In the few minutes for which I took up the time of the House last night, I was expressing my personal resentment at the amount of time the Deputy introducing this motion devoted to a personal attack on his successor in the office of Minister for Agriculture. It is well known and generally accepted that nobody likes his own successor, but that is no justification for devoting, on an important occasion of this kind, so much time and so much venom to that line of argument. I also deplored the bankruptcy of policy in that statement by the Deputy moving this resolution. There was not an argument used that was deserving of a reply and not one single suggestion was made as to how any of the evils, real or imaginary, which affect agriculture at present might be remedied — not one suggestion from a person who held the portfolio of Minister for Agriculture.
Any cheapjack could get up anywhere to ventilate, exploit and exaggerate temporary conditions affecting any branch, important or otherwise of any particular industry; but we would be entitled to expect that, if a motion is to be moved asking for a vote of no confidence in the present Administration because of the agricultural conditions, at least there is some little responsibility on the mover of such a resolution to make some slight suggestion as to how the particular situation could be eased or how the disability or grievance could be removed. What we did get last night unquestionably was very acute resentment, because, in fact, certain steps were taken to alleviate certain unfavourable conditions which heretofore prevailed and, of course, the suggestion had to be made that these active measures were taken because Deputy Smith had put down this motion.
Let us be fair to everyone. There are more agriculturists in this Assembly than Deputy Smith and there are certain farming Deputies in this Assembly who were moving actively and energetically in the matter of calling attention to these conditions long before a by-election arose and long before the Deputy opposite thought it politically expedient to put down this motion. Those Deputies, being genuine representatives of the farming community and not just political playboys playing around the farming community, were overjoyed and cheered up by the fact that certain measures, be they effective wholly or in part, are being taken to deal with the situation. The Deputy, on the other hand, was bitterly disappointed — he would love if the bottom fell out of the market. There is more oats being threshed on Fianna Fáil platforms and in the Fianna Fáil papers than in fact is going to the mills at the moment, and that is the trouble we had to meet.
When we come to discuss the policy of any Department which it is proposed to condemn, it is well, in the first place, to grasp the significance of the policy which it is proposed to condemn and, above all, the significance of the change in policy that took place when Deputy Dillon replaced Deputy Smith. In examining the situation of any industry in relation to the State, or in relation to the activities or outlook of the political head of the Department, the first thing to grasp and understand is the concept of the relations between the farmer and the political head of the Department according to the person who fills that office.
The concept over the past 16 years of the relationship between farmer and State was that the State exercised a kind of overlordship, that the State had a right to coerce, to compel, to supervise, to direct, to control; that the farmer was no better than a conscript labourer in the bounds of his own farm; and around the bounds of that farm, the gates should be opened at all times to allow easy entry for regiments of inspectors and supervisors and inquisitors of one kind or another. That was the concept of the relationship between farmer and State that existed in Deputy Smith's time. Deputy Dillon, when he took over, with the blood in his veins of forebears who had fought down through the generations for tenant ownership of the land, for fixity of tenure in the land, fought with fervour to place the farmer solidly, strongly and soundly on the land, his spirit revolted against all that type of thing and one of his first steps, and the keystone of his outlook on agriculture and consequently of his policy was that there had to be a complete change in the relations between State and farmer.
What was the point in abolishing landlordism — some of it good, some of it bad, some of it indifferent—if we were to put in its place a mighty landlordism far more ruthless and with far more coercive authority than any of the landlords of the past, which fortunately we got rid of? That was a standpoint from which Deputy Dillon proceeded to develop his policy. His conception of the functions of a Department of Agriculture was, not that they were a controlling and a directing force, but that they were there in an advisory capacity, to help, to advise, to participate where necessary in the education in agricultural outlook, to carry out scientific examination on behalf of the farmer, but after that to leave it to the farmer to develop his own enonomy in his own way— subject always to the over-riding consideration of the responsibility of the farmer to his brother man and to his country. Deputy Dillon, unlike his predecessors, had enough trust in the patriotism and the sense of responsibility of Irish farmers to leave it to them as free men to face up to their own responsibilities and to their obligations to their neighbours. That was the starting point of distinction and difference between the present Administration and the past.
He accepted, too — and every one of his colleagues accepts — the fact that there is a far bigger obligation than that on the head of the Department of Agriculture and on the Minister for Agriculture and his colleagues in the Government as a whole — that is, that it is not sufficient for them just to leave it to the farmer to go his own way and work out his own salvation and his own economy as best he can, but that there is in the modern world a very direct and distinct responsibility on Government, and a peculiar responsibility on the Minister for Agriculture, day in and day out, to make every possible effort at home and abroad to find new markets and more new markets, at better and better prices, for the agricultural community dependent for them on the Minister or the Ministers.
Again, unlike our predecessors, his outlook and our outlook was that that work had to be done by Ministers meeting Ministers, assisted by civil servants, rather than by civil servants meeting other civil servants and unassisted by Ministers. One of the things that was preached, day in and day out, in the years gone by against that Administration was that the work of international trade and commerce should be done between countries at Ministerial level assisted by civil servants, rather than by civil servants unassisted by Ministers, as was the régime in the past. That has been completely changed; and ever since the new Administration took over, there is not a single Minister concerned with any Department, Agriculture, Industry or Commerce, who has not seized at every available opportunity to contact Ministers in other countries, with a view to securing new and better and more extensive markets for our people.
In that respect, the Minister for Agriculture has received very constant assistance from the Minister for External Affairs, who has frequently, in the course of his duty, met Ministers from most of the countries of Western Europe and from the different countries making up the Continent of America. Never in any of those contacts has he missed an opportunity to try and further develop agricultural and other forms of industrial trade. It has always been, in Opposition and in Government, the contention of the present Minister for Agriculture that the agricultural industry of this country could not continue balancing on the pinpoint of insincerity, dependent on the whims of markets, the whims of men and the whims of weather. Our agricultural industry, if ever it is to get on an even keel, can only do so around a policy where the farmer would have some idea before his crop was sown, where and how and when he was likely to find a purchaser for it. The Deputy looks up. Of course, there is more oats in the Deputy's brain than there is in the markets. Of course, his interruption is going to be: "Oats," and I am going to feed the Deputy with oats when we come to it.
There is no denying that at home and abroad the present Minister has done his bit in trying to get a reasonable price fixed and a reasonable export market over a reasonable number of years. That policy is only in its infancy but that policy is going to be further extended and developed so as to meet the requirements of more commodities than are covered at the present moment. I ask any individual, in any part of the House, is there anything to condemn in that outlook? Is there anything in that particular outlook to justify a vote of no-confidence? Is it sufficient justification that one person does not like another person? Is there anything wrong with the policy of price fixation? Is there anything wrong at aiming at, and making, a long term trade arrangement governing agricultural produce over a number of years, as long as ever we can make it? Is there anything wrong with the expressed determination to continue going that particular road and blazing that particular trail? If there is nothing wrong with it, surely that particular outlook is one we have to support and if it is not, in the mind of anyone, worthy of support surely it is worthy of being given a chance. That is the outlook and that is the concept of the relative position of the farmer and the State that we are asked to condemn.
In the process of shaping our agricultural policy with regard to the present and the future, the Minister never fell into the mistake of making us think in relation to agriculture that it was merely a question of the land under the farmers' feet and the farmer over the land. In his outlook on agriculture, continuously expressed and repeated time and again, he has always stated that in a policy with regard to the welfare, the progress or the prosperity of agriculture, agriculture must be interpreted as the welfare and prosperity of the farmers who own the land and the welfare and prosperity of the agricultural labourers who work that land. Time and again he has called attention to the fact that that particular labourer, because of economic circumstances, because of low profits in the past, has been the worst paid worker in the country, although many would contend, and rightly contend, that he was the hardest worked and exposed to the greatest hardship. But that was the position, that we had an agricultural industry in this country that was battened down into the very dirt, for the more land you held the more steeply you got into debt. The more land you held, the more difficult you found it to carry on in an industry which had reached such a point that it took a world blood-bath to get that industry into any kind of life. At the moment we are faced with an industry that has got slowly to its knees and painfully to its feet, and the work that remains to be done is to plant as strong a body as possible on that particular pair of feet. In doing that, if all concerned in the industry were to be catered for, adequately catered for, that particular job could not be done by the leap-frog process of wage increasing and then price increasing and then wage increasing again to get after the prices and so on. If one were to solve the problem by that particular process, it would be grossly unfair to the remaining members of the community who are dependent on that industry for the necessaries of life.
It has been stated time and again, clearly and emphatically, by the present Minister for Agriculture that the only way in which that particular problem could be solved was not so much by increasing prices as by increasing production and expanding markets, by increasing the produce from every acre on that land and by expanding the volume or the amount of animal life on that land, that it was in that direction he proposed to go and that as far as he could step by step with that increased production and expansion of the number of animals, he would aim step by step at getting more and newer markets, and developing and expanding existing markets. Is that an outlook to be discouraged, or is it an outlook in agriculture worthy of condemnation? It may not have succeeded in eight months in every direction, but within these eight months it has succeeded in a great many directions, and the energy, the will, the optimism and the ability that succeeded in so many directions can well be relied upon to succeed in the remaining directions.
One of the first necessaries in facing up to a policy of increased exports and expanding industry, was obviously to provide the requisites for that increased production and for that expansion in the different branches of the industry. I think it will be agreed all round that the requisites for expansion and production in many directions, constantly referred to, were fertilisers, lime, machines, seeds and maize for feeding stuffs. The acid test as to what extent progress has been made, as to what extent verbal planning has been followed up by actual accomplishments, can be gauged by the extent of his successful achievement in that direction. I propose to give for the benefit of the House certain figures showing what has been accomplished in those directions, and to leave it to the sound common sense of the House and the sense of fair play of Deputies to know whether this achievement is worthy of approbation or condemnation.
With regard to fertilisers, and nobody will deny that the experiences not only of the war years but of the eight years before the war, were that there was a crying, shrieking demand from every acre of land for resuscitation and nourishment in the form of fertilisers. Here are the imports of fertilisers in the present year as compared with the preceding two years. I am giving them in tons and round figures: Slag, 1946-47, 8,000 tons; 1947-48, 19,000 tons; 1948-49, 25,000 tons. Triple superphosphate: 1946-47, none; 1947-48, 500 tons; 1948-49, 20,000 tons. Fertiphos (a proprietary phosphate fertiliser), 1946-47, none; 1947-48, none; 1948-49, 8,000 tons. Ground North African phosphate: 1946-47, none; 1947-48, none; 1948-49, 25,000 tons. That is progress. That is planning in fact and not in words. That is energy and thought and action on behalf of the agricultural community.
With regard to nitrogen — again taking the same three years and again in tons: 1946-47, sulphate of ammonia, 4,500 tons; 1947-48, 24,000 tons; 1948-49, 28,000 tons. Nitrate of soda: First period, 8,000 tons; second period, 6,000 tons; third period, 9,000 tons. Sixty per cent. muriate of potash: First period, 12,000 tons; second period, 9,000 tons; third period, 10,000 tons.
Fifty per cent. muriate of potash: First period, none; second period, none; third period, 3,000 tons. Forty per cent. muriate of potash: First period, none; second period, none; third period, 7,000 tons. Seventeen per cent.: Third period, 4,000 tons. That is as far as progress is concerned in that direction.
With regard to lime, there is actually being implemented a plan and a programme to produce 1,000,000 tons of crushed lime for disposal and dispersal annually. Two huge crushing plants have already been established, and it is the expressed determination of the Minister for Agriculture to extend further in that particular direction.
I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House. There will be others anxious to speak on different sides, reflecting different points of view, but the next step, naturally, in a planned policy of development and expansion would be the amount of detailed attention that is given to the disposal of the crop after it is harvested, or of the produce. In that respect, a very, very definite forward step, more forward than ever was taken before in the history of this country, was taken on the agricultural side through the recent trade agreement. That agreement may have its faults. If it had many faults, those faults would have been magnified and exaggerated by Deputy Smith but, on the all-over, it was a magnificent trade agreement from the point of view of Irish agriculture. If there are any holes left to be filled, any alterations to be made, there was provision made for revision in the early part — I think it is January — of the coming year. If in a reasonable way, not a wrecking way, but in a reasonable, constructive way, suggestions are made, calling the attention of the Minister and the Department of Agriculture to deficiences in that particular agreement, such suggestions and such proposals will be entirely welcome, and will be definitely helpful, and will be explored to the very full in the early part of the next year.
