In connection with Section 2, Sir, there are some points that I want to raise, but I am not sure of the procedure in connection with the various stages. I should like to know whether I can raise these matters now on the section.
Central Fund Bill, 1939—Committee Stage and Final Stages.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."
It is more usual to raise these points on the Second Stage, and to give notice of the matters to be so raised, Senator.
Well, Sir, the matters I want to raise are more or less points of detail. This is a very wide and comprehensive measure, and one does not always remember, on the Second Stage, all the points one would like to raise.
Very good, Senator, as they are matters of detail.
It is not often that we have the opportunity, or, let us say, the luxury, of ranging over the whole sphere of Government expenditure, and there is one point that I want to raise here, and to reinforce by a particular example, and that is the method of control through the form of account. Some Senators here may remember that this is not the first time I have raised this point, and I do feel that as long as the form of account, as we have it now, does not include under one head all the expenditure in one Department or institution, you will never have effective control. I want to illustrate that by an example. I happened to be walking around recently and went into a certain institution—well, it was a certain Government institution, which is actually a training college for teachers; I do not wish to give the name of the institution at the moment, but I can let the Minister know, if he should require the information—I was walking around there as an ordinary person who was generally interested, and I came into a room where there was an enormous battery of engines—two big heating boilers, two big steam-producing boilers, central boilers, circulating boilers, and so on—a large mass of machinery in any case.
I inquired what was the number of persons trained in that establishment and I was told that the number was 38, and yet the equipment there seemed to be almost enough for a full-sized battleship, and I have spoken to an expert on boilers in that connection. I tried to follow up that through the Estimates, and all I found was that most of the amount there concerned was made up entirely of salaries, with no reference to fuel and so on. I suggest to the Minister that it is quite impossible to hold whoever is responsible for that or such an institution accountable for that expenditure. I know that that raises a very big question, and that it means recasting the whole system of accounts and fixing the matter of managerial responsibility. I suppose that the question of provision of fuel and so on there would be a matter that would come under the Board of Works and that the manager concerned knew nothing and cared less about that matter, but I suggest that that is the very way to secure inefficiency in management. This is a question that has been brought up already and, in view of the growing expenditure, I would ask the Minister to consider seriously whether he might be able enormously to increase savings in such matters if he were to make the form of account conform with the responsibility of management.
There is another matter to which I should like to refer, and that is in connection with fire-fighting appliances. I think Senators will have noticed that, yesterday, I think it was, in connection with a fire in Sligo, there was a serious deficiency in fire-fighting appliances. I am informed that there is a duty of something like 33 per cent. on all petrol engines, and so on, that are required for fire-fighting. If that is so, I suggest that it is not surprising that the local authority would hesitate to embark alone on the expenditure that would be necessary for adequate protection against fire.
Another point I should like to make is this: I would ask the Minister to consider the appointment of some advisory body to deal with the matter of design and architecture in connection with buildings, public lettering, and so on. I understand that there is a commission inquiring into design in art and so on, but I do feel that no public building or lettering should be allowed to appear without the advice of some body competent to judge of these matters.
The amenities of our countryside are most important, and we have a mass of heterogeneous and, I would say, inartistic, road signs and direction indicators. If you want a good indication I would suggest the signpost in Phoenix Park, which might be called a nice, decent artistic job, but with that you have a dirty, dilapidated sign, evidently put up by the Automobile Association. I admit that these things are, perhaps, small matters, but speaking from the point of view of the general principle of centralisation— which I am not in favour of as a general principle—I do feel that in this matter of aesthetic or artistic amenities the Government or the local authority concerned should allow none of these signs to appear until the advice of some competent body has been sought.
The last matter to which I wish to refer is the old question, which is constantly being referred to, of security of tenure of land. There, again, it is perhaps too big a question to enter into, but I might be allowed to mention a few instances. I came across an instance the other day where it is proposed to take 300 acres of land from a certain person in the County Meath. If there were free sale and a free market, and no apprehensions about free market and free sale were to be taken into account, that land would go for something like £16,000. With the compulsory powers of acquisition, however, I understand that the man concerned does not expect to get, for his equities and so on, more than about £4,000, or a quarter of the price for which that land would go if there were a free market and free sale. I know that this is a big question, but I suggest that it is not a good thing that, as a result of what one might call a domiciliary visit by an inspector, land should be immediately reduced automatically to about a quarter of its value. I am not concerned here with individual questions, but with the general principle and with the matter of our production here. Where are we going to get an exportable surplus, if land is to be reduced in value in that way? I asked the House some time ago to have an inquiry made into this matter. We have had 20 or 30 years' experience of land division now and there is very considerable apprehension among land holders in this matter. I think that there should be an ad hoc inquiry into the whole matter, and I would suggest further that the present Agricultural Commission is not a suitable body to deal with that particular question.
When I brought up this question here before, I was met, in reply, by the extraordinary statement from the then Minister for Lands—Senator Connolly—that an inquiry of that kind would be, in effect, a vote of censure on his officials. I hope that if this matter is going to be considered, that form of argument will not be raised.
Might I remind the Senator that it has been the practice to give notice to the Clerk of matters to be raised, so that the Clerk would notify the appropriate Minister of the intention to raise such matters for discussion.
Might I reinforce the remarks of Senator Sir John Keane on this question of what I might call the fragmentation of land, to use an expression which was coined a very short time ago by a very prominent member of the Banking Commission who has been translated to another very important sphere? My view is that instead of money being allocated to increase the speed with which the division of land is carried out, there should be a very definite check upon the speed with which land is being divided. Although I am a one-time landowner, I make no excuse or apology for taking my stand on this point. I come from a family with two generations of Home Rulers and we have had a very definite consciousness as to the rights and troubles of the tenants before us. I find that whereas in 1906 there were some 80,000 congests, most of whom had been satisfied in 1923. Yet, to-day we are told that there are some 250,000 congests and an equal number of landless men. Both the tenants' rights and the landlords' rights which Mr. Parnell and his successors gave the very best years of their lives to establish, have actually, by the process of our own legislation, been practically taken away. If this fragmentation is to go on, the land of the country in a few years will be broken up into nothing very much larger than labourers' plots and there will be nobody to work on it. Already, we have heard very much in this House of the flight from the land. If the division of land goes on unchecked, its only effect will be to increase emigration to other countries.
Apart from that aspect, this policy shows an absolute disregard for the rights of the tenants who purchased under the various Land Acts. They have sunk all their capital in the land but still they do not feel secure in their title. The policy which has been pursued towards tenants who had purchased under older Acts shows a complete want of thought. What will be the result of this policy on the credit of the farmers? You cannot expect a banker, who is in charge of any spare sums which any of us have on deposit, to lend that money unless he has got some definite security and unless he knows that that security will have a continuing and stable value. I do not believe that when the late Mr. Hogan brought in the 1923 Land Act he realised what the results would be. I believe that some members of the present Executive regret the distance we have gone in breaking up the land, quite regardless of the economic possibilities, and even at the recent Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis some voices were raised to call a stoppage to this policy before it is too late.
I desire to speak only on the question of fixity of tenure. To-day we know that there is £35,000,000 on deposit, the property of the farmers of this country, but not a single penny of that £35,000,000 is available to finance the farmer. Yet that £35,000,000 can be lent to industrialists, to people to build houses and, perhaps, even to people who own racehorses. The land of the country is the foundation of the State and if the foundation of the State is being continually damaged and continually injured by the fact that it is not a collateral security for bankers, there is no hope of improving the present condition of the farmers. Without any increase on the burden which has to be borne by the taxpayer, or without the expenditure of any Governmental money, that money could be made available for expenditure on agricultural development. That could be brought about, if there was a simple amendment of the 1933 Act which would give the tenants fixity of tenure. If land has to be acquired for the purpose of providing amenities near towns, or for the purpose of relieving congestion, at least the tenant should get what he paid for the tenant right and what he guaranteed to the landlord. That is what I would suggest to the Minister for Finance. It would be worth his while to look into it and I am sure that if the Government adopted this policy it would lessen the load on the people who have to finance our present rate of expenditure.
Táim ag cur in aghaidh an triúr Séanadóirí atá tar éis labhairt. Is breagh liom cloisint go bhfuil luach le fáil ar thalamh indiú mar, fhaid is tá mé annseo, bhíos ag cloisint gearáin faoi nár bhféidir luach an tailimh fháil agus faoi bhochtanas na bhfeirmeoirí. Anois, támuid ag cloisint an taobh eile den scéal.
Maidir leis na gearáin faoi roinnt na talmhan bheith ag dul ró-thapaidh, sé mo bharúil ná fuil sé ag dul chó tapaidh agus ba cheart. Ní leis na feirmeoirí amháin nó le aon duine eile talamh na tíre seo. Do réir Airteogail a deich den Bhunreacht, is le daoine na tíre an talamh agus is ceart an prionsiobal sin do chur i bhfeidhm. Níl aon eagla go gcaithfí an feirmeoir gnáthach as seilbh a thailimh. Coimeádfar ann é fhaid is bhaineas sé an úsáid cheart den talamh atá aige. Tá a lán tailimh, cuir i gcás, i gConndae na Midhe nach mbaintear aon úsáid de chor a bith, agus ba cheart an talamh sin do thógáil agus úsáid do bhaint as ar son muintir na tíre.
Maidir leis an luach atá le tabhairt, tá plean agam agus seo é: alt do chur sa mBille atá le teacht romhainn—an Bille Luachála—go leanfaidh meastachán ar an talamh, chó maith leis na tithe. Nuair deánfar an meastachán sin, beidh bun-eolas againn ar luach na talmhan. Má támuid chun talamh do thógáil agus é do roinnt, nó é do chur faoi chrainn, nó tithe do chur air, beidh cruinn-eolas againn cad is fiú é má cuirtear i bhfeidhm an plean sin. Cuir i gcás go bhfuil luacháil éigin déanta air, d'fhéadfaí fiche bliain den luach-mheastachán do tabhairt don té bheadh ag dul as. B'fhéidir go mbeidh sé níos lugha ach ní bheidh aon chúis ghearáin ag aon duine, agus ní bheidh na tionóntaí in aghaidh an luachmeastacháin a bheith ró-iseal nó ró-árd.
Sin é an plean a mholaim faoi luach na talmhan agus molaim go láidir don Aire agus don Rialtas gan géilleadh don éileamh nach ceart roinnt na talmhan bheith ag dul ró-thapaidh. Deánfar maitheas don tír, agus deánfar dochar don tír muna leanfar le roinnt na talmhan. Teastuíonn uainn an talamh do roinnt agus é do roinnt go mór, agus níos mó ná sin, comhacht do choimeád siar chun talamh do thógáil ó aon duine ar bith nach mbaineann an úsáid cheart as. Sin é an prionsiobal ba mhaith liom a mholadh ar an gceist seo.
The trouble in this House is that at times one cannot say what one knows to be right without running the gauntlet of having abuse and every kind of misrepresentation levelled at one from people on the other side. The Senator who has just sat down has dealt with the attitude of the three Senators who preceded him, and with their appeal to the Government to hold their hand in the division of land. Senator McGinley is one of those people who apparently think that if you continue to divide land, everything on earth is bound to be all right. I have a great deal of sympathy with the point of view expressed by those people who say that we are only beginning to make trouble for ourselves by pursuing this policy without examining its consequences. When you start this policy, you should try to examine the likely consequences. It is not enough just to say, "Divide the land and everything is thereby achieved." It might be pointed out in reply to speeches of the type delivered by Senator McGinley, that the present Government have divided a considerable amount of land since they came into power. It is true that there have been considerable additions to the number of new holdings established since this Government came into power, but the position to-day is that, despite all the new holdings and all the new holders of land, and despite the fact that we have a larger acreage under tillage than for a number of years before, there was a definite decrease in the number of male employees working on the land last year as against the year before. There were also fewer marriages, and fewer births amongst the agricultural community than ever before. If Senator McGinley would only have the patience or would only try to have sufficient vision to picture the possibilities of the future, he would see that all is not achieved merely by declaring, "Divide the land." I do not intend to dwell any longer on that matter, except just to say that there are two sides to this question of the division of land.
As far as I am concerned, I know a fairly large county where there is no land to be divided, where no land has been divided because there was not enough land for the people living there, and where there were no large estates which could be taken over. I understand the type of economy followed by the fairly self-contained farmers, and I say that these farmers enjoyed a higher standard of living in former years than they do now. I know enough about the economy of the country as a whole to understand that the standard of living which we are able to provide for our small farmers depends on their having an outlet for certain animals which they cannot produce in the finished state for the home or the foreign market. It depends on their having an outlet for these animals in other counties where there are larger holdings in the possession of other people.
