When I moved the adjournment of the debate on the last occasion, I was discussing the wisdom of, and necessity for, the State getting down to a basis of ascertained costs with regard to agricultural production. I feel strongly that, in respect of our dealings with people outside the State, such costings would be of very great value to us. We may not yet have reached the point at which people who buy agricultural products are prepared to say that the people who produce them are entitled to get a livelihood out of their work, but I think we shall be up against such a situation very soon. As these commodities grow scarce people must necessarily ask themselves whether a higher price-level for agricultural products would not be a great incentive to increased production. Apart from what costings might effect in the hands of the Minister in fighting for better prices elsewhere, I think that, as between different parts of the country and different groups of farmers, it is absolutely essential to obtain, as accurately as we can, the costs of production.
I know how difficult it would be to arrive at costings over which one could absolutely stand. Costings will differ just as soils differ and the technique of farming differs. While it is true that costings are different in Limerick and Meath from what they are in Carlow, South Kildare and other tillage areas, it is nevertheless a fact that we make no differentiation in the rate of wages to be paid in the different districts. That is so notwithstanding that the farming in which these districts engage and the fruits which accrue from the farmers' labours differ. The fruits of the farmer's labour in one district bear no relation to those of another district in which a different type of farming is practised. Senator Foran argues that the fruits of the tilled fields in the future will command a considerably higher price and that, for that reason, labour should get a bigger share of the value of the products marketed. While that might be argued with a certain amount of force, there is the other consideration, that in many areas there has been no increase whatever in agricultural prices.
If you take the great dairying districts in the south, in my own county and part of the west and north-west, you will find that the price of butter last year was around 16.14d. per lb. and that, in 1940, the price of a gallon of milk was 6.43d. I have in my hand the balance sheet of one of the most successful creameries in my own county and, indeed, in the whole country. The price of a gallon of milk in 1940 was 6.43d. and, in 1915, it was 5.82d. The average price of butter in 1915 was 16.17d. and, in 1940, 16.14d. So far as dairying is concerned, there is no justification for urging that farmers should pay higher prices for labour because they are receiving higher prices for their products.
Ancillary to dairying, you have pig raising. Senator Foran may not be aware of what the position is in the pig and bacon industry. Since the last meeting of this House, we have had a decision taken which has virtually reduced the price of the heavy pig by about £2. The pig weighing 2 cwts. is worth to-day £2 less than it was worth the last day this House met. In passing, I may say that this decision of the Ministry, made in arbitrary fashion, was very unwise. It would not have been come to if we had some accurate system of costings established. If such decisions have to be taken, the farmers engaged in the particular types of production affected should get notice—at least, a month's notice. You have, then, these prices and, at the same time, a demand for increased wages which, I think, the industry cannot pay. Our whole system of determining wages at present is unfair. We put rich and poor areas on a flat rate and we apply the same rates of wages to the best and the worst worker on a farm. That is unsound.
I pointed out on the last occasion that we had, at one time, a costings branch in the Department of Agriculture. It is to be deplored that that branch is not now functioning. The Minister will, no doubt, have something to say as to why such a position should have been permitted to develop. The whole trend with regard to every type of production for a considerable time past has been towards ascertaining the cost of production. Why we should leave agriculture outside the scope of this trend, I cannot imagine. With regard to the future, there is no other sound basis on which the Minister can determine the prices agricultural commodities must command in order to keep farmers in production. If this emergency continues for a year or two years, the Minister may be forced to raise agricultural prices in some cases to much higher levels than those at which they stand. On what basis is that to be done? I do not think it should be determined by the amount of clamour that can be raised because of the development of a certain situation. It ought not to be in the power of any group of producers to reach a given point by the amount of noise they can make, unless they have facts to support them.
I am convinced that we ought to have in the State some organisation or body inquiring into costings and determining them as accurately as possible. That costings instrument would be at the service of the Minister for Agriculture in making regulations and determining prices. It would be also valuable to producers. Nothing would more help to hasten an improved technique in agriculture than a system of costings which would indicate what good farming could produce and how low its production costs might be. The basis for determining costs would have to be that of tolerably good farming. If we had costings of that type, those who were not good farmers would soon reach a point at which they could not remain in the industry if they did not improve their technique. We ought to aim at such an improvement by a scientific process which would not alone help the Ministry in determining prices but help the individual farmer to educate himself by seeing what good farming could do.
