Listening attentively, as I always do from this back bench, to the demands and claims that are made on behalf of various sections of the community, I realise that there is one piece of legislation that must be introduced, and that is a Bill to give everybody everything. Nothing short of that will be satisfactory. Now, here at any rate, in these motions seeking to ameliorate the lot of the agricultural worker, we have claims that, to my mind, cannot be treated facetiously or derided, because they belong to the proper organisation of the national industry. This purports to be, and in a large measure is, a vocational Second House, and one function of vocational organisation is to have, on something like mediæval lines, industry representing both employers and employed — everyone whose life interest, as well as the interest of the nation at large, is bound up with the industry. We have here in this House admirable representatives of agriculture. Surely, instead of proposing external committees, committees of this type or that type, the purpose of the Seanad's creation should be fulfilled by what I would call in academic language the faculty of agriculture in this House getting busy on the problem and proposing a solution. That is one objection that I have to what is, in many respects, a motion which I think is impossible for anyone not to approve:
"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that it is essential to increase substantially wages payable to agricultural workers."
It seems to me that it is too obvious to need argument in favour of it. I deliberately read the essence of the motion. By itself, as it stands on the Order Paper, it reads:—
"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion, complementary to the announcement of increased minimum prices for certain agricultural products," etc.
That seems to me to imply that it is out of the increased remuneration of the farmer-employer that the increase in wages is to come for the agricultural worker employed, and something of that is in a later proposition. I do not see that these two things are quite so intimately connected as they would be made to appear in the wording of the motion because, irrespective of what prices are to be given for agricultural produce, the social problem, the moral problem, remains. It is there all the time, that whoever is asked to devote his life's energy to a certain industry has to find, out of that work, the wherewithal to keep him on a decent human standard of living. I think that is an incontestable proposition, is a simpler proposition. I do not advocate the increase on any such grounds as that we have increased the price to be given for wheat. I support the proposition, apart from any such increase.
In the amendments we are asked to delete certain words. I find no difficulty in refusing to delete the words, and instead, adding the words of the amendment. For instance, I find that these two things could be read together with perfect compatibility:
"That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that it is essential to increase substantially the wages payable to agricultural workers, and to effect a reasonable amelioration of their conditions of employment;"
the next is the amendment — ignore the directions to delete words, and read on:
"And it is desirable that a small expert committee be appointed to consider and report as to what steps, if any, can be taken to increase the wages payable to agricultural workers, and improve the conditions of employment."
I have already indicated what, to my mind, that small expert committee to be appointed should consist of. The personnel, obviously, should be the Senators of this House who are here in the name of, and on behalf of, the industry of agriculture. They are the people who are fittest; they are our experts. That is why they are here. Even the further amendment of Senator Baxter I can find room for — I mean in the technical sense of not finding it to be something to be a substitute, but something to add to the original.
Now, when we go into detail, I regard the first part as merely expressing a desire to improve the lot of the worker, but indicating in no degree the steps that have to be taken. The amendment of Senator Counihan does suggest a first step, namely, to have the matter gone into by an expert inquiry. I have taken the liberty of suggesting that he and others of the faculty of agriculture in the House should be that body. My difficulty in the matter of ameliorating conditions of employment is: by whom is the amelioration to be provided? Either it is by the employer or by the community at large — the State. Which is intended? I read the innuendo of the words as implying that the increase was to come from the supposed increase the farmer was receiving, but I am not personally convinced that the farmer is getting an increase. The fixed price has been increased, but that was on representation, and, as I take it, on the case made, that it was necessary to have an adequate and just price in face of the conditions imposed upon the producer of wheat in the emergency period, which is now. Therefore I cannot see that there is an element in the remuneration of the wheat grower out of which to draw the remuneration of the worker. Yet I contend with those who proposed the motion and the amendment, in the following motion: "That the imperative duty of persons in regard to the national industry is that men shall not be hired to work in it and receive inadequate, unjust remuneration."