I am convinced that, in breaking up these holdings, the whole internal economy will be changed. The net result is that the standard of life for people who cannot finish their products on small farms, is going to be altered, and there will be a great flight from poor lands which, goodness knows, is bad enough at present. I am satisfied that that will be the case, and I do not propose to debate it to further length at this stage.
I want to advert to some remarks that were made last week. I think I was responsible for objecting to all stages of the Bill being taken then, the reason being, that statements were made which were hardly representative of the position. In so far as I was concerned I was taken to task by Senator Quirke. I am accustomed to that sort of treatment from him, but I think not quite fairly. In the first place he joined issue immediately on the way I presented my point of view on the Government's policy with regard to technical education. He was very vehement in his denunciation stating that I was whole hog against the Government. That is not quite true. I was urging that, in my judgment, the situation was of such a nature that there was a need for stocktaking. I do not know that Senator Quirke was so catholic in his denunciation of other people who expressed points of view with which he did not disagree. I will read a point of view on vocational education expressed by another person, and, having done so, I will indicate who the speaker was, and where it was reported, after which I would like to hear Senator Quirke's point of view. I had not seen these remarks when I spoke. This is what was said:
"The scheme at present in operation for vocational education is the curse of the countryside. The young girls living within six miles or so of the local vocational school, immediately on leaving the national nnn school, want to do nothing but go to the vocational school. They are removed altogether from the home atmosphere. They all want to become typists and get soft jobs in offices—jobs that cannot be got. They go in for one or two years to become typists, and then go looking for jobs that are not there. When eventually they turn home disappointed they will not wet a drop of tea; their families must wait on them. They wait another while for a job that doesn't come, and then hop off to England and talk about the rural life of this country!"
I do not know if Senator Quirke will see very much difference in that presentation of the case and the point of view I expressed, which I do not think was anything like as strong. The remarks I have read were made by a Deputy in the Senator's Party, Deputy O'Cleirigh, and were reported in the Mayo News of February 25th. Quite clearly people of every line of thought are beginning to have their minds opened as a consequence of certain policies that are being pursued. I am not blaming the present Administration at all for the scheme of vocational education. It is a blend of two policies and, if you like, is a continuation of the policy of the Government's predecessors. All I urged was that it is essential that there should be a stocktaking with regard to the position of technical education, because I think Deputy O'Cleirigh is not the only Deputy or responsible person who has that point of view. I want to advert also to what was said last week with regard to credit for farmers. I am going to continue saying what I said then until, like other things, it is accepted. The Minister said:
"As I said before, there are £35,000,000 of farmers' deposits in the Irish banks, and my contention is that if there was such an opportunity of putting a couple of these millions into agriculture, as Senators and Deputies tell us about, it would be better employed in agriculture than in lying in any bank in this country earning 1 or 1½ per cent. This thing of money for farmers and money for agriculture has become a political ramp, and it is a dishonest ramp, and is sapping the morale of the Irish farmers."
I do not know if the Minister meant that. If he did, it is a very grave statement, because the demand for credit for farmers is a very old one. It was made by members of the present Ministry when in opposition. The demand is still being made, and at the last meeting of the Seanad I urged that it was being made as strongly by members of the Minister's Party as by anyone else. I do not think the case made in reply by Senator Quirke would be made by other members of his Party, or by men who are farmers apart from the time they give to their duties in this House, or that it would be made by farmers who are moving continuously amongst their neighbours, or who meet them when attending creamery committees or agricultural committees. I should like to hear from some of these people what they know about the position. I am quite convinced that it would be very different from the statement of Senator Quirke. Senator Parkinson also repeated the statement that there are £35,000,000 on deposit in Irish banks, the property of Irish farmers. I must say that that statement always puzzles me. I do not think I know a single farmer with bank deposits. It may be that I know farmers who have deposits and that they did not tell me about them, or perhaps they live in Tipperary, Meath, Kildare, or other parts with which I am not familiar. I should like to ask who or what was a "farmer" when these figures were prepared. Were these farmers amongst lords, earls, or what? What were the deposits? Were the deposits represented by securities or by money lodged on deposit receipts? I could mention individuals who have farms and pretty large holdings of land, and who are known to have very considerable assets. If such people come within the category of farmers, their bank deposits would be amongst the £35,000,000, but that would be a considerable misrepresentation of the position as far as ordinary farmers are concerned. I should like to have some information on that question.
Senator McGinley made an interesting point as to how he would handle farmers if he were dealing with them. It is a very good thing that the Senator is not, or apparently we would have wholesale evictions. As I understood him, his view was that they hold land on condition that they make proper use of it. Senator O'Dwyer's, Senator Madden's, Senator Counihan's and my own point of view might differ radically from that of Senator McGinley as to the proper use of land. The Senator might want me to grow wheat where only furze and heather would grow. Every farmer understands that a particular type of farming can be pursued on the land. I want to relate that to the position of farmers and the necessity for credit. The Minister said if there was an opening for money in agriculture, they would not have £35,000,000 lying in the banks earning 1 or 1½ per cent. What I want to point out is that we have a problem which is a social as well as an economic problem. It is a serious social and a grave economic problem. The unemployment figures seem to indicate that there are 45,000 applicants for assistance who actually have means. Those of us who see them walking or cycling to the exchanges or to the Gárda barracks to register or to get the unemployment allowance know that they have some land. They have not much land, but 45,000 have holdings.
These people have places for two, three or perhaps four cows. Possibly some of them have not even one cow. If they have not a cow or cows they will not have manure, and will not be able to till the land or to produce. As a result these holdings are only producing possibly 5 per cent. of their capacity. In some cases it may be only 10 per cent. My view is that these people could be taken off the dole if credit was available with which to get their farms working. I cannot understand the view of the Minister in making thousands of pounds available to pay unemployment assistance, and in not making an effort to see what could be done to put them to work on their farms and take them off the dole. I believe that if the matter was examined, the decision would be that, possibly, the amount spent as unemployment assistance would go a far way towards giving them a means of living on their holdings. Otherwise, it is doubtful if there is any course other than the one which Senator McGinley would adopt.
If the average size of these holdings is taken as ten acres that would represent 450,000 acres of land that to-day is producing possibly neither rent nor rates. If the people are not equipped to work the land I am convinced they will be dispossessed. They are living under semi-miserable conditions, and they are doing more, they are demoralising their neighbours. The position that exists is a source of demoralisation for neighbours. If, for instance, I have men working at 24/- a week, and if fellows at the back of the farm get 12/- or 14/- a week for doing nothing, that has a profound influence on those who are working. It is a problem of credit. It could be solved by credit. The fact that considerable sums of money are being spent on these people is a justification for asking for an examination of the problem, to see if that money could not be better spent.
There is this further point, that if the Minister and Senator Quirke are depositors, and I am a possible borrower, and that money is there in the bank at one or one and a half per cent., I cannot get it. That is the trouble. My land cannot be linked to that money and the result is, for the forty, fifty-acre and hundred-acre farmers, that their lands are not producing anything like as much as they are capable of producing. We are not occupied ourselves as we might be and we are not giving the employment it is possible for us to give. The Minister thinks, apparently, that there is no obligation on the State to do anything in this matter. I put it to the Minister that we have these thousands and thousands of citizens who cannot do anything for themselves. They believe they own their land, whatever Senator McGinley's point of view may be. They have been paying for a very long time, and they could use it, and use it well. They know how to use it. I am not saying that there are not inefficient and useless farmers, just as there are useless and inefficient Senators, Deputies and commercial people. Every branch of society can produce its inefficient people, but the number of inefficient farmers is no higher a percentage of the whole than in any other group of citizens.
There are, of course, people who never bore their fair share of the burden, but the great mass of the people on the land to-day who want credit to work their land know their land. They know their own farms and it would be a good while before the people by whom you will replace them will know the soil as well as they know it. They have been broken by the difficult years through which they have passed. Some, perhaps, have been going down for a long time, and at a time when they had hopes that everything was going to be brighter the sky became darker than ever. We need not go into the question of who brought the clouds over and kept them there for a long time, but the fact remains that many of these farmers could make good use of money to-day, if it were available. There is no instrument or machine now which will make it possible to link some of the deposits in the Irish banks to the Irish land, which is not in production as it might be, unless the Government create it.
The Minister seems to think that colossal losses would be incurred by any effort of the State to do that, but that money is in the banks at 1½ per cent., and I believe it would be just as safe locked up in Irish land, even the worst land, as it would be in any industry in Ireland, England and perhaps even America. Even from the point of view of the depositors themselves, I believe it would be a wise policy on the part of the Government to encourage the investment to a greater extent than is the case to-day of Irish deposits in Irish land. There are hundreds of thousands of acres being starved for the capital they cannot get, unless the Government will be responsible in some way for seeing that it will be made available. The question is: what can the Government do?
This debate is proceeding on the lines of a Second Reading debate. I think Senators will agree with that summary. Senator Baxter's speech is largely traversing the ground he covered on the Second Reading, and, perhaps, these invite replies from other Senators. It is not desirable that the debate should proceed on these lines in Committee, particularly when notice of matters to be raised was not given beforehand.
I suggest it is immaterial. Could we not have taken the debate on the final stages? I believe that you have a social problem as well as an economic problem. Apparently, the policy of the Government is to wash their hands of it and say that it is not their affair. But that does not solve it; the problem is still there. It is a disturbing problem, but it is possible to solve it. The money is in the country to solve it, and it is a question of whether the Government will take the responsibility of seeing that this money is made available for the people who can make it work. The question that immediately arises is: what are you going to do with the people who are not creditworthy? I say at once that the people who are creditworthy have no problem to solve, and you are doing something for those people, so far as small farmers are concerned, who are not creditworthy through unemployment assistance. So far as the large farmers are concerned, they are being left in that condition of suspended animation, hoping against hope that something will be done.
I do not think there are any great risks for the Government in adopting a scheme whereby they would make themselves responsible, in part, for securing that credit will be available for farmers of character. I do not urge that it should be given to the characterless, useless fellow. You have another type altogether to deal with when you come to him, but in respect of the man who has character, I believe the Government would be undertaking no great risk in making provision to enable these people to work. I say that it is worth the risk. You are spending money otherwise and giving other people security for the finding of money who are not more beneficial as citizens than our farmers.
I say, further, that while the Minister urged that the insecurity in Europe was such that it would be very rash to encourage anybody to take the risk of putting money into agriculture, if the money were not his own; that if people had money, they were at liberty to speculate with it, but that otherwise it was not wise to adopt such a policy, if the war clouds darken, as apparently they are darkening, there would not be any trouble at all in getting credit for the farmers. In fact, the probabilities are that the banks would adopt the same policy as that which they adopted in the past world upheaval. They would be pressing money on people who had character, in the hope that they could invest it somehow, and in the hope that it would be reasonably secure here.
I do not want to see our Irish farmers getting money when prices are inflated to the point at which they cannot profitably employ the money. The time to give them credit to restock their lands, to get machines, to get working again, is before that point is reached. If the Minister had only had a little vision when the economic war was on, he would have restocked the lands when the prices of stock were low, and he would have taken many stock off the market which some man could not sell, and would have put them on lands upon which there was no stock at all. That was not done, and cattle prices have increased, with the result that the difficulties of restocking are greater than ever. The very argument which the Minister uses against the wisdom of making credit available for our farmers is the strongest argument in its favour. I think the Minister has not attempted to meet the case, and I should like to hear from some of his supporters in the House, farmers themselves who have very close and intimate relations with farmers down the country, how they feel about all this. If they get up and contradict me in the points of view I have expressed as to the necessity and the urgency of a solution of this problem, their points of view will be very different from that of Senator Quirke, whose point of view and responsibilities are, I realise, somewhat different from theirs, because he is speaking from the viewpoint of things as he sees them, which is not representative of the general position in the country.
What I fail to gather from the many criticisms of the policy of the day is anything like a concrete alternative proposal or proposals. It is comparatively easy to criticise, but, generally, criticism should be followed by an alternative proposal. Critics at present start by raising their hands in horror, as we all do, at the necessity for the young people to leave the country to make a living in a nearby country. We all deplore that, so far as it goes, but the critics, and especially our friends on the other side, are opposed, in a dim way, perhaps, to the distribution of land, and they are openly opposed to the industrial policy of the country. So far as any ordinary person living in the country can see, the only means of keeping the young people at home is by putting them on the land, and putting a further number of them into the manufacture of the industrial goods required in the country.
