When I reported progress last night, I did not realise I had delayed the House to the extent to which I had delayed it, and, though there are other matters which I might wish to discuss on the Estimate, in the interests of trying to facilitate the House in getting the Estimate through, it would be wiser for me to say nothing further.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Dillon.)
Personally, in discussing this Estimate, I like to be able to help the Minister for Agriculture as much as possible, because I know that a Minister for Agriculture in this or any other Government has a difficult time, because he has to look after the agricultural interest against the urban interest in the Cabinet, and the difficulties of the Minister are thus greatly increased.
I should like to congratulate the Minister on the trade agreement. He has also done good work in extending the A.I. services in various parts of the country and he has provided extra grain storage, which is important; but I have a number of criticisms to make of the Minister's handling of his Department during the past 12 months. The Minister handled the milk situation last January very badly indeed. I think that milk stoppage was brought about largely because of a letter sent by the Minister, giving the impression that he was not going to consider any demands by the milk producers until May of this year. That letter was sent to various associations and it had the effect of bringing about the milk stoppage at the time it occurred. The way in which it was handled afterwards was no credit to the Minister either.
It is a very extraordinary thing that when the farmers, because they received a stupid letter from the Department, attempt to do a bit of peaceful picketing, they are sent off in droves to Mountjoy and given hard labour, while, on the other hand, we have gentlemen in this city to-day adopting Communist tactics, sitting down in the streets and holding up traffic, and then being treated in a completely different manner from the way in which decent farmers trying to make a dignified protest in a very peaceful manner are treated. I criticise the Minister and the Government for their action in that manner and for the way in which they handled it.
The Minister is also sticking on to the old idea of the dual purpose cow and the Live Stock Breeding Act. Solong as he does that, we will not have increased milk production. The Minister is also, through Eggsports Ltd., putting a heavy tax on all dead hens exported from this country. I asked the Minister recently the price which Eggsports Ltd. were paying for hens and the Minister said it was 1/- per lb. On the same day, I asked a question of the Taoiseach as to the f.o.b. export value per lb. of old dead poultry exported and his reply was that in the past three or four months it averaged from 2/6 to ? per lb., but the producer of these hens gets from Eggsports Ltd. 1/- per lb. and the balance is taken as a levy by Eggsports Ltd. about which the Minister pretends to know nothing. That is a bad policy and a bad system because the person who has the old hens for sale is the ordinary egg producer throughout the country and if you take 1/- or ½ per lb. off these old hens, it is 6/- or 8/- on every old hen and represents a considerable reduction in the price of eggs, if you equate it with the 6/- or 8/- deducted from the price of the old hen on the average yearly production of a hen. It is a hidden form of taxation which is affecting the farmer, the cottier and everybody trying to maintain the poultry industry.
The Minister has been very difficult in his replies to questions regarding the price of feeding barley. He has been asked on numerous occasions to fix the price of feeding barley, and if he said he would or would not, we would know where we were, but he will not say "yes" and he will not say "no". On the 4th March last, in reply to a question by Deputy Esmonde, he said it was not proposed to fix a price for feeding barley of the 1953 crop. Deputy Esmonde asked: "Am I right in assuming that there will be no fixed price for feeding barley this year as there was last year?" To which the Minister replied: "The Deputy has no right to assume that". I think I understand the English language, but I do not understand that reply.
It is very important that the Minister should take adequate steps to see that barley going into the mills, as it isgoing into the mills in Cork at the moment, is bought at a reasonable price. Last year, before the price was fixed, the price offered by the millers in Cork for barley was very low. The Minister seems to be under the impression that cheques were issued to the suppliers of that barley to bring their price up to the fixed price afterwards, but I have a large number of cases in which no such refunds were made. A number of mills bought this barley cheaply before the price was fixed last year, when the farmer had to get rid of it. The farmer had cut it with a combine, and, having no storage facilities, had to take it to the mills where he had to sell it for what he could get for it. He did not get any cheque to make up the difference between the price he got and the fixed price.
I would ask the Minister to ensure that the producer is not exploited. In arranging a price for barley consideration should be had to the increased cost of production that occurred this year as against last year.