I think it is a fundamental national duty that the national industry should be made to conform with the declarations of the Constitution. We invoke the Holy Ghost, we declare that by the inspiration and aid of Jesus Christ, we have succeeded in setting up this State, declared it to be free, sovereign and an independent State, and if we mean those things, surely we mean to live up to them. That is the test of sincerity. It cannot be defended that labourers should be asked to live as human beings and rear and train human beings — their families — and make them good citizens, if the return for their work is simply what is set out in that agricultural wages finding. I regard that, with all respect to the well-intentioned men who produced it, as a ridiculous travesty for solving the problem. As to the idea that the position of the agricultural worker could be improved by getting 33/- a week — with a deduction of 3d. if he gets his tea — it is hard to believe that serious men sitting down to the solution of a serious problem could be so inconsiderate as to give that to the public as a verdict. I hope I am not being offensive or unappreciative of the way this committee did its work. They were probably doing their best. I have more faith in my colleagues here representing agriculture. I think they could do very much better, and I look with confidence to this motion being passed with the addendum of Senator Counihan, interpreting it only in the way I interpreted it, namely, that the select body should be a body from the agricultural section of this House.
Senator Baxter's amendment, viewed favourably — I mean the best interpretation being put on it — goes to the root of the matter, but I make that reservation in my description of it, because from one angle it is susceptible of a very sinister interpretation. I had better get that out of my way first. It says:—
"to delete all the words after the word ‘workers', and read, ‘provided it has been determined by a technical agricultural costings organisation that such agricultural prices can bear increased costs'."
That might appear to some as meaning that if they were not able to bear increased costs, then there is nothing doing. If we read it like that, I think I am correct in calling it sinister.
The proviso means that we must remain inert, and do nothing in respect of this great pressing problem, if the body of experts report that the inquiry shows that agricultural prices cannot bear increased costs. Surely, if agricultural prices cannot bear increased costs then agricultural prices must be adjusted. Who is willing to eat bread or vegetables with the full knowledge that they are his because men have slaved and toiled in the fields for inadequate wages? What is that but setting up again, under a thin disguise, serfdom? Are we to pay high salaries to civil servants and officials and defend that on the ground that they are worth them? I hold that they are worth them and that it is our duty to pay them. On the same reasoning, it is our duty to pay an adequate price for the stuff that is provided for us to eat. It is, therefore, not a question of economics; it is a question really of morality, of service, and of common decency. It is a question of common decency that men be paid what justice and equity demand. We cannot plead an emergency. If we are unable to pay for what we get, we must learn to do without it and suffer the disadvantages accordingly. We have no right to exact a sacrifice from the needs of others. I take it that Senator Baxter had no intention of putting in the implication I have read out of it. It can be read out of it, but I believe that it was not in his mind.
The root of the whole problem — viewed, first of all, as an economic problem — is to discover what is wrong with agriculture, what is wrong with the working of the land, that makes it impossible, apparently, from what Senator Quirke said, to get the farmers to keep books and conduct their industry with commonsense and with the same amount of attention and care as the city shopkeeper or the city manufacturer gives to his employment. There must be something radically wrong and, naturally, as a teacher, my mind turns to the explanation that most people find for what has gone wrong in the State — that there is something faulty in the education both of the farmer and of the labourer. That requires more consideration. In other words, a reorganisation of society on a proper basis of social justice is really necessary. While such an inquiry as that would be going on, things would be going from worse to still worse. Therefore, the immediate "inch before the saw" is, "What is to be done now?" Just as we said, in the earlier part of to-day's sitting, that we took a step anyhow to making a better system of national health insurance, admitting that it was not what it ought to be or all that we would like it to be, similarly we can take the first step here and now, and that is to have the agricultural representatives of this House devise a scheme and make recommendations to the Government of the State. There are others more competent to speak about that than I.