I am aware of farms which have been broken up and divided, on which there are now ten families, with an average of five persons per family, that is, 50 people, living comfortably, where one man and a dog did the work before. Certainly, that is one step towards keeping the people at home in our own country. In my own town, which is not by any means industrialised, two small factories have been started in recent years. One of them gives employment to 30 or 40 men, fathers of families, maintaining, on an average, five people per family. That represents a couple of hundred people in one very small industry, and, as distinct from the statement made here last week, happily, not a single man in that industry is an Englishman or a foreigner of any kind. The other little industry we have, mainly employs girl labour, there being only about 15 per cent. male employment. There are 120 names on the payroll and if that little industry was not there, all those girls and some of the men would have to go, with the others, to a neighbouring country to earn a living. To my mind, with all the criticism of people leaving the country, there is no way of keeping them in the country except by the division of the land and industrial development.
I do not want to interrupt the Senator, but would it not be possible to get back to the Committee Stage? Whatever excuse there may have been for a Senator raising a few points shortly to be answered by the Minister, to have all the points raised by Senators answered by other Senators seems to be an extraordinary procedure. I do not know whether Senator Baxter gave an undertaking that he would not make the same speech a third time on the Final Stage, but there seems to be no guarantee that he will not do so. I think we ought to get back to Committee Stage, if it is at all possible.
I have already indicated my view on that matter and I would ask Senators to conform to it.
Whatever about the other Senators who have spoken, this is my first statement on this Bill, and I mean to say a few words more. I suggest that most of the troubles of the country are due to pessimists, who, by a form of auto-suggestion, if you like, make the people believe that they are badly off, that they are poor and that they cannot afford this or that.
They really have come to believe that, and I believe that the marriage question, which is so much in evidence these days—or, rather, the lack of marriages—is to a certain extent due to the fact that the people have been induced to believe something along the lines of auto-suggestion. A certain section of the community are told that they cannot afford to get married, that it is a risky thing, because they are poor. There is no such thing as poverty in the country. The country is as prosperous to-day as ever it was.
If there is any sympathy to go out to any section of the community, that sympathy should be extended to the people living in the small towns, especially the towns with a population of about 10,000. The tendency of the day is for the people to go to the bigger towns. The distribution of goods has been changed from the towns altogether. The towns at present are suffering in exactly the same way as the railway companies are suffering. The railway companies are suffering because of a revolutionary change which has come about in the transport of goods. The small towns are suffering also because of a revolutionary change. Lorries, vans and travelling shops have taken the entire trade from the small towns. The result is that the trade of towns with 5,000 or 6,000 of a population has gone down to about 50 per cent. of what it was in pre-war days.
I think the general feeling is that the question that is being discussed at the moment should not be laboured. I am not the one to do that, but I should like to suggest that the farming industry is in as good a position as ever it was, in all my experience of many years, with the possible exception of certain things which may happen and which are outside the control of any man. For instance, everybody will admit that the last harvest was a very bad one and the farming community suffered in consequence. In certain parts of the country, especially in my own County Clare, along the western seaboard, and especially along the banks of the Shannon and the Fergus, the terrible disease known as fluke has attacked animals year after year to such an extent that farmers who otherwise would be in a very prosperous, a reasonably prosperous condition, are reduced almost to poverty. About 50 per cent. of the cattle were wiped out by fluke in 1927, and about 20 per cent. were wiped out in 1937. Last year again, there was a very heavy loss in young cattle, particularly yearlings.
I think the cases of the people who have suffered so much should be sympathetically considered by the Government. I believe they are in a position which would entitle them to expect some assistance in respect of losses which they could not in any way prevent. I do admit that last year the Government did give them assistance through the medium of the creameries, small loans where they were badly needed, at a small rate of interest. But that is not sufficient, because when a man loses 50 per cent. of his cattle it will take him at least ten years, even with a loan, before he will get back to a sound position and it will mean a loss for the State and for the county, from the point of view of rates and other public charges. It would be a serious thing to leave men in that position hanging by the neck, as it were, for ten years. I hope that the Government will consider how those people can be helped. There are a few other things that I would like to mention, but in view of the feeling of the House I will not refer to them now. There will be other opportunities of saying what I have to say.
I do not intend to discuss the matter raised by Senator Sir John Keane—fixity of tenure and free sale. That is too important a question to be dealt with in a casual way. At any rate, I do not think the Minister for Finance would be the proper Minister to deal with that matter. I think it would be more appropriate to discuss it by way of motion, when we could have the Minister for Lands here.
I would like to discuss a few of the points raised by the Minister, a few points he made on the Second Reading of this Bill. I am not interested in speeches which were made by the Minister in 1929, or previous to that. I am not interested in statements made by anybody in the past. What I am deeply concerned about is the statement made by the Minister on the Second Reading of this Bill last Wednesday. I presume that that statement indicates Government policy with regard to agriculture and with regard to relief for farmers. It was very difficult to reconcile that statement with the speech the Minister made at the bankers' dinner. The speech made by the Minister at that dinner was a commonsense speech, a speech with which I thoroughly agree.
In fact, if I did not think it would flatter the Minister too much, I would say it was the sort of a speech I would make myself. I was so interested in that speech that I kept a cutting from the paper. Speaking of the loss which this country experienced through having to bring back some of its invested capital from abroad, the Minister said:
"The fact is that in regard to a certain portion of the income which, as a community, we have hitherto enjoyed, and which has gone to sustain our social and economic organisation here, we have exchanged a comparative security of a sound investment income for the risks and vicissitudes of international trade. In fact, we have become more dependent upon agriculture and upon agricultural exports for our very existence."
Further on he said:
"... We must, I repeat, when we realise external assets for such purposes, produce a substitute which will secure for us an equivalent credit abroad. Otherwise our purchasing power abroad, and with it the standard of living of the community as a whole, must decline.
Broadly speaking, we can replace this investment income only by an increase in the net income which we derive from the export of our agricultural surplus. And, again broadly speaking, there is no market which offers an opportunity for that increase upon a scale commensurate with our requirements but the British market."
He goes on to speak along those lines and he advocates an increase of our surplus agricultural produce, a greater increase. He says that it is essential for our very existence to increase our exports of agricultural produce. When he was speaking in the Seanad last Wednesday, referring to credit for farmers, the Minister said:
"I also heard, as I say, a request that money might be provided for the farmers to enable the farmers to go in for increased production, and I was very severely criticised by the Senator because I suggested that in that regard it might be advisable to go a little cautiously. As I see it at the moment—it may not be the view of everybody—the economic position in Great Britain, in our principal market, is a little uncertain. Unemployment has been growing there since, I think, the middle of last year. The figures for the registered unemployed in Great Britain have been mounting very rapidly.... Naturally, if Britain is our principal market and if unemployment is growing there, then the scope of that market must be gradually narrowed, and unless something were to happen which would enlarge the market I certainly would not, either as a business man or as a Minister, feel justified in providing easy credit for anybody who would have to dispose ultimately of all his goods in that market."
I definitely disagree with that statement. I must say there is a market in Great Britain for more than twice the amount of agricultural produce we can export. No matter how the prices fall in England, and no matter how unemployment rises, the British market will still be the best market in the world for the sale of agricultural produce.
How does the Minister contend that a dairy farmer who has a farm that will carry 20 dairy cows and has only 14— how does he contend that if that farmer gets money to provide six extra cows, which the farm will easily carry, that he is going to lose money? He will have to pay the same rates and annuities and the same overhead charges on the 14 cows as he would on the 20. Does the Minister contend that to provide money for that class of farmer is a danger at the present time, because there may be unemployment in England and the market there is not going to pay a good price for our agricultural exports? Take the case of a grazing farmer whose farm could carry 100 bullocks and who has only enough capital to buy 60 bullocks. The same thing applies. He will have the same rates and annuities and overhead charges on the 60 as on the 100 bullocks. I am sure nobody will contend that by having 100 bullocks instead of 60 he will not make a greater profit or be better able to pay his rates and his annuities and repay the loan that provided him with the extra 40 bullocks.
We exported cattle when prices were very much worse than what we can anticipate they will be in the near future. We exported cattle and had to accept English prices when we had to pay £6 a head by way of duty on those cattle. We exported cattle under much worse conditions,, and I say that it is not correct for the Minister to assume that if he advanced money to farmers at the present time they will lose by purchasing cattle. If they buy cattle, the seller of the cattle will benefit and all the money will be staying in the country; there will be none of it going out. Again, the price of store cattle and other classes of cattle will be regulated by the prices that these cattle would make in the British market.
In reply to Senator Baxter, the Minister said with regard to the killing of the calves that there was no calf slaughtered that was worth the calfskin bounty. I thoroughly agree with the Minister's statement, and furthermore there was no compulsion, nor was there any Order made that the calves should be killed, but as the Minister said, the farmers of the country as a whole are not fools. The reason they slaughtered their calves was because the skin of a dead calf was worth more than a live one, and because it would not pay to rear them. I know in my native county of Kerry that in those particular times one-and-a-half, two, and three years' old cattle were selling for about £1 each, and when the farmer could get 10/- or 12/6—I think they got 12/6 for a portion of the time —for the skin, it would be foolish to try to rear a calf until he was two years old and to sell him, perhaps, for less than £1. Of course, the other cattle were not so seriously affected, but the Kerry cattle and the smaller cattle were not worth rearing.
I think that proves conclusively, better than any statement that I could make, the enormous losses suffered by the farmers during those years. The economic war was a terrible affliction on the farmers. I do not want to repeat the litany of the sufferings of those days. I would prefer to forget all about it but it is sometimes necessary to refer to it to show what the position is. The subject can be discussed in a calm atmosphere and without heat or recrimination.
Will you let me ask a question of Senator Counihan? Does he remember the days of his childhood when the calves were slaughtered in Kerry because it would not pay to rear them even when there was no economic war?
If you wish you can make that point on the Final Stage.
The Minister has now decided to advise the banks that farmers are not credit-worthy and for that reason he cannot give them any help to restock their lands and pay off their debts and carry on their business but I would like to remind the Minister of why the farmers are uncredit-worthy. The proof is in the statements I have made that it is due solely and entirely, in 95 cases out of 100, to the economic war. The Banking Commission in their report stated that during those years the value of the agricultural production in this country was reduced by over £19,000,000 a year. I would like the Minister to remember that that economic war and that scale of losses were carried on for practically six years. I think it was very difficult, but it was a marvellous feat, for the farmers of this country to exist through any of those years without getting any consideration from any other class of the community.
I would like to appeal to the Minister to be a little more sympathetic towards the farmers and I want to assure him that any money he would give to them to heal or cure the ravages of the economic war would be money well spent. We have the soil in this country, we have the climate, and we have the ability to produce the best live stock in the world and I say that if we get half a chance we will be able to meet our competitors and beat them in the British market, but we must be put in something approaching the same position as our competitors. The costs of production must be reduced; our overhead charges must be brought down, and the farmers must get working capital at a low rate of interest, at least for some time. If the Minister would consent to look sympathetically at it and have the advice of farmers who are not wild men of the woods, he would consent to the request I am making here on behalf of the farmers.
I do not wish to go into the various details of the discussion, but I thank you for your generosity in allowing the discussion on this Bill so repeatedly. On the opposite side of the House there have been two statements made with regard to the specific idea of agriculture, with which I thoroughly agree. One was made by the gentleman who spoke in Irish, when he alluded to the fact that there were some people who were not making proper use of their land. I entirely agree that proper use of the land ought to be the first demand made upon the citizens who own it. The second statement was that made by Senator Honan, that there was too much pessimism about. That is perfectly true, but the grounds on which that pessimism is based are largely created by statements specifically made, such as those of the other gentleman, when he talked wildly of evicting everybody. My idea is that this country, 20 years ago, went on a very great ramp. You cannot go out on a night's amusement, bashing up everything as they did, without in some way upsetting economic equilibrium. In the past, every rent and every rate that was placed on Irish land was based on facts and fixed in judicial courts. These judicial courts should be established in every county in Eire to fix the rents, having regard to the livelihood that can be obtained by the farmers who occupy and work the lands. In 1920 or 1921, when the grants were stopped to Irish agriculture by the then functioning British Administration, the rates took a very great jump, and from that time it may be said they have never gone back.
Hear, hear!
The halving of the annuities did nothing to offset the effect of the increased rate, and the farmer's burden is now of such dimensions as to seriously undermine his confidence in the future. Now, fear is the greatest of all the human emotions. It stagnates and stops enterprise, and distorts the outlook that an industrious Irish farmer would otherwise bestow on the undertaking God has blessed him with. I hold that the late Government made a great mistake when they adopted the Peggy O'Neill attitude of "We can commandeer any land in any place, anywhere, and at any time."