I should like to refer to the Minister's attitude towards the Faculties of Agriculture and Dairy Science in the universities. I understand that the Minister has communicated with the universities and practically ordered them to throw those two faculties out of the universities. It is intended to place those faculties under some form of State institute. It is suggested, I think, that this State institute should have some sort of external association with the universities in the form of a recognised college. Nevertheless, it is throwing the Faculties of Agriculture and Dairy Science out of the universities when the tendency all over the world is to bring agricultural education and agricultural scientific investigation under the control of universities and independent authorities as distinct from State or semi-State controlled bodies. Marshall Aid will not in any way compensate for the loss of our independence in regard to agricultural education and agricultural scientific investigation by passing them over to a State or semi-State body. With regard to the price of hides——
Hear, hear!
——I would like to appeal to the Minister to see that he will not continue to permit the farmers to be robbed by the tanners.
Hear, hear!
I have here a quotation from the Evening Heraldof the 20th of November last in which it is stated that there was a gentleman named Mr. Crawford Scott caught smuggling raw hides across the Border. He promptly paid a cheque for £900 into court as a fine. Mr. Scott was apparently doing a very lucrative business in selling the hides at their market value.
Hear, hear!
On the other hand, we have the Minister for Industry and Commerce going down to a firm of tanners appropriately named Plunder and Pollok. The Minister said that he had discussed this matter of warble flies in hides with the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the warble fly could be eliminated with the co-operation of the farming interests in all areas. The farmers have not the slightest intention of co-operating with Deputy Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with Plunder and Pollok or with the Minister for Agriculture if they are going to be compelled to sell their hides at an artificially depressed price.
It is not an artificially depressed price.
What are you talking about? They were getting 2/6 a lb.
Mr. Walsh
For what type of hides?
For all hides.
If the price was not artificially depressed, Mr. Scott would not be smuggling hides across the Border and he could not write out a cheque for £900.
The Deputy should not mention the nameof individuals outside this House who are unable to reply for themselves.
It is in the Evening Heraldof the 20th November.
That does not put it in order. There is a Standing Order that a Deputy should not mention the names of individuals who are unable to reply in this House.
I am only quoting from what was published in the Evening Heraldon the 20th November last.
That does not put it in order.
On a point of order. Matters of record may surely be referred to and the proceedings of a public court are matters of record.
The Deputy is not quoting from any official report but from a newspaper which is not an official document in this House.
This is the Evening Herald.May I quote from theEvening Herald? It is a newspaper circulating widely in the country. I do not think anybody found any fault with it.
Mr. Walsh
There is no guarantee of its truthfulness.
Does the Minister deny it?
If the Minister is satisfied that we are getting the world price for our hides, why does he put a ban on the export of hides? Why does the Minister take steps to see that the Irish tanners can purchase hides in this country at below their market value?
And he allows the tanners to export them and get the export price for them as raw hides.
The other point I wanted to mention was one in relation to the duties on fertilisers. I think the Minister is wasting a good deal of money in putting large advertisements in the newspapers telling the farmers that their lands are starved for phosphates while at the same time he putsa duty of 20 per cent. on superphosphate, ground phosphates and other manufactured phosphates.
Mr. Walsh
That is wrong. There is not any duty on ground phosphates. There is no duty on basic slag, manures or nitrogen. There is no duty on compounds.
There is a 20 per cent. duty on superphosphates and on Gafsa.
Mr. Walsh
No.
There is 20 per cent. on superphosphate of lime.
Mr. Walsh
Single, not double or treble.
Single my foot! There is a tariff of 20 per cent. levied on superphosphate. You will not be let take it off. You are kicked about like an old shoe.
Granulated phosphate was wanted this year and it was only late in the season that sufficient quantities could be got. If the Minister wants to encourage the use of fertilisers he should take all the restrictions off the fertilisers and encourage farmers to put them out as plentiful and as often as possible.
In regard to the question of credit, it seems to me to be fairly generally accepted that the farmers are rolling in wealth and that the banks are bulging with their deposits. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Practically every farmer is suffering from lack of credit facilities, and the credit facilities provided by the Agricultural Credit Corporation do not seem to fill the want that exists at all. The Agricultural Credit Corporation will give facilities to a person who can get all the facilities he wants from the joint stock banks. I think the Minister should consider this question of credit and devise some simple way of extending short-term credit at cheap rates for special purposes.
The Sugar Company, I think, operated a scheme of that kind very successfully by supplying manures against the beet crop. I think that in itself has had the effect of increasing the yields of the beet crop and also increasing theacreage. If a scheme similar to that could be extended to some other lines it would have the advantage of increasing production in many spheres.