Consumers must be perturbed at present by the cost of food. The extraordinary thing is that while they are perturbed about the cost of food, other commodities have always been available to them at prices which cover the cost of production and leave a profit to the manufacturers. Farmers have never, I think, enjoyed that position and people will have to accustom themselves to pay such prices for their food in future as will leave some margin above the cost of production to the farmer. A limited number of farmers can produce costings which indicate fairly clearly and accurately what food is value for when it reaches the market. These costings would not be accepted, throughout the country as a whole, as representative, but they would be a basis on which to go. I know how meritorious is the demand by agricultural workers for increased wages. I know the difficulties they are experiencing in providing themselves with the necessaries of life. But it is my experience and the experience of my neighbours, working side by side with their men, that they have the same difficulties. If a labourer tells me that he had to go into town and pay 3/- or 4/- for a quarter pound of tea, I can say that the farmer's wife has had to do the same thing. The problem is common to both of them. The difficulties are not solely the lot of the agricultural labourer. They apply also in the case of the farmer— big or small—with whom the agricultural labourer works or for whom he works.
If a decision were to be taken at present, that out of the present income of agriculture a bigger share should go from the farmer to the men working side by side with him, the farmers would be driven into despair. The result would be that a number of agricultural labourers would have to be dropped, because the income is not sufficient to carry a higher level of cost than it is at present bearing. One cannot take blood from a turnip and one cannot secure an increased rate of wages for the farmer's worker when the farmer is unable to find the money. Senator Foran did not indicate the higher levels which agricultural prices have reached which would prove that the money was there to pay the increased wage. If a decision were reached to increase wages in agriculture, a number of labourers would be dropped and the farmer would be depressed. The farmer struggles to put in a crop and, then, has to look forward to the harvest; he does not know what God will send as regards weather and he has difficulty in finding men to reap the harvest. No decision should be taken which would add to the farmer's difficulty. If the farmer, because of conditions imposed upon him, had to drop some of his men, that would mean that less work would be done and that it would not be so well done. That, again, would mean lower production, and the people who would suffer most would be the poor people in the towns and cities.
I would impress on Senator Foran that those who have suffered most because of the scarcity of food are the poor people in the towns and cities and they are the people who will, again, suffer if higher prices have to be paid for agricultural products. If we could produce more, the problem would be simpler for all of us, but the farmer is not growing richer because there is a scarcity. In an agricultural college in England they have been carrying out an investigation into costings. I presume we could do something similar at Ballyhaise, Athenry or Clonakilty. They discovered that, on their own farm, the cost of a horse for a year was £33 15s. They show how this cost was made up. The horse was worked 1,500 hours or, approximately, 200 days, which meant that it cost 5¼d. per hour, or if you take into consideration a man and two horses, 1/6 an hour. If you told a farmer here that his horse cost him £33 15s. a year, what would he say? One hears talk about farmers having things at first cost. These are some of the costs which have to be borne. In different ways in England, they have carried out investigations along these lines and the results are of considerable value to them. We have no such guide. Before we, in the future, set out arbitrarily to determine wages for agricultural workers or to increase or reduce prices of agricultural commodities, there should be some ascertained basis on which we could determine whether these figures will be equitable or not, whether they will be fair to producers—I include in that term those who work for the farmers as well as the farmers themselves—and fair to the consumers.
On the last day when I was discussing the summary which Professor Murphy had prepared in this regard, I was interrupted by Senator O Buachalla. I think probably the Senator may have looked into the matter since and, if so, he will have discovered that all the people to whom Professor Murphy's calculations related were divided into adult units of labour. This is a short summary of the conclusions arrived at by Professor Murphy on the investigations carried out on 98 Limerick and Cork farms:
"Charging family labour at the same rate as equivalent hired labour, but making no allowance for interest on capital, and the managerial and risk-taking functions of the former, the average ‘surplus' per farm was £23. On 37 farms (38 per cent. of the total number included) there was a deficit; on 43 farms (44 per cent.) there was a ‘surplus' of less than £80; and on the other 18 farms (18 per cent.) the surplus varied between £80 and £200."
That was giving the family labour the same rate of wages as hired labour. This summary showed the position some short time back and, in my judgment, the position has not altered materially since. If it has, it has altered not at all favourably for the average farmer in certain districts.