Hear, hear!
To my mind it should be the function of the Government to implement a law and to notify any farmers who are not using their land to the best advantage. If the farmer fails to do his duty when he gets the notice, that land should be compulsorily acquired by the Land Commission but there should be full regard to the fact that those citizens are entitled to consideration for what their ancestors have done, when perhaps the ancestors of those who will get the land next were not acting so industriously for the upkeep of their own homes. I have little fault to find with the late Government but I was in the House listening to Mr. Hogan and I was accompanied by an old Parliamentarian when Mr. Hogan was announcing his land policy. Mr. Hogan and I were in jail together with Mr. O'Higgins. This old Parliamentarian, after listening to Mr. Hogan, turned to me and said, "I am afraid your colleagues are going too fast."
Hear, hear!
Looking out at the state of Ireland to-day, I am inclined to agree with him. Land division is essential, but it should be done after due consideration, due thought and due knowledge. The economic chain of the nation's life is no stronger than any of its links and the £35,000,000 owned by the farmers, are nothing compared with the value of the land itself. The land itself is capable of producing another £35,000,000 if judiciously handled. I hold, Sir, not only that, but that the present Minister for Finance should seek advice to see if it is proper that that £35,000,000 of Irish money should be utilised for any purpose until it is seen that there is sufficient money to work efficiently the land itself. The chain again is no stronger than its weakest link. If that money can be got out of the land why should British industry or any other industry except the industry from which it oozed, be permitted? Why should not the State see that the land of Ireland is credit-worthy? If it has become uncredit-worthy, is it not the duty of the State to restore its credit-worthiness?
A director of the Agricultural Credit Corporation told us the other day that they had given 19,000 loans—I think that was the figure he used. Well, if they have given 19,000 loans, how many loans have they refused? Can we not multiply 19,000 at least ten times? If there are 190,000 people throughout Eire who cannot obtain loans what use is the £35,000,000 which we are told the farmers have in the banks? I claim that in that 190,000 people who cannot get loans you have the advance guard of the nation's workers. The men who are willing to borrow, not the men who are willing to deposit, are the men who form the advance guard which the Minister should stand behind.
I do not wish to detain the Seanad except to state that an examination of Senator Quirke's figures is alarming. I have gone to the Agricultural Credit Corporation for a great many loans for people who wanted them and, thank God, I have never let them down. On the other hand, a position is being reached which, as Senator Honan remarked, is worthy of serious consideration.
I believe that the Government should set up a court similar to the judicial courts in every county in Eire and that every man should be put on his oath when he is giving evidence before it. It should be done in public because there is no use in giving out land, behind sealed doors, to incompetent people and sometimes taking it from people who are industrious if they are given the chance. I hold that it is a bigger task than I would be able to express a final opinion on. I am chairman of a county council for 16 years, generally unanimously elected, and chiefly with the support of my political opponents, but I often say: what right have I to go in and strike a rate to put 2d. or 3d. on the valuation of a farmer so that we might give luxuries to hospitals and give, even to medical charities, things which we cannot give to the farmer at home? Yet, to my certain knowledge, it is being done—I do not say unscrupulously—but without the knowledge of the citizens. Fifteen years ago I drove an unfortunate labourer to a hospital here in Dublin and I was able to get him in through influence. His parting words to me were: "Well, sir, it is a grand room you are leaving me in."
I am frequently looking at people paying rates for educational purposes, for technical education and other kinds of education, and seeing the farmers at the same time not able to provide these things for themselves. If this continues what else can you make of the farmer but a nation of mendicants and beggars? There is a great spirit of independence and of pride in the Irish farmers, and, without becoming poetic, one can say that they have produced some of the best citizens. These fine men of independence and pride could be a credit to the nation, but they are being beggared.
I understand the Minister is reserving his reply until the Final Stage.
What I have to say would really come better on the Fifth Stage than at this stage of the Bill, because it is more in the nature of a general speech. If you could tolerate that kind of speech from me now, I can go on.
I should prefer if the Senator would reserve his speech for the Final Stage.
Sections 2, 3 and 4, and Title of the Bill, put and agreed to.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: That the Bill do now pass.
I was not aware, Sir, that the procedure allowed such a detailed discussion of the agricultural situation in connection with the Central Fund Bill, and consequently any remarks I may make on this occasion will suffer from lack of previous preparation and be, perhaps, somewhat incoherent. However, it seems to me that it is germane to any Central Fund Bill to suggest that there is an important relationship between the amount taken by way of taxation and the national income, and, as things stand at present, there has been a steady increase in the demands made by the tax gatherer, and, as against that, there has been no evidence of any corresponding increase in the money income referred to as the national income.
That increase in the proportion taken by the State as against the total income of the community is a thing which, in my opinion, threatens danger to the national credit. I had some remarks to make in connection with that on a former occasion, but to-day I want to deal with other aspects of that situation. Now, undoubtedly, the finance of land acquisition and land division has an important bearing on the growth of the national budget. I do not know how many millions a year we spend on the acquisition of land for purposes of division, but I do know that it is a very considerable amount of money, and I am convinced that the policy underlying the acquisition and division of land in this country is wrong economically and socially as well as being financially indefensible. In furtherance of our efforts to produce enough for our own consumption and also to provide an exportable surplus, it seems to me that it would be quite impossible to attain these objects along the lines of the present policy of land acquisition and division. In the Banking Commission Report there was a rather fantastic statement—I do not know where it emanated from—to the effect that there were some 500,000 landless men or claimants for land in Ireland. I think that, actually, if we were to take the number of landless men who are actually claimants for small holdings, we would be probably nearer the mark if we put the number at 100,000. However, my point is that if we continue to proceed along the lines of our present policy of providing the landless men with farms, taking the cost to the State at £600 per farm, it would add £60,000,000 to the National Debt in order to accommodate these landless men with economic farms. That estimate is based on the fact that the net loss to the State for the provision of an average holding would be £600 per farm. That would be, I presume, about the average, and if you multiply that £600 by 100,000 people to whom land would be given, you get a total of £60,000,000 added to the deadweight National Debt.
Now, in my view, the whole trend of agriculture in countries that are situated similarly to our country is in the direction of having larger units of land and using the better methods of exploitation of land with better and more modern equipment and labour-saving devices. I have been reading a book recently which described agricultural conditions in England, and it seems that considerable difficulty has been experienced there by many small holders—that is, men possessing 50 acres or less—and that the view there, with regard to agriculture, both tillage and grass, is that the future of agriculture belongs to the farm of 100 acres or more.
In my view, there are far too few properly equipped and managed farms of 100 acres or more, and far too many inefficiently run farms of 30 acres or less in the country. I believe that it would be better for us to direct our policy to the compulsory acquisition of 30-acre farms in places, such as Connemara, where the land is only fitted for the growing of trees, and so on, and that we should acquire these barren parts of the country instead of using the compulsory power of acquisition in order to acquire 300-acre so-called ranches to divide them into 30-acre ranches. Opinions differ, of course, about the economic effects of this policy, and I should like to have an objective inquiry made so as to ascertain what have been the effects of our recent schemes in supplying, per haps, 10,000 or 15,000 people with land. Is it true that, as some other Senator has said, where formerly you had a man and a dog on a 300-acre farm, you now have ten families, with an average of five per family; or is it more generally true, as I am credibly informed with regard to a single instance at any rate, that whereas formerly on a single farm you had, let us say, 20 people employed, you now have, after the Land Commission has divided up the 300 acres of such a farm, ten 30-acre "shoneen" ranchers, so to speak, with not enough capital to stock the land, and who, instead of tilling or working the land, are letting it out to other people and acting as herds to their neighbours? If that is so, I suggest that a large farm which is in proper hands and being properly developed, would employ 20 or 30 agricultural labourers, and would be better than this business of dividing up land and providing what would appear to be a precarious and socially undesirable occupation for ten families who each let the land they have been given to other people to graze their cattle. There is an idea, of course, which is almost so deeply embedded in the national mind in this country that it is heresy to question it, and that is that the small farmer possesses all the virtues: economic, national, and political, and that the large farmer is an excrescence on the face of the earth, and ought to be abolished as rapidly as possible. Along with that we have the idea that employment and production increase with the increasing of the number of small farms, and that, according as the size of farms increases, the number of people diminishes.
I do not know what the facts reveal so far as our own country is concerned, but I was immensely struck by a statement in that book on English agriculture, to which I have referred, that if you graded farms in four or five grades, say, farms up to 50 acres, from 50 to 100 acres, from 100 acres to 150 acres and so on up to 300 acres and so on, you found that so far as male employment is concerned it worked out roughly at an average of employment of one person per 40 acres, or 25 persons per 1,000 acres, and that the proportion of persons occupied or employed on smaller holdings was proportionately less. In other words, if you allow large farms to continue to exist, and still more so, if you encourage reasonable consolidation of farms, you do not cut away the foundations of employment in agriculture. On the contrary, you strengthen them. Of course, the employment which would be extended in that case would be that of the wage-paid agricultural labourer, but there is nothing socially derogatory, I suggest, in being a well-paid agricultural labourer, nor is there anything very valuable in the qualities of small holders who own farms that they do or do not till. Undoubtedly, from the economic point of view, the output per man on a large properly-run farm is going to be far higher than the output per man in small uneconomic holdings. In that connection also I was interested to notice, in the book to which I have referred, that in the case of a 250-acre mixed farm in England, analysed in this book, the wages bill amounted to some £1,300 a year. On a 250-acre farm in other words, some 12 men were employed and their aggregate wage bill was £1,300 a year. Now, £5 an acre of a wages bill is not a bad return for the labour employed on a farm, not to speak of the other elements of profit, some of which go into the pockets of the farmer; and I suggest that if we could, by increasing these farms, thereby increase their capacity to employ labour at decent wages, we would do much more to raise the standard of living in the agricultural community generally than is being done by our present policy of cutting up large farms and making their carrying on utterly impossible. Even as things are, I am prepared to assert that a well-paid agricultural labourer— unfortunately, in this country, well-paid does not mean very well paid, so far as agricultural labourers are concerned—is economically and socially better off, at least in the eastern counties of this country, than the owner of small holdings in the west of this country—either the old uneconomic holdings or the new uneconomic holdings, which we are so diligently creating.
In my view, the future of agriculture in this country, generally, depends on the attitude of the State towards the 40,000 farmers who are agricultural employers. There are only some 40,000 farmers in possession of farms large enough to employ wage-paid agricultural labour, and the number of agricultural labourers employed thereby might be put at about 130,000. If those men were in the position where, say, there would be an increase in employment of, let us say, one for each farm, that would mean an increase of some 40,000 who could be employed at no expense whatever to the State. Your present method is costing a total of £600 per farm, or £600 per man in dead weight national debt, whereas, if you were to give the large farmer an incentive to increase his enterprise, he, in his own interest, will do the rest and it would mean that, in the course of time, it would be possible to employ the additional 40,000 agricultural labourers in reasonably well-paid agricultural work. If you can do that, you can do something towards solving the unemployment problem and towards remedying the flight from the land which is giving rise to so much disquiet. The method of bringing about that desirable result is obvious. In the first instance, you must give the large farmer confidence in the future; you must restore to him a sense of security of tenure. You must give him the feeling that he and he alone will reap where he has sown though doubtless he will share any prosperity that comes his way with labourers and others who come to work with him. It is a question of capital, a question of credit, as well as a question of additional employment of labour. In fact, the employment of additional labour is impossible unless in the first instance those farmers are able to improve their equipment which means, if they have not got capital, borrowing. The directions in which large-scale farms—when I say large scale I mean 50 acres or more—can be developed in this country in nearly every case require new equipment and new machinery. Pig stys are prehistoric; hay-sheds in many cases are non-existent and modern machinery for dairying, so desirable from a hygienic and other points of view, is conspicuously absent from many farms. If capital were available to enable farmers to undertake this necessary expenditure, additional labour would be required in the working of these new machines. If these farmers have not got that capital of their own, the only way in which they can get it is by some form of credit. I would therefore ask the Minister to consider very seriously whether he should not consider more than sympathetically any method which would enable the farmers, big or small, to borrow for productive purposes, to prefer that method of attempting to solve the national agricultural problem, and in the meanwhile not to push too fast or too far the other method of dealing with the agricultural problem which, as I say, threatens to involve the State in a terrific growth of dead-weight national debt.
I rise to support the appeal of those speakers who have suggested the provision of credit for our agriculturists. I think the great necessity of the day is such credit. In many cases lands are not stocked. It is obvious that lands are under-manned too by reason largely of that fact. They are under-tilled and the whole system of agriculture will have to be revolutionised if a solution for unemployment is to be found in this country. That solution will not be provided by the factories in our cities or towns, until we shall have reached the stage when we shall have a large export trade of industrial products. I do not agree with some of the previous speakers who have advocated the cessation of land division though I do agree that land division should be very carefully thought out, and that the allottees should be very carefully selected. They should be publicly selected, not by backdoor methods or not on the choice of an individual inspector who is sent down to inspect the land and to recommend certain people for it. Whenever a farm is being split up, we know that the political Party in power have a very big say in the matter. It is commonly alleged, with what truth I do not know, that certain influences are brought to bear to secure the land for certain people who are not the most suitable for the land. I agree, therefore, with the suggestion that land should be publicly divided and that a sworn inquiry should, if necessary, be held to ascertain who are the people best qualified to work that land.
At present, land division is carried out in quite a haphazard way and I believe in some places that those who have got the land have developed—I am glad to think that the number is small—into miniature ranchers. That, of course, is not true of the great majority of cases but it is true that in some cases no use is being made of the land divided. There is no suggestion, of course, that the land should be split up to such an extent that the farmers of the future would be merely glorified labourers with small holdings. The policy of land division should be to provide each landowner with an economic holding. What is happening in some cases at present is that those who have got these economic holdings, owing to lack of credit facilities, have not sufficient means to stock or to cultivate these lands.
At one time, even under the old régime, bankers on being provided with collateral security of some kind, were prepared to help farmers. Large merchants were prepared to help them with seeds and artificial manures. At present the banks will not give credit to farmers, nor will seed merchants supply manures or seeds on credit. The farmers are told that they are not credit-worthy. I do not know how far that is true, but at any rate it is maintained that they are not credit-worthy. They have very few people to look to, outside the State, to provide that credit.
There is a tendency in some countries to develop the idea of large holdings. Some progressive countries, such as New Zealand, where agriculture has reached a very progressive stage, have adopted that plan, but in these cases holdings have been worked co-operatively. They have been worked by improved methods. It does seem that there is something extraordinarily wrong about the whole agricultural outfit in this country, when agriculture cannot be made as profitable as it is in countries with a similar climate and a similar population. I refer to countries such as New Zealand, Denmark and Scandinavia. The population per acre or per square mile in some of these countries is practically three times greater than in this country, while the land is not as fertile nor is the climate as well suited to agriculture as is our climate.
One great fault in the system of agriculture in this country is the want of continuity throughout the seasons.
For a few months of the summer, when grass is plentiful, the farmer depends on the grass in a great measure to see him through. Then during the winter period the young stock which he has reared are half-starved. When they come to the months of March and April, owing to lack of sufficient winter feeding you see them sometimes staggering to the fairs. That happens in some of the richest parts of Ireland. In one area in County Limerick, some years ago, which was under the charge of a certain veterinary surgeon, it was reported that some hundreds of milch cows actually died because of lack of winter fodder. Sufficient provision does not appear to be made for the feeding of such stock. In the Scandinavian countries a 50-acre farm will support as much stock as the farm of 200 acres in this country, to which some of the previous speakers referred. That is because there is a system of continuous feeding throughout the winter months. When a bad season comes the corn crops are not lost. They are taken up at a suitable period, treated scientifically, put into silos, and are available during the winter and during the early spring, when grass is not available.
Stock which are starved in winter are late in arriving at a condition in which they can be put on the market, and the consequential loss which is suffered in the aggregate must be very great. We have institutions throughout the country, such as model farms, giving instructions to students but, unfortunately, they are not availed of to any extent by the farmers throughout the country. If a scholarship is made available by a county council for the study of agricultural science, we rarely find anybody taking up such a scholarship. Why? Because of want of confidence in agriculture, because of the fact that agriculture is not looked upon as a means of providing a secure livelihood. That attitude must be radically changed. It cannot be done in a season, I know, but a beginning should be made somewhere.
We should institute a more intense system of winter feeding. Provision should be made for a more intense system of tillage, thereby relieving the problem of unemployment. I say again that we may get it out of our heads that unemployment will ever be solved in this country except through the medium of agriculture and through the medium of land cultivation. If young animals are put earlier on the market, they can be put on the market at a profit. The method we previously practised in this country was to bring them to the market in an unfinished state and to have the process completed abroad. There is no reason why that process should not be completed in this country through a mixed system of grazing and tillage. I agree that we should have a certain amount of grass land available because a grass crop is probably one of the cheapest crops that can be produced, but it had been overdone in the past due to the economic policy imposed on this country. That policy will have to be changed. It was imposed by other people for their own advantage. They wanted this country to be a feeding-ground for stock which would be exported to England.
Our markets will be there still if our goods are sent in an improved condition. It is up to the farmers to do the work. It will not be done by any Act of Parliament, or by any kind of legislation, but will have to be done by the man-power, the woman-power, and the will to succeed. It will be done by greater application, by improved methods, better quality of the products, and by having supplies right through the year, and not for a few months. Every creamery manager says that the supply of milk in winter is not at all sufficient to keep factories going, or in some cases to supply the demand for products. Organisation and education of a scientific character are very much needed.
Any one was considered good enough and sufficiently well educated to run a farm, and as a result the farms were not run properly. The highly educated members of a family that could afford it went into employment in which they exercised their intellectual faculties; but the chap intended for farming was, very often, not the brightest boy in the household, and often could not make his way, for want of education, in other walks of life. I do not say that by way of disparagement, but there were not, what was badly needed, highly technically-skilled workers on the land. I believe it is possible to get up enthusiasm for work on the land, and possibly to have suitable steps fostered by the Government in order to create growing enthusiasm for work on the land. In that way rural life will become different, and there will be a desire to get back to the land.
I was disappointed at the speech of the Minister on the last day, when he suggested that we should stay as we are, wait for better times, and shut our eyes to conditions. I do not think that is a good policy. Something should be done immediately. The question is asked, where is the money to come from? The State must find it. The banks must in some way be supported by the State, so as to find the money to make farmers creditworthy. I should say that there is no time to be lost about that. I do not want to sound a pessimistic note, but I have travelled a good deal through Munster and Connacht for a number of years, and I say that the condition of the people is not encouraging. There is a lack of confidence in the farming industry, and I believe that confidence can only be restored, and farming made pay, by the adoption of better scientific processes and improved methods, but, above all, by making farmers credit-worthy.
I do not intend unreasonably to delay the House, as the position has been already exhaustively dealt with. We are told that the value of land is based on its productive capacity, but if the value of the land has been such that the income derived from it is much less than the money expended on production, then it must become a very serious matter for the Government. I agree with many of the things that were said to-day, and I disagree with a great many more. Some statements made by Senators seemed to be so completely at variance that really one has a difficulty in knowing what was meant. I agree with the first part of Senator Honan's statement. I am sure every Senator will endorse what he said, that no alternative proposal was offered as a remedy for the conditions that exist to-day amongst the agricultural community. That is the very thing that the Minister, the Government, and everybody else is after, to find some tangible and practical solution that would face up to and remedy the conditions that exist amongst the agricultural people.
It is very depressing at present. Senator Honan very properly bemoaned the condition of the towns. I am a townsman. If several rounds were fired from a machine-gun in some rural towns to-day, especially during the summer months, the only human being to be hit might be one of the flying squad. What is the real cause of that, and the depression in the towns and villages? In my opinion it is due to the depression and the poverty of the agricultural community. During the Great War, when prices were abnormal and farmers got remunerative returns, those connected with business know that they spent generously, and that the prosperity that obtained was clearly reflected in better business and more prosperous towns and villages. Men in the same capacity as I am, who occasionally have auctions, know what the position is now. In the town I come from I had three licensed premises for sale by public auction within a couple of years and not a penny was offered for them.
What is the remedy for the present position? I made a suggestion in 1928 and I am convinced of the wisdom of it now, that one means of relieving the agricultural community was derating. That was before the advent of the present Government. Conditions were not good then. The depression amongst the agricultural community has shown itself over a number of years, and the whole blame is not due to the effect of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government. At that time I advocated total derating. I strongly stress derating now as one remedy. Why do I advocate derating? I may be told by some Senators that on a considerable number of holdings, running into hundreds of thousands, the valuations may be very low. That is not my point.
Everybody connected with public bodies knows that the question of taxation and rates is steadily and inevitably getting beyond the control of these public bodies to regulate, and to harmonise with the capacity of rural ratepayers. It cannot be denied that in the various agitations during the last 32 years the backbone of all these movements was always found amongst the agricultural community. There was a high spirit of patriotism amongst them, and they were in the forefront of every movement aiming at the progress and development of this country, and the realisation of the highest ambitions of the Irish people.
But, mark you, these people have now lost heart. What is the cause? The dangerous thing is that Irish farmers are losing heart. When you meet them to-day, irrespective of party, and speak of agricultural economy, and of the conditions that obtain, you will find that they have lost heart. That is due entirely to the economic depression from which they are suffering. I think the Minister stated in the other House that a country in which there were £35,000,000 lying derelict or inoperative in the banks belonging to the agricultural community was not in a state of penury, if they wanted money to rehabilitate agriculture. I think of 10,000 or 15,000 farmers in a certain area who have nothing at all in the banks except dangerous overdrafts. These people are running to Deputies and Senators—I had five or six of them with me last Sunday—asking them to go to the Land Commission to give them until June or July to pay, when the creamery cheque would be forthcoming, or to go to Mr. O'Brien Moran, the Sheriff of Limerick, to ask also for time. I state definitely that I have in my bag about a dozen letters from independent farmers asking me to go to the banks to get them time to pay. These are the conditions we have to face up to, and as the Minister for Finance is present, as the representative of a public body, who knows the condition of the farmers and general ratepayers I appeal to him to deal with the question. These ratepayers are begging for time to meet their commitments to local authorities. The position is pressing. It has been developing for the last ten years. I begged the previous Government to do something for the farmers. Senator Baxter was a member of a commission that sat at that time, and I then urged, as I do now, the necessity of derating so as to relieve the agricultural community. I believe the Minister for Finance should consider the question, and should set aside £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 for that purpose.
Where are they to come from?
Where were the £10,000,000 or £15,000,000 got for the Shannon Scheme? Where were the £10,000,000 got for John Bull? Where was the £600,000 for the forts, and £150,000 for guns got, so that Hitler should be stopped if, as is rumoured, he came over here.
Who said he was coming?
As against the position in 1914, the cost of production has increased while the gross income of farmers is the same as it was then. While their net income is less, cost of production increased from 70 to 80 per cent. That is the position of the farmer to-day, and I join with the other Senators in making an appeal to the consideration and to the sympathy, because it is coming to that, of the Minister for Finance, as a responsible Minister of our Government, to listen to the appeals we have been making here on behalf of a section of the community with whom we live and of whom we are a part and whose conditions and circumstances we know intimately, that something should be done immediately to relieve distress and to put them again on the road to production. If you reduce the costs of production and bring about greater production, you will reduce the cost of living of the whole community.
If I mistake not, this discussion was initiated by Senator Sir John Keane when he stated that fixity of tenure had been taken away from the Irish farmer and that that, to a great extent, militated against the price to be obtained for land. There was never any intention to deprive the Irish farmer of fixity of tenure. I think it was very clearly stated that no farmer would ever be interfered with, provided he was using his land in the interests of the nation. Any farmer of 150 acres, 200 acres or 600 acres who was using his land efficiently would never be interfered with. I know a farm of 900 acres and I was asked whether that land would be suitable for division. I said it would not. There are 25 men employed on that land and any man who employs such a number of men as that at fair wages is working his land economically, and should not be interfered with. There was never any intention on the part of the Government to disturb any such man, but every Senator listening to me knows farms, the fields of which are covered with briars growing out from the fences. I know farms near my own place for which agricultural labourers offered £3 an acre, and they would not get it, although the briars are growing practically half out into the fields. That land is not being used either in the interests of the farmer himself or in the interest of the nation, of which he is a member, and if that farmer had 300 or 150 acres it would be the duty of the Government to approach him if he was not using it economically and take some from him to give it to men who will use it economically.
I was rather impressed by Senator Cummins' speech. Land worked in the way he indicated would be worked usefully. It was also very interesting to listen to Senator Johnston. Undoubtedly that would be scientific farming, if one were to leave the human element out of it altogether, but if we do not make some attempt to place our people on the land, if we do not make some effort to give them some stake in the country, what is the use of our talking about Communism? The greatest incentive to Communism is where you have a vast body of unemployed people for whom you can hold out no hope. The best security for this or any other country is to have as many people as possible with a stake in the country, with even a small portion of land in the country. I am not advocating the creation again of a vast uneconomic class of smallholders, such as we had in this country in the '40's, but 30 acres of really good land is not an uneconomic holding, if it is worked properly, and every one of us knows that there are plenty of small farmers working fairly small holdings of not very good land who are making at least a living from it.
If we consider this question, leaving Party bias out of it and agreeing to do all we possibly can to help our farmers, as we are all anxious to do, we will probably arrive somewhere, but one would imagine from the tone of the discussion that this country was the only country which had this problem. It was only a few weeks ago that we saw the English farmers marching on London. They were very nearly staging a revolution over there, and yet the English farmer is living in the middle of our great market where he does not have to meet the transport costs that our people have to meet. Yet he has a grievance also. We have to realise that this depression is world wide and that there is not a country in the world that is not suffering from it. The only thing we can hope for is that this commission of practical farmers which is sitting will hammer out some solution. Every one of us is only too anxious to do all he can for the farmers. We all come, perhaps, from farmers. All our people were farmers, and they are the most important section of the community, but there is no use in throwing things at each other and blaming each other. We should try to get together to do all we can to help them. Calling on the State all the time is not the best way. We all know the old saying that God helps those that help themselves. We should not let the idea grow up amongst the farmers that everything must be done for them, that the State must always do things for them. That is a very dangerous mentality to create and the sooner we get the idea into our people's heads that they themselves are far better able to help themselves than anybody else, the better.
This, I presume, is a Bill upon which we can deal with every subject of national economy. Up to now, one would imagine that there was nobody in the country except the agricultural community. While it is sorrowful to hear the deplorable details of the misery and suffering of the agricultural community, I could put those details in the shade if I were to enlarge upon the harrowing details connected with the unemployed people in our towns. I should like to know what steps are being taken by the Government to deal with the ever-increasing number of unemployed in the country. We see in the City of Dublin great demonstrations of people capable and willing to build houses in the city, the slums of which are worse than anything in any capital in Europe. Yet all that labour is lying there, lying fallow and unavailed of, all through want of finance to put these people back in employment. I hope the Minister will make some reference to this very urgent problem, at any rate, in the City of Dublin.
Another aspect of this matter to which I should like to call his particular attention is that, no doubt, a large amount of the suffering of the agricultural labourers is due to the tariff policy of the Government. The farmer has to sell in the cheapest market and to buy in the dearest market. That is all very well in theory, but how is it working out in practice? Take the case of flour-milling. I remember a time, not so very long ago, when one quarter of the flour requirements of the country was produced here. To-day we are over-producing, and we have a surplus which we could export, if there was opportunity. Yet, in that industry, we are employing fewer men than we were when we were producing only one-quarter or one-third of our requirements. I think investigation will bear that out. One city, famous for milling, in which there are two mills employing a very large number of men will, in the very near future, have its mills reduced to one. A great number of these people will become redundant and the new mill, with less men employed, will produce more than the two mills formerly produced. How does that react on the population in general? We are paying a good deal more for our bread and for our flour than we formerly paid, and the farmer, although he has a subsidy on his wheat, pays more when he goes in to buy flour. It looks to me like feeding the dog with his own tail. Another aspect of our industrial policy is the modern factory. A very large percentage of the people employed in these factories are flappers, young girls.
Why do you not take one of them by the hand?
They are too young even for that. Many of them are between the ages of 14 and 16. It would be interesting if a census was prepared giving the number of female juveniles who have been brought into employment through our new industrialisation policy. Anyone walking around the streets of our city here will see the evidences of demoralisation amongst the young people of the city. There is plenty of work for the girls, but none for the boys. Perhaps the Minister at some stage would look into that aspect because, undoubtedly, it is causing great degeneration amongst the youths of this city, at any rate. There is evidence every other day in the police courts. The devil finds work for idle hands to do and these boys, many of them left school and coming into man's estate, have never had an opportunity up to now of earning 1/-. It is certainly a very serious aspect of our national life.
There is another point which I should like to put to the Minister although he may not agree with me. We have a great national scheme, a scheme that could be, and is, up to a certain point, a great national benefit I refer to the Shannon scheme. What are we doing to exploit the full possibilities of that scheme? Quite recently the Dublin United Tramways Company decided to change over from electric trams to buses. I wonder did the Government make any inquiries as to how they might employ trolley buses and use our national coal? We are importing fuel and energy in the form of petrol, a very costly thing, and a commodity which would be very difficult to get if the war situation, which the Minister foresaw, ever materialised. We have here in our midst a great national form of energy that could be exploited to a much greater extent than it is. A great amount of electric power has been thrown back again by the Dublin United Tramways Company, and I am not aware that any effort was made by the Government to see how far the requirements of the city could be met by trolley buses. These are some facts that occur to me and if the Minister, in the course of his reply will refer to them, then, perhaps, the debate will not have been entirely futile.
One Senator made the suggestion that the poverty of the farmer was due to auto-suggestion, because of people going round the country telling the farmers they were badly off and, by reason of repetition, the farmers have agreed that that is so. The Minister can apply the alternative. He can send out his propagandists and use auto-suggestion and tell the people they are well off and, by repetition, ultimately they may believe it. I can assure you it will take a lot of auto-suggestion to convince the unemployed in Dublin, who see no opportunity for improvement, that they are well off. These are a few of the points that occur to me and I hope the Minister will make some reference to them.
I did not intend to intervene, because I felt somewhat timid after what a learned professor once described as so much bombinating in vacuo this evening on behalf of the farmers and the agricultural community generally; but, Senator Foran having spoken, I got a little courage; I got rid of my timidity and I decided I would like to address myself to a few matters of general interest. In regard to the whole position of unemployment, we have reached the stage when we have evidently a hard core of 105,000 people permanently unemployed. The Government promised, before they came into power, to solve the problem of unemployment. I have no desire now to taunt them with failing to find a solution of that problem, but I do blame them for allowing the position to remain as it is.
It is quite apparent the unemployment problem cannot be solved inside the present system. But then, the Taoiseach said that if he could not find a solution inside that system he was prepared to go outside it. I think the Minister ought to take special note of that very serious problem. No one wants to gain political capital out of the condition of the unemployed. Senator Mrs. Concannon made a valuable suggestion at last Wednesday's meeting, when she said that some form of committee should be set up to endeavour to find a solution of this problem. I am more particularly interested in the industrial workers. I have an opportunity of seeing the impact of unemployment on the lives of the people, as a workers' representative in the Dublin Court of Referees and as a visiting justice to Mountjoy Prison.
Anyone who has to attend at the referees' court could not but be impressed and appalled at the condition of those who appear there. The misery and the hardship which those people have to suffer, and which they do suffer, is really amazing. Why they stand such poverty and misery can only be attributed to one thing, and that is their Faith. I often have wondered what the condition of this country would be without the great gift of the Catholic Faith. I am sure it prevents revolution in this country. I honestly believe that if we had not that Faith the people, on account of the mentality that they have, would have risen long ago against conditions which are nothing less than inhuman. I have seen people going to that court absolutely half-starved. Senator Honan said that the agricultural worker going in to draw unemployment assistance has at least a smallholding to go back to. The unemployed in Dublin, people who were once industrial workers and who have no opportunity of earning a living now, have nothing to go back to but slums and wretched hovels.
I have seen evidences in Mountjoy Prison of the terrible ravages unemployment has worked on people, particularly on young persons who have never been in industry. I have in mind young fellows up to 20 years of age who have never done a day's work and, so far as one can see, will never do a day's work. These young fellows are, perhaps, wiser in their generation than older people, because I can say that the conditions in Mountjoy Prison are much preferable to the conditions of the unemployed outside. The persons in that prison are living under a very humane system. They are very well fed. So far as the food is concerned, I sample it week after week, and I can say the food served there is comparable to the food served in the Oireachtas Restaurant.
It is really a mystery to me why more of the unemployed do not seek refuge in Mountjoy Prison. They have good food there, good clothing, good beds. The State takes care of the criminals and they do not give to the unemployed one quarter the consideration they give to the criminals in our prisons. I am not saying that in any spirit of opposition to the Government. I am glad that we have a good prison system. I have observed it over the years. It is a fine system, a humane system; they treat their inmates very well and everything is done to reform the criminal when he is in there. But at the same time it is a terrible commentary on this so-called Christian civilisation of ours that the criminals in our prisons are better treated than the unemployed.
In the court of referees the individual must give evidence that he has made an exhaustive search for employment, and there is nothing more sickening than the list of questions put to every person. He must instance all the places he has called at and, if he does not give satisfactory answers, he is struck off. Unless a person is able to prove that after an exhaustive search there was no work available, that person will not get any assistance.
Senator Foran referred to the condition of certain industrial workers. It was mentioned in Dublin yesterday that the Minister was responsible for many industrial workers walking the streets of our cities; in other words, that the Minister was responsible for preventing the release of money which would enable people to go ahead with housing schemes in Dublin and other places. I am not charging the Minister with that, but I hope he will reply to that matter this evening.
It is very easy for Senators to flaunt the report of the Banking Commission in our faces, but it must be remembered that the report they talk about is the majority report of that commission. There were others who signed reports and they made submissions which, in my opinion, are much more adaptable to the circumstances of this country and take more into account the economic and social conditions of our people. I appeal to Senators, when they are referring to the Banking Commission Report, specially to mention that it is the majority report to which they are referring, the report to which the Irish Times referred as capable of being written in Manchester 50 years ago.
I thought I should say a word on behalf of the unemployed. No one wishes to make political capital out of the conditions of these people, but I would appeal strongly to the Government to take some steps to end the present appalling condition of affairs. These men will not be absorbed under the present system, and I think it is the Government's job to find some solution and get our unemployed back into productive employment.
Senator Foran referred to the Government's tariff policy. I am in entire agreement with that policy. I have always been a protectionist since the early days of Sinn Féin, as one of its earliest members, and I always will be a protectionist. If it is any consolation to the farming community to know it, I may say that many of our industries in this city are suffering as a result of the London Agreement and the benefits given to the farmers through that Agreement. Some 12 months ago I visited a factory in Dublin, a factory set up under the tariff policy of the Government. They were turning out commodities in vast quantities and six machines were employed. Yesterday I visited the same place and I saw the six machines covered up. They are not turning out one article in that industry. I do not know whether that is a consolation to the farmers, because there are so many workers without employment. It cannot be very much consolation, because there is so much less money for the purchase of agricultural commodities.
I feel that the Minister must be something more than an ordinary human being to stand all that has been said here in the course of this debate. He certainly must be pretty tired of it all. But then it is his job. At any rate, I do not intend to rub anything in. I was very much impressed with the speech of the last Senator. It was eminently conciliatory and I am in thorough agreement with him as regards the Government's tariff policy. I wish I had been here to have heard Senator Sir John Keane expatiate on the woes of the farmers and how their grievances should be redressed. I wish I had been here to listen to the Senator expatiating on the terrible plight to which the farmer is reduced. We are all convinced that the farmers are not in a very good way. After all, agriculture is the Cinderella of the sciences and it will be so in every land.
Personally, I do not believe that the Irish farmers are any worse off than the farmers of any other country, or, for that matter, that the Irish employer is any worse off. There was an implication in some of the speeches delivered here that the Government of the day, which happens to be Fíanna Fáil, is in some way responsible. I resent the implication that this Government is even partially responsible for the evils under which the unemployed and other sections of the community suffer. To go back again to Senator Sir John Keane, I repeat that I am sorry I was not here when he was speaking, because I would be very anxious to observe what particular protean shape the Senator assumed on this matter. I would like to know was it the Jekyll of the English Sunday Press or the Hyde of the Bank of Ireland, for instance, that was talking. I would like to know was it the Codlin of finance or the Short of the agricultural industry.
In the years of the Great War I recollect well the bank managers, against whom I have absolutely nothing to say except that they are very excellent men and do their jobs very well, standing almost at the doors of their palatial banks and calling the farmers over, saying to them "Do you want to buy that farm? If you do, go ahead, we are behind you." The farmer might say "Can we count on you for the money?" and the reply would be "Yes, it is all right." Those halcyon days have gone; the great war is over, pro tem, and money nowadays has a different value. If the farmer owed a shopkeeper £500 and if, during the depression which ensued immediately after the Great War, he went to that shopkeeper and said “I owe you £500; I cannot pay it, but would you take £200?” that shopkeeper would have cut his losses and taken the £200. The bankers took good care not to cut their losses. They insisted on demanding their pound of flesh and by their attitude they sent many poor people into their graves or into the lunatic asylums. To a great extent it is to that policy that the present depression is due.