When Deputy Collins was speaking a while ago, the Minister said that on the Milk Costings Committee the producers had a majority. As far as I know, there are nine people on that committee—one is the chairman; there is a representative of the Department of Agriculture and a representative of the statistics office; there are two representatives of the Prices Advisory Body. I do not think any of those five could be described as a producer; and that leaves only four.
Mr. Walsh
You have no reason to assume they are opposed to the milk producers?
No; but what the Minister said was that the producers had a majority. Is Professor Smiddy a producer? Are the two representatives of the Prices Advisory Body milk producers? Is the representative of the Department a milk producer? Is Professor McCarthy a milk producer? The Minister spoke of a majority. I have named five out of the nine.
Mr. Walsh
You do not have to be a producer to support them, do you?
The Minister said the producers had a majority. I can count five out of the nine who are not milk producers and I find it difficult to understand the Minister's statement.
Reference has been made also to the proposed alteration in the agricultural grant. The Minister probably noticed from the Budget statement of the Minister for Finance that he was of the opinion that taxation lay lightly on the land. I can assure the Minister that the land is paying all sorts of direct and indirect taxation. He should do everything possible to see that the Government does not inflict any further burdens on the land, as any further burdens on the agricultural industry would have the effect of reducing production. If the Minister wants to increase production, he should do everything in his power to encourage the Government to give as much relief as possible to agriculture.
We find the Taoiseach starting on a campaign to give relief to industry and business. He has announced relief from rates on new buildings. Something similar should apply to agriculture and if the Minister wants increased production he will have to bring it about by some such means.
These are the few points I wanted to make and I appeal to the Minister to consider them. I hope that on some occasion I will be able to come into the House on the Vote for Agriculture and be all one with the Minister for Agriculture.
I wonder will I be forgiven if I confront the House once more with the question of agricultural labourers. I am prompted to do this by the memory of a statement made, it must be two years ago now, by the present Minister for Agriculture when he had achieved office in this House. Speaking to some of his own constituents in Kilkenny, most of whom I assume were agricultural workers, he assured them that he would put them in the position that they would be happy and contented in their lives and with their conditions of work and he would also secure for them a rate of wages which would be 10/- in excess of the weekly wage paid to unskilled building trade workers. I took occasion shortly after that to ask the Minister when he proposed putting that promise into effect. I reminded him that in County Dublin—the constituency which I have the honour to represent and which is represented also by the Minister's colleague, Deputy Burke, and by Deputy Rooney —that would mean that agricultural labourers would be paid £7 10s. per week. That promise was made, but apparently its implementation remains in abeyance.
I have listened to many Deputies on Estimates for Agriculture and I have noticed that references to agricultural labourers have been few and far between. I wonder if farmer Deputies, or those who come from predominantly farming areas, recognise the importance of agricultural work. Apart from election time when they seek their votes, do they recognise, in betweenelections, how important these men are to the welfare of Irish agriculture? I often doubt it. It is true that, to use a hackneyed phrase, agriculture is our main industry; if the farmer is not prosperous, the country cannot be said to be prosperous. Yet, how little thought is given to the vast body of people who number over 100,000 wage workers on the land? How little thought is given in this House, which is supposedly representative of the entire nation, to the welfare of this group of people? The remarks which I wish to make, as in other years, will be devoted to their plight.
I think the efforts of the present Minister for Agriculture have been entirely inadequate—I charge the same to his predecessor—if they have been made at all, to improve the lot of the agricultural labourer. If you examine the history of the departure of agricultural workers from the land and the influx of those workers into the towns and big cities over the past 20 or 25 years, you will find that there has been a decimation of agricultural workers over that period. The agricultural labourers, particularly the younger ones, are flying as fast as they can go into the cities and towns. That has been deplored time out of number by the sociologists, by members of this House, by Ministers of State, by all people who take an interest in the welfare of our people; but little or nothing has been done about it.
It can be reasonably said that, by and large, compared with 15 or 20 years ago, the farmers—I refer to those who live as a class on reasonably big farms —are doing relatively well at the present time. They owe more to those whom they employ than they are giving them. I do not think that those whom they employ are getting a very full reward for the amount of work they are doing on behalf of their employers.
