in its literal and Parliamentary sense, because if the right to private property is attacked wholesale, or if it is sought to divide every farm over 30 acres into small sized holdings, or to create larger farms by confiscation, that would produce chaos and anarchy and, at the finish, the farmers would either commit murder or suicide or spend their time chasing around apple trees.