Perhaps I do blame the Shylocks. They should have known, and probably did know, that every great war in history was followed by a slump and they should have said to the farmers: "Hold on to what you have; hold on to your harvest; this thing will come to an end and we will not lend you anything; do not embark on wholesale enterprises." Presumably they want to do away with the increased profit tax and then they can wholesale to the farmer from whom they took it with a pincers. So far is it from being the case that land is of no great value even in the banks, would you credit it that inside the last six or eight months one of the principal deputy governors of the Bank of Ireland paid £3,500 for a farm of 72 acres? That does not look like depression in land. That does not look as if land was losing its value but the Jekylls of finance speak with a different voice when it comes to the Hydes of the Sunday Press.
On the question of tariffs, I say without any mental reservation that they have nothing to do with the position. It is mainly if not largely due to the banking system, and I am at one with those who declare that the Minority Report of the recent Banking Commission should be studied in extenso and should be followed if the spirit of the gospels is to be adhered to in the entirety we wish it to be adhered to. Tariffs, no doubt, are not an unmixed blessing, but in the particular town I happen to live in I would not like any man to go down and speak against tariffs. There is a flour mill there that practically keeps the town going and are we to suppose that if the tariff is taken off conditions will improve for everybody when we know that the flour millers of England could dump flour in Dublin at 50 per cent. less than the millers of Wexford, Carlow, Portarlingtion or any other place?
Tariffs may be a necessary evil, but they are absolutely necessary. The farming people are in a bad way, but it is much easier to sympathise and to criticise than to offer a tangible or definite remedy. I resent the implication—no doubt it is political—that the present Government are in any way responsible for it. It is the result of factors over which they have no control and cannot have control. I was glad to notice that the economic war has not again been harped on by many Senators. The leaders of the present Government are as conversant with the economic facts of the present situation as any Senator. To think they are living in a fool's paradise and that the accounts of the country are not brought before them day by day is ridiculous. They have their fingers on the pulse of the country industrially as well as agriculturally and I credit them with wishing to do all they possibly can to help, so that Senators in this debate are merely shoving an open door. I was glad that a note of acerbity did not enter into the debate. The economic war has ceased now, but to the surprise of many people who had been led to expect it, prices are not moving up. I met a man in a fair last week and when he mentioned this to me I suggested jocularly that we should agitate for a return of the economic war, because the prices of cattle were better when it was on than they are now.
Our position to-day is that we are living above our means. The cinema, the radio, the dog races and the horse races are new features of our normal life. We are missing nothing. We are as much entitled to enjoy those things as anybody else, but you cannot have it both ways. Fifty years ago a man was out on his headland with his pair of horses at six o'clock in the morning, and he went home late at night very tired to bed. He kept his head fairly well over the water and that is all a farmer can do in any climate under the sun. The farmers have less to do now than in those times when they did not amuse themselves in different ways. They are quite entitled to it, but we are not entitled to think that we can throw money away and complain that the farms are not paying. It is true that a great many are not paying, but coincident with that, has come a raising of the standard of life, a legacy of the war when money flowed like water.
I think it is unfair to blame the Government. They are as willing as any Government can be to try to improve the situation. How is it to be remedied —a grant from the Central Loan, taxation, or some other way? That money must come from the pockets of the people, and the very people who will benefit will also have to pay. Derating has been lightly spoken of, but the money which would be lost by derating must be made good from some other source. From what source will it be made good? I am certain that the Government will do what they can.
As for myself, I think that perhaps a system of the hypothecation of crops would help to meet the thing slightly. There is something like it in operation in connection with the beet crop. At certain stages of the beet crop, such as at the thinning, advances are made so that at intervals of three months or so the farmer can get an advance of the money he will receive at the end of the season. I think that something like that could be applied to wheat growing and there could also be some system by which seeds could be made available very cheaply. In putting forward those suggestions, I know that it is much easier to say they should be done than to say how to find the money. I take it for granted that the Government will rise to the occasion and do what is necessary. The problem of poverty has been mentioned but I do not feel that I am qualified to expatiate on it.
Unemployment is an endemic problem in every country in the world, and I refuse to believe that we are worse off than any other country. Some people may say, why should we have unemployment at all. So far as schemes are concerned I think the Labour Party have schemes on the brain.
"For forms of Government, let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best."
No scheme in the world is foolproof. In theory you have the ideal scheme in Russia. We know something of what is going on there, but if the veil were lifted we would see a lot more of the hardship and starvation of the working classes. I feel that the Government will do what they can. I am saying that not merely as a former Government supporter, but as a perfect neutral, as we all are here.
I feel that when they look through it this new Agricultural Commission will do something. Unquestionably the farmers are in a bad way and I do not think that any person on this side of the House disagrees with that. It is one thing to sympathise, but it is another thing to formulate a remedy consistent with the exigencies of the financial and economic situation. I am sure the present Government are eager to find a solution and as a result of the advice poured on them from all quarters, they will hammer out some scheme to meet the situation but a complete solution, I think, would be impossible.
I rise in view of remarks made by the last speaker. I refer to his remarks about the stony attitude adopted by the banks. I cannot believe that the Senator does not know that the banks have made and are still making very generous concessions in cases of hardship. The Senator pictured the shopkeepers in the country making concessions and the banks standing for their pound of flesh. That is not true and the Senator must be very misinformed as to what is going on in the country if he persists in the attitude he has adopted. Every day I personally see the settlements made but, of course, they are confidential and cannot be published. Particulars were given to the Banking Commission and the commission realised and, I think, actually said, that there were no cases proved where the banks exercised undue hardship towards their customers.
I rise simply to make a few remarks and to express my thorough disagreement with the sentiments of various speakers on the other side of the House. It was amusing, to say the least of it, to hear Senator Baxter's speech and to hear him expressing his nervousness to speak at all lest he might be attacked by somebody else. If anybody has been guilty of giving more than he got, I think it is Senator Baxter, particularly in view of the last day with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government. Senator Baxter asks me for my opinion on what somebody else has said. When I was speaking on the last day I was not addressing any one in County Mayo and I am not concerned with what they said. I am concerned with what Senator Baxter said, as a man who should be in a position to know what he is talking about where agricultural credit is concerned. I am glad at any rate that my remarks have been taken advantage of by Senator Baxter and his speech to-day, if not altogether a change from what we have been hearing in the past, was at least sufficiently a change to justify me thinking that he will eventually come round not altogether to seeing things as they really are, but to the point of stating things as he knows them to be. Senator Baxter has still to give us his plan for remedying this position with regard to the need for agricultural credit. He suggested to-day that the credit-worthy farmers presented no problem at all and that it is only the uncredit-worthy farmers who present the problem. He suggested that the Government should come along and help farmers who are not credit-worthy. I do not know what his plan is, but he should have gone further and given us a plan. I would like to remind him that before he puts up a plan, he will have to devise some scheme to determine who is credit-worthy and who is not, some simple system in which a farmer making application for this free money he suggests should be handed out, could be judged whether he was entitled to receive any of it. His speech was much on the same lines as we expected to hear.
Senator Sir John Keane is usually expected to say something sensible here. I am afraid he departed from that line to-day when he suggested that a farm in County Meath of roughly 320 acres would, were it not for the influence of the Land Commission, be worth £16,000. I would ask Senator Sir John Keane when in normal times he heard of a farm of that acreage making £16,000 before? I suggest that the normal price for land in this country, except in war time, generally speaking, was £30 an acre all over the country. Senator Sir John Keane suggested that were it not for the influence of the Land Commission this land he spoke of would be worth something over £53 an acre. I suggest that it is ridiculous.
I can understand his outlook on land division and I can also understand the outlook of Senator The McGillycuddy of the Reeks, but I cannot understand a man coming out in one breath and condemning land division when, in the same breath, he condemns what has been called "the flight from the land." If there is going to be any remedy for what we all deplore and hear so much about, the remedy is to divide more land and put people on the farms. I believe that before any serious results can be got in preventing the flight from the land, we must start a flight to the land, that is, to entice people who have come from the rural areas to the cities and who are in every way suitable for the working of holdings, to go back to the land so that they can move out of the urban areas and back again to more healthy surroundings for people of that particular type. Senator The McGillycuddy of the Reeks suggested that this land is being divided with a complete and absolute lack of thought. Now, I am quite sure that the Senator must know that such is not the case, and that the inspectors of the Land Commission are, as a general rule, very sensible men who inquire into every detail so far as an estate is concerned and examine very minutely the people whom they propose to put on the land. I believe that the best thing that could be done would be to increase or speed up the division of land rather than to slow it down and to increase the number of people who would be put on the land and, so far as possible, to induce people in the cities and towns to go back to the farms which would be made available thereby. We all know quite well that if people are to continue to drift from the land, as we are constantly being told they are drifting, that would create a very serious situation. Of course, we know that there is the normal flow of people from the farms, of the extra sons and so on, that has always gone on and that probably always will go on, but we also know that the more people we can stop from going into the cities and towns the less people will be absolutely dependent on other people for their absolute living, and the more people we can put on the land the greater security there is for those people and the greater security there is for the country as a whole.
To use a hackneyed expression, the rural population form the backbone of the country. We must do what we can to strengthen that backbone, and I suggest that one way of doing so would be to place more people and more families on the land. Senator Parkinson, who is usually more sensible, made what to my mind appeared to be an extraordinary statement here to-day, and I am sure that the Minister has enough sense to take notice of what Senator Parkinson suggested, and that is that a man who had purchased a farm should get at least as much from the Land Commission as he gave for that farm. Surely, the Senator must know that the purchase of the land is not the end of the matter, and that that land has to be handed over again to future tenants. Let us suppose that a man should pay an extravagant price for a holding, during war times—and we have seen that happen here ourselves—surely the Senator does not suggest that the Land Commission should now come along and pay that extravagant price and put it on the future tenant? The Land Commission have to get their money back and they have to distribute the price of the holding on a pro rata basis. I think it would be disastrous if any such policy as that suggested by the Senator were to be adopted. That is all I have to say.
On a point of explanation, Sir, I should like to mention that what I said was that the farmer whose land is taken by the Land Commission should get the value of that land to-day. I did not say anything about what the man concerned might have paid for the land.
I am very sorry, Sir, if I have appeared to misrepresent Senator Parkinson. I must have misunderstood what he said. I just jotted down a few notes and must have misunderstood him, and I am very sorry if I have misrepresented him.
Before the Minister concludes, may I intervene to say that I should like to request that in future Senators who may want to raise matters for which the Minister for Finance is not directly responsible on a Central Fund Bill or on an Appropriation Bill, will give notice to the Clerk in advance so that the Minister concerned might be notified.
Mr. Hayes
Are we to understand from that, Sir, that in case such notice is given it is the policy of the Government, where practicable, to have the Minister concerned present in the Seanad? Sometimes, of course, it may not be practicable.
I understand that every effort will be made to have the Minister in attendance.
Mr. Hayes
Well, if so, it is a far better scheme.
A number of matters touched on in this debate might well have been subjects of a set discussion upon motions made in the House other than the mere formal motion which is associated with this Bill, and it would have been of very great value indeed if, before this debate had commenced, the Seanad had adverted to the fact that the Minister for Lands has already received the permission of the Dáil to introduce a Bill amending the existing Land Acts, in the course of the discussion upon which, no doubt, this question of the security of tenure— as a factor—particularly, I think, in determining the terms upon which agricultural credit may be made available for agriculturists could have been raised. Then it might have been thought, perhaps, that a much more valuable discussion could take place upon the Land Bill than, possibly, in the light of my reply, the discussion here will be. Because, naturally, that is a subject upon which one would want to prepare oneself, and I can only deal now with it in a general way and can only quote approximate figures. I cannot be expected at the moment to give precise and exact figures in the matter. I can deal with it only in a general way. Indeed, this is a subject which might better be undertaken by a commission such as the Agricultural Commission rather than by a body of this sort, where, naturally, most of us —and I suppose Ministers more than others—are inclined to talk for effect and to deal, more or less, with generalities. This question of security of tenure in land does complicate a great many of our social and economic difficulties. Undoubtedly, it is a very large factor in determining the terms upon which credit may be made available for farmers. Naturally, if a lender thinks that a prospective borrower is not secure in his title to his land, which is generally the only security that borrower has to offer—if the lender feels that the borrower is not secure in his title, that his title is faulty or that he is likely to be disturbed for some reason other than that he wilfully fails to meet his obligations, the lender is going to be slow in making any advance to such a borrower. Therefore, as Minister for Finance, who is concerned with the question of—or at any rate, who is very often made responsible for—the provision or non-provision, not merely of credit for agriculturists, but of credit for every other section of the community, prima facie, I am in favour of security of tenure because it does mean, if effective, that credit will be made available at more favourable terms. The provision of credit, however, is not the only aspect of this problem—that is, the provision of credit for those who are already fortunate enough to own land. I think it was Senator Goulding who pointed out the fact that there is a tendency for the population in the rural areas to move into the cities and towns and that it is going to be more difficult to stop that tendency to leave the rural areas unless, as the Senator said, you give to your population a stake in the country—anchor them in the country, so to speak, by giving them a property interest in the soil of this country. Unfortunately, in this country, you cannot do that for the rural population unless you carry through a very drastic scheme of land distribution.