In this matter the Minister for Agriculture who was elected by this Dáil has a duty, not alone to serve those who own land but also to serve those who work for wages on the land. I have not yet seen any evidence that the present Minister is extremely or exceptionally anxious to serve this particulargroup of people. The whole history of the fight for the land of this country, which goes back, as we know, to the days of Davitt and before him, to Fintan Lalor, to Parnell and the Plan of Campaign and down through the years until we finally achieved what some described as independence, has been one of dependence on the part of the farmer upon the agricultural worker for help to win for him economic independence and what I refer to as the three Fs. The agricultural worker has been ill-repaid for the work and the effort he has put in on behalf of his employers over that long period of struggle.
I want to know from the Minister— and I would ask him to refer to it in his reply not in any manner of escaping or trying to escape the responsibility of office or in any manner of seeking votes in any election that may be imminent—what plans he has to lift the agricultural worker of this country from his present lowly position, and lowly it is. Everybody is complaining about the size of the population in Dublin, about the fact that every day that goes by we have thousands of young men coming into this city from the land, farmers' sons, agricultural labourers and the sons of agricultural labourers, seeking out the lodging houses, finding rooms in tenements, working on buildings where they can get work and finally winding up on the labour exchange or possibly sitting on O'Connell Bridge.
Nobody seems to have come forward yet with any great policy as to how that development can be ended. It is quite a common experiencs for all of us to travel from, say, Dublin to Galway or Dublin to Cork. If you go in the early morning train from here to Cork or from here to Galway, along the main roads, you will seldom see any more than half a dozen or a dozen people on the land. The Minister has a very grave responsibility in this regard. I want to ask him what he proposes to do about it? No policy of expediency and no foolish promises such as those he made two years ago will bring about a solution. There must be along-term view taken and there must be a definite plan laid down whereby those engaged in Irish agriculture and particularly those whom I have the honour to represent, agricultural labourers, will be encouraged to stay where they are.
The main factor in the lives of most people is an economic factor. No matter how much people love their country—and Irish people are said to love their country very dearly—unless they can live in it in reasonable comfort they must go somewhere else. Every day that goes by we see these workers travelling away to factories in Coventry, Birmingham, London and elsewhere and being lost for ever. If they come back they have a new outlook on life and it is impossible to retain them here. That is due entirely to the fact that although they have been propagandised by political Parties for 30 years or followed different political banners and although many of them have gone out of their way to work and fight to secure the election of different political Parties, at the end of all, in spite of all their efforts, they have been forced to leave the land, go to Dublin, the half-way house until they eventually end up working for some big combine in England and probably worse off than they were at the beginning.
What has the Minister to say on these things? What solution has he for that? Apart entirely from putting Irish agriculture in a better position than it is, the Minister should take steps to see that such prosperity as Irish agriculture has developed over the last few years will benefit the workers on the land. No matter what may be said by Fianna Fáil, there is no doubt that the late Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, did bring a degree of prosperity to Irish agriculture.
Deputies
Hear, hear!
That prosperity has been developed and has been continuing, but it is for those who own land. It has not been continued for those who work on the land. On the one hand, we see high prices for those whoproduce different products on the land; on the other hand, if the agricultural labourer gets 2/6, 3/- or 4/- of a rise in the week, there is a cry to high Heaven, and we are told that revolution is imminent, that the end and the collapse of the agricultural industry is at hand. The Minister has a duty and the Dáil has a duty to force the hand of the Minister to see that the farm workers—who have latterly won such minimum rights as a weekly half-holiday through the efforts entirely of this Party which we in these benches represent, and also one week's holiday— are given a fair way of living and that they are not to be kept, as they are now being kept, in a position of economic subjection which eventuates in their being forced to get away entirely from the land upon which they were naturally born to work.
I want to refer to the Agricultural Wages Board, this board which masquerades as a tribunal to determine the minimum wages and conditions of agricultural labourers. Is it not time that some steps were taken to reconstitute this board? Is it not time that the Minister examined in detail the bona fidesof the members of this body? It may interest the House to hear that this board has a very peculiar history. The method by which members are appointed to the Agricultural Wages Board is, to say the least of it, bizarre. I recall some years ago, before the inter-Party Government was returned to power, we had on the regional committee catering for the Dublin and Leinster Counties generally, representing the 10,000 wage workers on the land of County Dublin a gentleman who was a political nominee. For the three years during which he was alleged to represent the agricultural workers of County Dublin he was working in a factory in Coventry—never attended a meeting, never expressed any view as to what were the rights or the responsibilities of the wages board in relation to farm labourers. Yet that gentleman was reappointed when the time came, as representing agricultural workers. I am quite sure that is a matter of little moment to many members of this House but it is of very great momentto the farm workers of my constituency and many thousands of them throughout the country because outside of Counties Dublin, Meath and Wicklow, where their working conditions and wages are determined as a result of negotiations between the trade union representing farm labourers and the employers, the living conditions of agricultural workers, their wages and the standard of life they are going to have, is determined by this body known as the Agricultural Wages Board.
