In discussing agriculture we can consider that it is, in the unanimous opinion of this House, the main industry of this country, and I start off by expressing my complete and absolute sympathy with the view of Deputy Kyne that as it is the primary and the real basic economic industry of the country, the worker on the farm should be, not in a position to compete with industrial labour, but on a level slightly higher. Unless we realise that the worker is as integral a part of the production drive as the farmer and the land, we are not going to get very far on that production drive. I feel myself, and I have always felt, that there is a certain amount of cheap foppery and cheap snobbery throughout the country regarding the agricultural labourer. To some extent he is a person who will be described as a "caubog". Unless that stupid attitude is dissipated and unless the country is made to realise the real worth of the farmer and his men, talking on agricultural Estimates will be idle, because it is contentment for the farmer and his men that is going to get a production drive. That brings me to the argument that I wish to address to this House.
Farming is a business and the main attraction of any business is the ultimate profit to the man who puts his money and his work into it. I welcome the statement of the new Minister and his drastic change of policy, because I feel myself that individual effort and individual initiative on the farm will be the criterion by which the farmer himself, with his labourers, can improve his farm and the profit-earning ability of it. I welcome in no uncertain way the removal of compulsion because I have always advocated, as a farmer's son, that the man who best knows how to run a farm is the farmer himself. He understands the peculiarities and difficulties of his own immediate job, and I do not think, with all the good-will in the world, that any technical expert or any civil servant sitting at his desk would be able to give him any direction and should not be allowed to give it.
Three things are necessary in the agriculture of this country at the moment. The first is the ordinary simple law of nature that you cannot take out of the land more than you give back to it. I welcome the fact that the new Minister hopes to be able in some way to offset the insane stupidity of the Administration that allowed a constant drain and eating in of the capital value of the land which was continued over a period of years. In spite of this fundamental and simple law of nature there has still been this draining on the land, although it may have been necessary to some extent owing to the emergency. It is going to take a tremendous amount of hard work, of artificial manure and farmyard manure to put heart back into that land, and to give us land that can give us production.
I am not going to enter into an argument on the merits or the demerits of certain branches of cattle breeding. I feel that in this country you have an ideal situation in which you can breed cattle for milk supply and for the fat market. I do not think we should allow anybody to give any predominance to one or the other. Each should be given a fair test in an open market and let the farmer himself judge the results on the profit that will accrue. It may be suggested, as some Deputy did, that the milch cow is the centre-piece of our agriculture, but I do not accept that theory. In certain parts of Ireland, undoubtedly, that may be true, but in other parts it may be equally true that fat cattle or store cattle are the centre and base of agricultural economy. What we must do is to build up an agriculture that is itself on a sound basis. Deputy O'Grady, in a distortionate manner, has tried to twist the reality of the situation, and the situation is a simple one. There is no farmer in the country, whether he be in Cork, in Galway, in the West or anywhere else, who will not put his back into farming when he can see for himself that he is getting a genuine return. I welcome the Minister's attitude of giving certain assurances and certain assured prices to the farmer, because he can then sit down and analyse for himself his approach to his own individual farm and decide where he can best make profit for the ensuing year. A haphazard, sketchy policy of agriculture is no good. If you start an industry you plan on a broad basis and you have capital to cover certain periods before the returns from production begin to show a profit. To deal with the primary industry of this country you must approach it on the same basis. You must give the farmer the basis on which he can build his own individual economy and for that reason I have no hesitation in wishing every success to the present Minister in his approach to this problem.
A lot may be said for and against certain things, but I do not think that anybody will disagree that unless agriculture is built on a basis of having each farm self-supporting within itself, you are not going to get very far. I want to see agriculture back on the sound, solid basis that the late Paddy Hogan, God rest his soul, once had it. I want to see again the farmer throughout the country growing his rough cereals to improve his stock and to feed his fowl and his pigs so that each little farm throughout the length and breadth of the country will become an industry in itself and each individual unit a unit of pride to this nation. I have often said before, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we have had in this country—and rightly—a lot of indignation about our constant continued struggle against Britain. If there is one way I can conceive to recoup this country for what we may have suffered at their hands, it is to produce as much as we can and to make as good and as fair a profit as we can out of them, so that the Irish people can build up their nation again. There is no good in sitting down here in a deliberative Assembly like this to offer what I might describe as grotesque, stupid and, in fact, completely lunatic criticism such as was offered by the predecessor in office of the present Minister. This Dáil expects something more, and has a right to expect something more, from people who have held office and administrative responsibility and who have been in charge of a Department than such a grotesque pantomime performance which lasted longer than any pantomime I was ever at.
Unless we get down to the problem of putting this country where it really should be, where the primary producer of real fundamental wealth of the country is encouraged and helped in every possible way by the Government to do his job better and better that the nation may go on, it is only idle, petty nonsense to debate agriculture at all. Let us in this deliberative Assembly show our appreciation of the work of the farmer and his men by getting together, not in a spirit of acrimony but in a constructive, honest way, to produce something that will help the farmer to better his position.
Before I conclude I should like to refer to the flax industry in my constituency. I ask the Minister, when dealing with flax and the marketing of it, to try to ensure for the future, if flax growing is to continue, particularly in West Cork, that the price which the North of Ireland people will pay for it in Clonakilty will be the same price as they have to pay in Ulster. Like other Deputies, I want to see the co-operative movement developing. What I say may be unpopular, but I want to see the co-operative movement develop for the purpose of encouraging agriculture and helping farmers to get the maximum production and for the purpose of processing and marketing farm produce. I want, however, to see a line drawn in the co-operative movement so as to confine it to agriculture and the processing of agricultural goods and to leave the provincial towns and little villages their normal trade.
I think that if the farmer and the co-operative movement concentrated on their own job in the development of production and the marketing ultimately of their production and left to the shopkeeper in the small towns and villages the selling of boots and shoes, laces and other things there would be a healthier feeling between the people in these towns and villages and the farmers, a development of prosperity and wealth in provincial towns and in farming communities and a realisation of the idea of one more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough.