I move:—
That Dáil Éireann considers that the minimum wage payable to agricultural workers in County Dublin should be £4 10s. a week and in all other areas £4 a week.
It will be obvious to everybody that the class of workers to whom this motion refers, agricultural labourers, are badly paid. At the present time the highest wage paid to an agricultural worker in this country is paid in County Dublin, and it stands at £4 per week. The lowest wage is paid in a number of counties and stands at 67s. 6d. per week. The working week in counties outside of Dublin is one of 54 hours with four hours allowed for a weekly half-holiday.
The agricultural labourer in this country is a type of worker to whom I have referred on more occasions than I can remember since my membership of this House began. I have heard agricultural workers being referred to by members of every Party always in terms of praise, always in terms which, if the poor farm labourer were in the Gallery, would make his cheeks glow with pride. I recall during portion of the emergency—that portion when I was free to attend public meetings during election time—it was the habit and the recreation of politicians to say what great men the agricultural workers were, how they were standing in the gap producing the nation's food. They were the frontline soldiers and they were urged to work harder and still harder to get the maximum produce they could from the soil to keep our people going. They were great men, and they were great men on 40/- a week during the years of the war. On a working week of 54 hours they were working nine hours a day for six days a week while other workers with far less skill, of far less importance, in industries that did not matter very much to the nation, were working half the length of time that the agricultural worker was working and getting twice the amount of money that he was getting.
As time passed, in some areas farm labourers began to realise that their salvation did not lie in paying heed to the short memories of the politicians but rather in their own organised strength.
They succeeded in lifting their standard of life somewhat so that their wages were increased from time to time by dint of organised pressure. But now we have 150,000 people in this country working for wages in agriculture, and the average wage is in the neighbourhood of £3 10s. or £3 12s. a week. They still have a longer working week than any other class of people. They are still important and probably will become more important as time goes by.
If the threats of war which we daily read of in the newspapers come to a climax, if war breaks out and we are thrown back again upon our own resources, the agricultural labourer will be the man in the gap. I have no doubt he will receive oceans of praise, as he did before, but that is no good. Praise puts no bread on a man's table. Being urged to produce more does not mean very much to a man who is getting hardly enough to keep his family going.
Take the case of an agricultural labourer in County Dublin who is lucky enough to be allocated a county council cottage. He must pay 9/- out of his £4 for that cottage. He is lucky to have £4 judging by the standard of pay in other counties, but he is still at starvation level. No man with any initiative and no man with a few pounds who can get his bus fare away from the land will stay on the land at the present time.
That is the worst thing that could happen to this country. One of the greatest disasters that could befall the Irish nation is that the land should be deserted by these skilled operatives— and that is what they are, although when they come to town now and again they may look somewhat out of place, and are often made the jest of the more slick city dwellers. There is greater skill in the mind and in the hand of the agricultural worker than there is in most of the artisans in the cities and towns, and there is certainly a far greater degree of intelligence and a far greater appreciation of what matters in life, because agricultural workers live close to nature. As a class they do not own land. They may be lucky enough to have half an acre from the council of the county in which they live. If they are, they must keep it up to standard.
The only chance they have of working the acre or half-acre, whichever it is, is during their spare time. Until we managed to put through this House an Act to give them annual holidays and an Act to give them a half-holiday, their spare time was a very attenuated affair. It depended entirely upon the goodwill of the employer, and that is not a good principle to work upon. Generally speaking, in many areas there exists a happy relationship between farmers and their employees. However, there are cases, and these are not one or two, where farm workers are being exploited by their employers and where the relationship is not, as it has often been called here, a family relationship. Rather is it one of master and servant.
I remember hearing a Deputy refer on one occasion in this House to the agricultural worker and his master. For most of the country that day is gone at last, or, at least, it is on its way out. The servile attitude of mind which provoked or prompted people to think that Almighty God created two distinct classes, one the master and the other the servant, if not completely gone is passing away. The diffusion of more knowledge in rural areas and the acquisition by rural dwellers of this knowledge is changing the attitude which conceived the philosophy that one person should serve the other. Knowledge, like bread and butter, can only be acquired by paying for it either in experience or, more often than not, with hard cash. The few additional shillings that have been conceded to the agricultural worker have increased his thirst for knowledge and have raised his standard of living.
My motion is designed to raise in this House the whole question of the payment of agricultural workers. I will never be convinced that the farmers of this country are being badly treated, whatever may be said to the contrary. I think that they were very well looked after during the term of office of the previous Government, and the people of this country are now beginning to see in the person of the ex-Minister for Agriculture a farmer's man. Indeed, the present Minister for Agriculture is looked upon in the same light. In fact, taking up the paper any day we read of him putting forward, possibly in a different guise, the same ideas which Deputy Dillon was putting forward last year. I repeat that both men have the interests of the farmers very much at heart, as is their duty. I want them both to take cognisance of the rights of those who help the farmers, those who keep them going and on whom they depend to add to their prosperity.
When the present Government assumed office, and I think "assumed" is a very apt word in this context, their first act was to increase still further the price of milk. This resulted, of course, in an increased price for butter. That must mean a very substantial addition to the farmer's income, because it followed on a list of increases by the previous Minister. We are told that Deputy Corry and his merry men have succeeded in convincing the brewers that they should give the farmers an increased price for malting barley. Recently the Minister for Agriculture announced that he will pay an additional 7/6 per barrel for wheat. We must add all that to the tremendous prosperity which is the outcome of the three-years' reign of the previous Minister for Agriculture.
Agricultural wages have not increased commensurate with the rising income of the farmers. There have been slight increases, and these have been brought about by dint of hard effort on the part of organised agricultural workers in different parts of the country. This very year I had forced upon me the unpleasant duty of upholding a strike of agricultural workers in County Dublin. It was settled, of course, as all strikes must be settled. As a result the agricultural workers received an increase of 10/- per week. The strike was short-lived. Perhaps, we were lucky to be dealing with farmers in County Dublin who take a slightly more liberal view of trade unionism than do the farmers elsewhere in the country.
The increase was paid and the ruin which was foreshadowed for the County Dublin farmers was averted. When the Agricultural Workers' Weekly Half-Holidays Bill was passed through this House we were told that it would be detrimental to the cause of agriculture. As far as this weekly half-holiday goes there are many farmers who are trying to dodge the column and they are going to be looked after shortly to the best of our ability. This half-holiday has improved the relationship between the farmer and his man, just as we foretold. It has also brought about an improvement in production, although Deputy Cogan and some other prophets of doom pronounced here that it would spell the end of Irish agriculture.
I am putting forward a very simple request; it is simply to ask the Dáil to express its view as to what it would regard as a proper minimum rate for agricultural workers in Dublin and in the rest of the country. I will anticipate the criticism which I know that Deputy Corry will undoubtedly level against me because I am differentiating between County Dublin and the rest of the country. This differentiation has been upheld by the Agricultural Wages Board since it was first formed. It is generally agreed that in Dublin City and County the cost of living is higher than in other areas throughout the country. For that reason, a differential rate is necessary and it is to maintain that differential that I suggest a somewhat larger increase for farm labourers in County Dublin.
At the present time, the wages of farm labourers are determined by the Agricultural Wages Board. That is a body which the Minister might examine and abolish as quickly as he possibly can. Perhaps it may not be known to Deputies that the Agricultural Wages Board consists of a chairman, who is a full-time civil servant if you like, four farmers to represent the employing interests, four workers to represent the interests of the agricultural labourers and, I think, two so-called neutral members. They are always "neutral" against the agricultural labourer. They invariably vote against motions at meetings of that board which seek to give the agricultural worker a few shillings more. It is provided by statute that, where there is not unanimity amongst representatives of the workers and of the employers, the chairman shall make the decision. In other words, there may be seven votes for an increase of wages for agricultural workers and one against, and the chairman, acting within the powers bestowed on him by an Act of the Dáil, may determine that no increase shall be given. The chairman constitutes a quorum of the board. The method of selection of members of the board has been a farce for years. I recall some years ago inquiring as to who was the workers' representative in a certain area of the country. I was told, and when I inquired further I found the man had been working in Birmingham for three years previously and up to the time I inquired. I do not know whether he was in that particular unit in Birmingham referred to recently by the Taoiseach, but he was in Birmingham.
I think nobody will envy the lot of a man who has to live on £4 a week; much less will he envy the lot of a man who has to live on 67/6, as is the case in County Wexford, for example, and in other counties. I know that the subject matter of this motion will not have very much weight in certain western counties where hired agricultural labour, if you like to describe it as such, is non-existent, but it is of tremendous importance for areas along the eastern seaboard and in certain midland counties where we have land which, unlike the land in the West, is literally black gold, if you like— County Kildare and parts of North County Dublin—where six months ago half an acre of land to be used for agriculture was sold for £500—the better parts of Wicklow and the Model County.