Now, with regard to the disposal of the crop. It has been the outlook of the present Minister for Agriculture that inducement and attraction are much better and more calculated to be successful than coercion or fear. His outlook with regard to the production of cereals, with regard to tillage generally, with regard to production generally, was to approach that particular question through a policy of giving as attractive a price as possible and following that price fixation by a firm market. That was his approach to wheat. That was his approach to barley and, in that respect, no matter what policy may be hinted at or implied by the mover of this resolution, that particular policy was clearly defined, circularised and publicised by Deputy Dr. Ryan when he was Minister for Agriculture as to the post-war position of agriculture in this country. If there is a clash of views between Deputy Dr. Ryan and Deputy Smith, either with regard to this particular question or with regard to the live-stock industry or the policy that should govern it, then I think that particular clash of views should be fought out in their own Party room and the time of the Dáil should not be taken up in trying to reconcile the outlook of Deputy Dr. Ryan with the outlook of Deputy Smith. But, in so far as we are relying more on attractive prices as an inducement than on coercion and compulsion, that appears to have been the decided policy post-war of Deputy Dr. Ryan, publicised in the White Paper of June, 1946. But, with regard to oats, Deputy Dr. Ryan is particularly clear and particularly emphatic that it would be idle and nonsense to try to govern or control the oat market by a policy of price fixation, that that is completely ineffective, so much waste of time, and would not fulfil any useful purpose. That will be found in paragraph 34, page 13 of the Policy in regard to Crops, Pastures, Fertilisers and Feeding stuffs.
That is his view with regard to the policy of fixing the price for oats. What is his view with regard to the utilisation of the oats produced which is again contained in the same paragraph? What is his outlook? It was planned and printed and circularised that oats should not be grown as a cash crop, that oats should be grown for consumption on the farm and that the amount grown for other purposes was entirely negligible. If Deputy Dillon is to be denounced by Deputy Smith for his attitude with regard to oats, be it right or wrong, let Deputy Smith associate in that denunciation his buddy there. They should be both jointly in the dock. If there are difficulties of a peculiar nature with regard to the disposal of the oat crop in this particular year, another buddy must stand in the dock, and that is Deputy Lemass, who as Minister for Industry and Commerce last winter, when there were oats lying in the merchants' stores and when he could not control supplies with any kind of efficiency if he did not make himself aware of the amount of oats that had accumulated in the merchants' stores, in spite of all that placed an order for the best part of 12,000 tons of oatmeal, the oatmeal equivalent of 24,000 tons of oats with so many tons of oats — and well he knew it — of the previous season's crops lying in the stores of the speculative merchants who had bought it and were waiting to unload it when and if the price went up. That was there as a menace to the disposal of this year's crop but another menace is piled on top of that, 12,000 tons of unwanted oatmeal so as to jam further back the prospect of reasonably disposing of this year's crop of oats.
What is the amount of oats which is normally produced for commercial purposes? According to a White Paper of two years ago, according to the figures supplied to me by the Department of Agriculture, the average amount of oats produced annually for commercial purposes is 8 per cent. of the total oat crop. Approximately 80,000 tons of oats per annum are grown for cash or commercial purposes and how is that average of 80,000 tons usually and normally disposed of? Approximately 40,000 tons, that is half, are disposed of by sale to racehorse owners and owners of town horses, and the other half, the other 40,000 tons, is normally disposed of for the production of oatmeal and that second leg of the puzzle is the leg that was bedevilled by Deputy Lemass, yet Deputy Smith has a grievance against the Minister. I am putting those figures on record and I am putting those facts on record in a way that is beyond challenge from the benches opposite. In reply to a question that was rather stupidly put down by Deputy Derrig yesterday, I gave official figures as to the unloading, the dumping of oatmeal, month after month, from February of this year up to and including October and it was dismal reading. It was dismal reading and gloomy reading for farmers that had oats to sell and for the farmer who was looking at oat millers' places chock full of the unwanted oatmeal and no room to take in this year's oat crop.