The Minister has also a direct function in this matter. I have on other occasions appealed to him and to his predecessor to review the whole position in relation to the wages board— to consider for a few moments, not how high he is going to put prices for farmers or how he is going to fit agricultural policy and trim his sails to suit Cabinet decisions and strategy, but to think in terms of humanitarianism of these men who, with their families, constitute the backbone of this country. I have often heard apologists for the Fianna Fáil Party, and other Parties too, at various times outside chapel gates appealing for the votes of farm labourers, telling them how much they admire them and what great men they were, particularly during the war years. They were the men in the gap then. They were in the front line of our country's defence. They were saving us from disaster but, unfortunately, when it came to the turn of many of these public representatives, whether they were members of county committees of agriculture or members of the Dáil, to do something for these farm labourers, they seemed to have forgotten all about it.
There was a motion in this House, shortly after the present Dáil assembled, to provide a minimum wage of £4 per week for farm workers, and it was defeated by an overwhelming majority. Does that show any evidence of good faith on the part of Deputies generally in making these remarks? I do not confine that to the Government side. I think these remarks embrace all sides with exceptions, of course, on every side. Is it fair to these men that they should be treated in such a fashion, that they should be made political pawns at election times to securepolitical ends or to secure that this Party or that Party would get on top? It may seem a legitimate political manoeuvre but, to my mind, it is immoral, it is wrong, it is unjust and it is completely against the current of tradition in this country.
I feel that, if we are to stem in any degree the flight from the land, we must decide upon a fair balance as between those who employ labour and those who are employed. Of course, it is an accepted fact that this question is largely determined by political considerations. It is true that for every wage earner on the land there are four persons who either own land or have a direct or indirect interest in owning land. The figures are approximately 600,000 owners and their families and 100,000 to 150,000 wage earners. Thereby hangs the whole story. Political Parties playing for votes seek to placate the farmers and are not very much interested in those who are in the minority. While that may appear, as I say, to Parties and the people who govern Parties, as good politics, it is not just or right, and somebody must take it upon himself to raise his voice against it.
In my area of County Dublin we have an intensively cultivated agricultural district. I think it can be fairly said that we have some, indeed many, of the most efficient farmers in Ireland. These farmers have admitted many times, in consultation with the trade union representing workers that, so far as they are concerned, they acknowledge the fact that they have some, indeed many, of the ablest agricultural labourers. If we can secure in some degree in the principal county of this country a balance between the agricultural employer and the agricultural labourer, surely it is possible to secure that balance elsewhere throughout the country. I do not suggest that agricultural labourers in County Dublin are adequately paid; the farmers in my constituency know very well my opinions in that matter. I think they are badly paid. I think the farm labourers in County Dublin, being, as they are, skilled operatives, are entitled to much more than even theMinister promised them two years ago and which he failed to give them—10/-more than the building trade worker. The agricultural worker, unlike the unskilled labourer who has to work with pick and shovel and whose only asset consists of the strength he can command, is a skilled man, a highly skilled man. The agricultural labourer is learning all his life, but the return which he is getting for his skill is deplorable. I think it is a scandal and a reflection on the capacity of Governments which have been in control of this country.
I do not assume for a moment that the remarks which I am making, and which I have made over a number of years in this House, will have any great effect. I recognise as well as other Deputies that in political life these other considerations to which I have referred—the considerations of the big vote, the desirability of winning elections, the need for getting power— override, as far as political Parties generally are concerned, humanitarianism and human feelings. Is it not scandalous that that consideration of political power should result in vast masses of our people—I do not think it incorrect to describe over 100,000 workers on our land as vast masses in this island of ours—living, as they are, without sufficient to provide for themselves and their families, living very often under the worst housing conditions that can be found in Europe?
I move to report progress.
Progress reported. Committee to sit again.