I was struck rather forcibly by the speech made by Senator Johnston in connection with this problem. He cited one fact, in discussing the position of agriculture in Great Britain, in relation to employment in that industry, which is highly significant. While he was arguing the case for the large farm, he stated that the amount of employment, irrespective of the size of the farm, seemed to be roughly limited to one man per 40 acres or, in his words, that employment was given to 25 men per 1,000 acres. I think he made the point that the number increased according as the farms got larger, but I understood him to say that it did not make much difference and that the number remained fairly constant at one man per 40 acres. Now, taking the position with regard to this country—and again, I am speaking in round numbers and cannot make any pretension to precision or exactness—I think we might take it that the normal amount of land available in this country does not exceed about 12,000,000 acres. If you divide that 12,000,000 by 40 you get, upon the basis of the figures given to us by Senator Johnston, the fact that you can only provide large farms for a rural population of 300,000 people, and at the present moment we have 400,000 —again talking in round figures—agricultural holders having holdings of one size or another in this country. At once, you see that you cannot deal with the problem here on the basis of the conditions which prevail, say, in English agriculture. If you were to do that and if our agricultural population were reduced to the heads of 300,000 families even, if you like, with 120,000 or 130,000 agricultural labourers thrown in, you would still have, under those circumstances—if my reading is correct, and speaking without preparation—to dispense with 100,000 families who at the present moment, whether in good or bad conditions, are settled on the land and you would drive them, if not out of the country, into the cities and towns. It is a moot point, looking at it from the point of view of the future of this country, whether ultimately it would be better or worse for the country to drive these people out of the country altogether or to drive them from the rural areas here into the cities and towns to swell an already large unemployed population in the cities and towns. Accordingly, while I say, as Minister for Finance that, naturally, I should like to see this principle of security of tenure being given fuller effect to—the Constitution, undoubtedly, does give the right to private ownership in land—one has to take these other facts into consideration.
One has also to look at the social circumstances as they are at present. You have 400,000 people owning the land at the moment. Some of these are in possession of very small uneconomic holdings. At a recent interDepartmental Committee investigation I think it was ascertained that there were 500,000 claimants for land, of whom a very large number—perhaps 100,000—were congests. Apart, however, from these congests, you have landless men in every county in Ireland. Of course, each man is as anxious as his neighbour to become an owner of property, and when you have the position here—as I have often emphasised in the Seanad on former occasions— that land can be had from the Land Commission on very reasonable terms, landless men, as well as farmers, who are already in possession of land and who are enjoying the full benefits of the Land Acts, are very anxious to have their share of the land of the country too. It is a question of whether you will not have to make some concession to that point of view in order to obviate worse evils which might follow, if people who feel that they have a right to enjoy as fair a share of the fruits of the earth as their neighbours, were to be henceforth deprived of any chance or opportunity of a share in the return which can be secured by any hardworking industrious man who works the land of Ireland.
Let me return to the related problem which arose for discussion here, namely, the problem of providing credit for the uncreditworthy farmer. I think that is the only aspect of the problem of providing agricultural credit that has to be considered. I think it is an unsoluble one. I say that quite frankly, because I cannot see how any agency can be justified in giving credit to an uncreditworthy person. If you give credit to a person, you give it to him because you know he is honest in the first instance, and that he is industrious in the second place, and, that being honest and industrious, he has the opportunity for employing that credit in a productive way, in a way which will enable him to meet his obligations to you and which will enable you to secure the return in due course of your own property of which temporarily you have given him the use. I believe no rational person or no rational agency is justified in giving credit to an uncreditworthy person. I think least of all is the State justified in giving credit to an uncreditworthy person because, after all, the State has nothing of its own to give. It does not exist except as a subjective notion. We all can come together and decide that for our own good we are going to abide by a certain discipline, but except what belongs to the people in the form of fixed assets which we have built out of what has been taken from the people, the State has no property. What it has it holds as a trustee for the citizen. What it gets it takes from the citizen. It is not easy to collect income-tax and it is not very pleasant to have to collect indirect taxes that have been levied on tea, sugar and necessaries of life, and the State is not justified, least of all owning nothing of its own, in taking from any man—and it is certainly not justified in taking from the masses of the people who cannot be classed as rich—in order to give out money to an uncreditworthy person.
A person is an uncreditworthy person either because he is not honest— and we can rule him out—or because he is not industrious—and we can rule him out also—or because he cannot employ that money in such a way as that it would be reproductive and enable him to repay.
Might I intervene for a moment? I think the Minister has misunderstood the case put up in regard to credit. It is not a question of personal integrity. The argument is that the collateral security is not looked upon as an instrument of credit. It is not saleable, largely we know, for social reasons but principally owing to the actions of the Land Commission.
I was dealing with the person who was uncreditworthy. I do not think that even the most conservative bankers would say that farmers, as a class, are uncreditworthy. I am dealing with one section of landowners who cannot find accommodation either through the banks or through the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Certainly the Agricultural Credit Corporation does not regard farmers as a class as being uncreditworthy and the banks do not either, because the banks have advanced £12,000,000 to farmers of Ireland. Therefore what we are up against is this. We have got to deal with the farmer who cannot get accommodation from the banks and the farmer who cannot get accommodation from the Agricultural Credit Corporation but who, in my opinion, would get it if he, being honest and industrious, had an opportunity of using his land reproductively. I gather that the position of the Agricultural Credit Corporation is that they have a large proportion of surplus uninvested funds for which they cannot get creditworthy borrowers. They have in fact advanced money on the security of land. Unless there has been a recent development to the contrary—and, if so, I am unaware of it—I do know that recently at any rate, the Agricultural Credit Corporation were advancing money upon the security of land. They may, of course, have required additional security as well.
Surely the Minister will admit that land is a totally different class of security from stocks, shares or liquid saleable securities of that kind?
I am certainly prepared to admit that. Therefore I should like to see security of tenure and free sale. Perhaps we shall get them in time. At the moment we are told that, because these conditions do not exist, there is a class of people who cannot get credit. As I see it, if these people are honest, it cannot be that they do not get it, because they will not be prepared to repay it. If they are industrious, it cannot be because they will not work. Assuming that they are honest and industrious, it must be because they cannot invest the money reproductively, and I say that in these circumstances no person would be justified, and the State certainly would not be justified, in taking something that belongs at present to private individuals and handing it over to another person, if he cannot make use of it in such a way as to ensure that the persons from whom it is taken, through the State as representing them, are going to be repaid what they have risked.
Would the Minister allow me for one moment? I have not spoken in this debate. I do not like speaking on agriculture. Surely the problem is that a number of people who, according to the Minister, are honest and industrious and who have land, find that that land is of no use to them or of very little use to them. Surely that is a problem for the community to solve? Money has been devoted in such a great number of ways to the solution of social problems that if that problem does exist—and the Minister apparently admits it does—it is a problem which needs something more than a list of impossibilities. Surely it is a social problem absolutely.
I regret that I should have been interrupted. I should have liked to be allowed to develop this trend of thought.
I am sorry.
I was making the point that at the present moment, as far as I can see, there is no great opportunity for using money reproductively in agriculture unless a person has that money as his own and can risk it on his own behalf. There is no justification existing at this moment to take money from some other people who are using it in their own industry and in their own business, and hand it over to a person who may not be able to use it reproductively. We heard from Senator Cummins the hypothetical case of the dairy farmer in Limerick who has land sufficient to carry twenty cows. At the present moment he has only 14 cows, and the argument which the Senator advanced was that supposing that man got an advance guaranteed by some agency— I assume an advance through a bank or through the Agricultural Credit Corporation—and was able to put an additional six cows on his land, would he not be better off. The Senator asked would he not be better off if he had 20 cows instead of 14. He might be personally and individually, but what is the position so far as the dairying industry at the moment is concerned? We have been told that at the present moment, the price which the farmer gets for the milk of those 14 cows scarcely pays him. In fact we are told that it is not a remunerative price at all. He is going to get an additional six milkers. That is, instead of the 14 unremunerative cows which he has at the moment, he is going to have an unremunerative herd of 20. It might be of course that, with the guaranteed price for butter, that farmer himself would be comparatively well off. He is probably fairly well off as it is with his 14 cattle, but what justification is there for the State stepping in and giving him out of somebody else's pocket—out of the pocket of one of these 105,000 people who, we are told, are unemployed or out of the pockets of other persons living in towns and cities—to enable him to get an additional herd of six cattle and to make the State give to him for the produce of these six head of cattle a remunerative price for him and an unremunerative price for the State? Moreover, if we were going to increase milking herds in Ireland by 30 per cent., we would have to find not merely an additional market for 30 per cent. of our present export to Great Britain, but an additional market for what would be tantamount to 30 per cent. of our total butter production in this country. What price does the Senator think such an increase in production would find in the British market at the present time? Of course there would be an immediate slump in prices, and the Government, or some other less well circumstanced element of the community than the Limerick farmers, would have to find the subsidy, that would enable the farmers whose herds had been increased by 30 per cent. to get remunerative prices for the produce not merely of every seven head they now own, but of every ten head which they would own if they were to be given credit in the generous way in which the Senator thinks we should. What I have said in regard to dairy farming in Limerick applies also to cattle raising, to graziers in Meath, and to tillage farmers. There is at the moment a fairly limited market for our agricultural produce. I think it will improve. I think that our production ought to improve and increase, but it can only increase profitably and permanently if we do it upon a slow but sure and steady basis.
At the present moment there is no justification, I believe, for going out with a woolly policy of cheap credit when the tendency is inflationary. As we know, an inflationary period is followed by a deflationary period. Looking back 25 years ago, we saw then people buying land, stock, prices soaring, and everyone producing to the top of their bent, and then suddenly collapse. In my view, we are facing that sort of cycle, and one of the reasons why I have spoken strongly on this matter is, that I do not want to see the mistakes of 25 years ago repeated. During the whole period I have been Minister for Finance I have had a great deal to do with farmers' representatives, with individual members of the Oireachtas, with individual farmers, and various other people in connection with the problem of frozen agricultural credit. One thing that impressed itself upon me was the amount of misery and human suffering which has followed the too easy granting of credit to farmers—particularly in circumstances such as I have in mind—and the too easy granting of credit to any element, to any section or to individuals in the community, and that applies not merely to those living in the rural areas but equally to those living in the urban areas.
Senator Campbell asked me, before concluding, to refer to something that was said yesterday, I think, at a meeting in Dublin regarding the finances of Dublin Corporation, and the provision which has to be made to enable the housing programme in Dublin to be carried through. I have interested myself in that matter very greatly. I have taken it very keenly and I think I have succeeded in making such arrangements as will, at any rate, prevent the Dublin Corporation housing programme from being completely suspended. I do not want, however, any section of the community, whether urban or rural, whether members of public bodies like the Dublin Corporation or county councils, to believe that in this country we have millions untapped, and that it is going to be easy for us, in the situation which may soon confront us, to find all the money that everybody is demanding from the Exchequer. These millions we talk about so easily do not belong to us. They represent the hard-won savings of thousands of small people, farmers, farm-labourers, artisans, and workers in towns. We have not very many big fortunes in this country, we have not very many big capitalists, we have no large rentiers. The money in the Irish banks belongs to the ordinary, common working-class people. When I say the working class I mean, in the larger sense, those who have to earn their bread one way or another and who are not independent, living on what they have inherited. The money belongs to them and has got to be very carefully looked after now and in future and conserved. One thing I certainly would like to do, as long as I am Minister for Finance, is to disabuse our people of the idea, which is all too prevalent among farmers, industrialists, professional men looking for better educational facilities, or anything else, that money can be got easily. It cannot. What we have, our fathers got for us. What the Irish farmers have in the banks at the moment was won by their fathers in conditions of great penury and suffering for themselves, and I think the best thing that we, who have succeeded to the fruits of their toil and suffering, can do is to work as hard as they did in the past—in short, that we, as individuals, should rely very much more on ourselves and our own efforts than appears to be the general tendency amongst us to-day.
Question put and agreed to.