What suggestion has been made to meet that appalling mess, of oatmeal, unwanted and unsound, glutting our mills; coal, unwanted and unsound, sailing up the River Liffey; wheat from the Argentine bought at the most extravagant figure ever dreamt of by man dumping into the country all this year — coal, wheat and oatmeal purchased and contracted for by our predecessors? What is Deputy Smith's suggestion to meet that appalling mess? His suggestion is to denounce this Government, to condemn this Government, and to vote it out of office so that the messers can get back again to make a bigger mess. That is the solution straight into your jaw. That is the only idea you have, the only incentive you have at the back of jubilantly capering around the country. The more oats that is unsaleable, the more jubilant are the farmer playboys opposite, because they think it is embarrassing the Government. It is embarrassing the Government only because it is embarrassing the farmers, but the farmers are entitled to know the cause and the farmers are sufficiently conversant with that particular economy to know where the blame should lie and when they get the facts to act accordingly. That is the position with regard to oats, and we are doing something of an active kind and at great financial loss to try to remedy it. We have hawked that oatmeal from one side of the Continent to another, anxious to sell it and to lose money on it. The quicker we can lose money the happier we are, because it will mean unloading it out of the mills and putting the millers in a position to take the farmers' oats. Imagine a Government embarking on a policy of anxiety to lose money with the greatest celerity. That is the position we are forced into, and because we are trying to lose money quickly on that blooming oatmeal contracted for by others, bought by men who did not take the trouble to find out how much oats was in the merchants' stores, we are to be condemned by the blunderers who made the mess.
We have made arrangements to sell that oatmeal. It is at a loss, but we are not concerned with the loss. It had to be got rid of even if it were only to be sold at the price of dirt in order to get it out of the mills and to give a chance to the millers to take in. The bottom was in danger of falling out of the market because the millers were not in the ring to buy and they could not go into the ring to buy because the mills were glutted with unsaleable oatmeal and many had not accommodation to take in oats. We are remedying that position in two directions; we are getting rid of the junk oatmeal with one hand and with the other hand, again at the risk of losing money, we are going to keep up the bottom in the market and ourselves buy from the farmers who produced and threshed and who cannot find a remunerative market for their oats. Is there anything to condemn in that? Should not any farmer, irrespective of his political affiliations, even if he will not support an outlook such as that or actions such as those, refrain from condemnation? Could any other action have been taken in view of the situation brought about by improvident purchasers and by a non-sizing up of the amount of oats that was lying there. Was any other suggestion made on the other side of the House and are not the steps we are taking welcomed by every farmer who thinks seriously and genuinely of the farmers' difficulty otherwise than thinking in terms of political expediency?
I have the data here and I could go through most fields of agriculture and I could show the expansion. I could show the increased efforts which are being made to benefit the industry. I could show from trade figures, official returns and data supplied by worthy civil servants, who have served two or three Administrations with equal loyalty, efficiency and reliability, figures with regard to every phase of agriculture which would at least clearly indicate that, if we have not, with regard to every branch of agriculture, exactly got where we desire to get, at least we have got there in many departments of agriculture, and that we are going firmly in that direction with regard to the remaining branches of agriculture.
There was a lot of uneasiness and unrest with regard to potatoes. There was a surplus, bountiful production of potatoes unequalled for the last 23 years, a bountiful potato harvest unequalled, as I have said, for 23 years, not only in this country, but in Great Britain and in the whole of Western Europe; an unexpected, unprecedented crop of potatoes. Of course, instead of being thankful to God, we had the caoiners, the whiners in here, caoining, wailing, and whining because God was so good, in the hope that, because of the superabundance of potatoes, some potatoes would be unmarketable in this particular country. The superabundance of potatoes that we found here was found likewise in Great Britain. In Western Europe there was such a mighty crop of potatoes that in the starving Bizone of Germany, where the people were half-starved and dependent on the charity of others to keep them fed, within the last month orders were given to serve potatoes to animals for feeding stuffs, so as to dispose of the abnormal surplus of potatoes there. Great Britain is in the same position. We are in the same position.
Fortunately, last summer we had an agreement entered into between Ministers of this country and Ministers of Great Britain on a Ministerial level, and although the agreement was about certain major and primary things, in the course of these discussions the Minister for Agriculture happened to raise the question of potatoes. He asked if we had potatoes other than seed for sale would they be prepared to take them. Doing business on that level as between friends, the British promptly agreed that, save for exceptional circumstances, they would take potatoes. When we asked the amount, they said: "Up to 50,000 tons". When we asked the price, they said "£10 13s. 6d."
